Grow and Tell with Us!

Every year, the Orleans County Master Gardeners participate in Cornell’s Vegetable Variety Trial Garden program, which evaluates how different herbs and vegetables grow across New York state. We look at their growth, the amount produced, their taste, and other observations, and report back to Cornell.

This year we are starting something new, a program we’re calling Grow and Tell. We are offering the extra plants and seeds from our trial gardens to the public, in hopes of them being grown and information shared along the way.  We are hoping this will allow for these varieties to be grown in more than one place, so that we can share more feedback from home gardeners. All of our reports go back to Cornell, which uses them to create the Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners database. 

This year’s area of focus is the Mediterranean, and we will be planting 15 different varieties throughout the trial gardens. Some we will start early and plant as seedlings, while others will be direct-sown. They include:

Seedlings:

• Eggplant ‘Listada di Gandia’
• Lettuce ‘Reine de Glaces’
• Bell pepper ‘Keystone Giant’
• Hot pepper ‘Hot Portugal’
• Tomato ‘Cesare’s Canestrino di Lucca’
• Tomato ‘Firminio’s Plum’
• Fennel ‘Florence’
• Zucchini ‘Cocozelle’
• Basil ‘Italian Large Leaf’
• Parsley ‘Gigante d’Italia’

Direct-sow seeds:

• Carrot ‘Scarlet Nantes’
• Onion ‘Red Long of Tropea’
• Raab ‘Spring Broccoli’
• Dandelion ‘Garnet Stem’
• Tillage radish cover crop

We’re hoping for 12 home gardeners to join us this year. The plants and direct-sow seeds will be available around late May, and participants can choose any or all of the varieties to try in their home gardens. Depending on availability, though, participants may not be able to get one of every plant.

We will be planting our trial gardens in late May or early June, depending on the weather. 

Throughout the season, we’ll be in touch regularly with our home growers to pass along pointers, and we’ll work right along with everyone who’s growing with us. 

We also plan to be available once a week at our trial gardens on the grounds at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Orleans County in Albion, so anyone can come to see how our gardens look, what’s growing and what we have to offer, as we always have plenty for others to try.

If you’re interested in participating in Grow and Tell or would like to know more, please email orleansmg [at] cornell.edu (orleansmg[at]cornell[dot]edu) or call (585) 798-4265 ext. 125 and provide your name and email address.