Commodity Teams

Now that we’ve announced the winners of the tomato sandwich slicer showdown and your plants are taking off, it’s time to address our first tomato gardening issue: supporting unwieldy tomato plants through staking and pruning. For the best chance at productive plants with healthy fruit, University of Georgia Cooperative Extension consumer horticulturalist Bob Westerfield urges home gardeners to invest in providing plants a strong support structure all season long. “No other vegetable comes close to bearing as much produce in such a limited space,” Westerfield said.

Not everyone likes the look of a traditional vegetable garden — or has the space for one. Maybe you already grow vegetables and want to integrate more edible plants into your existing landscape. Either way, edible landscaping offers an attractive and practical solution to planting out your yard. Edible landscaping is the practice of incorporating food-producing plants into ornamental garden spaces, following basic landscape design principles.

The Heirloom Collards Project is a nationwide, community-driven effort to preserve and evolve heirloom collard varieties through seed saving, education and collaborative research. The University of Georgia College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences has joined the effort to promote seed sovereignty and strengthen resilient food systems across the South, engaging students in hands-on seed stewardship.