BECKLEY — Although we are right in the middle of winter, we are starting to receive seed catalogs and have started on plans for gardening.

I wish to share our way that allows families with limited space to raise a nutritious crop economically.

A couple of years ago, my husband Bob and I learned about vertical gardening. We live on a very small space, which allows a few flower beds and fruit trees. After we were introduced to some ideas for vertical gardening by Jessie Arthur of Shady Spring in the summer of 2009, Bob built two tepees, each made of six pieces of lumber about 1 inch by 1 inch, 7 feet long and wired together at the top.

Jessie also gave us some Giant Logan Bean heirloom seeds. If you grow your own heirloom crops, a few simple techniques will allow you to save the seed from one harvest to use in the future. You can’t do that with hybrid and genetically modified seeds. Instead, you must buy new seeds each year. Heirloom varieties yield crops that offer superior flavor and nutrition.

As a life science teacher, in school, I taught a little on the value of the soil, composting, how earthworms help the soil and the value of crop rotation.

People’s health depends on the health of the crop that comes from a healthy soil.

Two people were great helping us make the decisions on getting the soil as healthy as possible. An Amish lady in Pennsylvania introduced us to fish emulsion and the value of saving crushed egg shells to add calcium to the soil.

Ray Courchaine, a graduate of the University of Wisconsin with a degree in horticulture, introduced us to the use of Basic-H soil conditioner. It contains no acids, no alkalis, is pure and safe with a pH of 6.5. Courchaine explained that gardeners do not need to get too technical about pH but to know that the scale runs from 0 to 14. The zero end is acidic, and the 14 side is alkaline. Seven is considered neutral.

For all practical purposes, gardeners have to worry about the part of the scale that runs from 4 to 9 since the overwhelming majority of plants grow in soil somewhere between those ranges. Most plants do best within a narrow range of 6.1 to 6.9, which is slightly acidic.

The pH of any soil is extremely important. A soil may be extremely rich in nutrients, but if it is too acidic, those nutrients will be locked up and unavailable to plants. Basic-H is a nutrient releaser.

Basic-H is highly concentrated, so we added only one tablespoon of the blue liquid to a gallon of water with one tablespoon of concentrated fish emulsion. This was poured over the small area of composted soil around the base of the tepee where I planned to plant the bean seeds. It is recommended not to apply during the heat of the day or on a hot and windy day, as this will curtail the effectiveness. It is best to apply on a cloudy day just before a rain.

We use composted soil where earthworms are present. Each earthworm gives the soil a quarter pound of droppings with minerals and nutrients. Chemical fertilizer kills the earthworms.

This one 7-foot tepee had a diameter of approximately 4 feet with eight hills of beans with three beans planted per hill. It is so exciting to see such a wonderful nutritious crop from 24 beans. I could pick most of the beans that grew in our back and front lawn while standing.

Last year, Jessie gave us four cylinders of concrete reinforcement wire that he had cut into two 5-foot lengths. Each of the pieces was formed into a cylinder, then the two cylinders were hooked together at the middle to make them close to 8 feet tall because the wire was 4 feet wide.

The beans could grow up 8 feet, and the base of the wired cylinder took up less space. It is so easy to add new soil at the base of the cylinder from the compost pile and to condition the soil in advance with Basic-H and fish emulsion before planting the seeds.

There are also benefits of using Basic-H in the apple orchard. The apples are strong and beautifully formed with no hollow or soft spots in the fruit.

This year, we are planning to use the vertical gardening again. We plan to plant Giant Logan beans, as well as peas and cucumbers. Flower beds will be turned into patches of green peppers, zucchini, tomatoes, lettuce and onions.

For more information on “going green” in your home or community, I would be happy to share with you.

Call 304-787-3102. If you get an answer machine, leave a message with a phone number and we will get back to you.