Feb 12 2021 56 mins 23
Show Notes
In this bonus episode of Granite State Gardening, New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station researcher Becky Sideman, Emma Erler and Nate Bernitz continue their conversation from the last episode, getting into working with seed catalogs to understand the information and how it’s organized as well as how to make selections that will thrive in your garden. We get into the weeds of concepts including organic, seed treatments, GMOs, and disease resistance, as well as segments on selecting varieties for container gardening, staking tomatoes, and growing Malabar spinach (Basella alba). Part 1 of this conversation, titled Planning Spring Vegetable Gardens, Soil Temperature, Nasturtiums & Fencing, was packed with experience and insights for garden planning, and we recommend listening to it before jumping into this episode.
Featured question: What are the best varieties for growing veggies in containers?
Featured plant segment: Malabar spinach (Basella alba)
Closing gardening tip: tomato staking
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Email us questions, suggestions and feedback at [email protected]
Background reading:
Growing Vegetables in Containers: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/growing-vegetables-containers-fact-sheet
Applied UNH Extension Research: https://extension.unh.edu/tags/applied-vegetable-fruit-research-new-hampshire
Pruning Tomato Plants: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/pruning-tomato-plants-fact-sheet
Preventing Garden Diseases: https://extension.unh.edu/resource/10-easy-steps-prevent-common-garden-diseases-fact-sheet
Managing Garden Pests with IPM: https://extension.unh.edu/blog/garden-IPM
Exciting Veggie Varieties Q&A: https://extension.unh.edu/blog/exciting-veggie-varieties-qa
UNH Sideman Lab on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/unh_sidemanlab/
Transcription by Otter.ai
Nate Bernitz 00:01
Welcome to the Granite State Gardening podcast from UNH Cooperative Extension. On today's show, we continue our conversation with Becky Seidman: UNH Extension specialist, professor of sustainable agriculture and food systems, and researcher at the New Hampshire Agricultural Experiment Station. If you haven't listened to Part one yet, which was called "planting spring vegetable garden soil temperature nasturtiums and fencing", you'll want to check that out before listening to this episode. We'll talk about using the wealth of information provided on seed packets and in seed catalogs, not only to understand it, but how to use it to choose the right varieties and succeed with the varieties you choose. Greetings Granite State gardeners, I'm Nate Bernitz, joined as always by horticulturist and UNH extension field specialist, Emma Erler. And again by Becky Seidman. We pick up our conversation after talking about garden planning systems and strategies. Now, we'll get into talking about tips and solutions for working with seed catalogs, understanding the information provided for us and how it's organized. So rather than get overwhelmed, we can get informed and find varieties that help us bring our garden plans to life. Emma, let's jump back in with what you view as some of the most important sections to focus on when you're looking at a variety of listing and a seed catalog.
Emma E 01:35
I'd say one thing I'm looking at, which is always going to be on there is the days to maturity. So if this if I'm ordering from companies that are out of the Northeast, you should I can probably assume that what I'm going to grow as long as I am planting on time, I'm going to be able to get a harvest. But you know, depending on when you're going to be able to get things in the ground, let's say it might be important to know whether something whether it's going to develop really quickly or not, or whether it's early fruiting or not. So I don't I'm thinking, let's say maybe tomatoes, you know that you're gonna be gone by, let's say August 1. And so you want to make sure that you you've chosen a variety that fruits really early, I say you've started them indoors, get them outside in the garden, and hopefully you're getting a nice crop within, you know, let's say two months at the at the most. So that's important. And then another thing that I guess we've kind of touched on already is is whether there's any sort of pest resistance in a variety. So if I know let's say that I have been having issues with early blight on my tomatoes year after year, then I might be looking for a variety that is early blight resistant, etc. I guess the same could go for squashes or cucumbers with say powdery mildew. So if you've at least accurately identified what that problem is, you might be able to skirt it somewhat with rotation and choosing a variety that has resistance.
Nate Bernitz 03:09
There's a lot more information about disease resistance in the catalog than on a seed packet. The seed packet might say that it has disease resistance, but in the catalog, it might say what it's resistant to and its level of resistance, whether it's resistant, whether it's tolerant, how resistant is it, there's a lot of really nuanced information that you might be able to get from the catalog.
Becky Sideman 03:34
Definitely. And I would add to that that not related to diseases but relating to whether a crop does well. One of the things that you will often find in a catalog is descriptions about the seasons that crops do well in, I'm thinking about broccoli, for example, broccoli varieties vary enormously in their tolerance to the kind of mid summer heat that we experience. And so if you are a real broccoli afficionado and want to grow broccoli so that you can harvest it throughout your whole growing season, you would probably want to actually grow an early season broccoli that will do well in the spring before the summer heat, and maybe a main season broccoli that can have some heat tolerance, and then maybe even a third that goes really well into fall production. That might not make sense if you just care if you have a little bit of broccoli here and there. But if you're really focusing on any given crop, you'll realize that there's a lot of variability that you can choose from.
Nate Bernitz 04:43
And I gu...
