Homegrown Vegetables, Fruits & Herbs

Jim W. Wilson earned a B.S. in agriculture from the University of Missouri and has been active in home and commercial horticulture more than 60 years. He has visited home and public gardens in many countries, and in the U.S., he has lived and gardened in nine different states, coast to coast and north to south. Perhaps best known as an author of garden books and a lecturer on several gardening subjects, Wilson spent 13 years in garden television. He was a co-host on The Victory Garden, PBS, and on Home and Garden TV's Great Gardeners.   Wilson has served as national President of the Garden Writers Association and is a Fellow and a member of the GWA's Hall of Fame. In July 2004 he was presented with the Medallion of Honor by All-American Selections, an organization that evaluates new seed-grown flower and vegetables, for lifetime achievement in horticulture. He is a certified Master Gardener for South Carolina, and has been named an honorary Master Gardener by the Extension Services of nine states.   The author of 13 books, the most recent of which include The Carolinas Gardener's Guide, Native Trees for North American Landscapes: From the Atlantic to the Rockies, and Gardening through Your Golden Years, Wilson helps his partner, Jane Mandel, also a Missouri Master Gardener, tend a large flower garden and a "starter" prarie garden. He maintains a vegetable and herb garden, fenced to keep out deer, groundhogs, rabbits, and other pests.     Walter Chandoha has been a professional freelance photographer/writer for over 40 years, specializing in flora and fauna of the world. His photographs have appeared on more than 300 magazine covers and in thousands of advertisements, and he has more than 200,000 stock images of animals and gardens.   A graduate of New York University's' Stern School of Business, Chandoha is a member and former director of both the American Society of Media Photographers and the Garden Writers Association. In 1997 he was made a Fellow of GWA and in 2006 was inducted into its Hall of Fame. For 10 years he was an official photographer of the Philadelphia Flower Show. He has written and/or illustrated 30 books. His latest, 100 Garden Tips and Timesavers, was published by the Brooklyn Botanic Garden.   His photographs and/or illustrated articles on animals and gardens have appeared in other Creative Homeowner books as well as Time-Life books, Ortho books. National Home Gardening Club books, Meredith books, and Family Circle, Ladies' Home Journal, Woman's Day, Good Housekeeping, National Geographic, Country Living, House Beautiful, Architectural Digest, Mother Earth News, Gardening How-To, Organic Gardening, Garden Design, Better Homes and Gardens, and The New York Times  magazines.   Chandoha and his family live on a 46-acre farm in northwest New Jersey in still-rural Hunterdon County. He has many experimental gardens on the property, where he grows flowers, vegetables, fruits, herbs, and ornamental grasses. An ongoing project is taking photographs of these gardens in the four seasons of the year, each from the same vantage point.