Book Recommendation:   Crockett's Victory Garden

When I first became a Master Gardener, I used to spend a lot of time in the Cooperative Extension's  office staffing its gardener's hotline.  One of the frequent questions I dealt with, in addition to "what can I do about deer," was "I want to start a garden. How should I start?"  My usual answer included  a recommendation that the caller look for a copy of Crockett's Victory Garden (Little Brown, & Co, 1977) in a used bookstore or to try to borrow a copy from a friend or the local library.

For years James Underwood Crockett hosted a popular PBS TV show that instructed gardeners about what to do month by month through the  year. Eventually, he published a book that closely followed the show's scripting. Crocket's show originated from Boston, a milder climate than most of Rensselaer County; and he was not particularly organic, but his demonstrations and practical advise still can serve the beginner.


The book covers both popular vegetables and ornamentals (i.e. flowers and  plants used in landscaping).Each chapter covers a month and starts  with  to do lists for what to plant, transplant, seeds to start, plants to thin and other miscellaneous activities. The next section deals with caring for specific plants and includes many diagrams and illustrations relating  to topics such as pruning, grafting, and dividing.  A Q&A section completes each chapter. 

Prospective gardeners, I think,  now are more organically oriented than Crockett was 40 years ago; and the climate in Rensselaer county is a bit warmer than what is shown in Crockett's growing zone map  and the accompanying vegetable  growing chart  in the back of his book.  That said, here is a little digression on the topic of a "growing season."

A  "growing season" is commonly associated with the average dates of last and first frosts that delineate the span of time plants have to complete their annual growth cycles.   Other factors   affecting the length of a growing season also include rainfall patterns, moisture and light levels, and soil and atmospheric temperatures.

With respect to Crockett's book, I usually advise people that most of Rensselaer County  probably runs 10 to 12 days behind Boston's growing season. Historically,  the length of the growing season  in much of Rensselaer County has been about 150 days running between mid-May and mid-October. Recent data  compiled and summarized by NYS Dept. of Environmental Conservation reports that in much of New York, spring now arrives eight days earlier than in 1970 and the state is 2.4°F warmer, but that does not mean that the last frost necessarily occurs now  in early May.  Home gardeners wanting to get a head start on the growing season need to remember, as a minimum, to check  the projected weather forecasts for their locales.

Anyway,  I would like to hear about other books gardeners would recommend to people just getting started with growing vegetables. 

Root Concerns - A Horticultural Newsletter

Root Concerns, a gardening newsletter produced by the Cornell Cooperative Extensions of Rensselaer, Albany, and Schenectady Counties, is distributed free via email. Issues usually cover a potpourri of topics from A (as in A Horizon, the top level of soil) to Z (as in zygopetalum, a type of orchid).

The current issue,  January - February, 2018, of Root Concerns includes articles about mums (i.e.  chrysanthemums) recently exhibited at the Smith College Botanic Garden's greenhouse in Northampton, MA; a reminiscence on a Christmas cactus; selecting seeds to grow;  starting vegetables indoors; making gourd birdhouses; a short history of corn and even more.

To subscribe to the newsletter just register with Marcie Mohnoutka via  mmp74@cornell.edu at the  Rensselaer County Cooperative Extension.

You can also peruse the archive of  back issues from a link in the  Related Resources list located on the  right side of the blog.  

Vegetable Varieties for Gardens (VVfG) Program

VVTG is a project from Cornell for its Cooperative Extension programs with demonstration  vegetable gardens that collects information about vegetables of interest to home gardeners.  The results are compiled in a database, and the selected vegetables ultimately appear in Cornell's Selected List of Garden Varieties for Gardeners in New York State.  However, participation in the VVTG program is not restricted to Master Gardeners.  Anyone may share their vegetable gardening experiences by going to the VVTG website, creating an account and submiting reports.  Gardeners contributing information get to see the detailed ratings and other gardener's  comments about particular vegetable varities.

For 2018 Rensselaer County's Master Gardeners will again participate in VVTG at its Demonstration Garden located on Route 146 at the Robert C. Parker School in North Greenbush.

Our efforts will be divided among those master gardeners who chose to grow plants suggested by Cornell and those  who want to grow other varieties for comparative purposes.  Our experiences throughout the growing season will appear in the blog.

Two Gardens in Winter

Today I visited the Master Gardeners' Demonstration Garden's vegetable beds at the Robert C. Parker School in North Greenbush.  The thin covering of undisturbed snow on the beds within the fencing seemed to reinforce the orderliness of the garden's appearance mitigating an otherwise rather barren landscape.  Last October my Master Gardener colleagues had set the stage for my perception by removing the last remnent vegetables and weeds to the compost pile and planting garlic.  Looking at this garden now on this cold day, I know it's waiting and ready to start again.

And then there is my own backyard garden in Troy...  The fencing looks similar to the Demo's garden,  but that's about all.

I did prepare some of my beds for winter, and I did put some garlic in the ground.  I did not winterize all of my beds because I kept telling myself that the weather would stay mild a little longer letting me  harvest a little more kale, a few more scallions and a bit more  parsley.  Although the weather did stay mild for quite a while, when it turned cold, it really turned cold.  Fortunately, that first cold snap did not linger long enough to freeze the ground  to prohibit me from planting my garlic.

I used to follow the advice in gardening books and set garlic between September and October, but I stopped this practice after noticing the milder  temperatures of recent years were causing the garlic to start sprouting.  Garlic will start growing in soils at 50°F. In theory, the cloves will first develop roots;  and when the soil cools below 50°F,  any sprout development stops and the cloves go dormant. Now, I generally set out my garlic near the end of November or a little later and use a little extra mulch to keep the soil cool in case of one final warm snap. This approach seems to be working.

Regarding my garden fencing, it has evolved over the years.  Forty years ago when I first moved to Troy, I just used 24" chicken wire around each bed to keep out a few rabbits and our first dog who definitely lacked vegetarian taste buds.  The next dog was different, a yellow lab possessing strong omnivorous compulsions. He loved bush beans, peas, carrots, lettuce, raspberries - everything I liked.  I installed 36" high fencing around the entire garden to discourage him.  Fortunately, he never jumped over  or dug under it. A few years later after our dog had passed away, I came home from a short vacation to find the lettuce bed neatly mowed.  Woodchucks had arrived in the neighborhood.  No one on our block had dogs anymore, or kids, to annoy these pests.  Consequently, I installed my current fence to meet these new conditions.  Woodchucks remain in area, but have been excluded from my garden; and although I now see an occasional deer in my backyard,  so far they have not jumped the fence.

Why Is Another Gardening Blog Needed?

There is certainly no shortage of information about vegetable gardening or really about anything else available from the Internet.  Seed companies, nurseries, garden clubs etc. all do provide useful information about growing vegetables; but, like politics,  growing conditions are determined by local factors and can require local accommodation.

As Master Gardeners, we want to assist both the experienced backyard gardener who may be encountering a new pest and the beginning gardener who may be wondering what is the best tomato or bush bean to grow in Rensselaer County.  We hope this blog will enable us to reach out more effectively to more of these gardeners.

As the seasons progress, this blog will attempt to be a collectivelty authored garden journal as we  share some of  our personal gardening activities, record our progress at the Extension's vegetable plot of the Demonstation Garden located on Route 43 in front of the Robert C. Parker School in North Greenbush, and discuss environmental and other horticultural factors.