In this Issue
January 2006

GARDENING IN NEW ENGLAND
Planting seeds for next growing season
By Edna Schron

Orange Fantasia Swiss Chard

Hello Gardeners!

Happy 2006 in the garden! The garden catalogues are piling up in the basket in front of the fireplace this winter, and I’m enjoying their exciting pages. Every gardener dreams of spring, and the magic of those glossy pages makes the days of winter seem a bit brighter. If you are not getting catalogues, you can go online to order them from the various seed companies or you can send for them. If you pick up a garden magazine, there are postcards inside to order also. Of course there are catalogues not just for seeds and plants, but some are devoted to gardening items, like greenhouses for the home gardener.

As you salivate over your seed catalogues, take note of the new varieties offered for 2006. Some are offered by every seed company, and others are patented for that company only. Burpee and Park are two companies that always have new offerings that you can only purchase from them. Sometimes it’s a brand new color of a plant or a vegetable with a new taste or shorter germination rate. Several years ago, for example, Burpee offered the first white marigold. It was a lot of fun that spring to plant those seeds and have the first white marigold ever seen in Brookfield! This year, some new varieties being offered include a new cauliflower named Cheddar. It is a unique and beautiful cauliflower the color of cheddar and retains its dramatic shade when cooked. A new chard, Orange Fantasia, also holds its color when cooked. A new lettuce, Red Velvet, has leaves that are such a dramatic red that apparently you can scarcely see any green. Most of us think green when we think of Bell peppers, but there are a rainbow of colors available — lilac, orange, red, purple, chocolate, and white. There is a new spinach — Scarlet is a new hybrid. Bright scarlet stems and a fine spinach flavor could make Popeye happy! There are several new types of tomatoes, and I always try to grow something new each year just out of curiosity to see how they look and taste. Speckled Roman, Black Brandywine, Peach Blow Sutton, German Orange Strawberry and Rainbow Cherry are some of the new tomatoes for 2006. If you love carnations, there are a couple new ones. Chianti is a very dark maroon and Victoriana is a large dianthus that has blooms 2 inches across with a delightful spicy fragrance. A new nasturtium called Black Velvet is not the color you think of when you think of nasturtiums. It has velvety red-black flowers carried on dark blue-green foliage with a somewhat shorter vine length. I never thought there would be another new sunflower! A lot of hybridizing has been done over recent years. About 20 new sunflowers have made their way into the home garden. This year, two new hybrids have arrived — Cherry Rose and Jolly Joker.

Enjoy your seed catalogues in front of the fire, and the long winter days will seem a little shorter!

Happy Gardening!

Read previous columns by Edna Schron