Rocky Top library hosts seminar on planting flower, vegetable seeds
UT Agricultural Extension Service master gardener Jan- et Donaldson, right, explains the intricacies of starting flower and vegetable plants from seeds during a recent seminar at the Rocky Top Public Library. (photo:G. Chambers Williams III )
Master gardener Seth Whitehouse and colleagues from the UT Agricultural Extension Service in Anderson County put on the training session for people who are interested in setting up their own gardens this spring.
They offered the same program recently at the Oak Ridge and Norris libraries, both of which now offer seed packets at no charge to library patrons wanting to start gardens.
Leading the Rocky Top seed-starting session was master gardener Janet Donaldson of Norris, who is well known in her own community for her prowess in cultivation of plants.
Also assisting from the UT Extension Service were master gardeners Debra Reed and Yvonne Webb.
“Gardening is just a big science experiment,” Donaldson told the seminar attendees.
She said planting of flowers “should be started early,” and that planting of vegetables should wait until about May 1, after the last possible date for frost.
Whitehouse said that in this area, “There is a 90% chance of no frost after April 28,”
“Don’t put vegetables out too early,” he said.
The master gardeners showed the attendees several methods for starting seeds in pots before the threat of frost has passed.
But Donaldson said people should “get vegetable seeds ready and plant them right in the garden beginning May 1.”
Depending on the particular plant, germination can begin within a few hours after seeds are planted in suitable warm soil, Donaldson said.
The Rocky Top library will be planting its own demonstration flower and vegetable gardens this spring in plots on both sides of the building.
Kelly Harris, the library’s director, said several areas around the outside of the library have already been prepared for the gardens as part of an effort to help teach young people about gardening.
“We will have a fenced vegetable garden area outdoors to give kids a chance to put their hands in the dirt,” she said.
Because Rocky Top is a “food desert,” where fresh fruits and vegetables are hard to find, Harris said she hopes the project will help get young people interested in growing some of their own food, as their grandparents once did in the area.
The initiative is underway, and it’s being paid for entirely out of the library’s Anderson County-funded budget and through donations of time and materials, Harris said.
Harris informed the Rocky Top City Council of the plans for the library garden during a council meeting in October.
No money has been requested from the city of Rocky Top.
“We want to create gardens to wrap around the building to go from pollinator to compost,” she said.
“We initially will plant daffodils in front and vegetables in the rear, including green beans, corn, squash and tomatoes,” Harris said. She also wants to plant some fruit trees.