Current incarnation of Organic Gardening magazine

[wilderness1989]

Oh for the days when J.I. Rodale published the OG magazine. It was a size you could slip into the back pocket without folding. All the articles were informational, contained much more pertinent information on gardening. It's where Carla Emery put in a little classified ad promoting a cook/homesteading book and had not even written it yet. The good old days.....the '60's and the '70s.

[tjg911]

Jen,
.
You are correct about OG's heyday when Mike McGrath was the editor.

I have every issue from 1990 thru 1999, got them from library when they were ready to be thrown out for free or 10 cents a copy depending upon the library.

McGrath left around 1998 and the magazine just fell off a cliff, it was spectacular during his time as editor.

I now go to the library once a year and take out all the issues I have not seen yet. I thought the magazine was slightly improving a year ago, tho it was still crap! I like your use of that word cuz that is what it is - crap.
.
Tom

[the999bbq]

isn't the problem with (all) garden magazines that after a while they have educated you that much (and through other source as well of course) that you can't be bothered to read "the top ten tips for growing tomatoes" : number one : remove the succers, number two : you can help germination by tapping, number three : tomatoes love regular watering ...

[amideutch]

I remember seeing and old edition of OG in my book cabinet and had almost forgotten about. After reading this thread I decided to see what edition I had and what were its contents. It turned out to be VOL.33 NO.8 Aug 1986 and had an article called "So Long, Suckers". The topic was pruning and staking of tomatoes. It covered staking, weaving and caging of tomatoes. Here is an excerbt from the article.
" A trial from the University of Iowa showed that the indeterminate variety Jet Star gave the greatest early yield of fruit when plants were pruned to one stem, compared to two stems and unpruned. But determinate Pik-Red showed the highest yield on the unpruned bushes. At the end of the season the total yield of Jet Star was greatest on the unpruned bushes, by more than 2-to-1 over one-stem plants. Only the Pik-Red showed a difference in fruit size with significantly fewer large fruits on the one-stem plants."
This is the kind of stuff I miss in current gardening mags today. Tjg911 was right in that after Rodale/McGrath an era had ended, unfortunately for us gardeners. Ami

[maupin]

I think that OG has become more suburbanized over the years. I have the old ROdales Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening hardback edition and the new one paperback-- the old edition is geared towards farms and farmers, the new towards windowboxes.

I also find the same cultural evolution in the magazine, perhaps more urban than suburban. And I miss Madman McGrath and his 7 year old habanero plant with a tree trunk stem.

[amideutch]

One of my favorites is "Getting the Most from Your Garden" by the editors of OG and published by Rodale Press 1980. A compendium of intensive gardening techniques for the backyard gardener. Don't get much better.
Maupin, hows your garden doin this year and what are you growing? Ami

[tjg911]

yeah, that's the kind of stuff that made og so great, mike's wild and crazy use of special characters and total disregard as to run on sentences was great, i loved it when all the finely cultured ladies complained about his murdering the written word and how they went on and on about that or how they were embarrassed to have og on their coffee table (!) get a life, cuz the cover was not a serious gardening cover or how someone shot a coon in their corn or a groundhog in their you name the vegetable cuz those ^&**(!$*s eat anything and the guy then hung the pelt up for all the varmints to see and how the outraged vegetarians would write in whinning about how cruel that was and i was a long time vegetarian even back then and i'd get po'ed at their holyier than thou attitude, heck i'd shot the $%#@ son (*^$$#@)@* too!

ahh, gotta love those run on sentences!


i remember crying when mike wrote about the death of his beautiful great pyrenes at age 6 or 7, bizzy was his name. lots of pictures and stories about bizzy. i missed him almost as much as mike did.

tom