Ron Smith 1, Senior Content Director

August 25, 2016

11 Slides

As summer winds down, anyone with access to a farmer’s market, a roadside produce stand, or, even better, a small garden plot of your own, has an opportunity to enjoy a bit of the bounty of fresh, local, tasty fruits and vegetables. When I was growing up, in the rolling hills of Upstate South Carolina, we always had a big garden, and by mid-August we were  in full harvest mode—daily gathering tomatoes, beans, peas, sweet corn, cantaloupes, and my favorite—large, deep green, round watermelons.

By this time, we would have accumulated a sizeable pile of melons in the shady backyard and would usually slice one every afternoon, often as a pre-dinner snack after we got home from the swimming hole. Sometimes we took a melon to the creek with us, set it to cool in the water for an hour or so and cracked it open to enjoy before heading home.

This summer, I’ve enjoyed the best tomatoes I’ve ever grown, more yellow squash than I know what to do with, some good peppers, an abundance of cucumbers and am waiting on four or five small watermelons to finally ripen. All this bounty came from two raised beds measuring about 6 feet by 3 feet.

Here are a few photos of the 2016 backyard crop.  The cantaloupe, sadly, is store bought. Maybe next year.

About the Author(s)

Ron Smith 1

Senior Content Director, Farm Press/Farm Progress

Ron Smith has spent more than 40 years covering Sunbelt agriculture. Ron began his career in agricultural journalism as an Experiment Station and Extension editor at Clemson University, where he earned a Masters Degree in English in 1975. He served as associate editor for Southeast Farm Press from 1978 through 1989. In 1990, Smith helped launch Southern Turf Management Magazine and served as editor. He also helped launch two other regional Turf and Landscape publications and launched and edited Florida Grove and Vegetable Management for the Farm Press Group. Within two years of launch, the turf magazines were well-respected, award-winning publications. Ron has received numerous awards for writing and photography in both agriculture and landscape journalism. He is past president of The Turf and Ornamental Communicators Association and was chosen as the first media representative to the University of Georgia College of Agriculture Advisory Board. He was named Communicator of the Year for the Metropolitan Atlanta Agricultural Communicators Association. More recently, he was awarded the Norman Borlaug Lifetime Achievement Award by the Texas Plant Protection Association. Smith also worked in public relations, specializing in media relations for agricultural companies. Ron lives with his wife Pat in Johnson City, Tenn. They have two grown children, Stacey and Nick, and three grandsons, Aaron, Hunter and Walker.

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