Gardening: Vegetables Made in the Shade

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This is the VOA Special English Agriculture Report.

Not all vegetables need lots of sunshine. Mark Hoffman and his wife, Guia, own a bed-and-breakfast guesthouse in rural Kempton, Illinois. They often serve their guests produce fresh from the garden.

The Hoffmans have been growing food and flowers for twenty-five years. For almost ten of those years, Mr. Hoffman has been experimenting and working with shade plantings. He says visitors to his website -- greenhousebed.com -- often ask how to plant in shade spaces.

MARK HOFFMAN: “The bottom line here is that most plants will produce more in full sun. But if you do not have full sun, there are other options.”

For example, he grows tomatoes near oak trees. Oak trees can produce a lot of shade. But Mr. Hoffman says his tomato plants grow as long as they get five hours a day of direct sunshine, especially morning sun.

Not only does this go against the traditional advice that tomatoes need six, eight, even twelve hours a day of full sun. It also shows how plants and tree roots can share nutrients and water.

Mr. Hoffman also planted asparagus around a tree at its drip line, the area below the outer limit of the branches.

MARK HOFFMAN: “Now the asparagus is in partial shade. It has been there for six years now and is doing wonderfully. It is right at the drip line of the tree. So when it rains, all the rain drips down right on the asparagus.”

The Hoffmans' website includes a list of vegetables, flowers and herbs that have produced acceptably for them in partial shade. Besides tomatoes and asparagus, these include broccoli, daylilies, horseradish, Irish potatoes, oregano and winter onions.

Mr. Hoffman says plants with wider leaves seem to do better in shady environments. He also found that his potatoes did better in partial shade than in full sun.

Moving them out of the sun helped control an insect problem with leaf hoppers. Mr. Hoffman does not use pesticides. Instead, he planted the potatoes at the drip line, especially on the east side of the tree.
The potatoes get morning sun, but they are shaded during the hottest part of the day. Leaf hoppers dislike shade, and the hottest part of the day is when they do the worst of their damage.

Time of day. Brightness of the sun. Shadows from trees, walls and buildings. These all influence how much sunlight falls, or does not fall, on plants. And extension agent Curtis Swift at Colorado State University says people interested in shade planting should also remember something else. The term "shade" can describe different amounts of darkness. He says it can even mean different things in different parts of the world.

And that’s the VOA Special English Agriculture Report, written by Jerilyn Watson.  I’m Bob Doughty.

Going Digital: The Future of College Textbooks?

Sales of e-textbooks are expected to grow in the coming years. But experts say the popularity may be limited until more books are interactive. Second of two parts. Transcript of radio broadcast:03 September 2009

his is the VOA Special English Education Report.

The average college student in America spent an estimated seven hundred dollars on textbooks last year. The National Association of College Stores reported more than five billion dollars in sales of textbooks and course materials.

Association spokesman Charles Schmidt says electronic textbooks now represent just two to three percent of sales. But he says that is expected to reach ten to fifteen percent by two thousand twelve.

Online versions are now available for many of the most popular college textbooks. E-textbooks can cost half the price of a new print textbook. But students usually lose access after the end of the term. And the books cannot be placed on more than one device, so they are not easy to share.

So what do students think of e-textbooks? Administrators at Northwest Missouri State University wanted to find out. Earlier this year they tested them with five hundred students in twenty classes.

The university is unusual. It not only provides laptop computers to all seven thousand of its full-time students. It does not require students to buy their textbooks either. They rent them to save money. The school aims to save even more by moving to e-textbooks.

The students in the survey reported that downloading the books from the Internet was easy. They liked the idea of carrying lighter backpacks. And fifty-six percent said they were better able to find information.

But most found that using e-textbooks did not change their study habits. And sixty percent felt they read more when they were reading on paper. In all, almost half the students said they still liked physical textbooks better.

But the survey found that cost could be a big influence. Fifty-five percent said they would choose e-textbooks if using them meant their textbook rental fee would not increase.

Roger Von Holzen heads the Center for Information Technology in Education at Northwest Missouri State. He tells us that administrators are disappointed with the e-textbooks now available because the majority are not interactive.

He thinks growth will come when more digital books include video, activities, games and other ways to interact with the information. The technology is improving. But for now, most of the books are just words on a screen.

And that's the VOA Special English Education Report, written by Nancy Steinbach. What do you think of e-textbooks? Share your thoughts at voaspecialenglish.com, where you can also find our reports. I'm Steve Ember.