Mad Hatter: A Hybrid Pepper

by Michelle L. Dauberman

Check out this fun 2017 AAS National winner called the mad hatter pepper (Capsicum baccatum).  First you'll notice its distinctive shape and then you'll be wowed and rewarded by its taste.  The consensus being that it's altogether sweet, citrusy and floral though there will be some mild heat as you nibble near the seeds.  This sounds perfectly divine to me if and when you are ready to take a break from the palate scorchers like the Bhut jolokia (aka, the ghost pepper).

These charming peppers were bred for varied North American conditions and the yields are high.  The habit of the plant itself is on the larger side and it is a vigorous grower.  You can expect a mounding, upright habit with a height of 36 – 48” and a width of 36 – 48.”  Like most other vegetables it likes to be exposed to full sun.

You can pick the peppers when they are a mature green or you can wait a bit and let them ripen to red.  If you wait you’ll be rewarded with a sweeter and richer flavor.  Generally speaking it takes 65 – 70 day to reach its mature green state and 85 – 90 days to reach its ripe red state.

Given this peppers unique shape and sweeter disposition it would be a fun addition to a children’s vegetable garden!

For more information on peppers check out these PSU Extension links:

Container Grown Peppers

http://extension.psu.edu/plants/gardening/fact-sheets/vegetable-gardening/growing-great-container-vegetables/peppers

Penn State Extension – Growing Peppers

http://extension.psu.edu/plants/master-gardener/counties/chester/how-to-gardening-brochures/peppers

Bees & Germander

by Michelle L. Dauberman

The plight of the bee is getting more and more serious if you ask me.  I’ve been doing my best to support them in the vegetable garden and in the landscape by providing the plants, shrubs and trees that they love to visit but here’s a small shrubby plant/herb that I’ve overlooked:  Germander (Teucrium).

Germander is quite hardy and can handle a variety of garden/landscape situations including poor soils and drought like conditions.  It can tolerate part-sun but prefers full-sun.  The lavender flowers that the bees find so appealing form on spikes, July through September.  A bonus of this plant is that there are evergreen varieties so, if you’d rather use it in your landscape as a low laying hedge rather than in the herb or vegetable garden, have at it.  You’ll have something green to look at while everything else is dormant. 

These are tense days for the bees so think about using this non-native (yes, I said not native) small sub-shrub as a compliment to your other native pollinator friendly plants, shrubs and trees and bring on the bees!

If you’d like to take a look at this plant in action visit the PSU Edible Demonstration Garden at the Horticultural Center, in the beautiful Fairmont Park, right here in Philadelphia.  I promise you won’t be disappointed.

Tomatoes.......Heirloom Tomatoes

Michele K. Koskinen

Jaune Flamme

A small 4x10 raised bed vegetable garden can handle a diverse grouping of vegetables if you want to plant them. I prefer tomatoes.... Heirloom Tomatoes. Why plant what I can buy at the store or at a vegetable market. I prefer Cherokee Purple, Green Zebra, Aunt Ruby German Green and to my dismay too many again in my small plot. Another Master Gardener has a small business and I have gotten two different varieties from her this year, Pink Brandywine and Jaune Flamme. Along with my regulars I also grew from seed Russian Purple and Black Cherry.

Yellow
 Photo by wise geek

Russian Purple

My obsession began several years ago at a farmers market when I saw Cherokee Purples. The taste was different. It was a dark, acidic, richer, fresher flavor than your normal store bought tomato.
Some of the varieties of heirlooms are less acidic and have a softer taste. Each has its own identity. Cobbling together a tomato salad of beautiful colors and a multitude of taste with basil and watermelon is a summer fantasy for those of us that love tomatoes......Heirloom Tomatoes. Watermelon tomato salad link

Black Cherry

They do not always have a high fruiting production and are more delicate and not able to ship long distances. When growing heirlooms, you should bury the plant deeply into the ground to allow the roots to develope along the stem. This makes for a stronger plant and provides for faster top growth.
Mulching is important to help keep the soil moist and at an even temperature throughout the growing season.

Some of the heirloom varieties grow to great heights, so they will need strong support systems. Keeping a record of the variety you plant and how it performs is useful in planning for next years crops. Year to year production is not always the same so planting a hybrid or two is a good idea.


More and more small family and urban farmers are growing these varieties for the public. You can often find them at local farmer's markets or roadside stands. Some supermarkets offer them but they are hard to find and often expensive. However, once you get the taste of a Cherokee Purple or a Black Cherry you will find a way to plant at least one Heirloom Tomato.

Aunt Ruby's German Green

Yellow Pear

Cherokee Purple

Edible Garden Ready to be planted 2013

The Edible Demonstration Garden has been prepared and ready for spring planting. Lois Fischer the chairperson along with Mary Ellen Post, Eldridge Ragsdale and others prepared the beds and began planting.






















Many of the perennial herbs in the garden are already coming to life after the warm winter and more are to be planted.
Differnt type of sage and oregano as well as  rosemary can
be seen in the photo below.

Beneficial Insects and flowers in the vegetable garden.

Always on the quest to improve my garden and learn more about "organic" methods to prevent insects from devouring my plants, I recently searched for flowers to intertwine with my vegetable garden to increase beneficial insects.

After reading and finding lists, I found many of the suggested plants are already growing in my garden. A pleasant surprise to say the least.  I have in the past planted basil, sage, bronze fennel, dill and parsley without thinking about insects. The herbs were planted to eat not deter insects. A neighbor told me to plant marigolds to control aphids around the tomatoes. I found the marigolds did indeed keep the aphids down so I interplanted them again this year. 

The parsley and dill draws a beautiful black swallowtail butterfly every year so I plant parsley and dill just for them. When I see the yellow striped catepillar I know the plants will be soon deleafed and the caterpillars gone to come back as a beautiful butterfly.. 

Below is a partial list of plants suggested for drawing beneficial insects to the gardens and those I have planted. 

Annual Flowers and Herbs  

Basil (Ocimum basilicum) -- The flowers attract bees and other beneficial insects. A few sites offered the aroma of the leaves may deter aphids.

Calendula (Pot Marigold) -- Edible, orange or yellow flower petals.  Attracts bees, butterflies and hoverflies.

Cosmos -- Attracts lacewings, hoverflies and parasitic mini-wasps. 

Dill (Anethum graveolens) -- The leaves are used in recipes, and the flowers attract lacewings, ladybugs, hoverflies and parasitic mini-wasps.  The black swallowtail butterfly also enjoys this herb in my garden.

Marigold (Tagetes sp.) -- The flowers attract butterflies and hoverflies, and the roots produce a secretion that kills root-eating nematodes in the soil. 

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) -- The flowers attract hoverflies, tachinid flies and parasitic wasps. 

Zinnia (Zinnia elegans) -- A wonderful flower for attracting, hoverflies, parasitic wasps and butterflies.  

Perennial Flowers and Herbs

Photo by Bruce Marlin NW Center for alternative pesticides 

Bronze Fennel  (Foeniculum vulgare 'Purpureum') --Bronze foliage. The flowers attract lacewings, ladybugs, hoverflies, parasitic mini-wasps and butterflies.

Chives (Allium schoenoprasum) -- Attracts butterflies and bees. Seeds will self sow all over the garden, deadhead religiously.

Garlic Chives  (Allium tuberosum) -- The flowers attract bees and beneficial insects. The leaves have a nice, strong garlic flavor. Reading information on this herb I found it repels aphids on roses. 

Lemon Balm  (Melissa officinalis) --  The tiny flowers attract hoverflies, tachinid flies and parasitic mini-wasps.  The leaves make a nice lemon flavored tea.

Sage  (Salvia sp.) -- There are many forms of sage, including culinary. They all attract bees and butterflies. Culinary sage is used with pork, and the leaves can be fried.

Yarrow (Achillia sp.) -- Attracts ladybugs, hoverflies and parasitic mini-wasps. A favorite in my garden that doesn't need alot of water.

For more information on insects, check out the Penn State Entomology site:

http://ento.psu.edu/extension/factsheets

Another Extension site worth visiting on this issue is http://umaine.edu/publications/7150e/

Additional Information http://www.motherearthnews.com

Making garden space from compacted soil.

By Patricia Beynan

Our community garden members chose to either make raised beds and fill them with topsoil, compost, and peat moss,  or to dig out the compacted soil to a depth of  about 18 inches, sift the soil that was removed, breaking up the clay, and mixing it with compost and peat moss.  The garden managers kindly provided a a few loads of compost from Fairmont Park for our use, available from a big pile at the edge of the garden.

I found both options daunting.  I was on my own in creating the 12 x 12 garden from soil that had been paved over for nearly 100 years.  It was not only compacted to rock solid status, but it also was covered with the gravel layer that had been under the asphalt and chunks of the newly removed asphalt.  The garden steering committee offered help and advice, and provided giant screens to use for sifting.  

The dig out option involved the pick and shovel approach, and the raised beds were a building project.   I wanted another option, and as I was removing the top layer of chunks, and watching the pick and shovel folks strain and groan I decided I would find some middle ground.  After the asphalt was gone I imperfectly raked the gravel to the edges to make paths between my plot and the neighbors.  I decided the remaining gravel was good for drainage, and started wheelbarrowing in compost.  Over the course of several sessions I brought about 15 loads over from the rapidly diminishing pile.  I raked that into the top layer the gravel clay surface and decided I could work with that.  

I got a few more loads of compost and dumped them at one end of my plot.  Now it was time to plant.  I had three kinds of  lettuce, red and green cabbage,  eggplant, peppers and tomatoes in little pots, and cucumber, peas, cantaloupe, carrots, and green beans in seeds.  My plan evolved as I worked.  I dug through the compost layer, then put the hose on the clay for a minute, making an instant pond.  After it soaked in I dug out about eight inches, mixed that clay with the compost, put half back in, then my seedling, then more of the mix, tamping it down.  The improved area was only about 6 inches in diameter. Would it work?

Worked like a charm.  I could barely keep up with the output of my spot amended soil.  Everything flourished, and my only failure was cantaloupe, but that may have had more to do with the monsoons of August than the soil.  

This year I'm adding more compost, digging new holes to spot amend, and rotating the plant locations.  I have high hopes.

Time to choose your tomato varieties for 2012

Friday, January 20, 2012

Penn State's Extension office in Chambersburg has been running variety trials focusing on tomatoes since 2000, evaluating more than 300 varieties across the complete spectrum of tomato types in that time.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. -- It may seem early, but now is the time to pick the tomato varieties you want to grow in your garden this summer, according to an expert in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences.

You may have noticed that your seed catalogs showed up earlier than ever this winter, noted Steve Bogash, Penn State Extension horticulture educator based in Franklin County. "With the rapid growth in vegetable gardening, demand promises to be higher than ever," he said. "If there are specific varieties of vegetables that you truly want for the coming season, you may want to get your orders in early."

And Bogash knows -- perhaps better than anyone -- that there is a huge range of tomato cultivars from which to choose.

"Here at the Penn State Extension office in Chambersburg, Pa., we've been running variety trials focusing on tomatoes since 2000," he said. "We've evaluated more than 300 varieties across the complete spectrum of tomato types in that time. Every year we examine 30 to 70 varieties, looking at taste, production, disease resistance, ease of training and appearance.

"Some varieties have floated to the top of our list as great for your garden."

Following are some varieties Bogash recommends that you consider for the coming season, along with his comments about them:

Cherry/Grape types:

-- Sakura Honey. "When you examine and taste many tomatoes, it's rare for one kind to make a major impression, but this variety really stood out from the pack in 2011 with amazing flavor and beautiful, pink, grape-shaped fruit. This was easily the standout in flavor in last season's program."

-- Red Pearl. "Excellent flavor, tender skin, high production and moderate disease resistance made Red Pearl another top pick from our 2011 trial program. This variety has good red color and is highly resistant to cracking."

-- Five Star. "2011 was the year of the grape tomato in our trials program. Five Star was another great producer with good-looking, well-flavored fruit. This one has very few seeds and is highly resistant to cracking."

-- Maglia Rosa. "This is a very unusual variety, as the fruit are an elongate, cherry type that are mottled pink. Our tasters describe the flavor as ketchup-like. In both 2010 and 2011, the plants produced for only about five weeks, but they did make a lot of fruit that was well worth the garden space."

-- Sun Gold. "No tomato article is complete without a mention of Sun Gold. This yellow-orange tomato is the candy of the tomato world. Production is high, the plants are moderately resistant to disease, and the fruit taste is awesome, but the fruit crack like mad. Every gardener should have one or two of these plants, so there is something to eat while gardening."

Slicers:

-- BrandyBoy. "The Brandywine tomato long has been heralded as the best-tasting tomato in numerous trial programs, but each plant produces only a few fruit, which are very inconsistent in size and shape, and the plant's highly susceptible to diseases."

"BrandyBoy tomatoes were introduced several years ago, and they immediately took top honors among red, slicing types in our program. When gardeners ask what single tomato to grow, this is the one. BrandyBoy is highly productive with large, pink, great-tasting fruit that taste nearly identical to Brandywine."

-- BHN 589. "BHN are the letters used by a tomato breeder in Florida who primarily provides seeds to a commercial-grower cooperative. Don't let the letters and numbers discourage you from growing what are usually excellent varieties of hybrid tomatoes. BHN 589 has become a standard for many regional tomato growers as the plants produce copious amounts of great-tasting, good-looking, medium-sized, red tomatoes."

-- Scarlet Red. "Like BHN 589, Scarlet Red is primarily a commercial tomato, but it makes the crossover into the home garden extremely well. This is easily the deepest red tomato that we've trialed, and it has that perfect sugar/acid balance that often is referred to as 'real tomato flavor. Production hint: only remove about three suckers, or you really will reduce production."

-- Big Beef. "This variety has been around for a long time, and it still belongs on a top-tomatoes list. These are big, great-tasting fruit that run on the soft side. The plants are very robust."

-- Celebrity. "For years, Celebrity was the standard red that we compared others against in our trials program. While it has been surpassed by some of these other varieties, it is still a great producer of medium-sized, good-flavored, round, red tomatoes."

Heirlooms:

-- Pineapple. "While there really aren't any great yellow/orange/red tomatoes, Pineapple is the one that provides the most consistent production and good flavor. It's soft and cracks readily but is the best of this type that we've trialed. Pineapple makes an excellent addition to homemade tomato juice."

-- Mortgage Lifter (Radiator Charlie). "Excellent flavor and high production make Mortgage Lifter the No. 1 large, pink heirloom. I recommend it to growers. High production and moderate disease resistance separate this variety from most heirlooms."

-- Arkansas Traveler. "This variety makes relatively small fruit at 5 to 8 ounces, but the production is good and the flavor excellent."

-- Marianna's Peace. "This variety originally came into our program as one of those sample packets included with your order. The fruit are very large -- often more than a pound -- pink and very flavorful. The plants are enormous and require very tall supports. Even after every other heirloom has started to fade in the fall, Marianna's Peace will keep on producing."

-- Stupice. "A lot of tomatoes claim to be early, but most don't taste like much. Stupice is the one early tomato that tastes like a real, mid-season tomato. The fruit are small at only 3 to 6 ounces, but they will beat most other tomatoes onto your plate by two to three weeks."

Patio or Container:

-- Bush Early Girl. "Without a doubt, Bush Early Girl is the 'top of the heap' among slicing tomatoes that you can grow in a container. A single plant will produce a huge number of great-tasting fruit. Be sure your container is at least 14 inches across (bigger is better) and feed them well to get the most from these robust plants."

-- BushSteak. "Second only to Bush Early Girl is BushSteak. These plants produce heavy crops of large, meaty fruit about a week after you start to pick Bush Early Girl. Again, use large containers and feed them well."

-- Sweet 'N Neat (Red, Scarlet, and Yellow). "We've looked at a lot of container-type cherry tomatoes, and while most varieties are at least OK, the entire Sweet 'N Neat series produces copious amounts of delicious fruit on very compact plants. You can grow them as hanging baskets or in ground pots. Plant single plants in 8-inch pots or three plants in 14-inch pots."

Bogash said that consumers should be able to find some of these seeds from their favorite garden center, but some varieties will be more difficult to locate.

"We have examined so many tomatoes over the years, and these are only a few of the standouts from our program," he said. "There are many hundreds, perhaps thousands, of tomato varieties. Our goal for this program has been to introduce new varieties to growers."

More information, including a list of seed companies that supply seeds to the Penn State Extension variety trials program, is available in "Tomato Report 2011: The Best of the Penn State Tomato Trials," available on the Web athttp://extension.psu.edu/vegetable-fruit/fact-sheets/tomato-report-2011.