January 2022

Missing the Garden?

As the Garden sleeps, the WCG staff is still at work (maybe not so hard) looking forward to the 2022 season. The Contract for this year is ready to be published, once it has Board approval, and will be sent to your email this month. 

Changes to the Contract from last year include:

Dues will be raised $5, to $35 for a 10 X 10 plot and $50 for a 10 X 20, for the season.

Required volunteer hours for Gardeners have increased from 4 to 6 hours for the season.

Gardeners must return their signed contract by  February 15 with dues. An orientation meeting will be announced at which dues may be dropped off in person. There are currently 24 people on the waiting list, so if you know you will not be returning, please let me know as soon as possible so I can try to accommodate as many on the list as possible.

The Garden will officially open on March 5, which will also be the date for our cold-season plant sale. We hope our Gardeners will buy veggie plants from us to support the Garden and the Farm. The warm-season sale will be held May 6. A list of the plants that we will be growing can be accessed at the link below, so you won’t have to order seeds for the plants that we will have available. 

Plant Sale Plant Descriptions

So looking forward to seeing all of you once the weather warms!

Barbara Arnold

Community Garden Coordinator

Name Our Hawk contest winner!

Congratulations to Kay Clapp for submitting the winning name for the red-tailed hawk that has adopted our garden. The name chosen by the WCG Board from all submissions is Skylar! Kay, your prize is eternal bragging rights!

Seed catalogs 2022

Chances are, if you are in any way connected to gardening, you will have begun to receive seed and plant catalogs in the mail by now. What can be more comforting on a cold, dark winter day in the throes of a pandemic than to curl up in a chair with a hot beverage and dream about the lovely, delicious vegetable plants you will grow this year? And flowers!! The pictures in the catalogs are so beautiful and you find you want ALL of them!

Why order from seed catalogs? Aren’t there plenty of seeds to buy in the garden stores? And lots of plants already growing that can be just plunked into the ground? But sometimes you may want a specific type of plant that you know to have been successful in your garden before and the only reliable way to assure you can get that plant is to grow it yourself from seed. And the seeds offered at the big box stores and even at nurseries, cannot have the variety that is available from all these seed catalogs.

Also, seed catalogs have great pictures and descriptions of the plants and instructions about their cultivation.

Here are some commentary from Community Gardeners about their favorite seed catalogs:

Jessica Stephens, Vice President of WCG:

My favorite seed catalog is from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com).  They do two catalogs per year- one's free, the other is $10 because it is over 500 pages!!!  I love the large catalog because this seed company seeks out seeds from all over the world and has introduced me to new varieties that I'd never dreamed of- I can find seeds from similar climates to ours and try them here. Their seeds always germinate for me and the prices are good.  I've had great success with chinese radishes, japanese mizuna, and will be trying asian cucumbers this summer. 

Sally Hewitt, Community Gardener:

If you are like many of us that experienced problems with Early Blight on your tomatoes last year, seed catalogs offer quite a few hybrids that are disease resistant as well as some that are bred to produce well in hot and humid conditions like ours. For example:

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange 

Druzba- sweet and juicy slicer 

Eva Purple Ball-purple excellent flavor 

Geranium Kiss- dwarf container 

West Va. 63- red excellent flavor 

Yellow Centiflor- gold cherry, a cross of Sun Gold and Red Centiflor 

Totally Tomatoes 

Regal-high yield slicer with old fashioned flavor 

Galahad Hyb- large and tasty, good fresh, canned or sauced 

Seeds ‘N Such www.seedsnsuch.com

Regal Plum- meaty red and flavorful 

Defiant- real tomato flavor and high yielding with early blight resistance VFFEbLb

Heatmaster Hyb-deep red flavorful and sets fruits into the mid 90’s 

Arkansas Traveler- reddish pink high quality fruit, setting fruit in hot humid days

Carol Fryer Community Gardener, Master Gardener: 

My favorite seed companies : 

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds,  www.seeds.comThey have the most luscious photos and in-depth information about their vegetables. .

 Johnny Seeds , www.johnnyseeds.com is popular; they have good photos for their vegetables, but not as much information about each variety. 

 Both companies have a good reputation and good quality seeds. 

 

Randi Helpinstill, Community Gardener:

I pour over a few seed catalogs but my go to ones are Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for veggies and The Gardeners Workshop www.thegardenersworkshop.com  for flowers. For me, both give the “Goldilocks”-just right- amount of advice on all the seeds they carry, including germination, planting, and harvest tips.  Both are established VA companies who continuously update their catalog offerings with honed expertise suited to our growing conditions.  I trust their seeds and their customer service earns high marks!

Below are some other catalogs  with contact information with editorial comments

Southern Exposure Seed Exchange  www.southernexposure.com/ Mineral, VA Local company, employee owned, most likely to have varieties suitable for our conditions.( Mostly heirlooms vs. hybrids. Tom. packet , 40 seeds- $2.75)

Jung  www.jungseed.com/ Randolph, WI Good selection, good quality seed. Lots of garden supplies offered.( Hybrid tom. seed packet , 30 seeds - $4.15)Offer plants and grafted plants ($10.95)

Johnny’s Selected Seeds  www.johnnyseeds.com/ Winslow, ME Good quality product, higher prices,(hybrid tom. seed packet - $4.95)

Totally Tomato  www.totallytomatoes.com Randolph WI Large selection of tomato seeds, some other veggies also.( Hybrid tom packet, 15 seeds - $4.25)Offer plants and grafted plants ($10.95) 

Burpee www.burpee.com Warminster, PA The big daddy of catalogs. Beautiful pictures, lots of variety. Lots of supplies.Expensive. (hyb. Tom. packet, 30 seeds, $5.95) Plants, but no grafted plants.

Seed Savers exchange www.seedsavers.org Decorah IA Not for profit preserving heirloom varieties. Really nice catalog. Lots of information.

PineTree Garden Seeds - www.superseeds.com -New Gloucester ME Not a flashy catalog, but lot’s of variety. (Hybrid - 15 seeds - $2.25) Offer soap making supplies, teas, books, mushrooms.

Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds - www.seedsavers.org -  Mansfield, MO Reviewed above (heirloom tom. - 25 seeds, $3.75)

Territorial - www.territorialseed.com - Cottage Grove, OR Large catalog with tons of gardening information. Really informative. Lots of supplies. (heirloom tom. -⅛ gram - $4.95 - 40 seeds?) plants and grafted plants - $9.95 - double grafted - $16.25

Gurney’s Seed & Nursery www.gurneys.com Greendale IN Known initially as a fruit tree supplier, has developed a number of their own varieties of vegetables. (hyb. Tom. - 30 seeds - $5.99) plants available.

PEAS BE WITH YOU 

By Marty Mathes

The first record of wild peas was at least 23,000 years ago while the domestication was noted about 11,000 years ago.  Currently, these developments have resulted in cultivation of an excess of 5 million acres of peas.    The current vast array of varieties is well over 1000.

Your recent cascade of seed catalogs indicates that it is time to plan your early spring and summer garden planting.  You can start with crops which will survive "spring" frosts. My favorite is sugar snap peas.  In general, these peas can be planted around the first of March.  They are hardy, vigorous, high yielding and gastronomically versatile . These peas are usually trellised. The trellis can be used for later crops, such as cucumbers, etc., since the peas mature early.

Snap peas, also called sugar snap, are the result of a cross between snow peas and green peas  This hybrid was introduced in the 1970's.  It is characterized by a crunchy, sweet pod which does not require shelling.  In France these peas are referred to as Mange tout, meaning “eat it all”.

Peas are a good source of vitamins, proteins and carbohydrates. They also fix nitrogen in nodules in the soil with associated bacterial benefits. Sugar snap peas may be eaten raw or cooked. You can find 21 cooking recipes at Tastehome.com  

The Vermont Bean Seed Company www.Vermontbean.com Randolph, WI offers these varieties:

 "Mammoth Melting Sugar.  75 days.  Vining.  Snow Pea.  Heirloom variety with a distinctive, meltingly sweet taste.  Hardy vigorous plants grow over 5' feet tall and require support.  Begins bearing early about 63 days after planting. and the more you pick, the more it produces.  Thick stringless, flat pods are 4-5' long.  Ideal for kitchen gardens."

" Super Sugar Snap.  70 day.  Snap Pea.  Versatile snap pea- eat them at any stage.  Sweet, crisp, tender, juicy pods are delicious whole, or shell them and use like regular garden peas. Productive, 5" tall plants display incredible cold tolerance (down to 20 degrees F.) as well as heat tolerance.  Resistant to powdery mildew.”

I hope to see you on March 1 in your potential pea patch.  To pea or not to pea.

Key to disease resistance/Tolerance in tomatoes.

If you have wondered what the alphabet soup of letters on plant labels or seed descriptions means, here is a key to help you. Simply find the letter that matches the disease that you are trying to avoid and look for that letter on your plants or seeds. Planting resistant varieties of vegetables is one good way to break the “susceptible host” side of the disease triangle. (See the October, 2021 issue of What’s Growin’ On)

HR  = High resistance

IR = Intermediate resistance   

AB -    Early (Alternaria) Blight

B -        Bacterial Wilt

Eb -     Early blight

F -    Fusarium Wilt

FF -    Fusarium Wilt Races 1.2

FOR -    Fusarium Crown and Root Rot

L -    Gray Leaf Spot

Lb-    Late Blight

LM -     Leaf Mold

N -     Roundworm/Nematode

PM -     Powdery Mildew

RK -     Root Knot

TMV -     Tobacco Mosaic Virus

ToANV -    Tomato Apex Necrotic Virus

ToMV -    Tomato Mosaic Virus

TSWV -     Tomato Spotted Wilt Virus

TYLCV -     Tomato Yellow Leaf Curl Virus

V -    Verticillium Wilt

Learn more about Organic Pest Prevention

Community Gardener Kay Clapp sent in the following information a class you may be interested in taking:

Elvin and I took a zoom class presented by MG of Northern VA last week and it should be available shortly on their website. ...MGNA.org

Pest and Disease in the Garden: Organic Prevention with Kristen Conrad as the presenter.  There were excellent suggestions as we think about planning our gardens in the next growing season, photos of both pests and diseases we fight, and solutions for them.  (They talk about 20% and 40% vinegar use and explain that household vinegar (5%) won't do the trick.)