“What can be grown on a small amount of acreage is remarkable” Floyd Rossetti commented “And everybody can grow vegetables.” Rossetti is living proof that you can succeed in producing enough vegetables and fruit for family consumption and to share with neighbors and friends on a residential lot in a subdivision if you care to do so.

Rossetti was born and raised in Shaw, Mississippi on a farm. A graduate of Mississippi State with a degree in Agricultural Sales, he has lived and gardened in several locations throughout the state and in Louisiana. He has created large pecan and peach orchards as well as one of the first grow and pick berry operations in the state while pursuing his professional career. He has both the agricultural education and practical experience to make the most of a home garden and his wife of 53 years, Margaret, knows how to process and preserve the bounty he harvests each growing season.

An assortment of vegetables and fruit grows on the Rossetti property and he rotates crops to help prevent disease. Some vegetables are planted directly in the ground, others in containers placed nearby. Where he grew tomatoes last year, he planted 100 pole and bush beans, 10 okras, 14 squash, 10 strawberries, 30 cucumbers and five eggplants this spring. 300 tomato plants have produced over 5,000 fruits so far this season and will probably make it to 7,500 by frost according to Rossetti. 200 butter bean plants are still producing as are tomatoes, beans and okra.

Wooden trellises support butter beans, pole beans, cucumbers and tomatoes with strings that train the vines to grow upward making picking easier as well as keeping fruit off the ground. 25 thornless blackberries were added over the last few years and they are on trellises also. Peach and plum trees grow between trellised areas with huge fig trees nearby and muscadine and grape vines as well.

Rossetti has a special technique for harvesting tomatoes which limits damage from critters. He told me that once a tomato turns from green to whitish in color, it can be picked and will ripen indoors. He tries to harvest all of his at that white stage, brings them in and lays them on newspaper where they turn red.

Last summer, their dining room floor was covered wall to wall except for some narrow pathways with ripening tomatoes. He lost less than one percent of his crop to worms, squirrels or deer by picking them at this stage. He grows predominately from seeds. He has tried several heirloom tomatoes but his favorite varieties include Rutgers, Burpee Beefsteak, Big Boy, Better Boy, both are fine for slicing and Roma, which makes the best tomato sauce according to Rossetti.

“If not for Margaret, I wouldn’t grow anything,” he stated. She cans tomatoes for sauce and soup, makes fig and other fruit preserves and freezes butterbeans with tomato sauce, peaches, strawberries, blackberries and green beans in pint size containers, just enough for the two of them to eat or to make a pie with the fruit.

Fruits and vegetables are just part of what Rossetti likes to grow. He has rows of pots in front of their house filled with all kinds of bulbs, annuals, perennials and shrubs. Most are in black nursery containers with multiple plantings in each so that there is always something in bloom. He has just added pansies and violas to several pots with daffodils and tulips planted underneath. Mum and petunia filled pots are bright with color now alongside caladiums and dianthus. Earlier in the summer he had lots of blooms on Asiatic lilies including Star Gazers, which are so fragrant, Shasta daisies, peonies, hydrangeas, cannas, butterfly gingers, dahlias, orange and multi-colored daylilies, Jacob’s Ladder, Rose of Sharon, red Texas hibiscus, Siberian and bearded iris as well as amaryllis. More plants occupy the flowerbeds behind the pots including some huge crinum lilies.

“I already know what I plan to do in 2015” he commented. Good planning helps him get the kind of harvest he does from a limited amount of space. Cow manure is his No. 1 fertilizer/soil amendment. Worms love it and lots of worms means healthy soil he commented. Then he uses Miracle Grow Liquid Fertilizer to supplement every week to ten days during the growing season, which he applies by a plastic cup to each planting. He never tills the soil, says it destroys the tunnels in the soil that facilitate the movement of air and water to the plant roots. Instead, he uses a post-hold digger to create his planting holes and amends the soil.

 

He believes strongly in mulching, mostly with leaves from his landscape, to keep the soil cool and to prevent moisture from escaping too quickly during the hot summer weather. This includes the pots as well. Most of the pots are elevated off the ground to help maintain good drainage, which can be an issue in the rainy winter months. He hoes up the occasional weed and uses 2-inch x 8-inch lengths of wood to create the overhead trellises upon which some of the vegetables grow. He buys mulch, cow manure and Miracle Grow in bulk whenever he sees it on sale to hold his costs down.

Gardening is a big part of Rossetti’s life. He loves to show people around his garden and exhibits a real joy in growing things. All the activity appears to be great for his health as well as the access to the freshest of vegetables grown by his own hands. His attitude and sense of purpose should inspire all of us to grow more of our own food in addition to those beautiful flowers that brighten our landscapes.