Maple Ridge & Pitt Meadows Times
Thursday, January 17, 2013
Seeds
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Vegetable seed choices growing in abundance
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here have never been as many range of colours: yellow, cream, choices for vegetable gardenpurple, and scarlet, as well as ers in the seed listings for 2013. traditional orange. ‘Flyaway’ and Heirloom or hybrid? Unusual col‘Resistafly’ give some protection ours or traditional ones? Organic seed or against the carrot rust fly, which non-organic? Container types or full-size? can be increased by planting carSturdily upright pea plants that don’t rots later than usual. need staking, such as ‘Little Marvel,’ Breeders continue to produce are popular with small-space gardeners, sweeter corns than ever before, though taller vines like the 2.5-metre but in cold, wet B.C. springs, (eight-foot) ‘Alderman’ always the old-fashioned ‘Jubilee’ produce more peas per plant. is very reliable for A practical alternative is timely germination choosing snap peas, since and a good crop. It is now people who miss haravailable in a supervesting the pods can sweet version. just wait and harvest Beets of various the peas within. colours are now Pole beans prodincreasingly popuuce more abunlar. ‘Touchstone dant and cleaner Gold’ is yellow, beans than dwarf while ‘Chioggia’ beans do. It’s has pink and always fun to white alternating grow beans with rings. The long, coloured pods. narrow roots of They can be yel‘Cylindra,’ which low, purple, or haul themselves green. There’s out from the also ‘Dragons soil, are still the Tongue,’ which most convenient is yellow with to pull and slice. purple stripes. But my favourRunner beans ite for production fit as well into a is ‘Winterkeeper flower bed as they Lutz’ which has do in vegetable big, tender roots gardens. They have that can go through flamboyant scarlet the winter in-ground, flowers that are a bee if mulched. They do favourite. it more reliably if you Carrots are now avail- Pole beans can offer excellent yields in plant them in groups, able in an awesome not rows, so that voles relatively small spaces.
the blighty foliage and dig the potatoes later. Planting potatoes very early and quite deep can help a crop to develop before blight hits. After all, in many gardens, overlooked by Anne Marrison potatoes from previous harvests Anne Marrison is happy to answer sprout early in spring, sometimes garden questions. Send them to disrupting rotation plans. her via amarrison@shaw.ca Seed of storage onions such as ‘Copra,’ ‘Robinsons Mammoth Improved,’ or ‘Early Yellow Globe’ should be started now. The gardener who grew the biggest onions I’d ever seen always started seed in late December. It’s nice to see the heirloom lemon cucumbers still have a permanent place in crop offerings. They are small, crisp, very sweet, and often eaten like apples. They produce masses of cucumbers have to work on big groundharder to find cover-type vines them. which smother More blightout weeds. They’re resistant tomatoes almost never found are being listed. commercially, since three They include the large days’ refrigeration is their cherry ‘Mountain Magic,’ maximum storage time. ‘Mountain Merit,’ the mediumHot and spicy peppers are persized hybrid ‘Defiant,’ and the paste fect for containers, where most are ornatomato ‘Plum Regal.’ mental, useful, and much easier to grow So far, there seem to be no truly blightthan bell peppers. resistant potatoes, though ‘Chieftan’ Jalapenos and ‘Long Red Cayenne’ take and ‘Kennebec’ are said to have some to container-growing especially well, and resistance. With partial resistance, blight also pickle beautifully. Both need to be moves so slowly there’s time to cut down used in moderation.
Gardening
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Date: Location: Address: Time:
January 22, 2013 Pitt Meadows Arena, Pitt Meadows 11435 Bonson Road 11:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m.