Steve Mills and his wife have one daughter. They previously owned two coffee/ice cream shops, currently operate an internet sales company and teach classes, but his primary job involves the paper industry worldwide. Hobbies and interests lie in gardening, photography, recorded music and of course, their pets.

Full Weed'em & Reap Garden Club this coming Friday, April 8th.

Posted Sunday, April 3, 2016, at 5:41 PM

Bok choy seedlings set next to the house for harvesting convenience. Protected from varmints with chicken wire. The bricks hold the wire up off the seedlings.

We meet at the Ag Extension office 2105 Midland Rd, Shelbyville and start at 6:30, but we are not too formal, so if you are late, no worries, we want you there.

BUT, for those who know our meetings, they will be a little more structured than in the past. No meeting minutes, officers or stuff like that, but we will have a defined topic for each meeting and spend about 45 minutes on that before it opens to general discussion.

This next meeting topic was chosen to be growing in tune with nature, but if you want to have something different at another meeting PLEASE feel free to volunteer.

For years I was involved with the Tennessee Land Stewardship Association, a forerunner to the National Organic Certification developed by the USDA. We certified growers in Tennessee and obviously supported natural methods.

A recent presentation at Bell Buckle Daffodil Days by Dr. Ed Perryman reignited my desire to talk more about this even though I have been growing this way since childhood.

I believe we did it years ago because we could not afford the chemicals that came back from the World Wars. Instead we used goat, rabbit, chicken manure and compost and for insects we used a white powder which I later learned was bacillus thuringiensis. (a natural bacterium)

Then coincidentally, I am reading a book entitled "Eat Dirt". Sounds appetizing huh, but it actually reinforces sustainable principals, even though it is not a gardening book.

Then, we open it up to general discussion and try to keep it focused. The answers can come from our group or by searching the internet for alternative learning sources.

At the end of this particular meeting, we will pick up on using tires for small growing beds. This time we will actually cut two tires for everyone who brings them and you can go home with tires ready to use as mini-greenhouses or plant in.

For a few years, these will be safe for vegetables according to several authorities but eventually you will probably want to plant ornamentals because of tire degradation.