George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2025

January 14th, 2025

   It’s another new year, and the garden is waiting in the wings to be filled in just a few months with fresh, home-grown produce.

The Purple Tomato really is purple inside and out… not just purple-skinned.

   This is a good planning time – not only to order seeds for the 2025 edible garden but also to hone in on the best varieties of vegetables, herbs, and fruits for May planting.

   Lots of new varieties are debuting in 2025 to add to the tried-and-true.

   Let’s have a look this week at some of the best new edibles hitting the market.

   Next Tuesday, I’ll post the best new annual flowers of 2025, then on Jan. 28 the year’s best new perennial flower introductions, and finally on Feb. 4 the year’s best new trees and shrubs.

   Some of the following new edibles are already available online and in catalogs. If any strike your fancy, it’s best to order ASAP before the supply dwindles.

   Others will show up in local garden centers – seed packets already and plants in April and May.

The Purple Tomato

   This purple-fruited cherry tomato generated much news (and controversy) last year when it debuted as the first bioengineered food crop marketed mainly to home gardeners. The fruits get their purple color (both skin and flesh) from purple snapdragon genes inserted into a standard cherry-tomato variety.

   The Purple Tomato (that’s the official name) came out a bit late for 2024 seed orders, so this is the first January that gardeners will be able to order in time for indoor seed-starting (if the supply isn’t already gone). It’s available only by direct-ordering from the producer, California-based Norfolk Healthy Produce.

   2025 seeds went on sale Dec. 2 and were expected to sell quickly despite a price of $20 for 10 seeds (plus shipping).

   Besides the fruit-color novelty, the attraction is a nutrition makeup that’s exceptionally high in antioxidants – on par with the so-called “superfood” levels found in blueberries, according to Norfolk Healthy Produce.

   Plants are heavy fruit producers, the fruits mature almost black, and the flavor is described as better than average by some but bland by others.

   Once you buy seeds, you can save your own to start your own in future years.

Read George’s trial experience with The Purple Tomato

Cherry tomato Tonatico

   On the more conventional cherry-tomato front, Tonatico is a new red-fruited cherry tomato that performed well enough in trial gardens last year to earn a 2025 All-America Selections award for the Northeast region.

   AAS judges say this Bejo USA introduction is an excellent yielder, is disease- and crack-resistant, and has a “sweet and robust” flavor.

   Plants are indeterminate (i.e. they produce continually until frost) and grow about five feet tall. Each plant can produce up to 200 nearly two-ounce round fruits, which ripen about 60 days after transplant into the garden.

Gardening Trends of 2025

January 7th, 2025

   Nature-friendly gardening seems to be graduating from mere trend to a lasting and widespread mainstream movement.

Certified Wildlife Habitats like this one at Kevin Kelly’s Lower Paxton Twp. yard are trendy heading into 2025.

   That’s the prevailing development that gardening trend-watchers see as we head into 2025, with interrelated facets of that movement – including native plants, pollinator gardens, and less-perfect lawns – all growing and dominating how we view yard care.

   Garden Media Group’s 2025 Gardening Trends Report dubs it “nature’s renaissance.”

   Here’s a look at that movement along with other gardening trends shaping up in the coming year:

Nature at gardening’s forefront

   Katie Dubow, president of Chester County-based Garden Media Group, says nature’s comeback is in part a backlash to the “clean, green, tidy, mulched and weed-free” standards that come with our higher-than-ever percentage of urban and Home Owners Association-governed landscapes.

   “The good news is that there is a burgeoning movement to reintegrate natural elements into these highly regulated and often concrete-heavy environments,” Dubow says.

   Those include tree plantings, community-greening efforts, and a shift toward plants and plant care that take the local eco-system into account.

   “This renaissance is not merely about aesthetics,” Dubow says. It’s mainly about “creating better environments for both nature and humans, enhancing storm-water management, cooling, improving air quality, reducing noise, boosting mental health, reducing violence, and supporting urban wildlife.”

   The movement also means a more diverse plant lineup in home gardens, one that Pennsylvania Horticultural Society Vice President of Horticulture Andrew Bunting says leans heavily on native and pollinator-attracting varieties.

   Bunting also mentions enviro-friendly practices such as “leaving the leaves” (using fallen leaves as natural mulch to encourage overwintering insects), shrinking or replacing chemically managed lawns, and installing “bee hotels” to support local bee populations.

“Modern meadows” are slightly more planned than wild meadows but still low-care.

A move toward “almost meadows”

   Hand in hand with the nature movement, says Katie Tamony, chief marketing officer and trend-spotter for Monrovia growers, is replacing lawns with what she calls “modern meadows.”

   These are flower-heavy, low-input, and somewhat designed gardens of pollinator-friendly perennials, native grasses, and even edibles as opposed to a more hands-off wild meadow.

   “The modern take on this natural garden style has the appeal that people seek with native plants, but it’s better behaved and easier to care for,” she says. “You’ll still have the feeling of a wild meadow… just on an easier scale.”

   Alyssa Hagarman, Hershey Gardens’ horticulture manager, sees the same trend, except she calls it “meadow-inspired landscapes.”

   “The plants in meadow-inspired landscapes require less maintenance, something that home gardeners find appealing, plus it has other advantages,” she says.

   Among them: less water needs, no spraying, more interest to pollinators and wildlife than lawns, and flexibility to add annuals (including money-saving self-seeding ones) to max out the bloom all season.

Read George’s column on how to turn lawn space into meadow space

In Case You Missed It…

December 17th, 2024

   The 2024 gardening season was another hot one that brought us plant- and lawn-stressing hot, dry spells but also a few rain dumpings and other weather curveballs.

We saw a lot of this during our hot, dry spells of summer.

   And we saw another new bug (box tree moth), the spread of a misbehaving worm, and the arrival of the first bioengineered vegetable crop aimed directly at home gardeners (The Purple Tomato).

   I thought I’d close out the year by highlighting some of what I wrote about in 2024, giving you second-chance links in case you missed a post of interest.

   Here you go… and happy 2025!

On this website (free, unlimited reads):

   I start every new year with a look at what experts say are some of the hot gardening trends of the coming year. See Gardening Trends of 2024.

   I then wrote four e-columns highlighting some of the best new plants hitting the market.

Best New Vegetables and Fruits of 2024

Best New Annual Flowers of 2024

Best New Perennial Flowers of 2024

Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2024

   Another best-plant rundown I do every year is plants that have won awards. See Award-Winning Plants of 2024.

   And these are some of the other topics I wrote about in 2024…

The Purple Tomato really is purple inside and out… not just purple-skinned.

   How those controversial new Purple Tomatoes with the snapdragon genes performed and tasted

   The spread of a recent type of worm – the so-called “jumping worm” – that’s a threat to our gardens, not a help

   A rundown on what the new USDA Cold Hardiness Zone Map means for Pennsylvania gardeners

   A collection of tips on how to navigate our increasing erratic weather in the garden

   A look at why it’s important to seek out “survivor plants”

   Why it’s no longer good enough for us gardeners to get just one round of blooms from our shrubs

   The story of how and why the Fruition Seeds company decided to start giving away its seeds instead of selling them

   How to head off plant problems by listening to what your plants are trying to tell you

   A primer on how to prune landscape plants into more interesting ways than basic boxes and balls

   A rundown on the eight most important things I’ve learned about growing vegetables

   A look at 10 of the best cutting-edge annual flowers worth trying in your garden beds and pots

   How my “mini-meadow” finally flourished in year three, only to completely fall apart in summer

   A look at the latest threat to our boxwoods – the box tree moth

   A post that’ll help you evaluate (and improve) your “bounce-backability” in the garden

On the PennLive.com website

All We Gardeners Want for Christmas Is…

December 3rd, 2024

   If Santa Claus could work his magic in the garden like he does in the toy shop, what would gardeners want him to deliver?

If only Santa’s magic could work for gardeners…

   Better weather would certainly be high on the wish list. Who else gripes more about the weather (too wet, too dry, too hot, too cold, too humid, etc.) than gardeners?

   I personally would like to see an “average” year that really acts like an average year. Instead of most of our 40 inches of precipitation coming in two summer thunderstorms and a January blizzard spread over three days total, I’d like to see an inch of rain every week during the growing season.

   Rain every Monday would be great, but never on Saturday or Sunday… unless there’s a Monday holiday, in which case rain all day Tuesday would be fine.

   A slightly longer growing season also would be nice. About three weeks of winter would be plenty – enough time to order seeds, read a gardening magazine, sketch out a new garden plan, and catch a little rest. Then get back to brighter, warmer weather.

   I’ll bet good, old Santa could do something about the assorted bugs, animals, diseases, and other foes that we do battle with each year.

   I’d like to see a fence that keeps deer from going over, groundhogs from going under, and voles from going through – all while not being an eyesore and being cheap, of course.

   Instead of ever-more-troublesome new pests like spotted lanternflies and emerald ash borers, wouldn’t it be great if Santa could bring us a James Bond kind of helpful bug?

   This good-guy bug would wipe out our worst pests and also feed on weeds instead of roses, dogwoods, and ash trees. I’m thinking here of, say, a saw-toothed wasp that would polish off every Japanese beetle in creation… or maybe a “debagger beetle” that feeds on those deadly bagworms that devour our arborvitae.

   While Santa’s at it, maybe his magic could change the diets of a few animal pests. Wouldn’t it work out better if deer preferred voles over leaves? Or if groundhogs ate rabbits and rabbits ate groundhogs. Then the two of them could scare each other away.

   At the very least, I’d be happy to see a few new tasty vegetables that WE like but that animals and bugs don’t. How comes we always seem to like the same things?

How’s Your “Bounce-Backability?”

November 19th, 2024

   As another growing season has come to a close, I have to confess I’m ready for a break.

   On the one hand, I’ll really miss the fresh veggies, the flowers, and the walks around the yard to see what new developments are going on. But on the other, I’m tired.

Mixing up your garden jobs can help with your “bounce-backability.”

   I guess that comes with Medicare territory.  I knew I was heading there about a dozen years ago when I found myself thinking twice before bending over to pull a weed.  My mind decided to assess whether the weed was worth the wear-and-tear on my back… and whether there was something else I could get done while down there to make the most out of the groan.

   So it goes with aging gardeners. The “golden years” are great when it comes to more time to garden, but the acts of getting it all done keep getting more and more “challenging.”

   Toni Gattone knows the feeling. Like many gardeners who put way more bending mileage on their bodies than couch potatoes, her back was a loud reminder that she wasn’t 30 or even 40 years old anymore.

   Rather than give up her beloved hobby, this California gardener read, learned, and tried everything she could to beef up her resiliency – the ability to adapt to and quickly recover from setbacks and challenges.

   “When you have more resilience, you’re never going to give up,” Gattone said in a Great Grow Along webinar. “Instead, you’re going to develop what I call ‘bounce-backability.’”

   Gattone distilled her gardening bounce-backability plan into three main strategies – 1.) adapt yourself, 2.) adapt your garden, and 3.) adapt your tool arsenal.

   She goes into detail in her book “The Lifelong Gardener” (Timber Press, $19.99, 2019).

   Here’s the short version: