Week #3

This week in the world of vegetable gardening, one of my TAs, Matt Mattia gave a lecture on crop improvement and genetics. He discussed the origin of agricultural villages and plant domestication that took place 9000-8000 BCE. Now in modern agriculture, there are two form of plant improvement. You can improve a plant naturally based on which plants have better means for survival. Artificial improvement may also be used to yield crops that have more valuable characteristics. Growers are often looking to improve their crops to have a larger or tastier yield, increase resistance to pests, increase forage quality, and generate greater tolerance to minerals or environmental stress. We learned that if you mix two parent plants with different favorable characteristics, a new better hybrid plant can spawn. With hybrid plants, it is difficult to save seeds for the next growing season due to the rarity of the hybrid growing the same as before.

              After learning about crop improvement, our instructor, Libby Rens, explained that some of our crops had already sprouted. She said that we needed to be aware of any threat of pests so that we could handle the problem sooner rather than later.

The first thing I did when I visited my garden was weed my four beds. I also got to use a garden rake for the first time! I used the rake to clean up the alleys in between my beds.

Cucumber

Zucchini

Squash

Sunflowers

Zinnias

Provider, Royal Burguny, and Lima Beans

           Last week I was shorted Maxibel Bean seeds. Matt gave me some lima bean seeds to experiment with. I was extremely happy because I love lima beans, I just hoped they would grow alright. When I visited my garden, the first thing I looked for were my lima beans. But much to my dismay, I found that some pests had been enjoying my lima beans! How rude! Until Week 4, my fellow gardeners.