The Melda C. Snyder Teaching Garden

Gardening for Growth Garden

Gardening is the number one hobby in the US, with more than $25 billion in annual sales. Snyder Research and Extension Farm helps gardeners, homeowners, landscapers, and growers adapt farm strategies to lawns, landscapes, flower and vegetable plots. One lesson: residential drip irrigation can cut water use by 70 percent. In order to continue these lessons, a consumer horticulture outreach program was developed with a significant emphasis on meeting Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension's mission of "learn by doing." An overall advisory board was formed to make recommendations relative to this outreach program, focusing on the lessons available from a Teaching Garden.

Snyder Farm utilizes the expertise of local and regional faculty and staff of Rutgers Cooperative Research and Extension and trained Master Gardener volunteers in sharing their green thumbs through plant clinics, gardening demonstrations, field day programs and horticultural therapy workshops. These able volunteers assist researchers in field plot variety trials on everything from apples to basil to tomatoes, and also assist in harvesting and packing produce from these same trial plots, providing tons of fresh food to area food pantries and food banks.

There is much focus in the garden media on "heirloom" or "old-fashioned" plants, wildlife damage and deer-tolerant plantings, tomato culture and care, cover crops to enhance soils, perennials and annuals suitable for the area, to name a few. There is an increasing public demand for information on all of these as evidenced by availability in and demand from seed catalogs, nurseries, and garden centers. Through teaching garden plots that explore these and other issues, the gardening public now better understands the value of plant genetic diversity and its preservation, diversity in planting and species selection, the importance of plant breeding and development of hybrids for vigor, pest and disease resistance, and to survive wildlife pressure.

The overall program has been very successful in its outreach mission, utilizing the garden for small and large public events, and for in-services as Master Gardeners continue to hone their horticultural skills. Through the use of open houses, garden tours, twilight meetings, and the Annual Great Tomato Tasting event, thousands of New Jersey residents, consumers, and growers have and continue to benefit from Snyder Research and Extension Farm's consumer horticulture outreach efforts.