Northern Gardening; Diane Booth

Well thanks for joining us for northern gardening here and you to be our guest this morning is Diane booth and she'll be here to field questions for us about plants that grow here locally and in particular vegetables since that's what she's done or most research with this week. And actually that's kind of what you know if you're gardening you're really thinking about vegetables but but we can talk about tree varieties that grow well here and whatever kind of questions you have about plants that have done well for you and or things that you're struggling with things that you'd like to try to grow. So if you give us a call with your question it's a reminder to if you just give us your first name and where you're calling from as well because that makes a difference in the kind of zone that you live in and the kind of treatment that maybe your plant needs and so that'll that'll help us a little bit in the phone numbers again. 3 8 7 10 70 and 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 and you can go to the WTI web page WTOP dot org. And also just quickly e-mail us and we can give your response that way as well. And so Diane thank you so much for joining us this morning.

Oh you're welcome. And I'm certainly happy to answer lots of questions about three varieties or perennials or whatever. I did spend quite a bit of time on vegetables because policy said you know nobody's been talking about vegetables lately. So we can talk about it. Yeah indeed. And so you know as we look at people are starting to put things in the ground I think already and some of the greenhouses are up and open and so we get pretty excited about plants and in particular about ordering things and you know some of my seed catalogs come from far away and I get tempted and that's something that you really want to be careful of. You know and most people who do order from seed catalogs do you know that you want to be sure and probably order especially vegetable seed varieties perennials trees shrubs usually from Northern seed sources are usually your better way to go. Course I can mention a number of different catalogs but probably around here in Cook County probably Johnnies a lot of Maine pine tree out of Maine are probably probably the top two territorial seed is one that's used quite often

bases Richter's I mean all of those are from areas that either carry. Open pollinated varieties or Northern short season varieties. And so I know a lot of people do that and some people to go down to the local hardware store and just pick out what they have on the shelf and we should probably talk a little bit about that if you're going to do that. Maybe some of the vegetables to look at. Yeah yeah well regard to that. So you know well and folks that are growing things in green houses appearance on them you know then it depends on the varieties there's a lot of different varieties there as well. And you know it depends on where some of those plants are coming from whether they're grown here where the seeds from. And so what kind of like what are some typical vegetables that you think are there. Well I think something is some tips to keep in mind is that first of all you do want vegetable varieties that are grown for northern northern climates and we do the extension office does put out a pamphlet and I have not updated it this year but it's called vegetable varieties for northern Minnesota and it's available at our office. It's a

2005 version. And the reason it's a 2005 version is because this year we have started an experimental gardening group in Cook County and they're trialing. 32 different varieties of tomatoes this year. About half are open pollinated varieties and about half are hybrid varieties and so I really would like to expand this group and have other gardeners get in contact with me with varieties that do well and we plan to have a meeting again in the fall and take a look at the results from our tomato trials but then we'll also be looking at all the other types of vegetables that people are growing and what what works well for them. And Cook County of course has a lot of different microclimates. So what works well maybe down the shore is not going to work well partway up the hill and over the Sawtooth range and so we need to to look at all of those different areas and what works well in the different areas within Cook County. So you've got 32 different to me to varieties that test we do.

Well I'm getting a little overwhelmed at my house because our gardens are quite wet yet. And so you know I've I've I kind of jumped the gun a little bit I didn't garden last year so I was really excited this year and I've put them now into number one containers and we may have to put them into Number Twos shortly. You know because for now number one container is about a gallon or so. Yeah. And so they're getting quite lovely. And they are outside now enjoy what nice weather we're having but it's right. But with the wet soils they're not in their homes yet. I suppose not. And how many people do you have doing this experimental. I'd like to have more we have about seven or eight people who are trialing tomatoes for us and of course not everybody is doing every variety and we have gardeners who are just learning to garden as well as very experienced gardeners. So are there some space requirements so somebody is interested in being a volunteer for no not really

because what I really want is I want the gamut I want people who are growing in containers I want people who are growing and greenhouses I want people who are growing like I do just in the soil out in the field and I don't really harsh conditions and I want to I want to see how these different varieties do so that we can compile a very good list of different vegetables that do well under different conditions here. And do they need do you need to save the seeds from them at any point or is that that's something we're going to talk about with the open pollinated varieties that's certainly something that we can do. People who are growing see open pollinated varieties have to have a pretty good crash course on how to save seeds and how far apart and how to isolate and all of that stuff and so that's a whole show just talking about all of all of those allegations. Yeah I know heirlooms are huge and we hear that term all the time and I kind of cringe because heirlooms are all open pollinated seeds. Yeah so you know people don't always understand that and not realize don't always realize that there can be some crossing tomatoes are pretty good they're pretty much self

pollinating pollinated but there will be a little bit of insect activity if they're if they're close together. Yeah and the ones like bloody butcher is one variety which we are growing and I've grown that one before myself and that one because the leaves are a little bit different the ones that have the potato like the leaves usually have to be separated further. So that's one one that will cause us to think about. I mean it so. So lots of things to think about when you're trying different seed varieties but I always like to tell people in the end you've probably heard this from me before is you know of those of you who are jumping the gun in April and putting out your seeds and wondering why they didn't germinate. It's because the soil temperatures were still cool to cool. You have to have soil temperatures of at least 40 degrees before you start putting in cool crops. Yeah. Mundus been there was in here a few weeks ago and she did her soil test and temperature wise and shares with 65 degrees. Well yeah wow pending upon where you are it's really important I've got my soil thermometer out and I'm averaging between 40 and 50 degrees. So

that's why I said to different microclimates where you are. That's why I really like to tell people don't go by the date don't go by anything else but your soil temperature that's really your best indicator what kind of Us or mom or do you recommend for us. It's just a like it's a bi metal metallic kind of stripped thermometer and they sell a man most of the catalogs that's called a soil thermometer it's process maybe $8 or so it's not very expensive but it gives you a really good indication of what's happening within the soil. Anybody sell them locally. I don't know. Yeah I shouldn't say that but I really don't know to look into that. Yeah so. So and some people of course like to shovel off their snow and get an EARLY START put out clear plastic and warm up that soil clear plastic will warm your soil up if you put it out. Or you can use a coarse hot caps or any of any plastic of any kind. It requires an enormous amount of maintenance I did actually do that when you're shoveled off the ground. I had started peas inside in a trough you can start them in what looks like. I don't know I guess you could use

a gutter kind of a thing wood would work and it worked beautifully but oh that's because I wasn't working I had two small children I was home all the time I could keep an eye on it I could open them or shot them or whatever I needed to do but as a person who goes to work every day it would be impossible. You know and I do a lot of reading about vegetables and I do a lot of reading about lots of different types of plantings but vegetables I've always been interested in more simply because. It's food and it be nice to grow most of your own food and we do grow quite a bit of our own food but the methods that other people use the very intensive methods in the double digging and all the raised beds and stuff I don't have time for. And so over the years we've developed other methods just because that that's what works for our lifestyle and so people just need to find what works for them. Well as a lot of different choices and that's helpful. So whether container gardening is your only solution because that's all the space you have or if you've got the freedom to practically do a field planting then that's easier because of your time and that's what you think. But the variety is that that makes a

big difference in your success. So you know you talked about what are some of those 32 varieties of tomato would you have to do HELLO DO I HAVE THOSE with us today. Well actually I looked at him last night and I do have some of those varieties the ones that are looking best best right know that I thought you know the nice thick stocks the sturdiness Alaskan fancy is looking very well. I thought that looked like a very sturdy plant it's a plant that is. I believe it is determinant. I have to look because I have always right as I can remember yes it is determinant. That means the crop is going to come pretty much all at once or racked indeterminant with tomatoes you have determinant an indeterminant forms which indeterminate means that it continues to grow and grow and grow determinant means it will get to a certain height and usually the crop will come in fairly at once or within two three weeks whereas indeterminant tomato varieties continue to produce and produce and produce.

So the determinant would be better for a container garden absolutely determinant or a lot of times what they call patio tomatoes are determinant. You know they only grow a certain height so Alaskan fancy might be a good one for that. I'm another one I think that's looking very good as Amish paste and I've not grown that one before that's. I normally tell people for tomato varieties probably 70 days or less here and usually I will I will go sixty eight or less because I go out in a field. If you're if you using plastic or covering them up with in a greenhouse Of course you can extend it a lot. But this paste is a 74 day variety it's indeterminant it looks like a great plant I'm really interested to see how that's going to do. And of course mine will get thrown right out in the field so if they survive what I put them through they'll survive what most people will. A couple other varieties and a Russian is one worth trying. That is an open pollinated. It's 65 to 70 days. It's not looking as strong as some of the others but you know you can't always tell

this early in the season what they're going to like. It's true. Bloody butcher I mentioned as another open pollinated variety shows that why is it called that is the bloody butcher. I'm not sure why it has that name it is a very red when I grew it not last year but the year before the fruits were I had real large ones and real small ones. It was very different it was a very bright red. Quite juicy so I'm not sure why they call it bloody butcher. I really don't know. You know some of these names I have no idea where they come from. But I have an interesting variety and of course we're getting a lot of varieties from Russia and Czechoslovakia. And you know parts were over in Europe and black cram of course is one we're not testing at this year but I know that it's been growing here quite successfully. It is from Russia and it's supposed to be one of the better tasting it's a longer day variety. But it does well

here. OK that's interesting. Some of the standards girly girl hybrid has been one Early Girl Early Girl an early good hybrid an early girl too and a number of different ones but early girl has done very well so consistently over the years for people. And so that's when I often will recommend Oregon spring as another one that Abraham sounds really like. I've had mixed luck with that one but of course I think in the greenhouse It does very very well. A Northern Exposure is one I've had very good luck with. Julie It was a variety that was came out as an all-American winner I think several years ago 2004 I'm thinking of 2003. And I did try it and it was absent of the plants are beautiful and growing it again this year in the trials because when I grew it it had beautiful plants that had wonderful fruit. I was probably the most prolific producer that I've ever had. But I didn't like the taste.

So I'm really growing it this year and going Well let me see maybe maybe it was just that year. Yeah. It might be that my taste buds you know everybody has a different taste but for tomatoes so it might be that mine are a little bit different. So anyway everybody else likes it. So if you're thinking about cherry tomatoes of course the sweet super sweet 100s of super sweet million. I actually like sweet Chelsea which has been a really good one for me and of course Matts wild cherry is one that you know does not keep and is difficult to grow because it's it is just throws itself everywhere and has the tiniest little tomatoes you ever ever saw. They're like little marbles but they have the most exquisite flavor of any tomato I've ever tried like wild strawberries. Kind of wild and that one is available only from Johnny's that I'm aware. OK so that's a good one. We're also trialing yellow pair which is another old

open pollinated one. Yeah. You know so tons of different ones. So somebody's still interested in doing any of these tests one of their one of the requirements are people starting them actually from it. Yeah it's too late actually. We have we've all started our plants ahead of time and it's probably getting a little bit too late but we will probably have some seed left over for next year I don't know there's some seed left over so you know for instance I started so early girls and I've got dates of when I started in that sort of thing so could I bring that information as well as your it when we have this meeting in the fall anybody who wants to bring information and come and talk about To me it will talk about tomatoes first but then of course we'll talk about all the other vegetable varieties as well. And so I think it will be a good way to get some better information on growing. Lately the information that's been going into our brochure has been pretty much based on two or three people and we really need to expand that yeah yeah. So indeed yeah. Well how about some of the other vegetables. Well we can talk a little bit about asparagus because

that's a good one I think. You know it's nice when you're thinking about doing vegetables to first think about what I call the perennial vegetables you know the ones that kind of year after year they are and they're kind of a standby. And and because asparagus is so expensive to buy It's really nice to be able to grow it. Yeah. And there are some varieties out there that people do have kind of indicated they like best Jerzy giant as one purple passion purple passion that is purple that turns green when you when you want to get sort of the beings. Yeah. Yeah it's kind of fun. But you know if we grow asparagus up here most of our soils are fairly acidic so you want to watch your ph with asparagus they like a neutral is 7 to 7.5. So make sure you watch that. If you're starting with crowns you want a lot of girl for about three years. Three year old crowns before you start to cut. OK that's always important. They are on male and female plants. So you want to make sure you have bulls.

You don't have to if you're just harvesting them for Spears but if you're thinking about eventually utilizing the seed of course you're going to have both. Well and the females the seeds are beautiful bright red berry. It looks a lot lovelier So it's a nice ornamental. It actually is and I have seen some vegetable gardens that don't have deer problems that have planted them on the outside of their fence around their garden and they've gotten about five feet tall and they have this beautiful green color. Just very lovely. Yeah. Unfortunately our deer do like them. Yeah. So it's pretty hard. Just have them sitting out there. Just as a clarification too between the male and the female stock so people can tell the difference if they want the female plants to go on. What are the difference between those two when they're young. I don't know that there is a difference but you can tell. Well I'd heard the man was a guinea or something but I don't so I just can't say the females are usually thick there.

But I go back for them to wait until I know but you know I'm not sure. Usually if you purchase some from a nursery they will they will label them OK and they will know or they will just simply send you routes and label them. So what about the Mary Washington law tend to secede was Mary Washington is an old fashion variety and I think it's still a fairly good for riot. It's just that people have come out with a few better varieties and so people are growing some of the older and young Martha Washington is still an old standby that you can certainly use. The other thing you want to think about is that asparagus doesn't do well in our heavy clay soils. So if you are putting them in a bed you know make sure you mend your soil somewhat. Yeah it takes a fair amount of preparation and it's a pretty deeply. Yep and it takes it takes some time. Absolutely yeah but it is a good one to have and you have but you have to have the time to take care of it as well. And of course the other standby up here is rhubarb. Yes everybody has a rhubarb rhubarb definitely likes cool weather which is good and there are both red and green varieties I

think. I grow the red I don't know who grows the grain but some people do. I say I've got actually a sort of a long story I brought some back from Alaska really really large. Huge stuff I didn't want it was and I've given some to Melinda Spiller and so she grew it and then looked it up and found that it was a you know an old Russian righty and it is enormous big huge thick but green stocks and the leaves are also enormous You could use them as children's capes. Yes they don't eat them. So yeah that's I've got a couple of those now so it's something that kind of came around and brought it back to over 20 years ago. They're really kind of a nice ornamental actually. My grandmother had a huge rhubarb patch and she had the green and the red but I remember her green as being taller than I was as a child. It was it was just you know they would grow six seven feet tall. Yeah. Where she had them and they were you know as a child are you really that tall. I know her. No really they were huge and there are some. There's a friend I have a friend in who also has a really tall one so I think depending

upon and there's a lot of variation within that seat so well just as we're talking about rhubarb and harvesting it sounds like you know we can start harvesting it now if you got some recommendations on how you should do that. And what about the flower stock. I do actually. You should never cut rhubarb. You should always pull it. Oh it's much better for the Crown to do that. The other thing is if you only have your old plants you probably don't want to pull them until it's at least two years old where you want to pick maybe over a two week period and then let it continue to grow. By the time it's three or four years old you can spik it probably over a period of about six weeks or so maybe longer. I usually used to say oh you know you should probably stop pulling stocks. Fourth of July and I kind of extended it now a little bit because it seems like we're having later falls. So I would say mid July or so. So the goal is to let it have some time to recover. Right. And I usually pick off all my seed stocks because I want the energy to go back into the root system not introducing seeds.

So even when Summers you know your stock picking still cut off last you know cut off I do I go around and do that yams today. Well I was surprised to discover yesterday went out to her and it's already starting to flower. So yeah it's quickly cutting off so that surprised me. Yeah we had some really early warm weather in April and that kind of sent a message to this plant we need to get going so some plants. The message is temperature and some plants the mesh messages de-link Yeah. So for rhubarb of course it's temperature. If you do have it in heavy soils which mine is clay soils and I'm always working on that piece. It does have a problem if I talk through a root crown rot is pretty common and if you start getting lesions on the lower stocks that's usually an indication that you're getting that particular crown right and there's really nothing you can do about it. You might as well dig it up and I need to get rid of a few of my plants because of that. Now I had a curious thing happened two years ago I lost some to Chrome right and it was a good distance

from the rest of the rhubarb so I thought well that's kind of interesting and in the last year I didn't pay attention to it all this year I thought I'm going to get up and get it out of there in a dugout most of it got out hadn't quite finished the job and now there's two little leaves coming out. So what do we leave them or do we like what's going on here. The root piece there somewhere the well written again evidently but since it was already kind of. It was was there I feel like I probably should get rid of it. Yeah yeah it's probably good to do that and the other the other one I'm thinking about now is potatoes a lot of times people have gotten their their potato order and they're waiting Well when do I put on my potatoes you know and and experience has told me that you know even though they say that you can put potatoes in when it's 40 degrees I usually don't I usually wait a bit. I think with our springs the way they are used just a little bit uncertain so I wait a little bit longer to put mine and I've had it and I do a different method than a lot of people do to I know some people will plant their potatoes.

Oh maybe four inches deep and then they will heal them a lot and I have a tendency to kind of dig mine down how about six or eight inches. And I actually have a trench and then I put my potato in and cover it up and then I keep covering it up so minor in colder soils to begin with because I don't like to have to do all that healing and I don't like to do it so it just depends upon your method. Well and the other thing too is I like working backwards from the time of when do I want to be eating them and storing them particularly storage ones and you don't want them in too early or they're going to be ready in August if you're root cellars too cold or too warm. So depends so if you're using them for new potatoes and putting them in early isn't a bad idea. You can steal a few more if you want if you put them in early. Yeah but growing different varieties can help. You know what kind of varieties do you recommend for Kony. I think I've grown every potato variety that exists. I usually grow between three and four hundred pounds of potatoes a year and and I know that

our family does not like the blue potatoes. None of them. We don't like any of the red the red potatoes that have the red interior. Oh we've learned that we don't like those I that's just I mean it's personal preference. Obviously we do have a few standards that we grow every year Yukon Gold is one. Yeah. The amount that you receive is less than those plants your produce that comes in is less but we really like a lot of those and they can be used for a lot of different things. I do like Green Mountain. I've grown that when it's an older variety out of Maine. We've had that a number of times I do like a superior which is another variety that has done well for us and superior has a nice even size which is kind of fun Green Mountain and Cana back I grow both of those have a tendency to have different sizes. Can I back if you plant them closer together. We'll have two birds that aren't quite so big usually so I often will plant them maybe a foot apart to kind of keep

those tubers smaller size. And are any of those you mention specific for types of eating like baking or boiling or if you notice a difference. Well they're really red nor lines that I grow are more for mashing I like to use them for mashing the candidates are kind of all purpose superior all purpose the Yukon gold. I kind of like go for the all purpose as you can kind of gather. I have grown russets in the past which are more for baking there are drier potato. We've kind of gotten away from that. I've kind of gotten gotten used to growing more of the all purpose. Yeah. Have you tried the gold rush. I have tried gold rush. It was good for us. Yeah but I haven't continued to grow. Yeah I'm putting it in for the first year this time kind of gold rush on one side and Yukon gold on the other is yeah the difference yeah it's gold rush and there's another one I grew to that I can remember the name of it what it was like a rose yellow or something. It also did quite well. I have stayed away from the fingerling potatoes simply because I want a larger crop. I mean I know they're very good. They probably do excellent here but if I'm planting and

putting that kind of work into a potato I want some return on it. Yeah I have grown them and they are very very good. But you're right you know as far as you get done and really they're kind of like just being able to have them for new potatoes or whatever you're right boiling salt and they are lovely. Yeah. And it's fun to try something new. Of course that's always great. Well if you just tuned in we're speaking with Diane booth She's from the Cook County Extension here in grammar. And she's here to answer some of our questions on the northern gardening show if you've got a question give us a ring. 3 8 7 10 70 or 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 and you and Diane will do our best to answer your gardening question we're primarily focusing on things that do well here in Cook County. And if you're listening from outside of the Cook County area and you've got a question about your region I guess we can try to address that but to let you know that some of some of the climate areas that we have it's mostly one of the zones that we're talking about here we're talking zones three and four pretty much still anything that will do well in zones 3 and

4 with a fair amount of winter snow cover a fair amount of winter snow cover and also a fair amount of wind and lots of deer problems. So we have to address all those that indeed we are. And the other thing I want to just mention quickly about potatoes is the PH That's always a concern people wonder why they have scab on their potatoes yet because their Ph is too high. Potatoes like a pH of four point eight to about five point four. OK which makes it difficult when you try to think about what am I going to rotate. You know when you rotate crops it's really nice to be able to rotate crops every couple of years not in the same soil. And so you have to find something that will do well in that in that soil that is fairly acidic and about the only things well you can kind of get shallots or onions to do what they don't really like it that well. Sweet potatoes if you grow sweet potatoes will do fairly well. And Melinda Spindler mentioned that she likes if she knows where she's going to put her potatoes the next year

or so then she puts a lot of pine needles on top of the ground where she's going to put the potatoes and that's fine if you're not growing something else right there. But if you're trying to have two areas that are fairly acidic What are you going to balance them out with. That's right and so that gets to be a problem strawberries will work. OK. Yeah but strawberries are another plant that you generally want to not have to move around too much well or or unless you figure every couple years where you rejuvenate and move it or something. But you mentioned sweet potatoes what kind of varieties I've never tried them I just don't like it. You can't grow them here. And I have actually I tried them a couple years ago. I want to. I think I tried Beauregard which was the one that was for northern climates and I didn't have real good success but it was I think it was because I probably got it in fairly late and we didn't have a real good year. But Beauregard GA jet and Vardaman are different varieties that are supposed to do well for northern climates. So that's when I need to try again.

Well we're going to take a quick little musical break and then we'll be back with you using listening to Northern gardening here on WTOP. We'll be with you for the full hour. It was.

Good. News. For the budget. Good. News good with. Good what. Are you going. To have. To eat. By listening to Northern gardening here on WTOP and if you've got a gardening question you know if you've had some success or if you've had problems growing something give us a ring 3 8 7 10 70 or 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 or you can go to the WTS org website and actually get somebody on the phone now and we'll

see what it is they need. Yeah if you could give your first name and where you're calling from all of this is crap and I don't know. Right near the hospital in grand Moray. So what's your question. My question is I live in an apartment complex and one of my friends planted a beautiful braiding heart and that thing has just exploded and grown and it's about two feet high by three feet wide and it's impossible to take out in trauma at all. I guess how can we maintain the health of it and have it grow even more. Well bleeding hearts you can't actually divide though is the best time to do it though is when they are fairly dormant early spring would be the best time. It's not a good time to go ahead in divide them when they're blooming. Also it'll set them back quite a bit so early next spring if you can watch it as it first starts to come up. Go ahead and dig it up and you can you can generally just pretty much cut it in half or divide it however it

looks like it needs to be divided and you can get two or three plants out of it. I wonder. OK thank you. Well Candy I. Saw we were talking about some of the vegetable bar and still more vegetables that we've been you know nor the garden we've been focusing all these flowers time for vegetables but. What kind of fun if you have a flower tree question go ahead I'm instantly happy to answer that but crops are usually the next things you kind of think about throwing on the ground or starting ahead of time and of course the coal crops or your cabbage or cauliflower or your your broccoli brussel sprouts or Kohl Rabi Usually they like a pH of about six point five or more. Which is I always used to think they liked more acidic soils but they really don't they do that at 6.5 or 7. They do tolerate cool soils and I do start mine ahead of time. I start the cabbage of the cauliflower. I don't usually grow Brussels sprouts for my family they're not really excited about those. And then the broccoli I do start

inside as well and usually I'll start a 0 6 to 8 weeks ahead of time before I'm going to plant them out. And this year of mine I started a little bit earlier thinking we might have a better earlier season so they're getting a little bit a little bit big but they will transplant them probably another time yet. One of the things when you're planting your coal crops I always put Cut-Worm collars on mine I don't know if you do Paula but you know I haven't and a few times I've thought about it. And usually when I'm putting them in I'm really careful to search in the immediate area. And then when I have found them then I am after him right away and then then I'll maybe put the collars. But this year I haven't lost I haven't lost any for several years now and invariably when I'm find one or two if I find out if I find more than one or two in the garden then I'll put collars on and I kind of just as a habit do it it's not hard and what we're talking about is just taking. And there's different methods but I take three or four strips of newspaper and I just about three inches wide. A lot it depends upon the size of the plant of course

and kind of wrap it around the stem and then stick part of it into the soil and then part of it sticking up which will prevent that Cut-Worm from coming along and just taking your plant right off that soil. Yeah there's something seriously depressing about SAP tipped over. Nothing you can do about it. And that's why the preventative measure I do that with tomatoes they do that with eggplant I do it with a lot of things that's an easier collar than and I've tried doing before so that over the years I make it as easy as possible it still works and isn't expensive it's always recycled and it's fast. Yeah they're good key component. Well what kind of focal crop varieties do well here in Cook County. While there are your standard Pac Man that's been used for years but I've gotten so that I like but an early dividend and diet green are the kind of the three I've been kind of growing. There's the early dividend is about a 45 day variety and the others.

Yes and it comes very quickly and they all have good side shoots too so once once I have broccoli I have broccoli coming out my years I mean I literally have I'm giving it away. I usually have so much broccoli do you freeze it or if I do freeze it but you know after putting up half your freezer and broccoli you want broccoli. By August I'm ready to get rid of it actually. So that does fairly well. Cauliflower varieties I've gotten so that I like early on still crown as a regular one that people do white sails is one that I like. And there's a couple of open pollinated ones that you can certainly use all the year round an early snow ball are needed and will do well and then there are some that people like that are self rapping like Fremont where the leaves will actually self wrap around keep the Kurds nice and white and you don't have to think about

that. Yeah so. So a lot of the things that you know I've tried growing cauliflower invariably For some reason that's always going to be a bad cabbage or butterfly year that's happened to me every time I think. If I don't grow them then it's not a bad year so I put when i years when I kind of expect I'm going to have problems I will put mine under hoops with remain over the top and remain will course prevent the insects from getting to them and yeah it works quite well actually because it really does make a mess. It makes a mess and you just feel very disheartened when you go to cut that cauliflower and you crack it open and then you have all these little green worms everywhere. It doesn't make it very palatable no. Usually I throw mine in saw if I think there's going to be worms that I'll throw in salt water to worms so I don't have to deal with them so much. Tell your family that you don't tell them that. Yeah it's worse that you've cooked the broccoli or whatever and then you see the words coming to put them in the salt water first and that well that will get rid of the worms so you don't have the

cooking or with your meal. But even better if you go if you do grow them under remade that does definitely help. OK so that will keep that the cabbage worm from coming and laying its eggs and you don't have to worry about the butterflies. The mobs I should say. Cabbage Well let's see. Stone had has been kind of probably one of the best varieties I think all of us have used that one in the past some of the open pollinated varieties like Danish baldhead early Jersey Wakefield golden already here will shortly certainly do fine here as well. Dynamo is another smaller one that you can grow Robie perfection I mean pretty much coal crops do well here. Yeah yeah they really do a good season. So you kind of gets down to your your particular family's taste well into thinking about as far as what kind of location you have probably don't want to pick a spot right up close to the house because that's going to get you know hot. And it will crops.

They like it cooler right. And same thing with Brussels sprouts because those really should be harvesting until after. Right. First frost right. And well and brussel sprouts when you're growing those two you can kind of help them by taking the leaves off I'm sure you probably do that where you take the leaves off as the little little Brussels sprouts as they start to form and then you can harvest those lower ones and then take a few more leaves off and let the next ones because it gets a little more subtle more air and they do better that way. Yeah so you can kind of so you can extend your season on those as you go up and so they just they just keep growing taller and taller. And you have more brussel sprouts at the top. They look like a monkey puzzle tree or something out of them but is familiar with those but you know well in Jade and probably all over the chew that most people grow here that I know of anyway. So yeah there is that open pollinated variety called Long Island improved which I've never tried but I've heard has done really well in cold climates.

So now if you're growing open pollinated varieties of coal crops and the intent to save some seed is not going to be a problem or they be cross-pollinating each other yeah you have to you have to separate them by how much. About a fourth of a mile they say unless they or you have to grow only that particular road. So you could every year going to shift one is open. Yeah I know. So if one is open for variety though then it's going to cross pollinate with the hybrid varieties it's going to it can. That's why they do a separation that I have one garden and I have two gardens that are separated and I have between them trees actually and so they're far enough apart so that that does make a difference for me so it depends upon how you space the spaces or where you put those space. Yeah if you cut the flowers off of the things that you don't want you to see. Yeah so that will also help to do that and leave only the flowers and the ones that you want. Yeah you can also play you know go ahead and self help them self pollinate themselves too. Yeah yeah. So they cover them up so they don't. Yes to anything else. Yeah so you can do all kinds of fun

things like that if you have time to do that. Yeah there is that villa given Well theoretically if you're out there harvesting your plants you should also be keeping an eye on whether they're flowering so some of that actually is part of the harvesting process. Other cool crops we talked to talk quickly about beets because that's one that most of us do grow up here. They like a pH of about five point eight to seven. They do all beets do well here I don't know of any beets that don't do well however the deer just loves them so make sure you protect the tops. Same with carrots. Some of the different varieties that I like. I actually like the foreman over of the cylindrical because again I get eight inches of beet versus just a little ball on the end. So if I'm putting a man I want to get maximum return on my root crop. But some other fun varieties that I've grown aren't yoga which is the only red and white. Yeah it's pretty fun. Another one. There are white beats there's a variety called albino which is an

interesting fun one to grow. And golden beet as well which I hold but I don't know as before you know they're nice. Oh one thing with beats a lot of times they're really susceptible to the nematodes not beneficial which obviously you know I've never had trouble with Naima toads in my garden appear a lot of people have. Yeah sometimes just get I just gave up. I did so yeah well it's not worth it I get these little tiny little knots everywhere. Yeah I just gave up. So I don't know what this story is we will be having a guest later this not not today but in one of the future nor they're going to talk about new toads that we need to be a problem for some folks in wow I have never had an even taught problem on any of my crops. So it must be depending upon the soils and where you're located. Yeah maybe so. Interesting. Well we were kind of somewhat running out of time not necessarily but here but we do want to talk about some of the squashing pumpkins because everybody wants to grow pumpkins and squashes so well actually it depends upon where you are.

I have great pumpkin squash crops but then I'm about a mile from the lake. I'm on a plateau just before you go over the Sawtooth Ridge. So I'm close enough to the lake to get a little bit. Keep us fairly temperate but I get the hot sun so I can grow corn I've grown melons. I can grow just about anything where I am you know. So yeah it's kind of there are going to be over. No you're coming ahead of time you can help with the harvesting of the preparation in the soil digging probably want more. I also have a problem in that my garden stay very very wet because of my heavy clay soils and so often I don't plant until June 5th or 10th and I still do get crops again going back to that soil temperature thing soil temperature is the key it's not how long they've been in the ground it's how warm the soil is. Yeah so that's an important piece. Pumpkins on squash like pH of a six to seven. They're difficult because they can cross at random. So if you're growing hybrids it's great you don't have

a problem but if you're growing a bunch of open pollinated seeds that can be can be a problem. So you kind of want to watch that. It's always interesting to see what sprouts in the company. And I kind of like letting them go just to see you wonder what it's going to do. And weird looking stuff. Yeah you can. And some different varieties that have done quite well. I think my favorite variety is called Lakota and it is an open pollinated variety. I'm not sure if they've decided I think they're putting it into the turban group squash. There's along with like sweet mama and red curry which are also good varieties. Those are great. I've grown baby blue harbored I've grown the golden Hubbard here. I've never had good luck with butternut I have tried early bought or not I have tried late bought or not I have tried open pollinated bought or not and you never know. I have had so many bodies growing but are not well tell me because I cannot get them to

grow well for us. I do like table a hybrid which is an acorn squash. You know I've had success with those too. And there's a table king and a table Queen and all those but the table is hybrid has been best for me. I have grown Golden Nugget now it has done well for me I've grown delicate that's done well for me I've grown dumb playing you know all of those have done very very well and I've had good good success with those pumpkins. I like autumn gold pumpkin because it's a hybrid and the reason I like that is because even in short seasons I get I get orange pumpkins because they grow they turn color right away no matter the size I have an orange pumpkin. It's nice really very appealing visually very appealing and if you're growing up for kids which we invariably always are it's so nice for them to have an orange pumpkin even if it's only you know six inches across or something. Now that actually brings up a big point is how do you tell when your squash are ripe.

I tell when my squash are ripe by actually thumping on them and putting my fingernail in them and looking to see how the vine looks. I mean I don't know how else to say that. But if if you're growing a Hubbard type or a type that gets a hard shell on it and you stick your thumb nail in it and it's hard to put it and it's usually done. The red curry and the luck COTA and probably the sweet mama. I kind of watch the stem color the stem will turn brown and it will kind of dry a little bit. And also the other thing is if it's at the end of the season and heavy frost is coming you take them all in. Right. And oftentimes I end up doing that and then they will cure you I keep them in warm area for a couple of weeks and they will cure pretty well. So the miss about frost on the pumpkin This is really very helpful. No I don't find it that helpful. I pumpkins mother pumpkins

that I've been growing don't like frost very well and so usually I will bring them in or cut them or cover them. Sometimes I'll go out and cover them with sheets or something to keep the frost off and then I'll kind of wait till the vines start withering and then I will usually cut them but usually the stem is a good indication. If you can get them that far along. Yeah you have to kind of watch the stem and zucchini is a squash family and I don't grow zucchini I'm sorry really I don't everybody else does and I don't know. Yeah and I do but I really am so vigilant about picking them when they're really really small and if they get really big I pick them and throw them away. So I don't want to go myself into trying to use that mass so a lot of food is just as ridiculous. And one plant has so many I mean I shouldn't say I don't grow many more I did grow them for a few years and I was so tired of coming up with zucchini bread zucchini pickles zucchini whatever I just said you know there are better use for my for the space.

There you have to keep an eye on them pretty sickly every single day because it's shocking how swiftly they will grow pickles do the same I mean some of the cucumbers same thing. Yeah. Especially if you're using pickling varieties you really have to be out there. And what kind of cucumber varieties you think do well here. Cucumber varieties I've gone to using like sweet success which is a Parthenon carpet variety which means what. Which means. Let me think it's itself. It doesn't need a male to cross with it. They can just go ahead and form fruit and doesn't have any seeds. Oh oh. So yeah unless unless you have other cucumber varieties out there growing with it that are not nonpartizan or carpet then you could have some problems. Actually you have probably just end up with seeds. What you end up with. I like them because they're they're less bitter tasting and bitterness of course is caused when they're not really entirely sure but they believe it's caused by watering where you have heat or too much water and not enough water and you have a chemical that is produced right underneath the skin and along the

stem and you can still use the fruit but you just have to kind of get rid of that cut him a little deeper. I've had that happen with zucchini that gets better usually. And and it is something. Something weird happens and yeah and is that a rabbit or another it is really nasty. Have you tried growing the Armenian yard long type cucumbers. You know I haven't grown those I've kind of stuck with jazzer which is a carpet Jazzer and sweet success for slicers. I've had good luck with those. I just I kind of stuck with those. And I still have grown some of the old varieties. You know I still like the old market more and some of those for the flavor. I just don't you know some of the newer ones don't have that cucumber flavor that yeah that we remember as well as you know the yard longs have really really strong excellent flavor and there have tends to be purpose to it so people have problems with eating some of the cucumbers and that's a good variety of talent. All birth plus cucumber their parts on a car pick.

Oh well there we go I just learned that not to just think Well how about peppers because that if you can grow it seems like if you grow tomatoes you can grow peppers but yeah the peppers are pretty good. You said you grow a lot of different varieties. Yeah I like actually getting the mixed variety because I like the purple in the yellow in there. So these are all sweet bell peppers I have been growing any hot peppers. But but it's fun to have all those different colors. It is fun of course when we talk about sweet peppers there either red or yellow but we often harvest them when they're green. Yeah I've got some purple ones too got purple Well yeah they green first. They sort of are but they've got a pretty strong purple hinged tinge to them and even the red and yellow is pretty and the purple ones is interesting because the stem itself is purple and I can tell then when the young seedlings I can see the one that's got a little bit a yellow one and I can tell those are going to be the yellow ones that's been right. So King all sun I can tell you in the purple have just almost a little spicier flavor to soul that's been kind of cool I guess you pick them

young. Yeah they're very good. I kind of stuck with Gypsy and Lady Belle which are red ones Northstar hybrid is one that I've used and the old standard is kind of parks early thickset. I still like that when it's just for using a green or green time or just I really like it even though it's when it went right because it's red and I don't grow any hot peppers because we just don't use hot peppers at our house. I know that they have red or yellow cheese pimento are one of the more favored ones in the county. A lot of people are growing those but don't use those much. Well if you just tuned in you're listening to Northern gardening here in Cook County on WTOP and our guest today is Diane booth choose from Cook County Extension. I'm your host polished and at time Glad to be with you if you've got a gardening question give us a ring. 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7 and I would talk a lot about vegetables and I don't know diet you want to quickly talk on some of the trees as people are going down and looking at some of those varieties are there some you know as we're talking about

fruit trees or even some you know raspberry varieties that do well here. Blueberries in all blueberries are starting to blossom now also maybe not the best time to put put them in. I don't I'm trying to think for trees if people are looking at a lot of people are talking about ornamental trees this year might have a lot of calls about those. Some of the there are some new lilacs out there I was going to talk a little bit about those. Of course the old ones I really like very much but the newer ones go look and see I did pull off some information on those you know the new ones do they have. I guess one of the things I like about the old ones is that they send up suckers so you can spread out your Lilac patch a little bit more as the new ones have any of that kind of. Most of the new hybrids do not have that which is. Something that some people don't like and something that other people really like. One of the one of the new it's not a new ornamental but one of the ones that I'm looking for to purchase for

myself is the Japanese trio I like which is Ivory. And I would like to have that one. Yeah. I think that's a really nice one. Some of the others. There's a little one called Tina I think is the new one. Trying to remember this from from what I've been reading here Tina is a real short one. It gets about six to eight feet tall. So if you have like a small like you want to small standard kind of with an ornamental that one works pretty well. So you could really grow that in a container if you could. Yeah. And a lot of people are starting to look at those and do more things with them. I like Pocahontas which is a variety I planted outside our door Pocahontas is kind of a. Purple white Yeah. And it's very very pretty very very fragrant.

And that's a really nice one. M O N G E is one that I planted at the Community Center years ago it's still not used a lot but it has a real deep deep deep purple and it's really a nice color I think. And when you're when you buy a player you know a lot of times you're buying a tree there's different height varieties of talking lilacs in particular. When do they usually start producing flowers. It depends a lot upon the variety. If you if you have the old vulgaris varieties which are the white and the purple lilac the carousels are the ones that you see around town everywhere. They usually are pretty you can pretty much figure they're starting to bloom within a few weeks. So depending on where all this year they're especially a little bit early. Yeah Pocahontas which is a later variety comes out probably over the third week in June maybe into the need to be a certain height before they start blooming so if you buy a three foot tall lilac is it going to bloom that years ago take a few years or Val the ball Garrus will take a few years some of

the newer cult of Ares and hybrids that will bloom fairly fairly soon. Miss cam has a later one. I have a couple of those. They're pretty precocious. The little Korean is pretty precocious. Yeah. So it just depends. It depends too on the growing conditions. Yeah I had one of the and I'm not sure which if it's Miss Kim or the other one that was on the the north side of the house just was not a bloomed once over the last five years until I actually moved it last year carefully dug it up and moved it to the cell site it made it to survive that which is big now I'm going to be curious to see whether it's even going to bloom this you need a good six hours of sunlight. They really do. I mean they do wear it to perform well and to bloom well they really have to have that sunlight especially up here. Yeah. Because we had an old one that was in the shade for a number of years and it was very interesting. Never bloomed just kind. We inherited it with the property you know 18 years ago and we started cutting down trees around it and it just started growing and blooming like crazy. Well

so a lot of it depends on the sunlight. Sunlight is huge you know because I'm more concerned about whether it handled the transplant even if you watered it really well it probably did. So they do seems it seems to be sending out some little sprouts this year so that's good. So. Here's another another one that's fairly new it's a little leaf lilac and I've never grown that one but I think it would be very nice. It's a single it only gets five to six feet tall. Again it would be a good one for a container so small like in a garden bed if you want to have something up above. So that would be another one to think about and to do like by last year will eat lilacs it's not their preferred food but if you leave them when they're young and they're unprotected they are going to nibble eyebrows. Absolutely you need to protect them when they're young but once they're bigger they could theoretically form ahead your own your garden. Well theoretically if they're tall enough Yeah but they still will Nebel on the lower branches and they can reach them. So yeah everybody is looking for the perfect plant here

to plant around their garden that the deer won't nibble on and I factually I'm starting to think maybe that Douglas ha foreign might be. Not yet but you know they have they have oh there that are like a half of them but I'm wondering if they would really browse the whole thing or know some of the English. Exactly what I've been thinking about that yeah. The width would keep him from jumping into the garden the thorns would prevent them from eating the whole thing might work. Yeah well you'll have to keep in touch with us. A possibility indeed will thank you very very much appreciate you joining us this morning. Thank you for having me. And we're just wrapping up here and I want to thank you so much for tuning in to this program will be broadcast this Thursday. If you've got a question and you call in on Thursday you're welcome to do that the phone number again 7 1 800 4 7 3 9 8 4 7. Your host glad to be with you. And next week

we'll have Howard going talk about raised beds and have more conversation about that. Thanks so much for joining me.