I must admit that I belong to the Tallulah Bankhead School of Gardening when it comes to raising vegetables.
For those readers under 50, Tallulah Bankhead was a Broadway star who ultimately became known more for her deep Alabama accent and her funny sayings than for her acting. Once in an interview, a reporter asked Tallulah if she raised vegetables in the garden at her country house. Tallulah drawled back, “Daaaaarling, the only vegetables I grow are mint for my juleps and chives for the vichyssoise.”

In my garden, the only edible plant I grow is mint for my iced tea. Therefore, my visit to a small but wonderful vegetable garden on Lake Barkley was a great learning experience for me.

Doug and Molly Blom’s attitude toward life is summed up in a pillow in their house that reads “Heaven seems a little closer in a house beside the water.” The Bloms have created their piece of heaven at a lakeside lot on Lake Barkley in Lyon County. Instead of one big garden, the Bloms have developed small garden areas spread all over their 1.8 acre yard.

The Bloms have a connection to the lakes from their years of publishing Heartland Boating, a magazine that focuses on fresh water waterways from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. They published this magazine for 10 years while living in Martin, Tenn., where they were connected with the university there. They also spent 25 years owning a houseboat docked at a marina on Lake Barkley. They visited the Kuttawa Harbor area many times and ultimately bought a waterfront lot there in the Somden Hills subdivision. They planned to build a retirement home there “someday,” and “someday” happened eight years ago.

After building their dream house, the Bloms were left with a lot covered with trees and vines, and that they call a jungle. The lot was cleared to create a yard, but many trees were kept on the edge of the lot along the waterfront.

This provides a sense of privacy while still allowing views of the water. For many years, Doug’s father lived with the couple and he created his own garden areas filled with perennials and wildflowers. He surrounded his beds with limestone rocks, which he bleached when he thought they were looking too mossy. Molly also developed four garden spots of her own, and since the death of her father-in-law, maintains his spots also as a memorial to him. Some of the garden beds are bordered with beautiful cut limestone that was salvaged from an old hearth that was on the property when the Bloms purchased it.

One gardening struggle for Molly is to find enough sunny spots in her tree-shaded yard to grow tomatoes. Her secret is to stick tomato plants in with perennials and roses in her flowerbeds. She also claimed more sunny spots by staking tomato plants to the wood supports for her deck. She even has tomatoes growing in pots on her deck.

Her main vegetable garden bed is divided into thirds. One-third is devoted to strawberries, one-third to beans and celery, and one-third to herbs. Molly’s herb garden is prolific and she grows tarragon, oregano, pineapple sage, lavender, regular sage, garlic and onion chives, two kinds of parsley, basil, dill, and rosemary. She uses the basil and rosemary herbs the most for cooking.

One special feature of this vegetable/herb bed is the fencing that surrounds it. Molly made her own unique fencing using concrete blocks and limbs from the yard. She turned the concrete blocks on their ends so that they stand upright and then inserted limbs into the holes of the blocks. Deciding she wanted to paint the blocks, she took a piece of bark to the paint store and had that putty color matched. The resulting fence is charming and perfect for the rural setting of the garden. Molly’s reason for her fencing: “I just like the way it looks.”

Molly proudly shows off one end of this bed that she calls the tacky corner. Displayed in this area are pieces of driftwood, a wellhead, pots of mint, a hanging basket made from a fish creel, various pieces of statuary, and a birdhouse subdivision with seven houses and one church. Doug jokes it is becoming less of a subdivision and “growing more towards a ghetto.”

Other beds in the yard contain a wide variety of vegetables. The Bloms also grow pumpkins, acorn squash, red raspberries, yellow squash, horticulture beans and eggplants. Molly likes to grow vegetables that are sometimes impossible to find in grocery stores, like the horticulture beans (also called shell-out beans).

One of Molly’s favorite things to grow is birdhouse gourds. She grows these oblong gourds and then dries then for a year before turning them into birdhouses. A recent experiments was to try for the fourth time to grow rhubarb. She loves this plant and uses it to make rhubarb sauce, which she compares to applesauce. She has discovered that the walnut trees in her yard kill the plants she places under them. She tried the rhubarb in a new spot, but swears this is her last attempt should it fail. One gardening trick of Molly’s is to cut bamboo growing along the road and to use these cuttings as stakes for her tomato plants.

Molly deals with pests like most gardeners. She uses Sevin to try to control the Japanese beetles, which she says have almost demolished her climbing roses in past years. She also fights rabbits by sprinkling around the garden a powder that is made up of 70 percent tobacco dust.

Molly has a variety of sources for her plants. She has become a friend with the groundskeeper of her country club who shares excess wildflowers and seedlings with her. She also just likes to visit nurseries, and many of her plants came from James Sanders Nursery in Paducah. She also shops at the Akridge Farm Supply Store in Eddyville in the spring when they bring in perennials and vegetable plants. She also admits to being one of those gardeners who always carry a spade, gloves and a sack for bringing home horticulture treasures growing along the road.

One reason for the success of the Bloms’ garden is their unlimited access to water. Doug was able to get a permit from the Army Corps of Engineers to pump water directly from the lake. This pump feeds a sprinkler system that irrigates the lawn and the garden. Doug delights in the nutrient-rich water from the lake and says his grass has never looked better.

Doug and Molly Blom have created a garden that is fun and creative and reflects their fun and creative personalities. Their added bonus is having bountiful crops of vegetables and herbs to enjoy. Can there be anything more nourishing for the soul as well as the body than eating food that you have grown yourself?