20040514 Jack Price Gardening A late-found love by Carrie Knauer

Jack Price Gardening A late-found love by Carrie Knauer of the Carroll County Times

Another in a great series of articles by Carrie Knauer, who writes for the Carroll County Times. I grew up in Westminster United Methodist Church at the intersection of Main and Center Street; Jack Price’s adopted church, when he first came to Westminster in 1963 and started sheep farming. He was very helpful with my 4-H photography projects and even my rabbit projects in the 1960s. Some of my earliest photographs are of Mr. Price’s farm around 1967. Later in life when I started my landscape business, Mr. Price was one of my biggest supporters and fans.
_____

Gardening: A late-found love

By Carrie Ann Knauer, Times Staff Writer

Friday, May 14, 2004


KEN KOONS/STAFF PHOTO Jack Price collects bags of leaves in the fall, shreds them and mulches his flower garden in the spring with the leaf mold.

Jack Price wanted to continue working as a sheep farmer as long as he could, because he didn't know what he would do after retiring.

When he finally did retire, at age 72, he and his wife built themselves a new house on Old Bachman Valley Road with a 2.2-acre lawn. Price said he bought himself a nice tractor and enjoyed mowing the lawn. He knew some friends who were gardeners, so when he saw a class on gardening perennials advertised, he decided to give it a try.

"I thought that might be a challenging thing to get into," said Price, 84, who said he didn't know the difference between a rose and a zinnia when he started.

About a decade later, his garden now occupies 4,000 square feet. The flowerbeds wrap around his patio and garage, surround an ornamental pond he designed, and behind his garage he has a vegetable garden waiting to be planted with tomatoes and peppers.

Price said he has a lot of time to dedicate to his garden, so he does everything as carefully as he can, and in the particular way that he likes to do it.

"There's the right way, the wrong way, and the Price way," Price joked.

One of his special touches is to use shredded, composted leaves as a mulching material in his flowerbeds to keep out weeds and keep his soil moist.

Price said he goes to the county landfill every fall and pulls bags of leaves from the drop-off site to take home with him. Price said that while the county does offer pre-shredded leaves, he prefers to take them home and shred them himself to control the material that goes into the mix. He tries to avoid any wood, weeds or plastic pieces, he said.

Price keeps the leaves in circular pens made of wire with a 25-foot circumference in his backyard, next to the vegetable garden. They sit there over the winter and start to break down.

When spring comes around and he's ready to mulch the flower beds again, he uses a pitchfork to mix the leaves from the top with leaves from the middle to combine the dry and wet parts into a consistent mix. Then he carries the compost in a wheelbarrow over to the flowerbeds and spreads the leaves with the pitchfork, covering all of the soil to prevent any weeds from growing.

Price said it's a little more work than just buying mulch, but he prefers the leaf mold because of the way it looks and because if he runs along the edge of it with his mower, he'll only get ground-up leaves in his grass, rather than bulky mulch chips. The only mulch chips in his garden are for the pathways in between the flowerbeds, he said.

During this time of year, Price spends several hours a day outside working on his garden. He doesn't mind - some retirees play golf, others have antique cars - this is his hobby.

"You can fritter away a lot of time in the garden," Price said. "It's probably better than spending too much time in the beer parlor."

Reach staff writer Carrie Ann Knauer at 410-857-7874 or

carriem@lcniofmd.com.