2018 ASHS Annual Conference

Edible gardening is an important part of consumer horticulture because of its potential to improve human well-being through physical activity and food provision. Additionally, recent increases in food gardening participation have included younger generations and first-time gardeners across the rural to urban continuum. With participation in food gardening estimated to be one-third of households nationwide, the stakeholder audience is both wide and diverse. The selection of crops and care of home gardens are frequent questions for Extension educators. Questions related to variety selection for the home garden are particularly challenging to answer due to a lack of geographically pertinent data. The time and expense of managing cultivar trials, reduced funding for consumer horticulture research, and the wide range of growing conditions across the highly varied geographical regions of Tennessee create significant hurdles for researchers trying to answer the question, “which variety should I grow in my home garden?” A collaborative approach between researchers and citizens may hold the key to addressing these challenges. In 2017, a home garden vegetable trial program was established to evaluate home vegetable crops and cultivars across the state. This trial took a citizen scientist approach and provided home gardeners the opportunity to evaluate variety performance at their own sites across the gardening environments represented in Tennessee. Participants were allowed to choose from a selection of paired variety comparisons in a number of different vegetable categories. Seeds and instructions were mailed to participants who then grew the trials and returned evaluation data on key characteristics such as germination, yield, appearance, and flavor. In the pilot year, participation was limited to 15 counties. From these 15 counties, 47 citizen scientists put out a total of 247 trials. In addition to producing previously unavailable information on variety performance in Tennessee, this project has provided an opportunity for Extension to directly engage citizens; increasing knowledge of vegetable gardening, encouraging physical activity and healthy eating, and expanding knowledge of the scientific process within the stakeholder audience.