Grow your own fruits and veggies

This year, my garden produced the best tasting celery I’ve ever bitten into. Typically, fresh celery isn’t something I like to snack on — either it’s too stringy or has a bitter flavour. Homegrown celery has forever changed my perception.

Earlier this year, on a round of visits to local greenhouses, I picked up a cell pack of celery seedlings. My husband planted the seedlings in our vegetable garden, which is located on our neighbour’s property (that’s a story I’ll save for later).

At harvest time, so visually appealing were the fat, juicy stalks topped with their flavourful, fragrant leaves that I brought along a bouquet of celery (instead of the usual bottle of wine) to a party I attended in September.

Now what was the variety name so that I can grow it again next year? The day before the epic storm that hit Manitoba on Oct. 11, I washed the soil from my plant tags and laid them out to dry on a bench on my front porch. The following day, the storm’s ferocious winds scattered all of my plant tags, most of which dropped between the floor slats of my porch.

It’s always a good thing to keep your plant tags or seed packets so you know which varieties to grow again. After some effort, I can tell you that the name of the celery I grew is Tango, a tall-stemmed robust plant that was seemingly indifferent to the wild weather that affected most of 2019’s growing season.

The consensus among most gardeners I’ve talked to lately is some of the edibles they grew suffered from this year’s combination of a cool spring, baking hot summer and sopping wet September. "Most people were pretty much attuned to the need for regular watering schedules," says Colin Remillard, co-owner of Jardins St-Léon Gardens, 419 St. Mary’s Rd. Cucumber crops, for example, almost needed to be watered twice daily, he says. He heard from customers who complained about early harvests tasting bitter and lacking firmness, but later in the season, their cucumbers were firmer and crisper.

Grumbles could be heard, too, about tomato blossom end rot, an unsightly water-soaked spot that appears on the end of the fruit. A problem that results from calcium not being available, the potential for blossom end rot is exacerbated when there is uneven moisture.

"Supplemental irrigation is never as good as natural rainfall, so when the rains finally came in August, everything started to wake up," says Remillard, who added most of his customers found the second crop of tomatoes did much better than the first.

Princess Yum Yum hybrid tomato, an adorable tomato variety Remillard grew this year, proved very popular with his customers. "Princess Yum Yum is a perfect name for a nearly perfect cherry tomato," he says. "Productive, consistently crack-free fruit and healthy plants." Tomato Growers Supply Company says Princess Yum Yum has the highest sugar of all their trial garden tomatoes and has resistance to late blight.

According to Remillard, other popular tomato varieties this year include Beauty King, which has striped yellow and red skin; cocktail-sized Sun Sugar, which he says beats all other yellow cherry tomato varieties; and Red Morning, a medium-sized beefsteak tomato with unparalleled production and quality.

More and more, Remillard is finding many people like to buy ready-to-grow seedlings they can plant in patio and balcony containers. Pre-sprouted bean plants, for example, sold like hotcakes this year. Hungarian Cheese Blend peppers, available in three colours, were snapped up by veggie lovers. Ultra-hot pepper varieties such as Carolina Reaper and Purple Ghost made customers tremble with fear and excitement. Remillard says his entire stock sold out at once. Overall, it wasn’t a great year for peppers, which loved the heat but not the drought.

Ed Amman, a local gardener who grows dozens of tomatoes and some of the hottest peppers on the Scoville heat scale, likes to start his veggies from seed (already he is scouring seed catalogues). Amman says the extended heat and drought affected the size of his tomatoes this year. He used flax straw as a mulch to conserve moisture. "I did have a few tomatoes with blossom end rot, but nothing like I have heard from other gardeners," says Amman, who added stink bugs were a problem for the first time.

Amman grew some new tomato varieties he’s looking forward to growing again next year. Roadster is a hybrid bush tomato that is very firm and smooth shouldered and has great flavour. Amman ordered two tomato varieties — BHN 589 and Tonopah — from Seeds ‘n Such, a seed company in South Carolina. BHN 589 has high yields, great flavour and crack tolerance. Tonopah is a flavourful slicing tomato with slight ribbing. The vigorous plants produce early, big yields.

Tiffany Grenkow is one of the garden stewards for the prolific community garden at Sustainable South Osborne Community Co-operative (SSOCC), located at 250 Churchill Dr. With very little rainfall at the start of the growing season, Grenkow says it was a constant battle to maintain adequate moisture levels and keep everything growing.

This year, most of the fruit trees that grow in the orchard at SSOCC seemed to struggle somewhat and the gooseberry and currant bushes were plagued by Spotted Wing Drosophila (SWD). The larvae of SWD feed on soft-skinned fruits. "Our haskap berries, though, were stellar," Grenkow says, "and produced an impressive bounty of flawless fruits."

Root vegetables proved to be another big success. Grenkow says some varieties such as carrots, Bull’s Blood and Chioggia beets, and parsnips produced well all season. She’s especially impressed by Kuroda carrot, a substantial heirloom variety that typically has a hefty girth and a 17- to 20-centimetre root. "Some are as big as my forearm," Grenkow says. Kuroda carrot is an excellent juicing carrot that stores well.

Beets and carrots seem fine with packing on weight whenever they can, whereas tomato plants require plenty of water when they are fruiting or they don’t produce fruit. "Mulch is always our best friend," Grenkow says.

This year, I trialled a fantastic snacking pepper — Fire Away Hot and Heavy — which is a new introduction for 2020. The fruit starts out green and then matures through shades of yellow, orange and red. This new variety has just enough heat to pack a punch with sweet and spicy flavours.

I also grew Goodhearted, a prolific new cocktail tomato with very pretty (and delicious) heart-shaped fruits. Garden Gem tomato, though, was my favourite. Bred to thrive in heat and humidity, this short, wide-spreading tomato produced a bounty of fruits with heirloom flavour. All three of these varieties are part of Proven Winners’ new line of edibles and are ideally suited to containers or hanging baskets for patio and balcony gardens.

This fall, Jardins St-Léon Gardens launched its first online market. The fresh vegetable selection will be limited but tempting nonetheless — Kabocha squash, pie pumpkins, butternut, and delicate squash, onions, carrots and potatoes.

Visit stleongardens.com for more information.

colleenizacharias@gmail.com