It has been quite the ride since I posted our first look at garden plans for this year, hasn’t it? So many things have changed, and likely many others will before it is all said and done. Because our face-to-face programming is suspended for the time being, we have been thinking about how to adjust our garden for the summer to accommodate the safety of our staff, volunteers, and the public. At the same time, we know that many new gardeners are seeking information on how to start and maintain a successful vegetable garden, and that access to fresh, healthy food is more important now than ever. (And it has always been important!)

Because most of our early spring planting was eliminated, with the exception of plants that we already had ready to go, we have re-planned chunks of the garden to change those plans. We also had several parts of the garden that were planned to be more novelties, ornamental, or trials of things that we didn’t know quite how they were going to perform. In order to best fulfill our educational mission and serve our broader community, we have eliminated the majority of those types of plantings from the garden, and will instead replace them with the following:

• Extra tomato and pepper plants that we had started already.
• Beans, squash, and other common, generally productive vegetables that we had available.
• Additional plantings of varieties we have grown in the past, had leftover seed in stock, and knew were going to be productive to replace trial varieties that were less likely to perform well.

Some of the things that we have maintained include:

• Planting the square beds (8, 9, and 10) to perennial fruit plants. If you look at the pic above, you can see the dwarf apple in the front and the blackberries and raspberries growing in bed 9.
• Vertical gardening / trellises to grow lots of cucumbers, melons, and other things throughout the garden.
• The tomato trials of recent All America Selections winners.
• Lots of different colors of veggies!

An additional change, along with planting varieties that emphasize productivity, is that we will be donating significantly more of the produce to those in need. Most years, a large portion of our produce is used for educational programming – for our Master Gardeners or others in the community, and extra produce has been donated. This year the primary focus of our garden will be to donate to those in need as a food bank garden.

As always, we look forward to growing and learning along with you! You might also be interested in joining our new, Victory Garden 101 Facebook Group to engage in more conversations and learning about vegetable gardening. What changes have you made to your garden plans due to the pandemic?