Almost-foolproof veggie varieties for gardeners
Helen Chesnut presents her top picks
The new year’s seed and garden catalogues bring gifts of inspiration and visions of perfect beauty and abundance in our home gardens.
We all know that, at some point, the vision will begin fraying at the edges. Weeds encroach. Aphids curl apple leaves. Still, we forge on, celebrating the flowers that grow and shine, the delights of justpicked berries, vegetables and fruits. We observe, and learn.
Here are a few vegetable varieties that have proven over the years to be close to foolproof and of excellent quality in my garden. Unless a source is given, the variety is widely available. • Broccoli. Aspabroc plants give weeks of small, tender florets.
• Carrots. The three N’s: Navarino (W.H. Perron), Nelson and Napoli (West Coast Seeds).
• Cabbage. Caraflex is a small, pointed, early cabbage that is wonderfully tender and sweet. Kalibos, also pointed, is a larger cabbage in intense reddish purple. West Coast Seeds has both.
• Cauliflower. Snow Crown is early, sweet, reliable. Amazing lives up to its name.
• Cucumber. Sweet Success (Lindenberg Seeds, William Dam Seeds). This is always the first, and best, cucumber ready for picking in my garden.
• Endive. Rhodos (William Dam) is an easy-growing frizzy endive, good in heat and cold.
• Lettuce. Little Gem, a miniature romaine, and Tom Thumb, a miniature butterhead, are small but mightily packed with tasty, substantial leaves. Both are excellent for containers, and available from West Coast and Lindenberg. The Salanovas from Johnny’s Selected Seeds are superb, and gorgeous.
• Onions. Kelsae (West Coast Seeds) for large, sweet bulb onions that store well.
• Peas. Green Arrow has always out-produced other varieties I’ve grown for comparison.
• Peppers. Redskin (T&T Seeds) yields a summer-long supply of sweet red peppers on dwarf plants that are ideally suited for containers.
• Pumpkin. Cinnamon Girl (Johnny’s) has fragrant, finely textured flesh that makes extraordinarily flavourful desserts and other dishes.
• Tomatoes. Big Beef has everything. It’s easy to grow well and produces large clusters of fruits with a deep and true tomato flavour. Siderno (William Dam) is a markedly tasty cherry tomato for pots. Little Napoli (W.H. Perron) is a prolific producer of paste tomatoes on small plants for pots.
• Zucchini. Cassia (Dam) is an improved Italian Romanesco type with characteristic ribbing and a less moist, more nutty flavour than other kinds of zucchini.
Perennial pruning
It’s time to cut off at ground level hellebore and epimedium foliage. Old hellebore foliage is often host to fungal organisms and is best removed to give new leaves a clean welcome. After cutting the leaf stems down, clear the ground well around the plant and place a clean compost mulch over the area.
For gardeners with tender hearts, it’s a difficult thing to cut down epimedium (bishop’s hat, barrenwort) foliage because it remains so beautiful through the winter. The plants develop into a low, expanding ground cover of lovely heart-shaped leaves held on slim, wiry stems.
Still, I aim to cut them down early in February, before new flower stems begin emerging.
Once they do, it is miserably tedious to cut the leaf stems away around them.
Left in place, the old leaves hide much of the new bloom. Cutting them down allows for full display and enjoyment of the tiny columbine-like flowers and of the fresh new foliage to follow.
Garden Events
VRS meeting. The Victoria Rhododendron Society will meet on Mon., Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in the Horticulture Centre of the Pacific, 505 Quayle Rd. in Saanich. Norma Senn will speak about Gardens of South Africa.
Gordon Head meeting. The Gordon Head Garden Club will meet on Mon., Feb. 5, at 7 p.m. in Gordon Head United Church, 4201 Tyndall Ave. in Saanich. Barrie Agar, head gardener at Royal Roads, will speak about Colour in the Garden.
VHS meeting. The Victoria Horticultural Society will meet on Tues., Feb. 6, at 7:30 p.m. in the Garth Homer Centre, 813 Darwin Ave. The main presentation, by Kristen Miskelly, co-operator of Saanich Native Plants, is Native Plants for Home Gardens and Wildflower Meadows. The pre-meeting workshop at 6:30 will feature Michael Cowan of Edibella Organic Landscapes on Soil: The Essential Ingredient. Learn about soil: its composition, basic remediation techniques, maintenance, inputs and more.