Reaping Rewards

THE POST-SIGNAL / Machelle Booty
Eloise Schuller and her granddaughters, Kathryn Shea, left, and Sybil Duncan, daughters of Shea and Kathy Duncan, enjoy the hobby of gardening and the benefits that it brings.

Grandmother and granddaughters
enjoy gardening together

BY MACHELLE BOOTY
STAFF WRITER

   The week of April 11-17 is recognized as National Gardening Week.
   Eloise Schuller of Crowley has been gardening since her childhood at the feet of her grandmother and now her six-year-old granddaughter, Sybil, is the one at her feet as they garden together.
   To tour her well manicured lawn and garden is to view a miraculous vision of color and beauty. The flowers are all in bloom with a vast majority of vibrant colors. The deep red rose bushes climb high on the trellis in the corner of her backyard and the plants are being placed carefully by the newly built deck to the family pool. The vegetable garden is full of newly sprouted seedlings as well as with blooms from the growing plants.
   She has managed to plant a wide variety of vegetables in her garden, such as okra, snap beans, tomatoes, hot peppers, bell peppers, yellow squash, potatoes, vidalia onions, carrots, eggplants, cucumbers, zucchini and three types of lettuce.
   She even has her own greenhouse to start her own plants or re-pot older ones. She comments that she loves to garden and could easily spend hours in her greenhouse. It allows her to relax and not think about anything at all.
   After showing off her remarkable garden, the tour continues to her own mulch pile in the making. She continually adds things to the pile in order to give her garden the best possible nutrients. She has spent years reading materials about providing plants with the essential vitamins to make them grow better and by making her own mulch she is successful. She comments that everything that has been cooked goes into that pile to feed the garden. The mulch pile shows signs of the past few crawfish boils with the potatoes and corn, egg shells and an aloe plant. She will let the pile sit for months and then stir it to add to the decomposing process. She goes on to state that coffee and the old coffee grinds is also added to the plants. She tells the story of having a rubber tree plant that was overwhelmingly large, so large that it couldn’t fit in the house any longer, and she gave it coffee daily.
   After the mulch pile, it’s off to the orchard area. The orchard consists of three rows of fruit trees, such as lemon, cherry and plum, just to name a few. The orchard is in the very beginning, but it already looks healthy and strong.
   After the plants and trees begin to produce and it’s time to pick the ripe goodies, one will find this remarkable woman in the kitchen preparing and storing.
   With her garden produce she is able to not only feed her and her husband, Billy, but her other family members, friends and neighbors. They all seem to enjoy the great tasting homegrown vegetables and the hard work that has gone into every bite.
   Eloise retired from Fogleman after 15 years and from going along with her husband on his over-the-road long hauls of truck driving in order to stay home and enjoy her garden and grandchildren.
   She has made a tradition of going to nurseries near and far in order to find that just right lawn and garden beauty.    She remarks how she enjoys to buy the smaller flowers or plants instead of the large ones in order to tend to it with loving care and watch it grow.
   Now it’s Sybil who rushes to the greenhouse as soon as they return from a trip to the nursery with her new plant. She begins by putting a coffee filter in the bottom of her pot, just as she has learned from her grandmother.

Crowley Post Signal • 602 North Parkerson Avenue • Crowley, LA
Ph: 337-783-3450 • Fax: 337-788-0949