How does your garden grow?
Linda Sappington
Ronan resident Bob Bell looks over his massive gourd garden, planted in a compost of grass, leaves, wood chips and fish carcasses.
Linda Sappington
A squash blossom attracts bees. Blossoms are either male or female; only the female ones produce. The males can be harvested and made into soup.
Linda Sappington
Ronan resident Bob Bell looks over his massive gourd garden, planted in a compost of grass, leaves, wood chips and fish carcasses.
Linda Sappington
Bell grows blue hubbard squash, left, and buttercup in his compost pile.
Linda Sappington
Bob Bell’s community garden is full of peppers, cabbage, broccoli and flowers.
Linda Sappington
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Ronan veteran Bob Bell, better known for his support of military through the Patriot Riders motorcycle group, has a garden.
And not just any garden.
It started with compost — large, decomposed piles of fresh-cut grass trimmings, leaves, wood chips and his secret ingredient: fish.
Mack Days lake trout. Mackinaw carcasses. Thousands of them. Bell estimates there’s 27 tons of carcasses in his compost pile.
And boy do his buttercups and blue hubbard squashes love it.
The second week of June, pretty late for most gardeners to begin sowing seed, Bell thought he’d try something.
Staring at his 10 feet high by 40 feet wide mound of compost, he decided to plant.
“I just walked along and stuck three seeds in the side, every 10 feet or so,” he said.
He didn’t even have to crawl on his hands and knees to sow the seed.
“I never figured it would get to the watering system,” he said. But the plant took off, literally, four times further than he imagined.
“All I can say is, it did good.”
Punctuated by bright orange squash blossoms, the thriving vine just keeps growing and producing exceptionally large gourds.
He thinks he’s onto something.
His amazing compost is available by the truckload, he said. For a small fee to cover the cost of running the tractor, he’ll load up a truck bed full for next year’s interested gardeners.
Bell also tills the mixture into his own garden, a 126-by 85-foot spacious area open to the community to grow plants, flowers and vegetables.
This year five families are utilizing his growing space, situated right next to his turkeys, chickens and pigs. He’ll water, but growers plant their own seeds, pull their own weeds, and harvest their own produce.
As the growing season winds down, someone ought to tell his squash plants to slow down. But they won’t.
“They’ve got 70 acres for roam on,” he said with a chuckle.
Bell said he’s actually looking forward to the first frost. Then all the leaves will flatten and he’ll be able to see how many squashes are actually growing in the colossal plants.
