A Gardener's Education

Recently I received word that my GrowVeg blog won a Silver Award of Achievement from the Garden Writer's Association – a huge honor for me, the GrowVeg organization, and also for you, for asking smart questions that keep me on my toes. "I suppose this means you know it all now," a friend teased, but this is not true. That very morning, in response to a reader's question, I had spent an hour researching whether or not onions suppress the growth of peas and beans planted after them in the same soil. It turns out that they do, by exuding substances from their roots which have herbicidal effects on some plants, particularly legumes. This explains why I can never get a good stand of beans when I sow them into beds from which garlic and onions have just been harvested. Cucumber family crops and leafy greens grow fine, so they must not be sensitive to the onion effect.

But back to the award, the entry for which consisted of three blogs published during 2012. Rather than choosing the most popular ones, I chose stories that represent the diversity of topics we cover here. Growing Better Beans is a concise summary of practical tips for growing garden beans. Permaculture Principles for Vegetable Gardeners is more visionary, and uses a wider lens for its garden focus. For the third one I was torn between The Welcome Sounds of Crickets Chirping and Pleasing Garden Bees, which explore garden entomology, one of my personal passions. Ultimately I chose the crickets, and so did the judges.

But what did the judges really choose? My writing (thank you!), but I also think it was about the excellent gardening education we have going on here. GrowVeg is unique for its coverage of practical food gardening for a global readership -- an ongoing international conversation on edible gardening in which I take a turn as the teacher/moderator. After four years I know some of you by name, and your knowledge and experience pushes me to do better. It's one thing to let down strangers, another to shortchange friends.

In terms of subject matter, it's also very right yet amazing that the judges chose food gardening over landscape gardening, not just in the blog category (my co-winner Theresa Loe blogs at Living Homegrown) but in others, too. In the calendar photography competition, the win went to Lynn Karlin's "Simply Raw" vegetable calendar, in which the colors, curves and shadows of vegetables are celebrated in gallery-quality studio images. She generously shared use of the photos you see here.

My, how times have changed. When I got started in garden writing, nobody wanted to talk about vegetables. We food gardeners were a fringe group, and there was little demand for articles or books on growing organic veggies. For a decade or so I had to fake my way into the ranks of the "real" garden writers and compose glowing prose on designing colorful borders or landscaping your swimming pool, but it paid the bills and became part of my gardener's education. I learned the simplest-ever tip for taking garden photographs on a sunny day (use a white umbrella), had a lengthy love affair with bulbs, and mastered the basics of landscape design.

This aspect of my gardener's education has proven essential, whether I'm writing about keeping chickens or growing calendulas. I want and expect food gardens to be beautiful and productive, and I want this viewpoint to rub off on you. After all, the best measure of the value of my work will always be found in your gardens.

Photos by Lynn Karlin.

By Barbara Pleasant