BUMPER CROP

In the 1943 award-winning musical "Oklahoma," there is a wonderful song titled "Oh, What a Beautiful Morning." In fact, it is such a beautiful morning on the Oklahoma meadow that "the corn is as high as an elephant's eye, and it looks like it's climbing clear up to the sky."

That may be, unless you have seen Jill Hooper Dalesandry's backyard vegetable garden of beets, carrots, onions, acorn squash, peppers, tomatoes (32 plants), spinach, radishes, zucchini, cucumbers, strawberries and assorted herbs. And that's just the spring-summer crop.

But alas, no corn.

"It's funny," said Dalesandry. "I have been so successful with everything except corn. I think that's because of the wind and heat."

Otherwise, Dalesandry, executive vice president of escrow operations for Nevada Title Co., is proficient in getting her 1,200 square-foot above-ground garden to grow just about whatever she wants. She built it three years ago by laying a brick wall around the garden area, hauling in rich top soil to a depth of 3 feet, and laying a separate water drip system.

"I have a spring-summer crop and a fall-winter crop," she explained. "All that's left in the garden right now are peppers. After those are gone, I'll fertilize with bone meal and vegetable fertilizer and thoroughly mix and till the soil. Then I'll plant cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, onions, radishes, carrots and beets. These will be harvested sometime in February depending on what kind of frost we have this winter. Then I'll just start all over with my spring-summer crop."

Dalesandry uses seeds, bulbs and plants in her garden.

"The really busy time is when I prepare the garden and get everything planted," she explained. "Once all the plants are in the ground and established, I can let the garden go for several days at a time. There is regular maintenance like weeding and keeping an eye on the weather, but that isn't difficult. It gets busy again at harvest time and I mean really busy, especially with my fruit trees. That's when the nectarines, peaches, apples, pears and apricots are picked and eaten on the spot."

What happens with all the vegetables?

"My pantry is filled with canned vegetables," Dalesandry said. "I harvest, wash, cut, cook, freeze and pickle just about everything that I don't give away to family and friends. In July, I picked baskets of tomatoes, washed and peeled and pureed them, added some zucchini, peppers and onions, and made spaghetti sauce. It's all frozen away in my freezer. The beets, cauliflower, peppers, cucumbers and carrots I pickle. Sometimes I add a jalapeno for extra flavor. Those jars are in my pantry."

Dalesandry considers her garden a familiar hobby. Her father always had a small vegetable garden and her in-law's home in Utah was surrounded by orchards and a large garden.

"I've had some type of garden since moving here 18 years ago and I'm never going to stop," she said. "Several weeks ago I went to the grocery story to buy some carrots. There was no flavor. Mine are so sweet and besides, I just love the idea of going outside, picking whatever vegetables I want and bringing them inside to cook for dinner."