Area man enjoys gardening hobby
* Green Thumbs: Second in a five-part series
Tallulah – When he was a child, 73-year old James Buchanan's family garden was a matter of survival.
Growing up poor in the Snowbird community, the Buchanan's fed themselves primarily from their garden, eating what they could fresh and canning other produce to last through the off season.
After retiring from the construction industry – of which he spent 50 years plying his craft – in 2015, Buchanan has planted a vegetable garden each year on his land off Tallulah Road, near Lower Mill Creek Road.
"My daddy came through the Depression and in my early years, I think we grew a garden for survival so we could make it through the winter and have food," Buchanan said. "Back in those days – in the early 50's, on up through the 70's – a lot of grocery stores just had bare necessities. You didn't have a lot of excess stuff."
In his retirement, Buchanan came back to gardening as a hobby, planting a 60x50 vegetable garden annually for the past six years.
"I decided to grow me a garden," Buchanan said. "I just started and my neighbor, Jo Ann Greene, taught me things to do and not to do, and helped me learn a little bit, about it so I plowed up some ground and started planting and here's where we're at."
Buchanan grows many different types of vegetables, including potatoes, tomatoes, beans, corn and onions, among others.
He said he plants pretty much the same vegetables every year, but changes their locations in the garden to keep the soil healthier.
"We do soil samples through the Cooperative Extension in Graham County here locally, and they'll send my soil samples off and have them tested and tell them what nutrients I need to add to the soil for the next coming season," Buchanan said.
He said the soil sample results had prompted him to add lime to the soil to increase its pH. He also said that he used fertilizer as the plants began to grow.
However, he said this year's garden was the worst one he ever planted.
"I guess you have better years than others," Buchanan said. "I think my garden got too much rain early on, and then we had more cooler weather after it should’ve got warm enough for things to germinate and grow good. We had an extra week or two of cooler weather this year that we don't normally have."
However, despite his frustration with the 2021 garden, he said he was happy with some of his plants, including peppers, cabbages and tomatoes.
Despite his difficult year, he said he would most likely plant a garden again next year.
"I probably will," Buchanan said. "I say I'm not going to every year and I always do."
He said he wouldn't water next year's garden quite as often, based off his 2021 experience.
"I may have put too.much water on it," he said.
He recommended that anyone wanting to grow a garden for the first time be ready for the commitment and realize that it would likely not save much money on groceries.
"You do it because it's like a hobby you want to do," Buchanan said. "It's not really a way to save any money. You put in a lot of labor."
He estimated that maintaining a garden like his took approximately 15 hours a week.
"It's a hobby – a labor of love – and that's why people do it," Buchanan said.
He said he look forward to tomatoes most of all, but admitted that they could be tricky to grow successfully.
"You've got to take it day-by-day, Buchanan said. "There's no surefire way of getting a good crop."
He also mentioned that gardening was becoming less common among the younger generations.
"So many people today – if they found out in January or February this year that they were going to have to grow a garden to make it – they'd have a difficult time getting started, without any prior experience or knowledge," Buchanan said. "I imagine there's two or three generations since me that wouldn't know how to grow beans or corn or potatoes. They'd have to ask somebody."