Post time for veggies

It’s hard to believe that today is a milestone for our 2010 vegetable gardens, especially since the daffodils are just pushing up and we’re still in for some very cold nights. But today marks the day that we are historically eight weeks from our first frost-free date.

What this means to many of us is that some of our garden crops that we grow from seed, and are long-season crops, are ready for their first indoor seeding. I’m sure some have jumped the gun. This is okay for plants like tomatoes, which can be planted deeper without killing the plants. But for something like peppers (that have to be planted perfectly), as the track announcer says: “It’s post time.”

Old as New

This year there is a new “old” vegetable that seems to be showing up in markets and is being prominently promoted by some of the seed houses. It looks like a Sputnik with leaves and was first grown in Europe more than 500 years ago. For some reason it didn’t make it to America until about 1800.

It’s often misclassified as a root, but the vegetable I’m talking about, kohlrabi, is actually a cabbage relative that has a turnip appearance. In spite of its “personality complex” here in the States, kohlrabi is widely grown in Eastern Europe and Asia.

Here’s the 411 on kohlrabi—it’s easy to grow, can be grown in the spring and the fall and can be eaten raw or cooked. The flavor (when harvested at the right time) can be described as a cross between apples and mild baby turnips. Available as either white or purple skin types, it can mature in 38 to 60 days from seeding outdoors, depending on the variety.

The seeds are sown in loose, fertile soil as soon as it is workable, and successive sowings can be made every two weeks. Just keep in mind that this is an early or late cool-season crop and will not do well in the summer heat. The seeds are sown a half-inch deep in rows about 8 inches apart. When the seedlings are about 3 inches tall, they should be thinned to one every 4 to 6 inches.

Harvesting begins when the first stems are about an inch in diameter and continue until the stems are 2 to 3 inches in diameter. If allowed to get larger, they begin to develop woody fibers that are not very tasty. Sowing can begin again in late summer.

The foliage can be cooked like other greens and the bulbs can be eaten raw, sliced, diced, grated or used in a slaw. Don’t expect too many problems with disease or insects, but this is a member of the cabbage family and is susceptible to cabbage worms (these are easily controlled organically).

Hot stuff

For those of you who are pepper lovers, there is a new one this year called “Cajun belle.” It’s available as seed and later on it should be available in cell packs and possibly in pots as well.

The fruits look like small bell peppers about 2 inches by 3 inches in size, with three or four lobes each. The flavor is described as both sweet and savory. Cajun belles are early to mature and you can expect them to be ready for harvest green about 60 days from transplants.

When left on the plant, the fruit will change color to scarlet and will finish as red. The compact plant is only 2 feet wide and 2 feet tall and yet it’s a heavy producer. And because of it’s small stature, it’s well suited to smaller gardens and containers. It showed no disease problems in trials of several years.

Cajun belle seeds should be started indoors within the next two weeks using a sterile soilless media and the seed should be lightly covered. Keep the media between 65 and 70 degrees and the seed should germinate in five to 10 days. Remember that peppers are tropical plants and they will not tolerate the cold, indoors or out.

For those who like to live on the edge, Thompson and Morgan is offering what is said to be the world’s hottest pepper. Rated at one million Scoville heat units, “the world’s hottest pepper naga jolokia” is cultivated in the Assam region of India and is extremely hot to taste and handle, so take care. A very long-season crop, these need to be started indoors now (eight to 10 weeks from the frost-free date) as they require 150 days to the first harvest (110 to 115 from transplants). Wonder what the deer will think if they try to munch on these hot peppers?

Cool As ... An Ear of Corn?

To go to another extreme, T&M is offering a tiny, baby sweet corn called “snowbaby.” Each snowbaby plant produces about six cobs of early white, tender, baby sweet corn. Harvestable in about 90 days from seeding, this makes it a very early variety that’s well suited to Asian-type cooking, stir-fries, salads and steamed vegetable dishes.

Heads Prevail

Looking for lettuce to grow in your garden or planters this year? Organic seed supplier Seeds of Change (seedsofchange.com) has a pretty incredible selection of lettuces and leafy greens (I think I counted over 45!) with some of the most complete planting and growing instructions that I’ve seen.

Most of the varieties are accompanied by pictures as well as the histories of the variety. And there’s a whole page of lettuces, including leaf pictures, that allows you to create your own sowing mixes. This really appealed to me as I always go to the garden center and buy a bunch of seed packets of different varieties then mix them all together and plant them in rows. The result is that I can pick a mixed green salad right from the row.

You too can do it this way using the Seeds of Change mix page. Or you can buy one of the company’s seven mixes to plant a row or an acre. Seeds of Change even has a braising mix with greens included that are suited for being lightly sautéed or stir-fried.

Precious Heirlooms

There’s also a number of seed suppliers that specialize in heirloom seeds only. There are several pluses to growing heirlooms. And a few minuses.

The big plus (other than the ethical and ecological ones) is that heirloom taste is usually unrivaled by the major breeder introductions. In addition, if you find that a particular crop (or all of them) turns out to be spectacular in taste or some other aspect, you can save some of the seed from that year’s crop to reproduce the same results the following years.

Of course, weather and soil conditions also have an influence. But you will have saved the critical genetic material.

You can’t do this with F1 hybrid seed that comes from the major seed company introductions because they will not reproduce or will not reproduce true to their initial planting.

The major minus of heirlooms may be that many of the varieties don’t have the disease resistance that we find in modern breeds. Not a big drawback, but a concern nonetheless.

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (rareseeds.com) not only offers over 1,400 varieties of heirloom seeds, but its catalog is nothing short of spectacular. The layout, artwork and photography is simply unparalleled in its educational and mouth-watering value. I save each year’s copy as an important reference.

The company boasts 170 new varieties this year and that raises an interesting question: How can you have new heirloom varieties? Seems like an oxymoron. But as good plantsmen, Baker Creek is in contact with gardeners and farmers throughout the world and are thus able to find older varieties of veggies and flowers that have been forgotten or undistributed.

Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org) is also another good source for heirlooms. Founded in 1975, this organization was and is at the forefront of preserving the genetic stock of our heritage in the vegetable and ornamental garden. Filled with all the staples like corn, peas, beans, greens, tomatoes, peppers, and more, this organization has always been dedicated to the heirloom movement and remains one of the most reliable sources of non-genetically modified seeds and heirlooms. Seed Savers also has a variety of transplants available that you won’t find in local garden centers.

Bumpy ’Maters

One such new introduction is the reisetomate tomato. The fruit can only be described as weird or alien, as it looks like a big clump of cherry tomatoes all fused together. The rough translation from German would lead you to think it’s called a traveling tomato, not that it has wheels, but it is shaped (knobby) in such a way that if you took it on your travels, you could pop off a knob or two and snack on the fruit as your journey progressed.

The taste is said to be rather sour, strong and acid. But, as the catalog says, it’s “the perfect tomato for those who love raw lemons.” It’ll certainly be the talk of the neighborhood if you plant it.

Time to get the early seeds sown, the grow lights turned on and the veggie garden plan updated. Next week, what’s new in the flowering world. Keep growing.

Andrew Messinger has been a professional horticulturist for more than 30 years. He divides his time between homes and gardens in Southampton, Westchester and the Catskills. E-mail him at: Andrew@hamptongardener.com. The Hampton Gardener is a registered trademark.