The Yellow Farmhouse Garden

I’m going to go out on a little bit of a limb here and predict the new big hit in tomatoes for this year and next. Everyone is aware of the delicious ‘Red Grape’ tomatoes that are now available everywhere, but it wasn’t that long ago when they were a relatively rare item.

A new variety is being made available to large vegetable growers as well as home gardeners, it is called ‘Tomatoberry’. It has been a featured item in the “American Vegetable Growers News”, a trade journal for farmers, among other places.

Every year many new varieties are released but few make the grade to stay around for more than a season or two, and fewer still obtain such wide acceptance as ‘Red Grape’ tomatoes.

‘Tomatoberry’ is touted to be high yeiding and have a beautiful deep red color. Its most unique characteristic however, is its strawberry shaped fruit. The flavor is of a sweet tomato and has a firm chewy texture.

This variety sounds like a winner to me. We will have to see how they perform in the garden before we can pass final judgment. The seed is available exclusively through Johnny’s Selected Seeds. We have already ordered our ‘Tomatoberry’ seeds and will be giving them a fair trial this season.

Predicting a fine gardening season for all,

Bob

Being able to share the bounty of our gardens is one of the most rewarding aspects of gardening. That’s why we have a corner of the garden devoted exclusively to cut flowers. Rather than cutting flowers from our regular gardens and risking making a hole in the landscape, we do it this way. More flowers are available for cutting too.

The bulk of our cutting garden is comprised of easy to grow snapdragons (Rocket Mixed) and zinnas ( Benary Giant ). These varieties are reliable bloomers and blossom again after cutting. We also have asters ( Matsumoto ) , dahlias ( assorted varieties ) , and gladiolus . Each year we like to try to add something to the cut flower garden. Last year was the first year for Lisianthus ( tall varieties ) , they were a big hit with their rose-like blossoms.

One thing you might want to consider if you start a cutting garden is growing “filler” and “accent” material for bouquets.

For example, we like to grow Eucalyptus for its silvery stems. That’s right, Eucalyptus trees. They can be grown as an annual in our latitude.

We also make sure there is plenty of Gomphrena (Globe Amaranth) in the garden too. The small flowers can be added to an arrangement as an accent or gathered together into a larger bunch with Baby’s Breath for a striking home grown arrangement.

Baby’s Breath is often used by florists as a filler material. You can give a professional look to your arrangements by adding it to your bouquets. Keep in mind however, that Baby’s Breath only blossoms for a short period of time and has to be replanted periodicaly. We sow a few seeds every couple of weeks through the season to ensure a steady supply of this useful flower.

One of the fun parts of the cutting garden is the carnations we grow. They can be used to make your own boutonniere to wear in your lapel. Some varieties are hardy in our area and return every year as a perennial. If I remember right, ‘Sonata’ is one such variety.

Finally, don’t forget about tulips and other spring bulbs that can be planted in the fall into the cutting garden for your early bouquets. As they die back, you can plant your annuals right over the top of the bulbs and get a double crop out of your space.

So if you have the room, have some fun and add your own favorite flower to your cutting garden. You won’t have to worry about which color of flower goes with which in the garden until you put them into the vase !

Bob

Have you gotten all your seed catalogs ? I think all mine have come in the mail. I’ve been pouring over some of them at work and got my seed orders done last week. Did them online, which is not my favorite way to do them but you get results fast. 3 of my 4 orders have come already. Ordered on Tuesday and received one company’s shipment by Monday.
I grow a lot of annuals for one of my gardens at work at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens. That garden will have a Centennial Garden theme this year, so I was looking for varieties that were old, preferably from 1907 or before to showcase varieties that people would be using back then. One catalog with lots of heirloom varieities is Select Seeds. They’re online at www.selectseeds.com. It has lots of old fashoned favorites plus unusual flowers.

One variety that I ordered is Cosmos ‘Double Click’. It’s a double petaled cosmos in pink,crimson and white. Some of the flowers look very full. I think visitors will like it. I also ordered Heliotrope ‘Marine’. it has dark purple flowers with a “baby powder’ scent. Though it says it can be 2 ft tall, it’s not been much over 1 ft in my garden in the past. Probably not the right conditions for it.

One flower that’s not well known is the annual phlox. Only a foot or so tall with sprays of tubular flowers that are almost like the tall garden phlox that we’re more familiar with. A light pink variety with a dark pink eye is called ‘Brilliant’. Another one is an heirloom from before 1889 with pale yellow flowers called ‘Isabellina’. They will bloom mid-summer into September.

I’m trying Sweet Peas for the first time. From what I’ve read they won’t like our hot humid Michigan summer, but since they’re started in early,early spring I should get blooms in late spring and early summer. The seeds can be planted before the frost is out of the ground! They will need some support. One varieity is 6 ft tall. The seeds have to be nicked or soaked for 12 hours. Sweet Peas don’t like acid soil which means my gardens at work are okay but I wouldn’t be able to grow them at home in Petersburg. I’m looking forward to some fragrant beauties.

I ordered over 40 different varieities just from the Select Seeds company. In another blog I’ll tell you how I start all these seeds. It’s going to be a busy spring!

Bye for now, Judy

Ground Hog’s Day has come and gone, I hope yours went well.

When I was a kid growing up in the Ida area, Ground Hog’s Day was always a big deal. This was due, in large measure, to the rural character of that part of Monroe County at that time.

Farmers who kept livestock would always take note of how much hay was in the mow and how much corn was in the grainery. February 2nd, they always said, was the half-way point between the last harvest of the previous year and the arrival of the first pasture for the upcoming spring. If more than half of their hay was left on that date, then they had enough feed to last through the rest of the winter. That whole ground hog shadow hullabaloo was there just for fun.

We as gardeners should follow those old farmer’s example. This is the perfect time to check your items in storage if you haven’t already done so. For example, today we checked our canna and dahlia roots dug last fall ( to be re-planted in the spring ) for any signs of decay. The bad ones were discarded to keep the remainder from rotting. We inspected the geraniums in the cold storage room and they looked fine. This year we also tried keeping our extra banana plants in cold storage instead of in the greenhouse since we were running out of room for them. They look pretty rough, however, I believe the growing points deep inside the trunk are dormant and just fine.

We also checked the refrigerated cooler, as it is located in the same storage building. A few red onions are beginning to sprout. That is to be expected because that variety is not a ” keeping ” variety. So we will have to use those up first. The yellow ‘Copra’ onions look as good as the day they were placed into storage. The garlic, put into storage last August, are in fine shape too.

The cooler is also the winter home to our hyacinths we will begin forcing in the greenhouse, next week. They were potted up last fall, five bulbs to a six inch pot. The tiny ‘Tete-a-tete’ dafodills looked great as well. Those of you who potted bulbs for forcing, should check the bottom of the pot to see if the roots have grown through the drainage holes. This holds true whether you keep them in a ‘fridge or outdoors. This will give you some idea how far they have progressed. Most of our hyacinths have strong healthy roots just pushing through the drainage holes. Hence, our plan to bring them into the greenhouse on Monday.

One other unexpected item came to light during our annual Ground Hog’s Day inspection, the refrigerated cooler had broked down sometime during the last couple of days. Instead of cooling the inside of the cooler, it seemed to be heating it instead! The temperature inside the cooler was 67 degrees F. The storage room where it was located was 45 degrees F. That’s how I realized something was wrong.

So you see, Ground Hog’s Day really does serve a useful purpose.

… looking forward to 6 more weeks ’til spring,

Bob