By Charles E Burkett
POSTED: APR 17 2020 11:00 AM CST
While people are required to stay at home, many are focusing their efforts on gardening. As you travel through many neighborhoods, you will most likely see some decorative gardens that are incorporated in many front lawns.
One local master gardener, Sara Hendel, said, "I wasn't planning on doing a lot of gardening this summer because I've been pretty busy. But now that I'm home more, I'm definitely expanding and even doing more than I had originally planned."
Some advice Hendel gives for people starting a garden is to consider what to plant it in.
"So I would say for somebody who's starting out really embrace container gardening and small; doing some spots, all different sizes. Starting in that way you have a very contained you get to control the soil, you get to control the watering and you can move it around if you need to."
One farmer, Sean Durbin with Denton Fleet Farming, is organizing options for community fleet farming to help out and start something different.
Durbin explains how it all works, "And then the idea is that it's tended by the community that goes around in fleets, like as a group, so they'll come and do a workday or whatever. So that's where the name comes from is like, you move as a fleet from one site to the next, doing maintenance and then harvesting the produce."
Some plants that you find in your front yard can be used for salads and teas.
According to Durbin, "Starting with dandelions that the whole plant edible and or medicinal."
So if you are planning on trying the home gardening, there are many options to consider and resources that you can access to help along the way. One free resource is Texas A&M's Arilife website.
Hendel said, "I basically just Google my question, then add TAMU at the end of my statement."
When the stay at home quarantine is lifted, we will see a difference in how people are eating. Though the quarantine has many online sites for catalog seeds backed up due to many of the orders. Other local resources are still available to start planting and growing this season.
