Vegetable Demonstration Garden

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Slow Food Award (PDF)
Beets
Carrots
Cover crops (PDF)
Crop rotation
Drought
Lettuce in Summer
Melons
Mycorrhizae Test on Melons
Raised beds
Grow Sweet Potatoes (PDF)
Sweet Potato Trial
Tomatoes, Cherry (PDF)
Tomato, Grafted
Tomatoes, suggested varieties (PDF)
Tomatoes, suggested varieties photos (PDF)
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Home » Fair Oaks Horticulture Center » Vegetables

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Established in 2000, the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center vegetable demonstration garden is the site of research and demonstrations and where Master Gardeners grow a variety of cool and warm-season crops to help identify varieties that grow successfully in the Sacramento area. The vegetable garden is a living classroom.

Formal vegetable trials have been conducted on fresh market (hybrid) tomatoes, sweet corn, snap beans, summer squash and heirloom tomatoes. Multiple demonstrations and tastings have featured cherry tomatoes and melons.

The Fair Oaks Horticulture Center vegetable garden has been formally recognized as an All-America Selections Display Garden!

Read all about it!

Congratulations to the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center (FOHC) vegetable demonstration garden Master Gardener team! In November, 2016, they were honored at the Slow Food Sacramento annual harvest dinner by receiving Slow Food Sacramento's 2016 Snail of Approval Supporter award. (PDF in new window/tab)

Victory garden. Click to enlarge.	Victory garden - heirlooms, hybrids, and All-American Selection (AAS) winners (vegetables, herbs, and flowers)
Wine barrels. Click to enlarge.	Half wine barrels showcase vegetables, herbs, and beneficial insect-attracting flowering plants that can be successfully grown in containers.

The vegetables in the demonstration garden are grown using water conserving and organic methods whenever possible. Those methods include the use of the following:

Organic fertilizers (such as pelleted chicken manure, fish emulsion, seaweed/kelp)
Organic soil amendments (such as compost)
Cover crops that are grown to provide nutrients and “green manure” to the soil
Crop rotation to help prevent the build up of soil-borne diseases and pests
Soil solarization to kill many soil-borne diseases and some weeds
Straw mulch to reduce weeds and keep the soil moist and cool
Drip irrigation system to reduce water usage
Environmentally sound pest management (such as blasting aphids and spider mites with water, hand-picking squash bugs, hand-picking weeds, covering plants with row covers to exclude pests, planting nectar-producing flowering plants that attract beneficial insects, and judicious use of insecticidal soaps and Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt) when necessary)

Cover crops. Click to enlarge.

More information about cover crops.

Soil solarization. Click to enlarge.

More information about soil solarization.
(PDF 292kb)