Making It Grow Minutes

Food Share began in Canada and has now spread across our country as the need for affordable fresh, healthy food has become more critical. Food deserts affect many rural or inner-city areas, and with the pandemic, all these problems have been exacerbated. Thanks the U S C school of Medicine, a grant from Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and a cadre of local volunteers, people in many areas can get a small or large box of fresh, healthy food every two weeks. Two persons involved came to Sumter recently to explain how citizens with chronic health problems can make improvements to their lives using this program -- and we fixed a delicious, healthy meal from a Food share box. If you’d like to see that episode, go to mig.org and watch the Nov. ninth show.

Spartanburg Extension horticulturist Drew Jeffers joined Making It Grow recently to discuss the South Carolina Certified Landscape Professional certification program. Extension experts present self-paced, on-line trainings on such topics as turf selection and maintenance, proper planting techniques, tree selection and installation, disease and insect identification and control, as well as irrigation and environmentally sustainable practices.

One older lady told me she was hesitant to try it but ended up going back for a second helping.

World-renown geneticist, Clemson’s Stephen Kresovich, and other research faculty will combine their crop-breeding talents to develop varieties that will allow South Carolina farmers to produce vegetables in the face of extreme changes in temperatures, rain and drought challenges, and other environmental pressures.

Clemson and the Swink family are joining forces to combat this problem. The family has made a gift of three million dollars to develop vegetables with resistance to higher temperatures and other factors that limit yield.

In recent years, changes in climate have resulted in high night-time temperatures and dramatically reduced the fruit set of many of our important vegetable crops. When it is seventy-five degrees or higher at night, many crops will not pollinate – there maybe vigorous, well-tended plants in the field that are covered with flowers, but the pollination process is impeded by those high thermometer readings.

For six years, Tony has been selecting and growing out promising seeds, trying to develop a more heat-tolerant butterbean.

Tony has said that serving the people of South Carolina has been his greatest honor and joy.

At meetings, in restaurant, while scouting fields for insect and disease problems, he never stopped taking calls from persons needing his advice.

Our recently retired, due to illness, Clemson colleague Tony Melton has many constants in his life. For one, he has never stopped being the humble fellow from McBee, South Carolina, who started picking cotton when he was three years old.

Without a doubt, the most beloved member of the Making It Grow crew is Tony Melton. I guess we could call Tony the collard guy, or the strawberry guy, or the tomato guy – he’s listed as a specialist in small fruits and vegetables but, honestly, he’s an expert on car repair, roofing and even building a house all by himself.

SC turtle species have been in peril as trade in those animals, sometimes in illegal international channels, has been putting certain species at risk.