Learning from our mistakes

Last year's Nevada Appeal community garden on Beverly Drive was a mixed success at best. Cultivated largely by me, the Appeal Home and Garden editor, it was largely a learning experience.

The Community Gardens are just about opposite the new senior housing development and next to the Lone Star Cemetery. There are 18 plots, all the same size, on either side of a wide aisle. Three outlets provide water for the gardeners. The effort is by the University of Reno Cooperative Extension, and cost to local residents is $5 for a plot. Registration was completed in April and no plots are now available.

Rules are simple: No towering plants, such as corn, to shade adjoining plots. Put the watering hoses and garden tools away after use. No snitching veggies from someone else's plot. Keep the gate locked. And always remove weeds as soon as they come up.

ANOTHER SEASON

Well, there may not be a green thumb around this season, but with an 8-by-20-foot plot roughly graded, we brown thumbs are giving it another try. We've got more than three months to harvest something edible.

Based on last year's experience, we'll skip leeks - they take 150 days to mature, which would take us into October, by which time ski season would be near. Too bad; braised leeks are a delicious vegetable, as anyone in France would tell you.

We'll skip the Asian veggies as well; they grew nothing but tiny limp stalks. Eggplants were also a flop, but that was probably because they wound up in the shade of the tomato plants. But we'll pass on them, although they too are delicious in Chinese recipes.

What we'll go for first is tomatoes, everyone's favorite home-grown veggie. We bought five tomato plants already several inches high and we'll lead off with them. We also bought a tray of six beefsteak tomato plants just a few inches tall. Those will enjoy the head of the plot, which is accessible from either side. We'll use wire cages for the tomatoes right off; last season we waited until the plants were tall and busy and never did get the cages to sit right.

Last year's tomato crop started out nicely, but by autumn when the bulk of the plants bore fruit, it was almost all green, except for some yellow tomatoes which at first we thought were just not ripe but then found they were a yellow variety.

Thanks to news desk editor Angel Dey, we've got a lot of seeds this year. So we'll try carrots, spinach, beets and peas. We'd like to try arugula seeds (no such live plants anywhere to be found, but that's all right; they don't call arugula "rocket" for nothing. It burst into life in weeks and is a fine addition to any salad. We'll keep looking for seeds).

BETTER TECHNIQUES

This year we'll build small coffer dams around the base of the tomato plants to hold water in. We'll also mark the plantings with small, plastic spikes but add 6-inch wood markers as well. Things got a little confused last year when rains displaced the small markers.

Our plot is closer to the water this season, so we won't have to drag hoses around utility poles, which support the wires that cross the gardens. Last season we tried to water every other day, but this time we'll aim for three times a week. Thunderstorms helped with the watering last year; we can hope for more of the same.

OFFICE HELP

With luck and a bit of prodding we are hoping to involve the newsroom staffers to help out at times when we're on the road. Chiefly watering chores and later harvesting some of the produce.

What do we get out of the Appeal garden? More than food. In a very limited way, we get closer to our aboriginal ways as planters and gatherers. Not that we live or die by what we do, but that we get a small taste of what that dwindling number of family farms go through. And what the folks who supply our farmers markets must do to bring their production to us on Wednesdays.

And one other thing - we get to taste tomatoes that are ripe and delicious and squirty, so far much better than the red baseballs the supermarkets sell.

• Contact Sam Bauman at sbauman@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1236.