Passion for gardening benefits many in community
Verna Thiel loves her garden, and she loves to share it with others.
"I never charge for anything. I just have an overabundance, and I give it away. If someone can use it, I give it away," she said.
On a recent Sunday, she put some slicing cucumbers in a box by the road.
"And they were all gone," Thiel said.
She also donates some of her produce to Weyauwega Health Care Center and to the senior nutrition site in Weyauwega – two places she volunteers at several times a week. She hopes to donate to the Weymont Food Pantry as well.
Thiel does all of this – the planting and tending to her garden, and the volunteering – at the age of 90.
"I can’t complain," she said. "I have a few aches and pains. I like to keep moving."
Just how big her garden is, she does not know.
It’s big enough to have rows of corn, tomatoes, squash, pumpkins, potatoes, peppers, cabbage, peas, radishes, lettuce, onions, beans, carrots and sunflowers.
Thiel, who for 60 years lived on a farm in Lind Center, says she had a garden when she lived on the farm, but it was probably one-fourth the size of her present garden.
"When I sold the farm, I thought I’d get a place in town, but Dan (her son) said, ‘Mother, you’ll never be satisfied without your big garden," she said. "I didn’t garden too much until my husband (Edwin) passed away. When he retired, he was out there. I just let him. He’s been gone 23 years. I just got into it after."
It’s been almost four years since Thiel moved off the farm, and it’s her son Dan who works up the spot for her garden at her rural Weyauwega home.
"It’s sandy soil, so it’s not hard to work," she said. "They make that spot, and I just feel I need to use it all. I plant lots of viny stuff, like squash and pumpkins. Everything is covered except where I had the peas."
Thiel has a small notebook where she noted the dates that she planted various items. It was on April 18 that she began her planting, beginning with onions, potatoes, peas and lettuce. Her planting continued up until around Memorial Day.
Her son set up sprinklers for her in the garden, but she has not had to use them once.
In fact, Thiel does not remember a summer when there has been as much rain and heat as this one.
She also keeps track of the rainfalls in that small notebook that she has and says she noticed that there have not been many weeds in her garden this summer – perhaps because of the rain.
She likes to plant the entire space that her son worked up, because she said that if she didn’t the rest would be weeds.
The abundance of her harvest goes well into the fall.
Last year, her great-grandchildren came and chose pumpkins, and Thiel took her gourds and little pumpkins to the senior nutrition site and health care center where they were used for decorating.
"It’s fun to watch everything grow. I like my garden," she said.
Thiel says that she, as well as family members, can only eat so much and that she simply enjoys being outside and growing things.
"I take it one year at a time," she said. "I’ll see next year whether I cut back or not."
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