Community Gardener Highlight Meet Randy Weisz

by Jean Stark

You can see Randy during the growing season working diligently inside and out of his greenhouse raising a plethora of crops. Randy has a PhD in Crop Physiology and Agricultural Engineering at the University of Florida. He left UF as a National Science Foundation Fellow and went to Pennsylvania State University where he worked in Extension on Potato and Vegetable insect disease control.

After eight years at Penn State, Randy was hired by the University of North Carolina as the Small Grains Extension Specialist. There, he was responsible for all aspects of wheat, oats, barley, triticale, and sorghum production. He trained County Extension Agents, taught farmers, did field research, taught classes and trained graduate students in agricultural production.

Here at Tilth, Randy’s yearly crops include potatoes, kabocha squash, patty pan squash and wax beans in outdoor raised beds. Inside his greenhouse, he plants cabbage, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and chard. He also plants early sowings of beans and patty pan squash in the greenhouse. Occasionally he grows eggplant, peppers or broccoli in the greenhouse.

Randy says that the cucumbers get processed into canned pickles, tomatoes are turned into frozen paste, and the patty pan squash becomes condensed frozen soup base or is blanched, frozen and vacuum packed. Potatoes and kabocha are stored and the carrots and beans get frozen vacuum packed.

At the time of this article, which is very late May, Randy says he and his wife, Cher, are still eating beans, potatoes, kabocha squash and pickles from last year’s harvest–already ten months.

When walking past his greenhouse this summer, slow down as you pass by and take in what and how things are growing there. You’ll want to take note, because the next time you walk by, it may be completely different as he harvests and plants continuously throughout the season.