For:
By: Daniel E. Mullins
Extension Horticulture Agent
Farewell to Readers
This is the last gardening column that I will write. Due to a change in job responsibilities it is best that I step aside and let younger, more energetic and equally qualified people continue this work. You might see an occasional article or column written by me, but it will deal with commercial horticulture or some unrelated subject.
I began writing gardening columns in 1970 as the first Florida Extension
Horticulture Agent west of
The biggest challenge of writing a weekly column has been deciding upon a topic. There have always been two criteria used in choosing a topic. First, determining what was on gardeners’ minds the previous week. Our office receives between one and two hundred requests for gardening information each week, so repeated questions related to a specific gardening practice or problem helps to guide in the selection.
Second, I have always felt that timing is everything in gardening. So, each week I ask the question: What can be best done in the landscape and garden this week? I have fooled myself into thinking that a few readers actually read the weekly column and then go out and implement some recommended practice or search for a new plant that has been suggested.
As near as I can determine, 1,145 weekly gardening articles have been
written and published over a 22 year period. The current readership, through
newspapers and web sites is approximately 236,000. Before the computer age many originals
of the older columns were lost. The
past twelve years’ worth are somewhere in the bowels of my computer. The
The most popular columns that have been published might be surprising to some readers. The all time favorite was the article that I wrote following the death of my father. It was just wandering thoughts of my loss with some plant related comments included. This was followed closely by what is now known as the “Tractor Article.” Here I was attempting to justify the purchase of a new tractor and equipment for yard cleanup and restoration following Hurricane Ivan.
The article about tomato growing using the Japanese Tomato Ring technique has probably had the longest term effect. We continue to send out copies and it can be found on the internet just by typing in the subject. “Old timey remedies” was another favorite, which included the common use of Epsom salt for curing all kinds of plant ailments and the practice of burying cans of lye under pecan trees. Many years ago, an article was written about the Catalpa or fish bait tree. To my surprise, it drew many comments. An article about growing blackberries resulted in a high number of telephone calls and two columns about the black gum tree resulted in many gardeners looking for some to plant.
The column was entered for competition through the
Writing has been a continuous learning experience, especially since I have no in-depth training on the subject. If readers have gleaned something of value during my years of writing gardening columns, thanks go to my mother for her encouragement and support. Her desire was for me to become a journalist. Though I majored in horticulture instead, her constant advice was simply “apply yourself” in whatever you do.
Another important person was my high school English teacher, Mrs. L.B. Johnson. She taught her students, among many other things, how to construct a sentence. The last time that I checked none of her students, upon entering college were ever required to take remedial English, known in the slang as “bonehead English.” I wish that I could thank her today, and I plan to try to locate her and let her know how much she has influenced not only the life of her students but hopefully, some gardeners too. If she has passed on, she already knows.
My current project involves convincing one of my very capable co-workers to write gardening columns in this space. If I am successful, readers will be happy with the result. A related job is to contact newspapers and web sites and ask that there be an uninterrupted flow of gardening articles from the local Extension office.