BACK-YARD RESEARCH
Turn a garden into an experimental facility, including scientific study, gardening experiments.
SEASONS OF THE GARDEN
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Learn from your own homegrown lab.
By Greg and Pat Williams
IT SEEMS THAT FEW PEOPLE SHARE our belief that back-yard
gardeners should be encouraged to do amateur research.
After all, there is a pervasive mythology about the
difficulties of conducting scientific investigation: It is
supposed to be expensive, time-consuming, dangerous, boring
and esoteric—in short, best left to
specialists.
Of course, some scientific work is hardly
appropriate for amateurs (particle physics, for example),
but many horticultural experiments are inexpensive, safe
and anything but boring. The results of such experiments
can lead to substantial savings of time and money, as well
as tastier produce and more-attractive landscapes. And for
a variety of reasons (including funding limitations), these
experiments aren't likely to be done by professional
researchers—so if they are carried out at all, it
will be by amateurs.
Homegrown horticultural research also offers one enormous
advantage over reliance on professionals: The results apply
directly to you. The soil type is your soil type, the
cultivars used are ones you're interested in, the weather
conditions are yours, and so forth. And one of the most
delightful aspects is that (when experiments are designed
and performed in a reasonable way) there are no "wrong"
results, only results that might differ from previous
expectations—thus enabling you to correct those
expectations in accordance with the actual ways of the
world.
The North American Fruit Explorers (membership $8 annually
from NAFEX, Rt. 1, Box 94, Chapin, IL 62628) is perhaps the
best current example of an association of amateur
horticultural researchers. Their quarterly, Pomona
, is filled with reports of members' experiments, along
with suggestions for additional studies. And Improve
Your Gardening with Backyard Research by Lois Levitan
(Rodale Press, 1980) is the reference for beginners on how
to design, set up and perform horticultural experiments.
It's currently out of print but might be available through
your local public library.
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