by Miriam Hansen
It is time once again to order seeds, toss old seed packets (three to five years old, depending on the vegetable) and start planning the garden. I order my seeds in January because I don’t want to miss the lower prices Fedco offers on some of the hotter varieties. Even that approach doesn’t always work! This year, in spite of ordering super early, ‘Fortex’ pole beans (a stringless French bean that produces extra long pods) were already sold out. I’ll have to get the more expensive packet from Johnny’s Selected Seeds and pay a second set of shipping charges.
Lettuce, spinach, mesclun mixes and cilantro have continued to produce well through mid-January in my single-ply greenhouse and cold frames. We’re slowly working our way through two freezers of frozen vegetables, and I’ve been converting some of our stored squashes into delicious puréed soup, which I freeze and pair with empanadas for weekend treats.
The beautiful sweet purple onions, ‘Rossa Lunga di Tropea’, are not very good keepers, so I chopped them up when they started sprouting in December and froze them to use when the ‘Copra’ and ‘Varsity’ storage onions run out. The ‘Ailsa Craigs’, arguably the best sweet onion on the market, are just starting to sprout and may go to the end of February. For an onion that doesn’t store well, that’s pretty impressive.
A tip I recently shared with a young friend is to wring out frozen vegetables after you’ve defrosted them. They will be crisper and taste fresher. I run the frozen vegetables under hot water long enough to break them up. Then I just grab a handful over the sink and squeeze hard enough to get a stream of water out but not so hard that they get mushy or disintegrate. It gets rid of the extra moisture, which can make frozen vegetables soggy. I used to only do this with summer squash but have discovered it works equally well with everything from Brussels sprouts to cauliflower, green beans and snap peas.
This year, my seed order reflects how much I have come to appreciate annual flowers, the workhorses of the perennial garden. I’ve spent so many years trying to plan perennials to keep the color parade going, forgetting that annuals not only give continuous bloom but will continue to bloom long into the fall. Many flowers, such as poppies, cleomes and nasturtiums, will also self-seed so you can move them around in early spring.
In general, annuals are plants that germinate, flower and set seed in one season. Perennials bloom for a short time but come back year after year. Biennials flower the second year, set seed and die. Foxgloves, lunaria (money plant) and clary sage are biennials that self-seed copiously. With biennials, the trick is to start the plants from seed two years in a row. That way you have blooms every year.
Just when you think you’ve got it all straight, some annuals are described as hardy, tender and half hardy. Level of hardiness just refers to how much cold they can withstand in the spring. Hardy annuals, like alyssum and violas, can be planted in the very early spring. Half-hardy annuals, like cosmos and petunias, can be directly sown outside when all danger of frost has passed but the ground is not yet warmed up. Tender annuals (most bedding plants) can’t be planted until the ground has warmed up.
Then there are half-hardy perennials like dahlias, geraniums, tuberous begonias and sword lilies that must be planted each spring after danger of frost has passed, and you have to lift their bulbs in the fall before a hard frost. Some folks think this is too much trouble, but if you’ve ever breathed in the fragrance of the white-flowered sword lily, dancing in a breeze with backlit rosy pink Japanese anemones, you might think it’s worth the bother.
Some of the colorful, prolific flowering annual varieties I’ve chosen this year include, ‘Profusion Series Zinnias’, ‘Durango Marigolds’, ‘Sparkler Hybrid Cleome’, ‘Twinny Snapdragons’ and ‘Chantilly Snapdragons’ to plug into perennial beds for color through the summer and into late fall.
It is reassuring to note that after almost 40 years of gardening, I continue to receive revelations. Last fall, a commercial flower grower explained why my sunflowers did not hold up well in bouquets. Apparently, certain sunflowers are naturally pollenless or male sterile. These sunflowers don’t shed piles of yellow dust, are less apt to be allergenic and hold much better in bouquets. The Sunrich series from Johnny’s Seeds, as well as ‘Soraya’ and ‘Zohar’, are some of the varieties I’ve chosen for cutting.
Of all the books on perennial gardening, my hands-down recommendation is The Art of Perennial Gardening by Patrick Lima. Still, for an education from A to Z, my favorite reading at this time of year is garden catalogs. When I have a specific gardening question, I type my question into the computer’s search engine and check out the gardening forums where gardeners share tips, discuss and disagree. For more advanced gardeners, Johnny’s has some very helpful planning, planting and growing guides available at johnnyseeds.com/t-interactivetools.aspx.
Every year, my resolution remains to grow the flowers I truly love and the vegetables and berries that I and my family really like to eat. I’ve begun growing some vegetables commercially, and that adds another layer of complexity to planning the garden. But whether you’re a home gardener or commercial grower, Happy gardening in 2013!
Miriam and her husband, David, live in East Montpelier, where they grow most of their own vegetables, berries and meat on less than one-quarter of an acre. Your questions and comments are welcome. You can reach Miriam at freshair460@gmail.com.
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