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The Vermont Garden Journal is back with weekly organic gardening advice from horticulturist Charlie Nardozzi.
Listen
this week for Charlie’s picks for the best new tomato, bean and squash
varieties to try this year. Also – is it time to rake the lawn?
Listen Friday at 5:55pm and Saturday at 8:55am for the return of the Vermont Garden Journal with Charlie Nardozzi on VPR.
The Vermont Garden Journal also has its own Facebook page for you to share gardening dilemmas, tricks and tips.
Every year hundreds of new
vegetable varieties grace seed catalogs, websites, and garden center shelves,
each with the promise of higher yields, fewer problems, and better taste. They
can’t all be the next best thing since ‘Brandywine’ tomato, so how do you
decide which to try? Well, I’ve been looking at new vegetable varieties for
more than 20 years and I’d like to think I can spot something that’s truly
unique. So here are some of my picks for the best new vegetables for 2011.
Early and late blight diseases have
been the scourge of Northeast gardeners for years. Two years ago it crescendoed
into a full blown epidemic where many gardeners had to pull out and destroy
plants before harvest. Now there are two
new hybrid tomato varieties that have resistance to the blight. ‘Defiant’ is a
determinate tomato that produces 6 to 8 ounce sized red fruits. ‘Mountain
Magic’ is a red cherry tomato with good crack resistance.
I love French filet beans. The
beans are slender with a melt-in-your-mouth texture and a delicate flavor.
Green filet beans are good, but now there are two new colored filet beans on
the market. ‘Velour’ is a purple colored filet, while ‘Concador’ produces a
yellow bean.
Winter squash are known for some
interesting and unique shapes and sizes. The Japanese heirloom ‘Black Futzu’ is
truly weird and wonderful. The 4- to 6-pound, warted, black skinned fruits turn
a chestnut color when mature. The golden flesh has the taste of hazelnuts and
fruits last for months in storage. Try some of these varieties in your garden
and let me know how they do on the Vermont Garden Journal’s Facebook page.
For this week’s tip, as the snow
melts resist the urge to start lawn cleanup duties. Let lawns dry out to avoid
compacting the soil. If you can see your footprint after walking on the lawn,
it’s still too wet to work. Next week on the Vermont Garden Journal, I’ll be
talking about new flower varieties. For now, I’ll be seeing you in the garden!
Resources:
Garden.org: Unique New
Varieties for 2011