The coastal south is blessed with long growing seasons and plenty of moisture.  While thoughts of vegetable gardens usually occur in early spring, many in Baldwin County turn to the raising of cole crops such as broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage, to provide fresh veggies for their table.  Three such winter gardeners include one native and two transplants.  While the crops they raise are basically the same, their garden sites and methods vary as much as their backgrounds.    
    A Baldwin County native who returned to his roots in 1988, Gus Utter is the grandson of one of the founders of the Silverhill community.  “In 1902,” states Utter, “my grandfather and several of his Swedish friends from Chicago took advantage of an offer to travel south via train to St. Louis and Mobile. From there a ferry transported them to Fairhope.  They then traveled to the area now known as Silverhill, where they were able to purchase land for the price of $15 per acre.  If a man purchased a minimum of forty acres, he received a 10% discount as well as a reimbursement of his train/ferry fare.”
    “I was born and raised in Silverhill and attended school in Silverhill and Robertsdale, continues Utter.  “As a teen, I spent most summers on my grandparents’ farm in Minnesota.  I served in World War II, and came back to Alabama to attend Auburn University where I earned a degree in Agricultural Science in 1952.”
“Upon graduation, I moved to Minnesota to work for a canning company and was placed in charge of the spraying and harvesting division.  In 1954 I married a Minnesota girl and bought a farm of my own,” notes Utter.
  In 1957 he took over the running of his grandparents’ land until 1960 when the land was sold, and he and his bride moved to New York.  There Utter attended training at the USDA school.  He was then sent to Cape Canaveral, where he spent twenty-two years as an inspector of plants and animals being brought in and out of the country.
    Gus retired and moved back to Silverhill in 1988.  He is a member of the award winning Volunteer Fire Department as well as the Baldwin County Master Gardeners.  He has earned over seven hundred hours with the gardeners, participating in such projects as building butterfly gardens for schools, landscaping lawns for Habitat for Humanity, and creating stakes to hold pots at plant sales.  In addition to his volunteer work, Gus is famous for his yard art, cutting out plywood figures that his wife paints for various holidays.  He also has made many small rock figures, which he has given to people all over the world.  He has a herd of about thirty goats and a yard full of flowers.
    Gus’s main love, however, is vegetable and fruit gardening.  He has several large sour orange trees and a large kumquat tree.  He also enjoys raising rhubarb, especially when he once read that rhubarb could not be grown in the south.  Other fruits found in the Utter yard include persimmons, blueberries, and loquats.
    To prepare for his winter garden, Gus uses his tiller to work up the soil.  He adds goat manure and chopped up leaves as mulch.  Buying his plants at the Robertsdale Feed Store or Hamburg’s in Foley, Utter uses a timetable published by Bill Finch of the Mobile Register to determine what to plant when. Gus has several fenced areas in which he plants his garden.  By keeping the areas separate, he is able to rotate his crops.
This winter Gus planted cabbage and broccoli and was dismayed to find rabbits were eating his broccoli stalks.  To discourage the varmints, Utter spread blood meal, a twelve percent all natural nitrogen product, around the plants.  Utter also keeps a small wire screen over the plants, raising the screen, as the plants grow taller.  In addition to broccoli and cabbage, he enjoys planting romaine and leaf lettuce.
    Gus Utter is a jack of all trades.  To visit his country home is to find a love of nature and all things creative.  Although Utter has cut back some on his gardening in order to care for his wife, he finds time to enjoy life to its fullest.
    Alan Yankie, a retired chemist and resident of the Rock Creek area in Fairhope, comes from a family of gardeners.  Growing up in Washington State, Yankie remembers digging and eating new potatoes from the family plot as well as keeping jars full of Colorado potato beetles. As a youngster, his first crop was a selection of gourds.
    “I was probably in the third or fourth grade and thought gourds were really neat plants.  I planted them on a very large, aged compost pile, and they did very well.  From that experience,” explains Yankie, “I learned two things—compost is good, and if Mother Nature is given a chance, she can do a great job!”
    Throughout his formative years, Yankie worked in the family garden.  As an adult he continued his gardening efforts wherever his job took him.  After thirteen years of living in West Mobile, frustrated with the shade encroaching on his garden spot, Alan and his wife Nevin began their search for the perfect house site.  Their search ended with the Rock Creek lot, which came complete with southern exposure and a gentle slope leading down to a small pond.  The Yankies moved into their new house three years ago.  Before the landscaper could begin his work, Alan staked off a plot measuring fifteen feet by thirty feet in which to place his garden.  Since the existing soil was mostly sand, Yankie’s first step was adding compost.
    “Composted leaves are very important for proper soil nutrition,” states Yankie.  “I spent many afternoons riding around, collecting bags of leaves in the back of my SUV.  I then placed the leaves in compost bins under my deck.”
    Once the soil was properly mixed with composted leaves, Alan created his raised beds, which in effect are wide rows.  “Each bed is about three feet wide and one foot deep,” he explains.  “I started with sloped sides for each bed, but this winter I added wooden sides made from treated 1 x 4’s which are held in place by stakes made from treated 2 x 4’s.  These wooden sides add stability and aid in weed control.  Between each bed or row, I place a mulch of pine needles, leaves, and grass clippings.”
    “In addition to leaves,” Yankie adds, “I now use manure from a local horse farm for soil amendment, and I rarely use commercial fertilizer.  Since my garden spot is going on its fourth year, I will start withholding phosphorous when I do use fertilizer, probably a 15-0-15 with some slow release as that is what is locally available.”      
    Every August Yankie pulls up the plants from his spring garden, stirs the soil, and covers it with a sheet of visqueen for about two weeks.  A compost infusion is needed every second or third crop in any given spot.
    For his cold weather crops, this enterprising gardener begins planting in mid-January.  “If the weather is supposed to stay reasonable, I plant lettuce, English peas, spinach, and other salad greens along with cruciferous vegetables such as broccoli, cauliflower, and brussel sprouts.  By mid-March I add beefsteak tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and squash.”  Yankie also keeps various types of onions growing year round.
    As a trained chemist, Yankie is very methodical in keeping records.  His logbook, started in 1987, notes the dates and types of plantings as well as what works and what doesn’t.  Because of his background, Yankie delights in experimenting with different varieties of plants.  One of his latest experiments involved analyzing the various ingredients found in a spring mix or mesclun.
    “Both Nevin and I relish a good salad.  I studied the different types of greens found in a spring mix purchased at the local supermarket.  I planted them all, tatsoi or spoon cabbage; mizuna, a sharp-toothed type of lettuce; osaka, a purple mustard green; radicchio or purple cabbage; and Swiss chard, the filet mignon of the lettuce world.  We were really appreciating our spring mix when I discovered that the black beetle appreciated the mixed greens just as much as we did.”  To combat the beetles, Yankie applies Sevin dust to the seedlings.  To mature plants, he applies a mixture of summer oil and water, an environmentally friendly pesticide, which suffocates the beetles.
    By carefully selecting plants that provide a good yield and need only reasonable maintenance, Yankie is able to continue his love of experimentation while putting supper on the table.  The Yankies as well as their friends and neighbors, all enjoy the fruits of this small, well-planned garden.
    Magnolia Springs boasts a year-round gardener in Charmaine Peterman.  Charmaine and her husband Tony were residents of Dothan, AL, for nearly twenty years. During that time Charmaine raised lots of corn, which she sold at a local farmer’s market.  In addition, the Petermans maintained a vegetable garden and a large pecan grove, the proceeds of which they planned to use for their retirement.
    A visit to Baldwin County, however, changed everything.  “We fell in love with the area,” explains Charmaine.  “I bought a subscription to The Onlooker, and every chance we had, we drove down to search for that ideal spot on which to build.”
    The Petermans located their dream spot on an old house site located on County Road 26 West.  The Lipscomb family, as a result of a Spanish land grant, originally owned the majority of the land in this area.  Through the years, the land had been divided among various family members.  In July of 1989, the Petermans contacted Wilmer Lipscomb and soon made a deal to purchase five acres.
    “When Tony retired from Ft. Rucker in 1995, we began work on our house.  We moved down in 1996 and have thoroughly enjoyed every minute since,” notes Charmaine.  “I was determined to continue my vegetable gardening but on a much smaller scale.”  As a result, Charmaine’s garden measures thirty feet by one hundred feet.   In mid-August Charmaine begins preparation for her fall/winter crops.
    “I always use seeds to start my plants,” explains Peterman.  “I take pleasure in studying the seed catalogs including Burpee’s, Park, and Wayside Gardens.  By raising my own seedlings, I can be sure exactly what I am getting.”
    Once Peterman’s seeds arrive, she is ready to begin the process.  The first step is to fill her collection of wooden ammunition boxes with potting soil.  She sprinkles the seeds over the soil and covers them with another thin layer of soil.  Peterman then places the boxes where they can receive a couple of hours of morning sun.  The boxes spend the rest of the day in a shady, breezy area.  Charmaine’s seedlings include cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower.
    “To protect the plants from fire ant invasion, we keep the boxes elevated.  We used to place the boxes on bricks, but now we use platforms made from sawhorses and planks.  We have found that the higher the boxes are from the ground, the fewer problems we have with those pesky ants!”
    Charmaine’s garden spot was once a part of a large soybean field.  Because of the nutrient deficiency based on long seasons of soybean crops and the sandy soil, Peterman adds mulch every year.  Her live oak trees provide a great source.  Over the years, she has also added poultry and horse manure as well as sheet rock scraps salvaged from the building of their house.  After adding mulch and watering the area overnight, Tony Peterman is enlisted as the “tiller man!”  By September 20, the seeds have grown to transplanting size and are moved from the boxes to the garden.  
    This fall Peterman planted about thirty of the Mariner broccoli offered by Burpee’s.  She prefers this type of broccoli due to its cancer- fighting abilities as well as its ability to produce lots of side shoots.  She also had the same number of Milky Hybrid cauliflower from Park Seed, which produces a head measuring nearly eight inches across and weighing nearly two pounds.  As for cabbage, Peterman chooses the Tropic, a giant hybrid measuring twelve inches across and weighing up to fifteen pounds.  The Petermans also plant Danver’s Half-Long carrot seeds directly into the garden.
    Other fall crops include various types of greens including spinach, Swiss chard, and a red-tipped leaf lettuce purchased from Old Type Feed in Fairhope.  Charmaine often adds beets, yellow straight-necked squash, and cucumbers to her winter mix.
    The growing season begins in October, as the days become shorter, the nights, cooler, and the rains begin to fall on a regular basis.  By December, the garden is ready for harvest.  After freezing and canning all the produce she wishes to keep, Peterman happily shares her bounty with grateful friends and family.    
    All three of these members of the Baldwin County Master Gardeners agree that proper soil maintenance is the key.  Have your soil’s pH level checked.  Be sure that mulch is added regularly.  Contact the county extension for advice on planting times as well as what types of plants are suitable for out area.  Start small, but don’t be afraid to experiment with different varieties.  Most of all be creative in all the steps from soil preparation to harvest.  Then you will be able to enjoy a fine meal fresh from your own winter garden.

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