George Unearthed
June 15th, 2010
By Sue Weigel
Happy Father’s Day to all you gardening fathers!
Young George and little Andy picking tomatoes.
Since many of you have invited George into your homes on Thursdays in the Patriot-News, through this website or through him doing a Garden House-Call, I thought you might enjoy getting to know a bit about what makes George George.
That said, I have written this week’s posting. George and I have been married since 1979. Yes, that is 31 years! George would probably tell you the secret to a long and happy marriage is “good gardening.” I believe it is having a sense of humor because he always makes me laugh.
Just an FYI, I am a nurse, not a writer, or the gardener that George is. You will mainly find me inside tearing out and installing bathroom cabinets and hanging wallpaper.
Growing up, George had a concrete slab for a yard. It wasn’t until high school that his family moved into a home that actually had a green yard. During his school years and in college, George’s passion was not gardening — it was baseball (he was an Academic All- American catcher at Penn State). I remember his dad had a garden on stilts because of his arthritic knees. They were raised square boxes that he made so he could stand up and garden.
George’s baseball passion changed to a passion for gardening when he planted two cherry tomato plants when we were first married. He fed them grass clippings and was awed that they got taller than Jack’s Beanstalk.
George is a lot like my grandfather, Pappy Wetzel, who loved the Baltimore Orioles and was also a fan of gardening. Pappy and Grandma lived on a fruit farm in Orrtanna, Pa. Every Sunday during growing season, we shelled lima beans, ate roastin’ ears and picked apples and cherries right from the trees in the orchard to eat fresh.
In George’s early gardening years, he would do what he called a “cost/benefit analysis.” It was his method to keep track of savings on the food he produced. He would proudly bring in 4 green beans, 2 radishes and a handful of cherry tomatoes. Total savings: 26 cents. However, the seasoned gardener in him has saved big bucks by making his own hot-pepper relish, blue-barb jam, currant jelly and apple dumplings, all made from what he grew in our yard.
George is always trying to plant seeds. He loved gardening with kids and teaching them all he knew. His method of dandelion removal was to pay our two tow-headed kids 5 cents for each dandelion they dug up. That was a win-win situation, especially since the kids didn’t even know they were working. Yes, George is an organic gardener! In fact, it was a great Christmas when George got fish emulsion and dehydrated cow manure for gifts.
Planting a Plant a Row for the Hungry with the Sunday School kids.
He was a Sunday School teacher for 18 years. He had the attention of kids for a whole hour, whether they liked it or not. He got permission to plant a garden with them on the church property. It was a great lesson for the kids and included donating the produce to the local food rescue.
In the first years of Vacation Bible School, we were the leaders of a Bible-times village. George was none other than the village farmer who taught the kids how to garden with plants from Bible times. There was nothing better and more fun for George (and the kids) than hands-on, getting-your-fingers-dirty teaching and learning.
Cub Scouts was next on his radar. When the boys decided that one of their rules was “no killing allowed,” George knew he had to stay one step ahead (and preferably 6 steps) of the boys, so he decided to do Gardening 101 with them in our back yard. After everyone survived (including George), he knew he was ready to conquer any gardening challenge, excluding the groundhogs. This is a challenge that is ongoing.
Over the years, George has turned our one-third-acre property into his “less grass and more garden” sanctuary. No concrete slabs in our yard, except for the driveway and a former square cement slab patio that’s now a plant-surrounded paver patio. George’s yard is like the trial gardens at PSU — kind of a garden test lab.
He has a little of this and a little of that so he can grade them and let the growers know how they stood up to his standards. So whether it is urine-filled pill bottles to keep the rabbits away, testing the latest garden gadgets or the newest varieties of flowers, you never know what he will be up to next. Funny how our landscape changes so frequently, but we still had the original 30-year-old carpet in our house until a few months ago.
George is also a competitive gardener. It was probably all those years of baseball. He and the neighbor across the street would compare the size of their cabbages and tomatoes. Zucchinis didn’t count! I don’t think anyone could beat his ability to grow and pick lettuce for a salad from their basement in February. He has a three-tiered structure of grow lights where he starts his plants from seeds. He also grows plant cuttings to over-winter his favorite plants for the next growing season. Talk about the “cost/benefit analysis!”
George is always happy to “chat” gardening. Our son, Andy, just moved into a home in Pittsburgh, and he called last week to tell us he dug not one but two vegetable gardens and got his tomatoes planted. I never would’ve thought I would hear the two of them chatting about things like the pH of soil, pondless water features and blossom-end rot. This is the same son that we sent home on a Greyhound bus from Salt Lake City when we were on our family vacation in 2000. As a teen-ager, Andy was miserable “chatting” with us for a week and a half.
George now gets his fill of “chatting” about gardening on the bus trips he does. These are people who actually listen to him. At least we haven’t had to send any unruly gardeners home during the trip. Not yet anyway!
Over the winter, our daughter, Erin, emailed us pictures from California of her “window sill” lettuce and her potted tomato plants. Our kids used to give George “chat” coupons for gifts growing up to grant him allowed time with them. Andy is now 28 and Erin is 25 and much has changed in the past 10 years or so. George is probably the only father with a paper towel holder hanging in his bedroom (next to the kiddie handprint picture). It was one our son made in 6th grade.
Whether it is a nice summer day or a cold rainy winter day, you can find George outside. So if you stop by, don’t bother ringing the doorbell. Just go out back and make sure you bring your pruners, unless you want to help me with my bathroom, then bring your paintbrush.
So for all you fathers out there, go plant some “seeds,” watch them grow, enjoy the harvest and have a wonderful Father’s Day!
George’s wife, Sue