>>This is Twin Oaks community.

We're in Louisa County between Richmond and Charlottesville, and we are an intentional community of 100 people.

We share our income and we share our work and we share our mistakes and we share our expenses.

So, this is the food garden.

This is just for feeding the hundred people.

>>Well, what I noticed is how beautiful and lush your crops look.

But I'm also looking at how rich your soil is.

>>Yeah, well.

>>You need amendments and certain things that you add to your soil to enrich it?

(Pam laughs) >>Mostly it's compost that we make here.

We also gain some from cover crops, especially in the winter, but also summer cover crops like buckwheat.

We grow them and we turn them back into the soil.

>>The spacing, which you grow in your garden is about what, two and a half acres, three acres?

>>Yeah, it's about two and a half acres currently.

>>So, I'm quite sure that you guys are harvesting thousands of pounds probably a month.

>>Yeah, lots, yeah.

(Pam and Shana laugh) Yeah, lots of harvesting.

It's a sign of success, right?

>>Yes, speaking of success, I understand that you are author of several successful garden books?

>>Yes, my most recent one is the second edition of, "Sustainable Market Farming."

And it's a huge fat book about all kinds of vegetables.

First edition, I wrote over 10 years ago, and in between times I wrote a book about growing food in a hoop house.

And that was based on my experience here.

>>Well, so you're doing a fantastic job.

>>It works.

>>It definitely does.

>>Yeah.

>>I want a hoop house now.

>>Yeah, it does make everything easier, >>But also notice that you chose to grow your cucumbers on the ground.

>>We grow a lot of different crops in the winter in there, and then we grow like early spring and early summer crops.

And so like the tomatoes will come out the end of July, 'cause by then we'll have plenty coming from outdoors.

And the cucumbers and the squash are just our first ones.

When they peak and they're not doing so well, we just pull them out and we rely on harvesting outdoors.

So, we don't like to spend a lot of time putting up trellises.

Also, in the hoop house, you've gotta think about the light, more than you do outdoors.

And so we don't want tall plants blocking the other crops further to the north.

So, we just get a bush variety of cucumbers.

It's Spacemaster and we grow them and we keep them onto a four foot-wide bed, by pushing them back in when they try to escape.

>>Do you find that some of the things that you're planting are more resilient than others?

>>Oh yeah, definitely.

(Pam laughs) We always read the small print in the catalogs to see if it says resistant to this or that disease.

Recently, I just learned of a Swiss Chard variety that is resistant to this Cercospora Spot Disease that we get.

So, we're trying some of that this year.

>>Tell me about some of the organic methods or the companion planting methods that you use.

>>Right, well, we do a bit of companion planting, in that, like we grow the Nasturtiums in with the squash and the cucumbers to fend off the striped cucumber beetle.

And we do plant little clusters of flowers to attract pollinators and other beneficial insects.

And we just plant those at the ends of the beds of the vegetables.

And we do crop rotation.

>>Yes.

>>I do think crop rotation is important that you don't plant the same thing in the same place two years running.

(Pam and Shana giggle) So, we do that and that will help with pests that don't move very far, or diseases that could be in the soil.

And also we do succession sewing.

Like with beans, we plant them maybe five times during the growing season.

They're not right next to each other.

So, if the first ones get a disease, it doesn't jump straight to the second ones.

>>That's wise.

>>Yeah.

>>You do your lettuce the same way?

Succession planting.

>>Well, we haven't this year, we just do lots.

>>Yeah.

>>Because we eat oh, 100 heads a week.

>>Okay, any particular variety, especially in these very hot summers that we have?

>>Yes, we mostly grow the Batavian lettuces in the summer.

They're the most heat-resistant ones, although there's also a romaine called Jericho that is heat-resistant.

And there's, oh, New Red Fire is surprisingly heat resistant, but it doesn't make very big heads.

So, we try to grow different ones so we're not serving up the same kind of lettuce every week.

>>I know that you probably love a ton of different types of vegetables, okay.

But tell me some of your favorites.

>>I really enjoy ground sweet potatoes, partly 'cause you put them in the ground and then they grow a lot and you don't do much for a while.

>>Leave and forget.

>>Yeah, and then you dig 'em all up and it's fantastically satisfying to see them all and then cure them.

And then you've got food for months and months.

It gives me a big sense of satisfaction, food security.

>>What type of variety do you grow?

>>Well, it's a bit of a mixture of Beauregard and Georgia Jet.

They're similar and they're both fast, and they're both tasty.

>>I'm also curious about some of the common mistakes that gardeners might have when they're growing their vegetables.

You seem to be so successful.

Tell us some of those common mistakes that we need to avoid.

>>Thinking about the squash, one thing is that when you harvest them, it's important to cut the zucchini, especially off of the vine.

So, you've got a bit of the stem end.

>>Yes.

>>And you don't leave that behind.

'Cause if you leave that behind, the plant acts as if fall is here.

It's all over.

>>Oh.

>>And it doesn't make as many new squash.

>>What about tomatoes?

>>Tomatoes.

>>What are some of the common mistakes that people make with tomatoes?

>>Well, one of the things is try not to touch the plants at all while the leaves are wet.

>>Yeah.

>>Because then you can transfer fungal diseases from one to another.

And don't let anybody who uses tobacco touch your tomato plants.

(Pam laughs) >>Oh, why?

>>Because they can transfer Tobacco Mosaic Virus.

And then once you've got that, it's, you've got it forever kind of thing, so.

>>What varieties do you enjoy growing?

>>Well, if we're doing paste tomatoes, we like Roma.

And for early ones, we like mountain magic, it's fairly small, but it's very tasty and productive, and it doesn't succumb to diseases much.

>>That's key.

>>So we like that one.

We like Jubilee, it's a big orange slicer.

We do that one.

Another one we really like is Garden Peach, which is the unusual furry skinned tomato.

>>Oh, okay.

>>It's very tasty.

It doesn't get many troubles like, insects don't seem to wanna bite it.

So, we like that one.

It's unusual though.

>>And I noticed that the lower leaves, you guys are constantly removing the lower leaves.

>>We do.

>>Okay.

>>We remove any that touch the ground, 'cause we don't want to spread diseases.

So, we do that about once a week, I suppose.

We go through and we take off the lower leaves.

Also, once the plants get quite big, they're not really using those lower leaves.

There's not much light reaching them.

They don't photosynthesize much.

So, the plant doesn't really need them and they're just a possible source of trouble.

>>Do you snap off the suckers as well?

>>We do, yeah.

We just leave two main stems and then we pinch out the the suckers, yeah.

>>Yeah, 'cause I saw not a lot of leaf foliage, but a lot of tomatoes.

>>Right, that's what we're going for.

(Pam and Shana laugh) We're not gonna eat the leaves.

>>Very productive.

(Pam and Shana laugh) I'm gonna try more of those methods that you're using.

>>Yeah.

>>You know what you shared was wonderful, thank you.

I really appreciate you allowing us to come and visit your beautiful garden.

>>You're very welcome.

(mower engine roars) It's really nice to spread garden chat with other people that are interested in growing vegetables.

(mover engine roars)