Good gardening: Connoquenessing woman has hundreds of plants
A Connoquenessing woman said she lucked out with her garden, which thrived after storms in June dumped rainfall quickly on the hundreds of plants growing in her backyard.
Brenda Leslie, of Connoquenessing, said on Thursday, Aug. 21, that she has grown a garden containing produce, flowers and other plants in her backyard for years. While one of her neighbor’s gardens was damaged and scarred by the June rainfall, Leslie said most of her plants have been doing great all summer.
“Ours doubled in size. I don’t know if it’s because we’re on a hill. It thrived. It loved it,” Leslie said of her garden. “What happened was I had to replant my pole beans because we had that crazy weather.”
Leslie said she planted 60 pepper plants and 32 tomato plants, as well as pole beans, cucumbers, sweet corn, broccoli, peas, onions, beets and strawberries, and started on her green journey in May. She works as a school bus driver, so Leslie gets to focus on her garden all summer.
She said the constant monitoring of her garden is likely what helps her make it grow big and strong.
“I’m out here most of the day,” Leslie said. “If I’m not weeding and cutting tomato plants, I’m sitting back and enjoying the view.”
To keep the weeds down, Leslie covers the ground with cardboard boxes that soda cans come in to prevent unwanted growth. She puts old hay and straw around plant stems for the same reason. She also said she used to have problems with pests, but her two young cats and young dog now help keep them away.
“My son told me to plant five times as many sunflowers as I want and I might get one,” Leslie said. “That was because of rabbits.”
