George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

So How Do Those Controversial New Purple Tomatoes Grow and Taste?

September 24th, 2024

   I’ve been eating dozens of bioengineered purple-fleshed fruits of the new Purple Tomato for two months now, and so far I can report that I’m not taking on any snapdragon characteristics.

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

   I say that facetiously because this first-year variety is controversial for being the first bioengineered or “GMO” (genetically modified organism) vegetable being directly marketed to home gardeners – one that gets its purple color from genes inserted from a purple snapdragon.

   It’s been a wild first year for the Purple Tomato, which went on sale in late winter and promptly sold out its entire 2024 seed supply in four weeks – 13,000 packets worth. That was despite a high price tag of $20 for a 10-seed pack.

   Then the company selling Purple Tomato seeds, California-based Norfolk Healthy Produce, got into a dispute with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds over a very similar new “incredibly sweet” purple cherry tomato that Baker Creek was touting on its catalog back cover.

   Baker Creek called its Purple Galaxy introduction “the first – and the purple-est – non-GMO purple tomato in the universe,” a claim that struck a chord with the many gardeners who are roundly anti-GMO.

   However, when Norfolk pointed out that Purple Galaxy likely was its own patented Purple Tomato in disguise, Baker Creek did further testing and then yanked Purple Galaxy from its inventory before actually shipping any.

   A Baker Creek statement said the company was “unable to conclusively establish that the Purple Galaxy does not contain any genes that have been genetically modified.”

   Baker Creek said it had acquired its seeds from a hobby breeder in France – where GMO vegetables are banned – and claimed that its original testing showed none of the common markers for GMO.

Prime Time for All Things Lawn

September 10th, 2024

   Whether you’re trying to start new grass or whip a sad lawn back into some semblance of decency, the weeks between Labor Day and early October are the year’s best.

This lawn could use a little attention.

   The warm soil, cooling temperatures, and more frequent rain add up to ideal grass-seed sprouting (usually).

   It’s also the perfect time to fertilize, which helps a lawn bounce back from the punishing hot, dry summer months.

   And it’s prime time for a host of lawn-improvement jobs, including aerating, “top-dressing” with compost, and dethatching.

   Here’s a rundown on what to do in three main lawn scenarios:

If you’re starting a new lawn…

   Early fall follows late-summer sprouting with good conditions for young cool-season grasses to establish roots. Fall-started grass then has a second good growing season in spring before having to face its first main challenge of a hot, dry summer.

   Grass grows best when it’s lightly tamped into loosened soil and then kept consistently damp until the seed is up and growing.

   The five-step process:

   1.) Test the soil. This tells you what kind and how much nutrition to add (if any) and also whether you need to adjust the acidity level of the soil (a pH between 6.5 and 7 is ideal).

   Garden centers and county Extension offices have do-it-yourself Penn State soil-test kits for $10. Or get a kit online at Penn State’s soil test lab.

   2.) Invest in quality seed. You’ll pay a little more, but grass varieties are available that perform far better than cheap seed against adversities such as drought, bugs, disease, and poor soil.

   Penn State University’s findings on the best-performing grasses in Pennsylvania are posted on the National Turfgrass Evaluation Program’s website.

Read George’s article on how to pick the best grass seed

Fruition Seeds Stops Selling, Plans to Give Away Its Seed Instead

August 27th, 2024

   The upstate New York seed company, Fruition Seeds, is taking a rather radical step for any business.

Petra Page-Mann in one of the flower beds at Fruition Seeds near Naples, N.Y.

   As of today, the producer of organic, Northeast-adapted vegetable, herb, and flower seed is shutting down its online seed sales and moving to what co-owner Petra Page-Mann terms a “gift culture.”

   From now on, Fruition will give away – not sell – the seeds produced on its 20-acre farm near Naples, in New York’s Finger Lakes region. It won’t sell or ship anything else, for that matter.

   Page-Mann and co-owner Matthew Goldfarb are laying off the company’s other 10 employees by later this fall and depending on volunteer help and donations to sustain Fruition’s operation.

   Gardeners will be able to obtain free Fruition-grown seeds in one of two ways.

   One is by visiting the farm directly, primarily on days when Page-Mann and Goldfarb schedule events. Those events will be publicized on the Fruition website, which is continuing without the shopping-cart feature.

   The other give-away avenue is from a series of on-the-road events that Fruition hopes to establish – an extension of the company’s past participation in seed libraries and seed swaps.

   Page-Mann and Goldfarb also plan to give away fruit and nuts from the more than 100 trees planted on the farm.

    “We can no longer commodify our beloved kin – these seeds – or ourselves,” wrote Page-Mann in announcing the move. “The call is simple. Seeds are gifts. Gifts are shared, not sold, not hoarded, or otherwise contained by control.”

   So after 12 years of conventional business in which the company reached an annual budget of more than $1 million, Fruition plans to subsist on trust and faith.

Watch for Jumping Worms

August 13th, 2024

   Earthworms have long been a gardener’s friend – aerating the soil with their tunneling, decomposing organic matter, and leaving behind nutritious “castings” in the process.

Note the light-colored band that goes the whole way around the abdomen of this jumping worm.
Credit: Cornell University

   But there’s a new worm in town, and this one is as destructive to the soil as good ol’ earthworms are helpful.

   The newcomer is commonly known as the “jumping worm,” an Asian species that gets its name from its distinctively hyperactive, thrashing habit.

   If you’re out there digging this summer and notice worms that seem to be agitated and writhing, you likely have jumping worms.

   Mid to late summer is when they’re most active.

   Unlike our “normal” European-native earthworms that calmly squiggle and benefit the soil, jumping worms are fidgety, ravenous feeders that deplete the soil of organic matter and nutrition.

   They’re really not all that new to America, though, since they apparently first arrived on American shores in the late 1800s from Korea, China, and Japan. However, it’s only been the last five years that jumping worms have become a noticeable problem in Pennsylvania.

   The state Department of Agriculture’s Invasive Species Council has now classified jumping worms as an “emerging threat,” while the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources reports sightings of this soil destroyer throughout Pennsylvania.

   “If you poke them, pick them up, or dig them up, they flail all about as a defense mechanism against predators,” says Penn State University entomologist Michael Skvarla in a Penn State Extension video on jumping worms. “They’ll flip all around. It’s very obvious once you’ve seen it.”

Why One Bloom Time Is No Longer Enough

July 30th, 2024

   American gardeners love their azaleas, lilacs, and hydrangeas for the spectacular spring floral shows these classic shrubs put out.

Endless Summer hydrangea is one of the best known of the new reblooming shrubs.

   But after a year in the making, the show is over in two or three weeks. Wouldn’t it be nice if these plants could bloom longer… or better yet, bloom again in the same season?

   That’s been happening more and more lately as plant breeders and plant-development companies have been delivering a host of reblooming versions of our favorite shrubs and perennial flowers.

   The two biggest deja-vu breakthroughs so far are in reblooming hydrangeas and reblooming azaleas.

   Minnesota’s Bailey Nurseries hit paydirt when it developed the Endless Summer hydrangea, a variety that produced softball-sized flowers of blue or pink (depending on soil acidity) in late summer and fall in addition to the main June bloom.

   Aided by its distinctive blue pot and heavy marketing, Endless Summer has become one of America’s top-selling plants. The brand now extends into six reblooming varieties, including the lacecap-flowered Twist-n-Shout, a deep-rosy bloomer called Summer Crush, and the new compact Pop Star.

   Numerous other reblooming hydrangeas have followed suit, including the Let’s Dance, Forever and Ever, Seaside Serenade, Magical, and Everlasting series.

   Louisiana plantsman Buddy Lee cracked the azalea code with an introduction he called the Encore azalea that rebloomed in fall after a first performance in May.

   The Encore line has since grown to nearly three dozen different azalea varieties, including 24 that are winter-hardy to the Harrisburg area’s USDA Zone 6b/7a climate rating.

    It’s also led to reblooming azaleas from other growers, including the Bloom-a-Thon, ReBLOOM and Double Shot series.

   The success of those two cases opened the floodgates for breeders to find rebloomers in just about every other shrub genus.