The Fascinating Story of Where our Vegetables Came From: What do you know about the vegetables you eat?  What is an heirloom tomato? Does it look like the original wild tomato? What group of people were responsible for breeding 4 major food crops? What popular vegetables were bred from kale? Where did sweet onions originate? Eggplant? Peas and beans? Watermelon? Bonnie will talk about the fascinating origins of the vegetables we eat each day: where they originated and what they looked like when they grew in the wild before people started breeding them for better yields and flavors.

Bonnie Power has been a Massachusetts Master Gardener since 2016 (now a Lifetime MG) and member of the MMGA Speakers Bureau since 2018…and a serious outdoor/indoor gardener most of her life. Curious and research-oriented by nature, she has many horticultural interests and areas of expertise. Bonnie holds both a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in Zoology, which informs her perspective on the management of garden insects. She is a member of the MGA Soil pH Testing team and also volunteer guide at Garden in the Woods, a Native Plant Trust botanical garden in Framingham. She learned to grow vegetables as a child from her father, and flowers and houseplants from her mother. Early in her marriage her father-in-law provided her first lessons in organic gardening.  At home in Marlborough, Bonnie grows a variety of vegetables and ornamentals (with a bias for natives).