Persistent wildfire smoke is new for Maryland gardeners. Experts seem to agree that smoke and ash do not pose a health risk for garden produce. Smoke diffuses sunlight but will probably not significantly reduce the total amount of light for photosynthesis. We have not heard/seen any reports of gardeners picking up smoky flavors in harvested greens or other vegetables or fruits.
Wash all produce prior to eating it raw or cooking with it
Wear an N-95 quality mask when working outside on days when wildfire smoke worsens air quality
Hose off plants if a noticeable soot layer develops from prolonged, intense smoke
Wildfire smoke has been shown to boost the levels of ozone and other air pollutants which can injure plants. Watermelon, squash, pumpkin, beans, and potato are especially vulnerable to high ozone levels (above 75 ppb).
Drought and damaging storms
Wildfire smoke interfered with weather patterns and likely contributed to cooler and drier weather across much of the state.
Mid-May through June:
Lower average temperatures
75% of state in moderate drought on July 3rd
Slow start for warm-season crops
July:
High heat and humidity
Spotty rainfall
Insect and disease issues increasing
The Maryland Department of the Environment announced a Drought Watch on July 10, encouraging voluntary reduction in residential water use.
Food gardeners are an important part of any local food system. In Achieving Sustainability through Local Food Systems in the United States (PDF) (2013), agricultural economists Dale Johnson and James Hanson, Ph.D. state: “By far the greatest, but often overlooked, local food source in the United States is gardening.”
About 35% of Maryland households are doing some type of food gardening and have lots of important questions: What’s this worm eating my kale? How do I improve my soil and test it for lead? How do I start a school garden? Where can I take a vegetable gardening class?
Since 2009 many residents and communities have received science-based food gardening answers and help from Grow It Eat It (GIEI)– one of the six major sub-programs of the University of Maryland Extension (UME) Master Gardener Program that teaches and promotes home, school, and community food gardening. This article serves to introduce this amazing program and some of its successes. I plan to write a second article later this year on some of the exciting 2023 GIEI projects from around the state.
What is GIEI?
Grow It Eat It was developed late in 2008 by UME staff, faculty, and volunteers in response to the Great Recession. Many people were already interested in trying their hand at food gardening as a way to eat more fresh produce and connect with nature. The economic collapse forced folks to find ways to reduce household expenses.
The main GIEI objective has been to increase local food production by combining the power of grassroots education and technical assistance delivered by field faculty and Master Gardeners, with UME’s digital gardening resources. Master Gardeners (MGs) have taught hundreds of classes, developed demonstration gardens, and helped thousands of individuals and groups start food gardens and learn and use best practices. Residents can learn about GIEI classes and events by visiting their local Extension web pages and connecting on social media. MGs also help residents solve food gardening problems at Ask a MG Plant Clinics around the state. The Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) supports GIEI by training MGs, creating and maintaining digital resources, and answering food gardening questions through the Ask Extension service.
GIEI intersects and collaborates with other MG sub-programs– Bay-Wise Landscaping, Ask a MG Plant Clinic, Composting, and Pollinators– and with UME’s nutrition, natural resources, youth development, and urban ag programs. This helps the program address four of the five Strategic Initiatives guiding the College of Ag & Natural Resources.
As the faculty lead, I have loved every minute spent working with UME faculty, staff, and volunteers to shape, improve and expand the program. Master Gardener Coordinators and Volunteers decide how to best shape GIEI to meet local needs. The State MG Office organizes regular GIEI statewide planning/sharing meetings and continuing education classes, and provides seeds, teaching, and marketing materials. MGs responded to the pandemic by moving GIEI classes online. GIEI projects and activities steadily increased in 2021 and 2022 and should surpass pre-COVID levels in 2023.
75K seed packets have been distributed to residents to promote food gardening and the UME MG Program. Sunflower and bean seeds in 2023!
I am very excited that 2023 is the “Year of Sweet Potatoes” for Grow It Eat It, the statewide food gardening program run by University of Maryland Extension (UME) Master Gardener (MG) Volunteers.
This member of the morning glory family is an amazing and nutritious vegetable crop. Plants grow rapidly with minimal care and produce edible new shoots and leaves and delicious roots that can be stored through the fall and winter.
Graphic design: Steph Pully
The Growing Sweet Potatoes in a Home Garden webpage has the detailed information you need for success. I’m sharing some tips in this article that I hope will further entice you to join the fun!
Getting started
Pick a full-sun location.
Use a garden fork, spade, or tiller to loosen the top 10-12 inches of soil
Mix compost into the soil prior to planting
Space plants 1 foot apart in the row or 2 feet apart in each direction if planting in a wide bed
Stick a flag or marker in the ground next to each plant so you’ll know where to dig when it’s time to harvest
Varieties and plants (“slips”)
Georgia Jet, Centennial, O’Henry, Murasaki, Beauregard, and Covington are some recommended varieties. Vardaman, and Bunch (Bush) Puerto Rico have compact vines and take up less space
Sweet potato plants produce few flowers and little or no viable seed. They are propagated year-to-year by sprouts (baby plants aka “slips”) that grow from stored sweet potatoes
Graphic design: Steph PullyThis small container produced enough “slips” for several gardens. The Start and Multiply Sweet Potatoes video shows you how to grow your own “slips” in 5-6 weeks. Photo: Jon TraunfeldThis baby plant, pulled from a mother sweet potato, is ready to plant in the garden. It’s already developing a root system! Photo: Jon Traunfeld
General growing tips
Water young plants 1-2 times per week if rain is lacking
Fertilize as needed; soils high in organic matter may not need to be fertilized
Control weeds the first month after planting. Vines will grow rapidly and shade out weeds
Vines can be trimmed back 20-30% without significantly reducing the harvest
Use new leaves and shoots fresh in salads or in soups, stir-fries, omelettes, etc.
Sweet potatoes have fewer pests and diseases than most other garden crops! Fence out deer and groundhogs and check the enlarging roots for vole (meadow mouse) feeding.
Sweet potatoes grow well in containers, including fabric bags as shown in this photo. I usually suggest planting one plant in a 10-gallon although a co-worker recently told me she harvested around five pounds of sweet potatoes from a 5-gallon bucket! Photo: Jon TraunfeldSave space by training vines to grow vertically. These sweet potato plants growing on a bamboo trellis at the UME Master Gardener Learning Garden at the Maryland State Fair. Photo: Jon TraunfeldThis large Korean sweet potato, also called chestnut sweet potato because of its nutty flavor, is my favorite to grow and eat. They are very productive, store very well, and have a firm texture, making them more versatile in the kitchen than most other varieties. Photo: Jon Traunfeld
Harvesting tips
Sweet potatoes are ready to harvest 85-120 days after planting (depends on variety)
Storage roots don’t stop growing. Check for size when plants reach their expected harvest date.
Harvest roots as soon as they reach eating size and before a frost. Roots can crack and become woody when overgrown
Loosen the soil about 1 foot from the base of the plant. Use your hands to find and lift the roots
Treat them with tender care. Gently remove excess soil; don’t wash!
Newly dug storage roots curing in mid-September on my porch. Photo: Jon Traunfeld
Curing and storage tips
Curing improves the flavor, quality, and longevity of harvested roots. It toughens the skin, heals cuts, bruises and scrapes, and promotes the conversion of starches to sugars
Commercial sweet potatoes are cured for 7-14 days at 85⁰ F and 90% RH. One week of curing during warm, humid weather in a protected, outdoor location is helpful. Don’t worry if that’s not possible. Your sweet potatoes will still be sweet and tasty
Store sweet potatoes in a cool, humid location – basements work well
Use slatted crates, baskets, or cardboard boxes. Fill only 2-3 layers deep
Check for and remove spoiled roots
Sweet potatoes being stored for the winter. Roots that were accidentally cut during harvest have healed over. Photo: Jon Traunfeld
Small fruits give you lots to eat, Tree fruits often spell defeat.
I am 100% pro-fruit! I would love to see more fruit plants of all types grown across Maryland. But it saddens me to see gardeners become frustrated and disenchanted with fruit growing because their first attempt was with apples or peaches.
A National Gardening Association survey showed that 41% of U.S. households grew edibles in 2021, a 24% increase since the start of the COVID pandemic. Many new vegetable gardeners naturally see fruits as their “next frontier.” Most vegetable crops are annual plants while all fruit plants are perennials, living year-to-year in the same garden space for years and requiring year-round attention. You need to up your game for fruit growing.
My advice for the fruit-curious gardener is to start off with some of the small fruits that are well-adapted to Maryland’s climate and soils. Strawberry, blueberry, raspberry, blackberry, grape, and currants get their generic “small fruits” name because the plants and their fruits are small relative to tree fruits. Apple, European pear, peach, cherry, plum, and apricot are all popular tree fruits in the Rosaceae (rose) family. They also grow well in Maryland and many people plant or inherit them without fully understanding their requirements and challenges. As a result, we get a ton of tree fruit problem questions every growing season through Ask Extension.
‘Shawnee’ blackberry plant fruitingBlueberry fruit ripening (Photos from Ask Extension)
If you had your heart set on planting apple and peach trees this year, please put down the mail-order catalog or close the browser window showing an everyday gardener picking bushels of fruit from a pristine apple tree and consider this:
Small fruits are less expensive to buy and maintain and take up less garden space. Even dwarf apple fruit trees can take up 75 sq. ft. of space.
Small fruit plants are easier to incorporate into a home landscape. They are also easier to prune and manage and to remove if they don’t work out or eventually succumb to old age or disease. (Mature grape plants with their massive root systems are the exception). Removal of a fruit tree can be costly.
It’s easy to overcrowd a part of your yard with fruit trees by planting them too close to each other, to structures, or to other trees in the landscape. Shading leads to poor growth, pest and disease issues, and low yields.
Fruit trees need to be trained and pruned in a careful and timely manner, especially in the first 3-4 years. Small fruits tend to be more forgiving regarding training and pruning.
Yes, small fruits have plenty of potential pests and diseases but they can be grown organically with very good success. Some problems can be tolerated, like the fuzzy gray mold fungus that attacks strawberry, raspberry, and blackberry fruits in wet weather. Others can be prevented or managed through good gardening practices (like proper spacing and pruning) or applying an organic pesticide (like spraying lime sulfur in early spring to reduce disease pressure).
Tree fruits, conversely, have more insect pests and diseases that are more difficult to prevent and manage without synthetic pesticides. Trees must be monitored more closely for signs and symptoms of problems. Even if you spray effective pesticides at the correct time, you can end up with poor control if your sprayer is not capable of covering the entire tree including the tops and bottoms of the leaves. Multiple applications are usually needed to control the major pests and diseases.
Our society wastes food at every point in the food chain from farms and gardens to home kitchens, restaurants, supermarkets, food service companies, and large institutions like universities that feed thousands of people daily. Last December I was astonished to lean about the extent of food waste at the MD Food Recovery Summit organized by the Maryland Department of the Environment.
Surplus food is the term used to describe unsold and unused food, like crops that don’t go to market because prices are too low, perishable items tossed into supermarket dumpsters, and groceries and restaurant meals bought and not eaten.
In 2019:
35% of all U.S. food went unsold or unused
23% of all surplus food is fruits and vegetables
Only 15% of Maryland’s 900K+ tons of food waste was recycled
Why it’s a problem:
Huge economic and environmental costs of producing surplus food
1 in 6 U.S. residents are food insecure. Surplus food can feed hungry people
Surplus food is the #1 landfill material (24% of landfill space)
Food waste in landfills generates methane, a potent greenhouse gas that can trap 28X as much heat/mass unit as CO2
The value of wasted food at the consumer level is $161 billion/year
Food scrap collection at Maryland Day event at UM/College Park campus. Photo credit: Jon TraunfeldContinue reading →
Cover crops are so important for improving soil and protecting the environment that it’s public policy in Maryland to use federal funding to subsidize farmers to plant them. Nearly ½ a million acres across the state are enrolled in Maryland’s Cover Crop Program. Cover crops protect Maryland’s farm fields from soil loss over the winter and scavenge the soil for the fertilizer nutrients that weren’t used by corn and soybean crops and might have moved into groundwater and surface water.
Cover crops are typically planted from late August through October and include grasses like winter rye, winter wheat, barley, and oats and legumes like crimson clover and hairy vetch. Plants in the legume family, together with special soil bacteria, transform nitrogen from air into a plant-available form. Tillage radish (a type of daikon radish) and other plants are also grown as cover crops.
Cover crops improve soil health and help make soils more resilient to the climate crisis. They
increase soil organic matter and carbon sequestration by feeding soil microbes with sugars and other root exudates
improve soil structure and the strength of soil aggregates which lowers erosion risks
increase water holding capacity which allows crops to withstand drought better
Cover crops use the sun’s energy (when food crops aren’t growing) to produce biomass- roots, shoots, and leaves. The cover crops are killed in the spring. Nutrients in the decomposing plants are eventually available for uptake by the roots of the vegetables and flowers we plant. This reduces the need for synthetic fertilizers, whose production requires fossil fuels.
What’s good for ag soils is also good for garden soils! 2022 is the Year of Soil Health for Grow It Eat It, the food gardening program of the UME Master Gardener program. This infographic by Jean Burchfield introduces the idea of planting cover crops, a key practice in building healthy soils:
UME Master Gardeners distributed 5,000 crimson clover seed packets for residents to plant in flower and vegetable beds this fall.
Nothing causes that sinking feeling like walking into the garden and seeing one or more tomato plants wilting. Not just some lower leaves that are yellowing, curling, or drying up from leaf spot diseases. No, I’m talking about healthy green leaves and stems that start to go limp. Oftentimes, this spells the beginning of the end for the affected plant(s) so it’s important to figure out what’s causing the wilting symptom. Even if you lose one or more plants this year you’ll want to prevent a recurrence next year. UME’s Home & Garden Information Center seems to be getting more tomato wilt questions this year than usual.
Wilting may indicate that roots or stems are injured, soil moisture has been too high or too low, or that the vascular tissue directly below the epidermis (skin) of tomato stems is blocked up with fungal or bacterial pathogens. Plants with disease-caused wilt should be removed. Here are some possible causes for wilted tomato plants in Maryland.
Fusarium wilt– this disease is caused by a soil-dwelling fungus. Lower leaves turn yellow and leaves and stems begin to wilt, often on one side of the plant. Leaves may revive overnight. Cutting affected stems lengthwise with a razor blade (directly below the surface) will reveal brown discoloration or streaking. The disease rarely infects all of the tomato plants in a row or a bed.
This fungus can survive in the soil for years even if the tomato is not grown in that location. One solution is to grow resistant varieties- look for those that are resistant to at least two of the three known races of fusarium wilt. Example:
Another option is to grow tomato plants in containers filled with compost and soilless growing media. Don’t set the containers on the garden soil that had the fusarium wilt problem last year.
