Garden study update from around Nebraska

While not all gardeners necessarily have a green thumb, they do tend to share a few common characteristics. Generally, gardeners like to watch their plants or flowers grow, and most are concerned about soil health. But each and every gardener loves to talk about their gardens.Ten Nebraska Urban Soil Health Initiative (NUSHI) participants kindly shared their typical gardening habits and their trials this gardening season wih the NUSHI study. The ten interviewed participants come from all over the state of Nebraska. Each grows something different, from flowers to vegetables, and from fruits to herbs.For some background on the NUSHI study, there are seven different management groups to examine cover crop mixtures, no-till with geotextile fabric, compost soil amendment, biochar soil amendment and a combination of these management practices. Each participant also received three Dunja variety zucchini seeds to be planted in the 100-square foot NUSHI test plot. At the time of the interviews, o one had received their initial soil sample results yet.

Name: Chad Nabity of Grand Island, Neb.
NUSHI Group: 4X (cover crop mixtures + no-till + compost + biochar)Grows: Wide variety of vegetables on a half-acre plotGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Because of the NUSHI zucchini trial, all the summer squash is planted in the NUSHI research plot. But the NUSHI zucchini seeds did not germinate. “I am disappointed because will not be able to provide results,” Nabity said.Gardening Tip: Use cardboard as a weed barrier.About your Garden: Chad and Kathy Nabity own Grand Island Acres, where they sell full-season and short-season shares of their half-acre garden through a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) Program. “We aim to give about $30 per week worth of fresh produce,” Chad Nabity said. CSA differs from a farmers market in that all produce is pre-sold. However, it is a shared risk / shared reward system should hail or other calamity affect the garden. Their 16 shareholders are local

Nabity learned about the NUSHI study at a Nebraska Sustainable Agriculture Society (NSAS) meeting. He wanted to participate because the study fits their gardening practices, such as composting. “I think it’s a very interesting cooperative effort between the USDA and UNL. It’s fun to have participants across the state,” he said.Their NUSHI test plot is in the least-desirable site where the soil could use improvemnt, Nabity said. Until about 5 years ago, this portion of the garden was a pasture. All the ground is sandy.Chad and Kathy have used landscape fabric as a weed barrier in the past but opted for cardboard. Nabity said, “I like using cardboard because it really helps keep the weeds down, adds carbon to the soil and after the season ends you can just till it in…furniture stores will give it to you.” He uses a 4-inch hole saw to cut circles in the cardboard, then makes a hole for the plants in the soil with a drill bit.

The no-till portion of the study will be differen for Nabity as he typically tills in the fall and the spring. “I have to figure out how to plant into the area with no-till, but I’m excited to try that.” He will plant his cover crop in the fall.
Nabity believes in the benefits from biochar after learning about it at a NSAS conference last year. “I tried making my own biochar,” he said. “It’s not as easy as it looks.” Nabity used a 55-gallon drum and maintained a flae cap at the top so that everything below would be charred. He was successful, but it was not enough biochar to treat the garden as thoroughly as he could with the biochar provided through the NUSHI study.Nabity is looking forward to seeing his test results as he has not tested the soil before. He is also interested in how the amendments will affect the soil. “We’ll see what difference it makes over the course of the next couple of years,” Nabity said.

Karen McGuire stands next to the compost NUSI plot with her helper, Gardener Marge the miniature poodle.

Karen McGuire Photo

Name: Karen McGuire of Elkhorn, Neb.NUSHI Group: Compost AND No-till with geotextile fabricGrows: Varietyof vegetables, loofah gourds, flowers to attract pollinatorsGrowing in the NUSHI Plots: Corn, tomatoes, loofa gourds, beans, pumpkin, zucchini, summer squash, carrots, watermelon, cantaloupe, peppers, broccoli
Gardening Tip: Just start somewhere.About your Garden: Karen McGuire is new to gardening but has “become obsessed with all aspects” from composting to bird watching to pollinator hotels. In the past, she helped at the Benson Community Garden, but when she and her husband moved to Elkhorn she was afraid to tear up the grass. Her neighbor encouraged her to “just start somewhere.”

So in 2022, she grew a little 125-foot garden plot. They harvested two ears of sweet corn and squash bugs attacked the pumpkin, but the cucumbers prspered.Now in her second year of gardening, McGuire has tripled her space. She is in two separate NUSHI groups, one for compost and the other for no-till. The latter is a new area that was grass last year. “I love learning all these new methods,” she sad. McGuire said she is interested in learning about biochar, as she has never heard of it before the NUSHI project.Since starting to garden, composting has become McGuire’s passion. “I am constantly trying to convert all my friends into composters and gardeners,” she said. She opted to use the supplied compost from the NUSHI project because her compost was not mature enough. McGuire initially started a compost pile on the ground, but that was a slow process. So she purchased a 13-gallon capacity tumbler and has since upgraded to a 61-gallon tumbler with a hand crank.

You can follow McGuire’s gardening adventures on her Instagram account: #LearnAsYouGrow_NE.McGuire has a message for everyone who is unsure about how to garden: “Youjust need to start somewhere. Start with something you eat.”

For extra space in her small gaden plot, Amy Placzek uses cattle panels and tomato cages so plants can grow vertically.

Amy Placzek Photo

Name: Amy Placzek of Kearney, Neb.NUSHI Group: Compost AND BiocharGrows: Mainly vegetables for making salsa: tomatoes and “a whole bunch of different peppers”Growing in the NUSHI Plots: Tomatoes, peppers, butternut squash
Gardening Tip: Use cattle panels to grow vining plants in a small space.About your Garden: Amy Placzek has been gardening since she was a child. Her dad taught her “just about everything” she knows about gardening. He always made a big garden, and she and her three siblings had to do everything. “We hoed, we weeded, we harvested and we got to eat everything my mom made,” Placzek said.

Three out of the four siblings still garden. Hr older sister, who Placzek said is the “one person in Ashby, Nebraska on the map,”is also participating in the NUSHI study.Placzek has been gardening in the same spot since 1997, so she is really interested in seeing the results from her soil sample.
She was having troubles with her tomato plants two years ago. Knowing that she was going to have surgery and no garden that summer, she had her husband work cattle manure into the soil so it could decompose slowly. Looking ahead to the end of the study, she said, “In two years, it will be fun to find out how the soil tests come out.”So far, Placzek hasn’t had the best luck with her NUSHI zucchini. She usually starts all her seeds indoors, but the zucchini seeds she planted straight into the ground. They didn’t germinate. “We’ve had so much rain, they rotted in the ground,” Placzek said. She recorded 4 inches of rain over a three-week period from May to June in the Kearney area.
She has noticed that the biochar plot seems to be holdingonto the moisture better than other areas of the garden. Placzek said she worked hlf the biochar into the soil with the Rototiller, then added the remaining biochar.

Part of the reason Placzek wanted to participate in the NUSHI project was because she loves to learn and dig into the details. “Obviously, we aren’t scientists ourselves, but it’s kind of fun to be involved and learn about all this, because I want to make my garden better.”

Roses and sage picked straight from the garden are part of the natural lotion bars and soaps that Shelly Roxbury makes.

Shelly Roxbury Photo

Name: Shelly Roxbury of Wymore, Neb.NUSHI Group: 4X (cover crop mixtures + no-till + compost + biochar)Grows: Herbs, flowers, vegetables, fruit trees, berriesGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Peppr, tomato, cantaloupe, pumpkin, corn
Gardening Tip: Wait until July to plant zucchin seeds to avoid squash bugs.
About your Garden: Growing up on a farm, Shelly Roxbury has always gardened but not to the extent she does now until about five years ago. She began growing her own herbs and flowers to make lotion bars, shampoo bars and other soaps for special conditions, such as acne.
Her interest in herbs spiked when her daughter, Hope, was diagnosed with bladder cancer at the age of two. “She did one round of chemo and it almost killed her,” Roxbury recalled. She found a doctor in Washington, D.C., who prescribed herb remedies instead. Doctors gave her daughter a 99% chance of living to age 30, and Hope just celebrated her 30th birthday this spring.Roxbury knows the importance of healthy soils for plant vitality. She has already been following no-till and mulching practices, but the NUSHI study has introduced her to biochar. She said she might use this again in the future.

Sh is not a fan of the geotextile fabric. Not only does she have to water this area of he garden more, but she had to lay straw on top because the black fabric was absorbing too much heat and plants suffered. Moreover, she said the earthworms are dying underneath. This is the opposite of what she is trying to promote in her garden. “You can get the same effect from straw, and it nourishes the soil,” Roxbury said.Roxbury will wait until the fall to plant her cover crop this year. Wanting the nitrogen benefits, she might experiment and broadcast cover crop seeds beyond her NUSHI plot. “I have used cover crop in the past, but by the time fall comes around and I’ve put up all this food, I am done,” laughed Roxbury.

The NUSHI zucchini seeds failed to grow because hungry hens ate the seeds. Roxbury will wait until July to plant seeds again to avoid squash bugs. Roxbury recommends that gardeners pay attention to insect lifecycles to decrease the need for insecticide application. Also, natral methods of gardening, such as the compost and cover crops endorsed by the NUSHI stud, can fertilize the soil.
“Plants have their own defense system that helps them fight off bugs and disease as long as the soil is healthy,” Roxbury said.

Cover crop grows in Kyle Marten’s garden earlier this spring. He will hand-pull the cover crop to terminate it then use it as mulch in his garden.

Kyle Martens Photo

Name: Kyle Martens of Lincoln, Neb.NUSHI Group: Cover cropGrows: Vegetables, herbs, flowers; experiments every year with peanuts, wheat or dry beans
Growing in the NUSHI Plot: Will plant tomato and eggplant after terminating cover cropGardening Tip: Organisms in the soil increase oil health.About your Garden: When Kyle Martens bought a house last fall, his first priority was converting the lawn into his garden. The NUSHI study provides the perfect opportunity to assess the soil quality of his new plot. Martens is intrigued by the reults to come after comparing samples from the beginning and conclusion of the project. “That’s the first time I’ve had information like that to inform what I’m doing in the garden,” he said.

Being in the cover crop group, Martens hopes to enhance the soil. “I planted my cover crop in the spring for the reason that the beds were compacted, and I didn’t really notice any soil organisms.” The plot was completely lawn last year.
With little rainfall, his cover crop “really did not look great” initially. Irrigation helped them shoot up 2 feet within a few short weeks. Martens had to wait one more week to terminate the cover crop, according to the NUSHI study guidelines. He plans to hand-pull the plants, then lay them down as a mulh. Eventually he will work the decomposed material into the soil.Martens said he has always wanted to figure out how to include cover crops in the entire garden. However, he is unsure how to incorporate them into his rotation and still get a vegetable crop.

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After terminatig the cover crops mid-June, he planned to plant tomatoes and eggplant in the NUSHI plot. These plants are from seeds he started indoors in his DIY-germination chamber.

Martens noted that he wants to learn more about biochar, especially from study participants. “That’s something I am definitely interested in trying,” he said.
Being a garden enthusiast, Martens said he is excited to be part of the NUSHI study. He expressed appreciation to Dr. Sam ortman for offering this study “where Nebraskans statewide get to share their love of gardening.”

Plants thrive in the fertile soils of Elaine Dooley’s garden.

Elaine Dooley Photo

Name: Elaine Dooley of Grand Island, Neb.NUSHI Group: BiocharGrows: VegetablesGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Zucchini, pepper, potatoes, turnips
Gardening Tip: Every year, try growing something different or new.About your Garden Elaine Dooley must be doing something right with her garden. Prior to the NUSHI study, she had taken a soil test of her garden spot. The results? “It came out perfect, not lacking any nutrient whatsoever,” Dooley said.
But Dooley said she isn’t doing anything special. She even referrd to herself as a lazy gardener. “I dump kitchen scraps in the garden. When I mow, I dump the mulch into the garden.”
Dooley has always had a garden, other than a short period in the 1970s when she lived in an apartment. Each year, she tries to plant something different. “I’ve been gardening long enough I’m running out of new things we would actually eat or use,” joked Dooley.
The NUSHI study filled her void for something new this year. She was placed in the biochar group, which she had never heard of before. Dooley said this was not one of her group choices when registering because it was unfamiliar to her.Dooley is interested in seeing how her garden will be affected with the biochar amendment. So ar, she has observed the tomato plants bloomed sooner in the biochar plot. The potato plants within the test area grew slower at first but have since caught up in height.
“I am eager to see what the final results are when this is all said and done,” Dooley said. She also wonders if te NUSHI project is part of a pioneering effort for soil health or simply another study to collect data.

Kay Hegler has been pinching off the flowers and buds from the buckwheat cover crop to prevent it from going to seed. Her granddaughter Brielle is learning just as much as grandma with the NUSHI project!

Kay Hegler Photo

Name: Kay Hegler of Bellevue, Neb.
NUSHI Group: 4X (cover crop mixtures + no-till + compost + biochar)Grows: Perennial flowersGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Zucchini and flowersGardening Tip: Make sure all your plants get the amount of sun they need o grow properly.About your Garden: Being a flower bed, the NUSHI plot in Kay Hegler’s garden is not straight rows. “Ilaugh when I see the straight lines in the pictures from other people’s gardens,” Hegler said. She is applying the 4X group experiment on her perennial flower bed, which she established about five years ago.

Hegler was able to sow her cover crop this May and said that it grew well. She has been trimming the cover crops so they would not go to seed. To terminate her cover crop on June 15, she was going to hand-pull the plants. “You can’t take a weed eater in flowers,” Hegler said.If not for the NUSHI project, Hegler would not have applied biochar to her flowers. Because her group includes no-till, she did not work the biochar into the soil very deep. “I am concerned I didn’t mix biochar adequately into the soil, so some plants have a layer of biochar to go through.” She is interested to see if biochar becomes a common practice in gardening in the future.
All three f her NUSHI zucchini plants are thriving, already producing a crop. “All three zucchini seeds are alive and well,” Hgler said. One of the zucchini plants is shaded by an overgrown iris, so she plans to cut the iris back sooner than she usually does.

Hegler is working on her Master Gardener certification through Nebraska Extension in Douglas-Sarpy County. Currently, she is at intern status but will become a real Master Gardener after completing her education and service hours. “Working on the research project is an extension of my Master Gardener certification,” said Hegler. Douglas-Sarpy requires 45 hours of education training about plants, diseases and disorders of soil, trees, shrubs, flowers and gardening. They are also assigned 40 volunteer hours.As a former faculty member at Doane University at Crete, Neb., Hegler researched and published her findings within her field, which she added was not horticulture. The NUSHI project allows her to continue her enthusiasm for learning. I am excited to participate in a research project because I value and appreciate research.” She calls her flower gaden her “research plot.”

Myron Johnson spends about two hours each morning tending his garden.

Myron Johnson Photo

Name: Myron Johnson of Wahoo, Neb.
NUSHI Group: CompostGrows: “Just about anything”Growing in the NUSHI Plot: Tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, eggplantGardening Tip: Prune the bottom foot of tomatoes to let air through and “eliminate all kinds of problems.”About your Garden: Growing up during the Great Depression, Myron Johnson said that “times were tough so a garden was really important.” He gardened with his parents as a youth, “Not by my choice but my parents’ mandate,” he laughed.
He soon grew to like gardening and now raises anything that will grow in this par of this country. “I like to garden because it feeds ou twice—your soul and your body.”Johnson saves his seeds, then germinates them in his house before planting the seedlings outside the next gardening season. He has also started a worm farm so that he can add nutrient-rich worm castings to his soil.

His garden has the traditional vegetables, but Johnson also has fun experimenting. He has made a lot of broom whisps over the years from broom corn. Fennel was a new plant this year. Loofah gourds have been harder to grow as they prefer zone 7, and Wahoo is in zone 5. “It’s very hard to get any before the first frost,” Johnson said.
With two garden plots, Johnson spends hours caring for his plants. He and a friend share one garden on a lot in town where a house had burned down. After the house remains were removed, dirt was brought back in. They have been spending the past few years regenerating the soil on this lot.Johnson said that the NUSHI study will help them determine the sol nutrients in this area. He would like to practice notill in the future, but they are still making amendments to improve the soil.He believes that soil regeneration has a lot of value, another reason he wanted to participate in the NUSHI study. “Professor Wortman is on a good track,” Johnson said. He has read that vegetables grown in a well-prepared garden have more nutrient value than those sold in a grocery store. Johnson wants to be part of the movement toward sustainable soils. “If we can start getting people interested in gardening, not just to grow things but to grow healthy food—nutrient-rich food.”

Johnson is in the compost NUSHI group. “I am a firm believer in compost,” Johnson said, adding that he composts all his kitchen scraps. He chose to use the provided compost so that the results will align with other gardeners in the study. “I hope this project is a success,” said Johnson.

Milla Jones of Lincoln, Neb., has grown flowers almost her whole life bt is just getting into vegetable gardening.

Milla Jones Photo

Name: Milla Jones of Lincoln, Neb.NUSHI Group: 3X (Cover crop mixtures + no-till + compost)Grows: Annual and perennial shrubs / flowers, vegetablesGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Jalapenos, peppers, cucumbers, kohlrabi, tomato, sugar snap peas, lettuce, spinach, zucchini, asparagus, watermelon
Gardening Tip: Geotextile fabric is a “game changer.”About your Garden: While Milla Jones has grown flowers basically all her life, this is only her third season trying her hand at vegetable gardening. She described her garden last year having “abysmal results.” This year, she wanted to start on the right foot so purchased premium starting plants. “I waned to do a really good job with this project so went to local farm stands to get good quality vegetable starts,” Jones said. “I have had great results so far.”

Being in the 3X NUSHI group, Jones will use cover crops, o-till with geotextile fabric and compost. She believes her watermelon is doing much better because of the compost. The geotextile fabric “is definitely a game changer” when it comes to weeding. Jones used to spend 2-3 hours per week pulling weeds out of her flower beds.
Jones grows a little bit of everything in her flower beds, including sedum, peonies, hostas, grasses, creeping jenny, roses, elderberries and petunias, to name just a few.In her NUSHI plot, Jones has just as wide a variety as her flower garden. “I am really surprised I can fit it all into 100 square feet,” she said. One of her NUSHI zucchini seeds germinated. The week we spoke, she was going to harvest her kohlrabi and pull the Buttercrunch lettuce as it was past its prime.Even though Jones did notget to use biochar as part of the 3X group, she would love to try it. “After this project is done, I want to invest in biochar on my own to try.”

Withthe dry weather and a new location, Tanya Babel is trying many different things in her garden this year.

Tanya Babel Photo

Name: Tanya Babel of Humphrey, Neb.

NUSHI Group: Cover CropGrows: A lot of cabbage for sauerkraut and other vegetables for canningGrowing in the NUSHI Plot: Cabbage, carrots, beets, green beans, zucchiniGardening Tip: Use soaker hoses to conserve water and deeply water plants at their roots.About your Garden: Every aspect of Tanya Babel’s garden is an experiment this year. Babel has always been an active gardner, beginning by helping her parents and then partnering with her husband on the gardening adventure.Only recently has she really begun digging deeper. “In the last five years, I have just kind of ‘owned’ the garden and every year experiment with different things,” Babel said. Some of her trials have included raised beds in cattle mineral lick tubs, rain barrels, soaker hoses and differen locations for the garden.

Babel is always trying to improve her garden. She said the original garden plot didn’t have the greatest soil, so vegetable production was hindered. “When I saw this opportunity with NUSHI, I thought maybe I could learn new techniques or just make my garden better,” Babel said.
Because of timing, Babel chose to wait until fall to plant her cover crop for the NUSHI study. She is anxious to see if the cover crop will help with the weeding and soil performance for next season.She also chose not to till her garden this year. “With it so dry, I didn’t really want to work p the soil this spring.” Last fall, the Babels had worked cattle manure into the soil so did not feel the need to till again this spring. She noted that she has spent more time weeding this year.
The NUSHI zucchini is her little trial plot. Only one of the zucchini seeds germinated in the corner of her garden. “It’s slowly growing but doing better every week,” said Babel.
Babel appreciaes how informational the NUSHI project has been. “When we got together as a group before the project really kicked off, there were great PowerPoints of information that talked about soil management and plant growth.”

Garden study update from around Nebraska

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