God's little green acres

While Clinton resident Bill Smith is most known for growing the Clinton United Methodist Church such that a new building was in order, he’s also spent much of his life growing produce and flowers in the various gardens he and his wife, Jan, have kept throughout the years. The bounty has offered sustenance not only to their three children but to the many friends they’ve made throughout the years.

While Jan harvests and cooks, Bill plants and tends the garden. Bill said he first started gardening in 1974 when he and his wife, Jan, moved to Harbor Beach. Gardening is in Smith’s blood. He said his dad was a big gardener and in addition to serving as a minister, he farmed land in Onsted.

In 1992, the Smiths moved to Clinton when Bill was assigned to Clinton United Methodist Church. He retired in 2005, and they now live on 10 acres. Bill spends as many as five hours a day tending to his lawn and gardens, which along with a large vegetable garden includes a formidable perennial garden.

He plants everything from strawberries to a wide variety of tomatoes to lettuce to grapes for eating and making wine. Much of it he grows from seed. Bill said he begins the process after Christmas of assessing what will go in his garden, evaluating what did or did not work the previous year. Once he’s mapped out what he’d like he orders his seeds by mail. He said cabbage, onion, lettuce and spinach can go in early, but typically he waits until the end of May to plant the bulk of his seedlings.

Of all the produce he grows, Bill said potatoes are his favorite. He said he plants about five varieties and usually has yield in early July.

“I always liked growing potatoes,” he said. “I don’t know why. I can take my grandson out there and we take the fork and dig them out. It’s like a surprise every time. Every hill is kind of a surprise how many you have and how many big ones you have.”

In addition to potatoes, he grows as many as 78 tomato plants and highly recommends the oxheart variety because of their low acidity. With a quarter acre devoted to his garden the bounty is various and continuous.“Once things start coming in, we virtually eat out of the garden the rest of the summer,” said Bill.

Over the years Bill has learned what works and what doesn’t. Even while working as a minister, Jan said Bill was up as early 6:30 a.m. to get hoeing in before he headed off to the church. Bill has since installed water and electricity to his garden and now has a drip irrigation system, which he says is especially good for the grapes. For the winter, he covers his garden plot with rye grass and tills the rye grass in the fall. “It’s really good organic matter and then in the spring it will give the soil a lot of humus,” he said.

His advice to those starting out is to start small and seek help from veterans. “I learned if you take a hoe to the garden an hour a day, you stay on top of the weeds,” said Bill. “Some days I can’t tell you what I did, but I was busy. If you don’t like gardening it can be a chore, but I love it,” he said.