15 Minutes: Megan Andrews, offering high-desert gardening wisdom through UNR Extension

Megan Andrews—the commercial horticulture program coordinator at the University of Nevada, Reno, Extension—was born in England and spent her early childhood there. Her family then moved to Michigan, where she earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees in entomology from Michigan State University. She moved to Reno about three years ago and says that she loves the mountains here. This April, the Extension is offering free “Grow Your Own, Nevada!” classes on growing food in our region. The classes are held online Tuesday and Thursday evenings and cover topics including drip irrigation, fruit tree care and “Growing the Best Tomatoes.” Beginners and experienced gardeners are welcome. To register, visit extension.unr.edu/grow-your-own/default.aspx.

What are some of the challenges that surprise our new residents?

Our soils here are one of the most challenging parts of growing here. We are a desert state, and due to this, we don’t have the lush soils that can be found on the East Coast. We are typically missing the organic matter in our soil that our plants need to grow. We have a lot of clay-rich and sandy soils here, both of which benefit from having organic matter mixed into them. And you have to be pretty consistent in watering your plants in this hot and dry climate.

What advice would you have for somebody who has a green thumb? What advice would you have for somebody who doesn’t have a green thumb for growing here in Northern Nevada?

A lot of our new residents are finding that the green thumbs that they previously had are now struggling due to our desert climate. When it comes to starting a garden, it’s important to get the basics down and learn about how to properly water your plants. I would say to all of our gardeners—to those who have a green thumb, and those who don’t—that they’ll tend to have issues with irrigation here. We will be teaching a drip-irrigation class this year so that those who have come from a rainier state can learn about how to properly irrigate their plants, while also going through maintenance for our long-standing residents.

One thing that I’ve noticed about living here in Northern Nevada for many years is that there are little microenvironments. You can grow certain plants in the Old Southwest neighborhood that you can’t up in ArrowCreek, and vice versa.

Absolutely. We deal with a ton of microclimates here. There are some areas here with lovely soil, like near the Truckee River, and then there are some areas here that you’re going to have to amend your soil, and it’s going to be a labor of love to do that, so it depends a lot on what you’re growing. Also, the wind is a factor, too. We aren’t able to teach to everyone’s specific gardens, but we will teach the groundworks for the gardeners to then take home and be able to apply to their gardens. A lot of learning how to garden here is trial and error. It’s a rough process, but it really does pay off.

What other challenges are there to growing vegetables and plants in the high desert?

I’m an entomologist, and I have both my undergraduate and master’s degrees from Michigan State in entomology. I get a lot of questions, and I have to say that what I get the most complaints about is squash bugs, and how they’re just such a persistent pest here. There aren’t many chemicals out there that will kill the adults. Everyone loves being able to have their pumpkins in the fall, but squash bugs are a menace to that dream. Pest problems can be very localized, and your control methods will depend on your own values and as well as the environment that you live in. You just have to have really good sanitation practices growing your pumpkins and your cucumbers, which sucks, because everyone loves to grow pumpkins. You have to implement sanitation methods such as finding and killing egg patches. It can be really tough to get rid of them. Also, there are other pests that thrive in dry environments, such as white flies, spider mites and Mormon crickets. I will talk more about solutions to these pests in my class. But this goes back to the point we were talking about earlier about irrigation: A well-irrigated plant is often much better at fending off other pests and problems.