Consumer sources of garden information

Consumers are mining the internet for more and more garden information. If you are online reading Front Range Food Gardener, exploring online seed catalogs and university plant information websites, you’ve helped vault the internet from fifth to second most used source for garden information in the last year.

The national Garden Trends Research Report just released by the Garden Writers Association Foundation asked “Which of the following are your sources of gardening information?” Consumers rated top sources to be friends (43%), internet (29%), magazines (22%), books (22%), retailers (19%), newspapers (13%), blogs (7%) and other (18%).

I always urge people to look at the source of the information. Anyone can throw up a website or blog so look for who is writing. Is it a credible university, nursery, plant society, government agency or similar source?

There are certainly knowledgeable amateur gardeners but critically think through their recommendations and interpretations before buying their information. You can always run your own experiment and try growing one plant their way and one “normally” to see if there is any difference.

Do check if they are writing about plants in your hardiness zone and environment. This is why Front Range Food Gardener is localized to Denver and other Front Range Colorado cities. Our climate is challenging. While experiences elsewhere can inform us, they always need to be interpreted for how well they translate to our environment and soils.

Low elevation humid climate plant growing even in the north doesn’t always copy to high and dry plant growing in Colorado. Likewise growing in acid eastern U.S. soils doesn’t mean plants will perform similarly in alkaline Colorado soils.

Check back for more garden information and share your garden experiences on this blog. Note your city location so others can interpret how well information applies to them. We can all help each other be more successful food gardeners.

Vegetable varieties for high elevation Front Range areas

Larry Stebbins of Pikes Peak Urban Gardens recently spoke at the green industry ProGreen conference at the Colorado Convention Center. His favorite vegetable and herb varieties are listed below. If they grow at Colorado Springs elevations, they must be special. Varieties mentioned first in bold type are favorites. Other adapted varieties follow. If a variety is new to you, try it this season.

Artichoke Globe: Imperial Star (annual, 85 days from seed)
Asparagus: Jersey varieties
Basil: Genovese, Sweet Basil
Beans: Kwintus Pole, most bush varieties (Blue Lake, Tendergreen), Kentucky Wonder Pole
Beets: Detroit Dark Red, Bulls Blood, Chioggia
Broccoli: Premium Crop, Pacman, Early Dividend
Cabbage: most all, try Chinese varieties
Carrot: Mokum, Ya Ya, Kaleidoscope, Nelson, Danvers Half Long, Burpee A#1, Sugarsnax
Corriander: Santo
Corn Sweet: Bodacious, Ambrosia
Cucumber: Cool Breeze, burpless varieties
Garlic: Spanish Roja, Inchelium Red, Chesnok Red, Chet’s Italian
Kale: Red Russian, Redbor
Lettuce: Buttercrunch, romaines, leaf lettuces, mesclun mixes
Mustard: Osaka Purple, Mizuna
Onion: Candy, SuperStar White, Red Candy, Lisbon White Bunching, Copra, First Edition, Red Zeppelin
Parsnip: Hollow Crown
Peas: Sugar Ann, SugarSnap, Oregon Sugar Pod(snow pea), Garden Peas (Maestro, Wando and Marvel),
Pepper Sweet: Carmen, Green Bell (most varieties), Fooled You Jalapeño
Pepper Hot: Mexibell, Anaheim, Big Chile, Jalapeño, Mucho Nacho, Garden Salsa, New Mex Joe Parker
Potato: Russet, Yukon Gold, Red Norland
Radish: Cherry Belle, French Breakfast
Rutabaga: Laurentian
Spinach: Giant Noble, Tyee, Space, Melody, Bloomsdale
Squash Summer: Magda, zuchinni (most varieties), yellow, crookneck,
Squash Winter: Early Butternut, Table King or Table Ace Acorn, Buttercup, Spaghetti
Swiss Chard: Ruby, Rhubarb, Bright Lights, Neon, Fordhook
Tomato: Big Beef, Sweet Million or Sweet 100’s, Celebrity, Fantastic, Early Girl, Better Boy, Mortgage Lifter, Sweet Baby Girl

Chile peppers - back to the future

If you love to grow chiles and eat Mexican food, you will want to know about New Mexico State University’s Chile Pepper Institute. They have cleaned up the ‘Big Jim’ and ‘6-4’ chile varieties to yield 10 percent more and have 20 percent more flavor! The resulting heritage varieities are what these chiles used to be like before seed lines wandered off type. The fruit grown from CPI’s seed more closely resembles the flavor many may remember from years ago – and higher yield is an added bonus.

Do you have trouble maturing chiles in your shorter growing season area? You will be interested in NuMex Espanola Improved, a variety adapted to fewer days to maturity growing.

See the CPI Shop 2010 catalog for seeds as well as books and posters. Note also that they carry more than just chile peppers. Sweet, paprika, jalapeno, Cuban, Caribbean, ornamental and many other types of pepper seeds can be found in their colorful catalog pages. Pepper enthusiasts can also get the T-shirt and salsa.

CPI’s online catalog is fun to browse even if you have no thoughts of growing peppers this season. Before you know it you may just find a pepper that you have to try in your garden.

Photo credit - Caged pepper plant- Carl Wilson

Blueberry growing intense in Colorado

by guest writer Joel Reich*

Many Colorado gardeners have long lamented their inability to grow blueberries (Vaccinium corymbosum and related species). The problem stems from the fact that most of Colorado’s soils are slightly to highly alkaline, above pH 7.0 (neutral). Blueberries must have acid soils (a pH of about 5.5) in order to thrive. Unfortunately, there is just no practical way to manage Colorado soils in order to produce a pH that low.

The good news for blueberry lovers is that, with extra effort, there is a proven way to grow delicious blueberries in your Colorado garden. The keys to success are 1) plant the blueberry bushes in a medium that is primarily (or entirely) composed of sphagnum peat moss. This readily available material has a pH of approximately 5.5, so it is perfect for blueberries. Two further keys to success are: 2) make sure that the root zone always stays moist (even during warm, dry spells in winter), and 3) protect the bushes from drying winds during the winter. This can be done by wrapping the bushes with burlap or old sheets while they are dormant.

Any planting method that incorporates these three key elements should lead to success, so feel free to be creative. For those who want an established recipe for success, follow the instructions below. Keep in mind that you will need to have at least two blueberry plants of different varieties (for cross-pollination purposes) in order for the plants to set good crops.

For each plant:

- Dig a hole that is 20” deep, 30”long and 20” wide.
- Get a plastic-wrapped bale of sphagnum peat moss (3 cubic feet).
- Punch about a dozen holes in the bottom of the plastic wrap.
- Drop the bale, holes down, into your pre-dug hole. You can grow more plants in a row by dropping multiple bales in a trench. Different plants are necessary for cross-pollination as noted above.
- Cut an 8”x 8” “X” in the plastic on top of the bale and fold back flaps.
- Plant a bare-root blueberry plant directly into the peat moss (Do this in early-mid April).
- Re-close the “X” using tape, leaving about a 3” hole in the middle to accommodate the trunk of the bush.
- (optional) Install drip irrigation line by cutting a small hole at either end of the bale and feeding the line through the holes, resulting in an irrigation line that runs on top of the peat but under the plastic.
- Fertilize in early May and early July with a balanced fertilizer for acid-loving plants (i.e. Miracle Grow for Acid Loving Plants).
- Water and provide winter protection as discussed in keys to success above.
- Provide protection from “critters” as animals love blueberries too.
- Enjoy blueberries year after year!


* Joel Reich is CSU Extension horticulturist at the Boulder County Extension office in Longmont, CO where he trials blueberries and other small fruits.

Photo credit: Dladek

Grow your own chicons (Belgian endive)

Growing delicious salad greens in December in Colorado may seem a stretch to some but it’s not as far-fetched as it may seem. Belgian endive or witloof chicory will produce the tight shoots of leaves known as chicons through winter forcing. They are highly desired for gourmet salads and are used either alone or with other greens. They can also be lightly steamed and are high in vitamin C.

As discussed last post, this plant is another form of chicory, Cichorium intybus. Belgian endive requires a two stage production process. These plants are grown as a root crop during the summer (first stage), dug and stored cold for winter forcing (second stage). They require a little over 3 months for root production so plant in early July. Be sure to plant Belgian endive and not the endive/escarole/frisee seed discussed last post.

Roots can be dug after the first frost in fall depending on variety and maturity. Mature roots are 1 ¼ to 2 ¼ inches in diameter. The final harvest should be made by early December from beds mulched to avoid soil freezing. Trim tops back to 1 inch and store roots by planting in pots of dry soil or lined out in rows in open-top trays that are at least 6 inches deep and have drainage. Roots that are too long for the container can be trimmed from the bottom. Do not water after planting but make sure that soil touches all sides of the roots and air pockets are eliminated. Store in an uncovered coldframe or under an outdoor deck on a north or east side where temperatures will hold at 40 to 60 degrees F (cooler is better). Root cellars or unheated garages and garden sheds are other storage possibilities. Roots are often covered with perlite, sawdust or dry sand after soil temperatures have cooled. This keeps them cool but mulches them from extreme cold.

The mulch becomes necessary to the second stage growing process, forcing. Roots should be forced in the dark so the shoots remain yellow-white and develop a mild flavor. Light cause the shoots to turn green and taste bitter. Some home growers use a length of 4 inch diameter plastic pipe over a root planted in a pot, filling the 6 inch tall pipe with perlite or a peat-sand mixture. Containers can be watered by applying water to the soil surface at the base of the pipe and not through the top of the pipe. Keep roots moist for the 3 to 4 week forcing period. Good soil drainage is important so roots don’t rot. Harvest when shoots poke out the top of the pipe. With this pipe method, you can tip the perlite or peat-sand mixture out of the top of the pipe, lift the pipe off the shoot, and cut the chicon at the soil line.

Winter forcing can be done over time producing a stream of fresh greens. Limitations to production will be when storage becomes too warm and roots start to grow. Note that traditional varieties such as ‘Totem’ and ‘Witloof di Bruxelles’ are forced by the soil or mulch covering method in darkness. New hybrid varieties from Europe such as ‘Normato’, ‘Mitado’ and ‘Tardivo’ produce tight heads in darkness without the need for soil or mulch covering.

Photo credit: Witloof roots, Rasbak. Chicon, David.Monniaux.

Frisee – Gourmet chicory greens

Chicory (Cichorium intybus) is an interesting garden vegetable that has many forms and is known by many names including frisee, curly leaf endive, flat leafed endive or escarole, radicchio, Belgium endive, witlof and chicon. Qriginally from Europe, chicory is a weed in America with scattered plants growing in Colorado at 4000 to 7000 feet elevation. Many people think it is a native “wildflower” (see photo). It is often confused with blue flax which has one layer of petals instead of the double “wheel” of chicory flowers.

Of the selected forms for eating, the leafy vegetables include frisee sometimes sold by seed companies as Cichorium endivia. The frilly leaves (see photo) are used as a bitter fresh green in salad mixes. Flat-leafed endive (escarole) is more often used as a wilted or cooked green. Note that some people use the term frisee for frilly lettuce but lettuce is in a whole separate genus, Lactuca. The chicory group of plants is confusing enough without mixing the idea of lettuces in with them.

It’s entirely appropriate to be talking about frisee in late November as the greens are very cold hardy and can survive until early December particularly if mulched. Frisee is easy to grow in 45 days and can be planted in mid-summer for a fall crop, or in early spring as a cool season crop for harvesting before hot weather arrives. Some people blanch their crop by tying leaves in a bundle 3 days before harvest to deprive the inner leaves of light and change them to a light yellow color.

Next post will be about another fun thing to do with chicory plants - harvest roots and force the gourmet witlof (chicon) buds to grow in winter.

Photo credits: Cichorium intybus flower-Alvesgaspar, Frisee – Frank C. Muller