Gardening

A total of ten commercially available hybrid or open-pollinated, red, medium to large fruited tomato varieties will be evaluated at each garden or farm. They will be planted in three blocks per site with one to two plants per block, for a minimum of 30 plants per site (3 blocks x 10 varieties x 1 plant minimum per variety per block) and up to 60 plants per site. Gardeners/farmers at each site will act as co-researchers. They will help project staff lay out and plant the tomato plants. They will maintain the plantings over the course of the summer, watering and staking the plants as necessary and keeping a record of inputs such as fertilizer. Gardeners/farmers will also help evaluate the performance of the plants. They will participate in a brief training on evaluation procedures and will record their weekly observations on any disease or insect infestations and other evaluation criteria of interest on a standardized, illustrated evaluation form. At least once a week, they will also harvest and weigh separately the fruit from each plant and report the weight on the evaluation form. Weekly text and email messages will remind co-researchers to collect project data. The project will provide all materials, including organically grown plants in 3-4” pots, stakes, forms, and scale for weighing production. Gardeners/farmers will have the opportunity to participate in workshops sponsored by the project on seed saving and plant selection and breeding techniques and will also receive a $200 honorarium.

Note too that we’ll be characterizing the physical environment at each garden/farm by taking soil samples, measuring the amount of light the site receives, and recording air and soil temperatures throughout the growing season using small automatic data loggers.