The annual OG Test Garden project has one simple goal: To grow new varieties in conditions like yours and report the results so you can decide whether they are worth planting in your garden. Read their blog and check in on their gardens here! Nan Sterman Encinitas, California (Zone 10) In Nan's dry-climate garden, tomatoes, sunflowers, and everything else require irrigation. To keep her tomatoes off the ground, and the irrigation pipes, she uses this system: "I buy sheets of 4-foot-tall and 7-foot-wide concrete reinforcing wire mesh at the big box store. I bend each sheet into a cylinder by connecting the short ends with zip ties-one each at the top and bottom; one or two in the middle. Each cylinder fits over two plants easily. The mesh has 6-inch openings, which are big enough for me to reach in to guide branches through the mesh, prune errant branches, fertilize, and harvest!" Pam Ruch Emmaus, Pennsylvania (Zone 6) The Organic Gardening test garden, near Emmaus, is just one component of a multi-use property, so it is important that we define the boundaries. This was the intent behind the 3-foot-wide bed of tall plants@flowers, mostly@that surrounds the vegetable plots. It became a problem solver in several ways. We discover new combinations by mixing attractive leafy vegetables like kale in with the sturdy marigolds, sunflowers, zinnias, ageratums, salvias, and agastaches that make up the border. It is beautiful and it's a pollinator magnet, but best of all it acts as something of an insurance policy. Pest insects are (mostly) kept in check by a diverse population of predators that visit the flowers. To rebuild the soil in the section of the border that nurtured last year's sunflowers, we planted sudangrass, a 7-foot-tall wall of annual grass that sways with the wind. Fast-growing buckwheat fills in gaps left by plants that bloom and then expire. Don Boekelheide Charlotte, North Carolina (Zone 7B) We address questions about collards and okra to Don, our Southern-garden expert. He teaches classes on composting, manages a garden for the homeless, and is active in the American Community Gardening Association. Don offers the following specific tips for southern gardens: (1) Set squash transplants out right after the frost date, and you'll get fruit before the borers show up. (2) Space your plants well apart to discourage fungal diseases. (3) Pine needles are usually recommended as a mulch for trees and shrubs, but they're excellent around vegetables also, and easy to find in the South. Andrea Ray Chandler Olathe, Kansas (Zone 5) An entomologist as well as a gardener, Andrea is acutely tuned in to the comings and goings of insects and their predators. She serves up water for frogs and dragonflies, nooks and crannies for garter snakes, and flowers and herbs-lemon balm, basil, sage, lovage, fennel, and dill-for predatory wasps, green lacewings, lady beetles, wheel bugs, and other helpmates. "I'm always glad to see papernest wasps cruising around the broccoli and cabbages, looking for caterpillars to take home and feed their children," says Andrea. Even dandelions and Queen Anne's lace have a function in Andrea's garden, as sources of nectar for her flying friends. Debbie Leung Olympia, Washington (Zone 8) Debbie shifted her focus this year from supplying vegetables to the farmers' market patrons of Olympia to feeding just her family and friends, and in the process rediscovered the importance of gardening for satisfying the soul. When she escaped one day to a neglected corner of the garden to knock down a mess of weeds, she uncovered a clump of chives planted more than 10 years ago and a forgotten asparagus patch. "Some people wonder why I leave dead plants in the garden," she muses. "That's because I believe that plants are stronger than we think. Just when I think they can't possibly survive, they prove me wrong." Bill Nunes, zone 9 Gustine, CA Bill Nunes gardens, or should we say farms, on his 2-acre central California CSA that has about 50 beds almost 200 feet long. He grew up living and working in the family dairy, married a hometown girl, raised a family, and now grows organic vegetables on a parcel of the original family farm. His zone 9 climate affords him plenty of growing days, but daytime temps in summer can remain a scorching 90 to 105° for weeks on end. With 9-12" rain in a typical year, irrigating is necessary almost year round. The entire garden is outfitted with drip irrigation, to which he's added moveable low-pressure sprinklers for winter crops like broccoli, lettuce, cabbage. Bill typically has 15-25 different crops growing at all times, summer and winter. An efficient user of space, he often grows two to four different crops in a single bed - for instance: center line of rapini, two lines of radishes on one side, two lines of arugula on the other side. The Western pocket gopher is Bill's nemesis, and he battles the population constantly with a wide variety of traps. But better than any trap, says Bill, is "a really good gopher dog." Ann V. Caffey, zone 4 Double Nickel Ranch, Walsenburg, CO Ann Caffey grows herbs, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, and assorted vegetables in zone 4 Colorado at an elevation of 6300 ft. She deals with almost constant wind, often in severe gusts. Winter can bring heavy loads of snow. She assures us that Colorado's weather motto, "If you don't like the weather, wait an hour; it'll change" is, as they say, right as rain. The Caffeys' 150 acre property supports terriers and sheepdogs, cats, sheep, lambs, turkeys, and chickens, as well as Ann's productive garden. On Double Nickel Ranch, every man, woman and animal has a job. "Nothing is for show." With no well or city water, it's amazing that Ann is able to garden at all! They haul multiple truckloads of water in a 200-gallon tank to provide for sheep, garden, and household. Six garden beds and 80 feet of fence line are filled with fruits and vegetables. Around the perimeter hog panels lean against a fence and support beans, peas, cucumbers, and tomatoes. Harvesting them, reports Ann, is a snap. Linda Crago, zone 6a Wellandport, ON, Canada Linda Crago lives on nine acres on the Welland River, in the Niagara region of southern Ontario, "an interesting place, with a variety of two-and four-legged creatures." Just over ten years ago she quit her social work job and began selling baskets of vegetables...and Tree and Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm was launched. She grows for her CSA on three acres of heavy clay soil, which she amends with compost, minerals, green manure crops and manures from rabbits and chickens. "My absolute best manure is my rabbit manure from my pet bunnies," Linda reports. Heirlooms are a specialty, especially tomatoes - she grows 200 different varieties of tomato transplants in the spring, planting some and mail-ordering the rest across Canada. In her spare time Linda serves as the chairperson of her local Canadian Organic Growers chapter. "I love what I do - there is truly nothing better!" says Linda. Leslie Doyle, zone 8 Las Vegas, NV Leslie Doyle is known locally as the Tomato Lady. Defying desert conditions, she has remade her property into a haven "so lush looking visitors can't believe they are in the Mojave desert." To prove to people that tomatoes CAN be grown in the desert, Leslie hosts workshops in her half-acre teaching garden not far from the Las Vegas "STRIP." Over the years she has built 26 raised beds of various sizes and shapes. Her latest additions have attached shade structures, which are, Leslie says, "designed to protect me from the hot desert sun, not the plants." A leafy "green room," made by attaching construction fencing to her patio cover, forms a vertical growing space for climbing beans and melons. In front of them she plants bush-type veggies such as; eggplants, peppers, tomatoes, and root crops like carrots, parsnips, onions radishes, turnips. The whole assemblage protects the house from the desert sun. The temperature in this green room can be as much as 40 degrees cooler and greatly reduces the air-conditioning bill, according to Leslie. Garden soil is heavily amended with compost and humus, and all manner of water-saving mulches help to conserve water: reflective plastic, shredded cedar, straw, and living mulches like alyssum, verbena, and ice plant. Cautions Leslie, "Growing vegetables, flowers and other landscape plants is very different in the desert, it requires forgetting much of what you learned from a friendlier climate." Stephanie Van Parys, zone 7 Decatur, GA Stephanie Van Parys grew up walking around her grandfather's garden in Germany with a watering can filled from his moss-covered rain barrel. Her grandmother would send her out to the garden to gather chives and parsley. Later as she moved from Air Force base to Air Force base, her mother planted a garden of tomatoes at each temporary home. But it was her very own first garden in Atlanta, Georgia 13 years ago that inspired her to pursue a degree in Horticulture, focusing on vegetables and fruits. Stephanie now lives with her husband, three children (Oscar, Eleanor, and Benjamin), two dogs, an occasional rabbit, and a small flock of chickens in an in-town neighborhood of Decatur, GA, about 10 miles from downtown Atlanta. She splits her time between her job as the Executive Director of the Oakhurst Community Garden Project and staying home with her family. When she and her husband dug up the turf for their 50' x 75' garden ten years ago, they unearthed car parts, rocks, and granite curbing from the red clay soil. Since that time, they've improved the soil with manures, compost, and cover crops, and the property with various garden structures. In her southern garden, she can grow fresh food all year long, and always looks forward to lettuce in the fall, dark leafy greens in the winter, strawberries and blueberries in the summer, and tomatoes until mid-November. Michelle Zettel, zone 3 Challis, ID Michelle Zettel, a cool-weather, high-altitude, low-rainfall gardener, began gardening so that she could be sure that the food she was eating was chemical-free and healthful. With her husband, she operates a whitewater rafting company on the "Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness". Their plan is to produce enough to eventually feed all rafting guests with home-grown, organic produce. They recently purchased 50 acres with lots of cottonwood trees (a ready source of tomato stakes), and are building a house and planning gardens...while also running a business and raising two boys. "We have a very short growing season here, as it can frost here just about anytime during the summer, so you have to get an early start!" says Michelle. Severe weather is a fact of life in her location, and 2007 proved to be no exception, when a July hailstorm wiped out most of her plants. Still, Michelle persevered, and so did most of her test plants! Jackie Smith, zone 4 Belle Plaine, Minnesota Jackie Smith loves growing anything from seed, from native trees and shrubs to tasty tomatoes. Though her northern growing season is compressed, Jackie's garden space is expansive-she plans and plants twelve 25'x50' beds with a mix of annual flowers and vegetables. And that's not all. Her 100-acre property contains 5 acres of restored native prairie plants, groves of shade trees, perennial gardens, fruit trees, and container gardens. Her gardening experience is equally impressive. A subscriber to Organic Gardening for almost 35 years (and OG's 1987 Gardener of the Year) Jackie is no stranger to the process of growing and evaluating flowers and vegetables. She has evaluated mums for Yoder, compared hydrangeas for Consumer Reports, and now manages the Minnesota Vegetable Trials. Jackie's insatiable garden habit began when she moved from frigid North Dakota to relatively balmy southeastern Minnesota and, in an effort to see what would survive, planted a little of everything. Says Jackie, "One thing led to another and eventually I realized that I liked trying new varieties. It really was no longer important to find the "perfect" plant, so now I make a habit of trying many different vegetable and annual ornamental varieties each year." Caleb Melchior, zone 6 Perryville, Missouri For other people, the year 2000 marked the beginning of a new century. For Caleb Melchior it had a greater significance. "In the year 2000, I discovered that I was a gardener." Before that, Caleb claims, gardening was more of a chore than a joy. But in 2000 he and his father sowed a mix of wildflower seeds (one of those stale cans from a discount shop, called hummingbird mixture, or something equally promising, says Caleb) in a newly tilled bed. Nothing happened. So off they went to the local greenhouse to purchase plants. A Gardener was born. Windowsills filled with plants, the refrigerator with stratifying seeds. Caleb began devouring garden books, and garden beds began replacing his father's beloved lawns. Eventually, says our youngest tester, "I plan to go on to college for a degree in Landscape Architecture. But, for now, I'm content to live a life of gardening infatuation. I'm also the executive chef for our household of eleven." In a garden scattered over a windy hill 90 miles south of St. Louis, Caleb plants vegetables (both annual and perennial), woodland plants, flowers, and fruit trees. Winter is just cold enough to shut down lettuces, spinach, and pansies, and more than any other factor, the humid air influences the performance of his plants. "The only thing really predictable about our climate is that it's always unpredictable." Leslie Halleck, zone 8 Dallas, Texas Leslie Finical Halleck is crazy about growing vegetables, perennials and bulbs, organically of course, in her urban garden. Plenty of annual flowers also make their way into the family garden. Her husband Sean is obsessed with broccoli, thus she boasts about growing the biggest broccoli harvest in Dallas. A horticulturist by education and profession, Leslie spent her first couple of college years as an art student. After shifting gears, she received her B.S. in Biology/Botany from University of North Texas and then her M.S. in Horticulture from Michigan State. She started her gardening career in college at a little garden center called the Green Fiddler, Denton, Texas, while also running her own small gardening business. In 1998 she joined the Dallas Arboretum, first as Curator of Plants and then as Director of Horticulture Research, a joint position with Texas A&M University. Leslie's work at the Arboretum included creating a successful plant trials program as well as an All-America Selections Trial Garden, and serving as an AAS Judge. After moving on from the Arboretum, Leslie spent time writing and practicing garden design, then became the General Manager for North Haven Gardens, an independent garden center in Dallas, Texas. She's written for scientific, trade and popular garden publications, and continues to write for regional gardening publications and lecture on gardening topics. And when she's not gardening, or writing and talking about gardening, what does Leslie do? Draw, paint and create handmade silver jewelry-with botanical embellishments of course.
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