All American Selections unveils picks for the year
We turned our clocks ahead one hour last week to usher in daylight saving time. This annual adjustment has been drawing more and more criticism in recent years, and, here in Florida, the state Legislature has just passed the “Sunshine Protection Act.” The bill would make daylight saving time permanent all year long in the Sunshine State. Florida lawmakers claim this will increase tourism, promote public safety, relieve the burden of changing sleep schedules and save money on lighting.
Although the bill passed easily, it is not likely to be enacted because that would literally require an act of Congress to allow it to happen and we all know how easy it is for Congress to actually do something meaningful, anything, really. So, it is a symbolic gesture at best and gets Florida in the news for 15 minutes.
Personally, I like having an extra hour of daylight to enjoy the great outdoors here and I would favor the change becoming permanent. One thing I have noticed about spending my winters on the Gulf Coast is that the Tampa area is much further west that one might imagine. Although Florida is clearly an East Coast state, the longitude of Tampa is about the same as Nashville, Tenn. It has taken me a while to get used to the sun rising about an hour later each day then it does in eastern New York. It is also true that the closer one gets to the equator, the less noticeable day length becomes and Florida is a lot closer than New York!
Regardless of what the clock says, this is the time of year when winter-weary Northern gardeners peruse seed catalogues and dream of the upcoming growing season. Organizations like All American Selections test many new vegetable and flower varieties each year, and I look forward to seeing what the latest and greatest selections will be.
Of particular note to me are the new vegetable selections, and this year features some interesting new introductions. A new grape tomato called “Valentine F1” caught my eye first. Here is how the judges describe it “Hands down, the judges agreed this was the most appealing grape tomato they trialed. With an appetizing deep-red color, it has a very sweet (Brix of 7-9) taste and will hold longer on the vine without cracking or losing the excellent eating quality.
Valentine F1 tomato is quite prolific and will mature earlier (55 days from
transplant) than the comparisons used for this entry. Gardeners should plan on staking the indeterminate vines for best results. Tomato lovers will appreciate the sweet, firm flesh that is meaty enough to resemble a Roma tomato but in a smaller, grape-type
fruit. These easy-to-harvest tomatoes can take the summer heat and keep on producing!” I am generally not a big fan of grape tomatoes, as I find them usually tough skinned and not very sweet, but this one might be worth a try in my garden. The other two tomato winners “Chef’s Choice F1” and “Cocktail Red Racer” do not interest me.
A new Chinese cabbage
(Pak Choi) called “Asian Delight” caught my eye as well, because it is reported to be highly resistant to bolting. I really like the taste of Pak Choi, but it seems that they bolt (send up flower stalk) almost as soon as they emerge from the ground in my garden. One judged seeded his trial three times and all three times Asian Delight did not bolt whereas the comparisons did. “This is the
best white stem mini Pak Choi I have ever seen.” That’s quite an endorsement!
There are four new pepper varieties selected, and one of them is a Habanero type that is reported to not have any heat at all! (Roulette F1) I think most people grow habaneros because of the heat, so I don’t really see the point of this, other than as a novelty. A new cayenne pepper “Red
Ember F1” is indeed hot, but this one is reported to mature much earlier than others in its class.
The last two AAS pepper varieties are “Mexican Sunrise F1” and “Mexican Sunset F1.” Both of these are Hungarian-type peppers that offer very pretty colored fruit but also more heat than I care for. Other than a new bi-color sweet corn that is all the new AAS vegetable selections
for 2018.
One final note, the term “F1” stands for the first generation offspring of a deliberate cross between two different parental types. Seed that is produced by F1 hybrids will not produce the same type of plants as the hybrid did.