Once again it’s been awhile since “Dallying” found its way to your inbox. It’s been a weird summer, mostly in the weather department, but other things getting in the way of life as well. I’ve always been very fond of Marigolds and this year a new mid size one, Siam Gold, arrived on my doorstep in a seed package. It was part of a bigger parcel that arrives each year with the winners of the All America Selections trials. Most of this issue features the samples that I grew and how they performed in our garden. Siam Gold has large double flowers, on mid sized bushy plants, that continue to appear throughout the season. We did have to do a little deadheading but the path to the back garden was lit up by these beauties all season and I expect that will continue to happen until we get a hard frost.
Tomato Purple Zebra was a winner back in 2022 and it is still one of the Tomatoes that I really enjoy in our garden. It’s relatively small size makes it a great snacking tomato and we love the flavour and texture. The skin has that fascinating colour pattern but even better, it’s easy to bite through. The rich purple colour of the interior can be seen as a suggestion of the rich flavour that’s found when you bite into it. It remains on our must plant list.
Impatiens Pink Jewel is a new interspecific variety that is easily grown from seed. Mine were started in doors on 05 March and finally made it to the garden in early May. The ability for home gardeners to grow these types of Impatiens from seed is something that is quite new and gives us great options. They are great for sun or partial shade areas and the ones in this picture are at the edge of the Walnut tree’s shade and catch a few hours of afternoon sun and they are thriving. They are, of course, resistant to Impatiens downy mildew. There was just the one colour this year but you can be sure there will be more following in the coming years. I found them quite easy to germinate and grow on under my lights and as you can see they have performed beautifully in the garden. We dedicated seed growers are delighted to add these jewels to our repertoire.
Following the theme of delightful flavours gets us to this Shallot Creme Brule. Technically it’s an echalion which has a longer shape than the shallot. Although the shallot has long and half-long varieties, they are never as long as the echalion. While both varieties have a coppery skin, when cut in two, shallots have two or three cloves (bulbs), whereas echalions have only one… Like onions. We have chopped them into stir fries and they soften and caramelize readily adding a lovely delicate flavour. These were easily grown from seed that was sown, indoors, in late February and moved into the garden in late April. They are supposed to store well but at the rate we are eating them we may never find out.
Luckily the Assistant Gardener was away when this little package just happened to arrive in the mail. Amazingly it contained several new Iris rhizomes that I just had to have when I chanced to glance at the Chuck Chapman Iris web site. I did manage to find enough “empty” spaces in the garden to give these beauties a home and we will wait with eager anticipation for the new blooms of my favourite flower next spring. It has been said that gardening can be considered an addiction but it’s really just a love affair with Mother Nature.
We are not big users of hot Peppers but a little heat can be the difference between an adequate dish and a great dish. This compact Pepper, Pot a Peno, received its All America award in 2021 and it was included in my sample seeds this year. It’s a compact Jalapeno type that performs well in containers. It was not our greatest success as you can see in the picture but the answer to that is also in the picture. The container was placed on the edge of the back deck which gets some part time shade and you can see the plant growing straight sideways looking for the morning sun that it hopes to find most days. The first Peppers we tried were tasty but not that hot but I had probably been a little cautious about removing the ribs and seeds. This week I just chopped the whole thing into a stir fry and there was a “slight” difference. I was quickly reminded that a bit of red wine does NOT cool your mouth
down but rather noticeably enhances the heat. Lots of Peppers on a quite small plant and just the thing for a balcony gardener who wants to spice up their dinner.
Here is another new Pepper. Red Impact is an easy to grow sweet pepper which easily and early produced lots of large thick walled fruit in our garden. We are using many of them at this green stage but we rarely get them in their ripe red stage. We have lots of Pepper Flys that find our garden and they lay their eggs in our ripening peppers making them quickly inedible as they ripen. I bought some great netting to cover all the Peppers this year but discovered that you actually have to take it out of the package and cover the plants before it can be effective. Oops! As all gardeners say “there’s always next year.”
Squash Sweet Jade is an All America selection from last year and the one that I grew up the wire fencing structure in the back corner of the vegetable garden. It grew amazingly quickly and started producing fruit early and continued to do so as it grew over the top of the 2.25 m fencing. It did quit early, through a combination of events. A couple of the vines succumbed to the Squash Vine Borer despite my best efforts to deter them. Other vines were attacked by powdery mildew, which happens every year, but it showed up early this year, lots of rain and heat to encourage it. I’m hoping that the all the squash that were developing will still fully ripen as their vines rapidly disappear. They are quite small, as they are supposed to be, and they should be just right for the two of us. Taste test to follow in a few weeks.
I couldn’t leave you without featuring one of my favourite Roses. The rich burgundy colour of David Austin’s Munstead Wood has a fragrance as rich as its colour. This is one of the Roses that I transplanted a couple of years ago and it appears to have moved and adapted very well. Lots of new growth this year and repeat blooming. It seems to attract fewer Japanese Beetles than some of its neighbours and it would be wonderful if they ignored it completely but that’s just dreaming in technicolour. I was never much of a Rose fancier until a few years ago when David Austin started sending me samples to trial and I seem to have fallen in love with them despite the several times I’ve been attacked by their thorns. I guess Roses are like everything else, no pain no gain.
The roads are pleasant to drive on this time of year, as I am travelling around sharing my
various presentations with hort. societies, garden clubs and corporate presentations for lunch and learns. I would love to come and visit your organization. Check out my web page at Gardening-enjoyed.com for more details on topics and availability.
If you have any gardening questions just “reply” to this emailed newsletter and I will attempt to answer them and then share them here if they are of wide interest.
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