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Ask Jone

-- Do you have a problem? Send your questions to joneworlds@mailbox.org

C. asks:

I am having no luck at all trying to grow a vegetable garden. Do you have any tips?

Well C, you know I got into gardening a bunch of years back. Found some patch of dirt on my dad's land, took one of those prepper seed tins, and got busy. First two years, I got basically nothing. Maybe that's why those seed tins were so cheap, some skinny ex-prepper trying to scrape together a buck for a box of cookies or something.

Anyways, one spring day I was visiting Ellie, who always keeps a fantastic garden. And she's telling me some tips, and they seem all right. But you know I'm super observant, so I notice how she's watering her garden from a motor oil jug with holes punched in the bottom. And THAT gets me thinking. Oil! Energy rich, natural, from the earth. It's basically organic material. Liquid mulch! That had to be the secret of her success. (Now, later I learned that Ellie was actually just watering her garden with a cleaned-out jug - watering with water, not oil. But this did not occur to me at that time.)

So I set about finding me a suitable source of motor oil. I reasoned that a low-viscosity product would be ideal for this application, like 5W30. And it's got to be conventional oil, not synthetic, because I'm really into organic food, you know?

Del hooks me up with their friend with a garage, and they say I can have as much of their used oil as I want. Jackpot! It's rich and black, probably full of nutrients and minerals and metals. Many people don't get enough iron in their diet. I don't know how much I need, but I figure about 50L should do it.

So anyways, I get all this back to my garden, and start spreading it around with a jug, just like Ellie showed me. And then that smart-ass kid Leanne drops by for some reason, just as I'm laying down the last of the oil. She sees me working away, and she's like, what the hell are you doing. And I'm like, what does it look like I'm doing, I'm fertilizing. And she's like, oh my god you are such an idiot. And I'm like, hey don't call me an idiot, you're 12. And she's like, you're going to have to excavate that whole plot. And she's pretty annoying, but I'm not so proud that I won't take good advice even from a kid, so I'm like, okay then. Next day I dig out all that oily dirt and put regular dirt back in. Used Ric's bobcat digger for that job, which was a blast and I had a great time, except when I backed it into dad's shed and knocked it over. But it's okay, you know, stuff like that happens sometimes.

And I tell you, that summer was the best garden I ever had. There was tomatoes, and potatoes, and beans and strawberries and broccoli, and probably a bunch of stuff I'm forgetting. It all worked out.

Based on all that, the advice I have for you goes like this: plant, then plenty of used motor oil; excavate, and then plant again. All that, and also you can make a terrific watering can out of a jug. You can't miss.

Thanks for writing in. I hope that helps.