Vegetable
GardenThe Garden Research Exchange was formed in 1989 to publish research on garden vegetables. That is, to do for home gardeners what the academic journals do for professional horticulturalists.
Five volumes were published covering the period from 1990 to 1998. Early volumes benefited from the backlog of a few garden experimenters. When contributions dropped to a trickle, publication was discontinued. Nevertheless, the majority of these garden experiments won't go out of date so all issues have been kept in print and are still available.
Since most garden experimenters are amateurs, the standards for what constitutes valid research was a little more relaxed than the standards of academic journals. For the professional, the experiment is of primary importance and there is land dedicated to that experiment. For the amateur, the primary purpose of the vegetable garden is to supply fresh food and there may be other things that have a higher priority than research.
So home garden experiments are not going to be conducted with the same rigour as those done on research farms. Nevertheless it became apparent early on that there ought to be a distinction between experiments and informed observation. My rule of thumb was that if there is a control, then it is an experiment. Reports which lack a control or are just too casual to pass as science were put in the 'Observations' section. These do not have quite the same credibility as experiments but may be quite valuable as suggestions for other gardeners to try.
In the early stages of this project, I thought about standardizing spelling and measurements. I knew from the beginning that I wanted to pay as little heed as possible to national borders (I have more in common with gardeners in Arkansas, Utah and British Columbia than with many of my neighbours) so rather than settling on Canadian or U.S. conventions in spelling, I decided to accept, as is, the spelling of contributors.
There is a stronger argument for using metric measurements throughout — the world of science converted to metric years ago. Canada officially adopted metric more than two decades ago and there is now a generation of school children who think in metric. The adult population of Canada, however, grew up with the system of measurements that we inherited from the British (though they have abandoned it in favour of metric) and hence gardeners here, as in the USA, still tend to think in those units. I left measurements of contributors as is and inserted an occasional conversion.
For each experimenter, I gave the Plant Hardiness Zone (taken from the new USDA map) and length of longest day. The Zone number is not directly applicable to vegetable gardening because it is a measure of how cold it gets in winter. It does give some idea of how long the growing season is and what the chances are of late and early frosts.
A high Zone number in a northern latitude indicates a moderating influence which reduces the cold of winter, but probably also reduces the heat of summer. In the winter, Vancouver Island gets no colder than central Texas, but in the summer, it is one of the coolest places in Canada.
Experiments: Contributors were asked use the traditional format which divides the report into: Introduction, Method, Results, Discussion, Abstract.
Observations: This is the section for observations not backed up by measurements and compared with a control. The observations of an experienced gardener are always worth listening to and could inspire more formal experiments.
Breeding: This section was intended to act as a bulletin board where anyone interested in breeding could announce intentions as well as results.
Anyone new to seed saving should join one or both of the following:
Reviews: There is already an excellent publication devoted to combing scientific journals for items of interest to home gardeners: HortIdeas, 750 Black Lick Road, Gravel Switch, KY 40328, USA.
Every gardener who likes to read about gardening should subscribe. HortIdeas started in 1984 and Greg and Pat Williams have been maintaining a high standard from the beginning so garden experimenters should treat themselves to a full set of back issues.
The review section of VGR was not meant to compete with HortIdeas but to give special emphasis to an occasional book or article.
Each Vegetable Garden Research yearbook has 50 to 60 pages of experiments, observations and background material. The titles from the table of contents of the yearbooks are given below.
A single copy of Vegetable Garden Research is $12 Canadian in Canada and $12 US in the USA or overseas. When ordering more than one volume, additional volumes ordered at the same time are $10 each.
Ken Allan,
Garden Research Exchange,
61 South Bartlett St,
Kingston, Ont,
K7K 1X3.
e-mail: allan@cogeco.ca