George's Current Ramblings and Readlings

The Best New Vegetables and Fruits of 2024

January 9th, 2024

   A lot of winter is still staring us in the face, but for gardeners, it’s a time to dream about the many plants already awakening in greenhouses.

Fruit Snacks apple trees are narrow but heavy-yielding.
Credit: Plants Nouveau

   Some of these plants will be new to the market in 2024 – improvements or new twists that haven’t been grown in home gardens yet.

   To help you decide which of the newcomers to consider for your 2024 gardens, I’ve scoured the trade and asked numerous experts for what they believe are the best of the best plants making their debut.

   Let’s zero in today on 10 of the year’s best new vegetables and fruits.

   Next week (Jan. 16), we’ll take a look at the best new annual flowers of 2024, then on Jan. 23 we’ll cover the year’s best new perennial flower introductions. The series concludes Jan. 30 with a look at 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.

Fruit Snacks apple trees

   Four dwarf, columnar apple trees are the first in this new-for-2024 line of Fruit Snacks fruit plants with the tag line, “Real fruits you can reach and eat.”

   Angela Treadwell-Palmer, co-owner of the Plants Nouveau company that’s debuting Fruit Snacks, says the line comes in response to recent home-gardener demand for compact tree fruits that are easy to grow.

   “These perfectly upright, dwarf and skinny apple trees make it easier to pick delicious snacks,” she says. “Fruit Snacks are perfect for small spaces. They make lovely hedges and will grow perfectly in pots.”

   The four new varieties grow eight to 12 feet tall but only about three feet across. Full-sun locations are best, and two different trees are needed to cross-pollinate and produce fruits.

   The varieties also were selected for their resistance to scab and rust – the two main maladies of apple trees.

   Debuting in 2024 are: Blushing Delight (green-gold fruits with a red blush); Golden Treat (a slightly tart variety with golden fruits); Tangy Green (a tart, green variety similar to Granny Smith), and Tasty Red (a slightly tart red-fruited variety).

Kitchen Minis

   This line of super-small, pot-grown tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers also comes with a tag line: “No garden? No problem.”

Cucumber ‘Quick Snack’ is the newest introduction in the Kitchen Minis line.
Credit: PanAmerican Seed

   Ashcombe Farm and Greenhouses in Monroe Twp. plans to carry two varieties of starter-size Kitchen Mini plants in early spring: a foot-tall, red-cherry-type tomato called ‘Siam’ and a new-for-2024 compact, self-pollinating cucumber called ‘Quick Snack.’

   “These are meant for indoor kitchen-window growing,” says Ashcombe co-owner Kerri Laudig. “The plants produce small, snack-size fruits that are perfect for a small family in early spring before the gardening season begins. They’re novel and home-grown fun.”

   The potted plants can be moved outside on a patio or table top after frost so long as they’re still producing.

   ‘Quick Snack’ also is winner of the 2024 National Garden Bureau Green Thumb Award for the year’s best new edible in both the People’s Choice and Professional Choice categories.

   The Kitchen Minis line, produced by Pan American Seed, includes two other compact cherry tomatoes, three mini sweet peppers, and six varieties of miniature hot peppers.

12 Gardening Trends of 2024

January 2nd, 2024

   The National Gardening Association’s 2023 National Gardening Survey found that an estimated 80 percent of American households are taking part in some sort of lawn or gardening activity.

Gardeners are looking at their yards as more than just a collection of pretty plants.

   That’s a five-year high and comes despite markedly higher prices in plants and gardening supplies.

   What form will that interest take in 2024? Here’s a look at 12 brewing trends that gardening trends-watchers see in their compost-stained crystal balls:

More than just pretty plants

   A big-picture trend (mentioned by several gardening-watchers) involves a change in the whole underlying purpose motivating people to garden in the first place.

   Dr. Alyssa Collins, director of Penn State University’s Southeast Agricultural Research and Extension Center in Lancaster County, calls it a “vibe shift” in which gardeners are viewing their yards as more than just a collection of pretty plants and instead a key part in the overall health of local wildlife, the surrounding ecosystem, and the planet in general.

   That rethink, Collins says, is behind a bevy of specific trends, such as planting more native plants to help pollinators, a move away from heavy-handed garden cleanups that disrupt the habitats of beneficial insects, and less or no spraying.

   Andrew Bunting, vice president of horticulture for the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society, sees the shift as “gardening practices that put the environment first.”

   He cites trends such as composting or leaving the leaves in yards to reduce landfill waste, switching from gas-powered lawn-and-garden equipment to battery-operated types, “rewilding” parts of lawn into eco-friendlier meadows, and creating habitats for beneficial insects instead of the past norm of spraying anything that crawls.

 “Eco-anxiety”

   Young gardeners in particular are gravitating to enviro-friendly gardening practices, says Katie Dubow, president of the Chester County-based Garden Media Group, a public-relations firm specializing in the garden industry.

   The changing climate is a leading driver of concern for that age group, she says.

In Case You Missed It…

December 19th, 2023

   The 2023 gardening season took us down a lot of roads… too much and too little rain, the sudden appearance/disappearance of spotted lanternflies, more bans of invasive plants, and gardening in a smoky haze, to name a few.

2023 was another year when we had to deal with sometimes-too-much and sometimes-too-little rain.

   I thought I’d close out the year by highlighting some of what I wrote about in 2023, giving you second-chance links in case you missed a post of interest.

   Here you go… and happy 2024!

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 2023.

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

Best New Vegetables, Herbs, and Fruits of 2023

Best New Annual Flowers of 2023

Best New Perennial Flowers of 2023

Best New Trees and Shrubs of 2023

   Another best-plant rundown I do every year is plants that have won awards. See Award-Winning Plants of 2023.

   And these are some of the other topics I wrote about here in 2023…

Better Naked (a look at plants that look their best without leaves in the dormant season)

Think twice before accepting this pass-along plant (chameleon plant).

Just Say No to These Pass-Along Plants (not all plants people want to give you for free are worth taking)

My Bulb Experiment: Three Years Later (my real-world experience with planting 16 kinds of bulbs… which are faring well and which aren’t)

How One of the Warmest Winters Caused Some of My Worst Plant Damage Ever (the irony and trouble of getting winter weather that’s a little too warm… or unstable)

Composting in Place (no need to lug all of those yanked weeds to the compost bin… most can be tossed nearby where you can’t see them to break down in place)

Lanternfly Obsession (how people are overreacting when they see an infestation of spotted lanternflies for the first time)

Black Thumb? I Don’t Think So (I don’t buy the idea that you’re either born to garden or not… like anything else, the more you learn, the better you get)

2024 Philadelphia Flower Show Theme Is “United by Flowers”

December 5th, 2023

   The world’s biggest and longest running indoor flower show, the Philadelphia Flower Show, is set to bloom next March 2-10, and the 2024 theme will be “United by Flowers.”

“United by Flowers” is the theme of 2024 Philadelphia Flower Show.
Credit: Pa. Horticultural Society

   Show officials say visitors can expect a “massive, immersive, and flower-filled entrance garden,” plus large-scale floral creations and gardens designed by florists and garden artists from Philadelphia, the United States, and around the world.

   Lowee’s Group Tours and I will be running five day trips to see the 2024 show, leaving from a choice of five different locations. Now that I’ve mostly retired, these are the only garden trips I’m still doing.

   We leave for Philadelphia later in the morning than most bus tours (avoiding the rush at opening) but also stay longer (giving you less-crowded time to see the show later in the day).

   The bus drops you off at the main entrance, and you’ll have ticket included and in hand so you can hit the flowery ground running. I’ll give you show-seeing details and other show insights on the way down.

   As with last year, the first three day trips – Mon., March 4, Tue., March 5, and Wed., March 6 – leave from Sam’s Club (Silver Spring Twp.) at 9:30 a.m. and from Weis Markets (Linglestown) at 10 a.m., arriving at the show around noon. Departure is 6 p.m.

   On Thur., March 7, pickups are at 9 a.m. at the South Middleton Twp. building in Boiling Springs and at 9:30 a.m. at Sam’s Club in Silver Spring Twp. Show arrival is around noon, and departure is 6 p.m.

   And on Fri., March 8, pickups are at 9 a.m. in Springettsbury Twp., York County, and at 9:30 a.m. at Clearview Bowling in Mt. Joy. Show arrival is around noon, and departure is 6 p.m.

   Prices for each of the trips is $99.

   More information is posted on my Talks and Trips page, or you can book directly through Lowee’s website. Lowee’s phone is 717-757-9658 and email is ckelly@lowees.com if you prefer to go those routes instead.

Gardening In Smoke and Wacky Weather: Lessons from the 2023 Gardening Season

November 28th, 2023

   Now that another gardening season is in the bag, it’s a good time to look back and see what lessons we can draw from it.

A smoky haze settles over Hersheypark in June.
Credit: Dan Gleiter/PennLive

   The 2023 gardening year was another one that brought us lots of twists and turns, not the least of which was more erratic weather and feast-or-famine rainfall.

   But the year’s biggest curveball was a new one – gardening in a smoky haze.

   Vast wildfires in Canada brought a substantial smoky haze in June, followed by spotty repeats throughout the summer.

   That was more of a problem for gardeners than plants. The smoke threatened air quality enough that it wasn’t a good idea to be out there fertilizing the veggies, doing battle against weeds, or chasing deer away from the hostas.

   However, there’s some evidence that wildfire smoke and ash can harm plant growth.

   One 2018 study published in Nature Communications claimed that ozone and aerosols – two pollutants commonly in wildfire smoke – can interfere with plant growth as far as hundreds of miles downwind.

   Dr. Lew Feldman, director of the University of California Botanical Garden at Berkeley, points to research showing that even short-term exposure to smoke (as little as 20 minutes) can slow plant photosynthesis by destroying chlorophyll (the light-capturing green pigment in plants) and slowing plants’ uptake of carbon dioxide due to fine ash clogging leaf pores.

   Dr. Mark Jeschke, agronomy manager for the Pioneer crop-seed company, also points to the haze itself, which can block sunlight.

   “Much like a hazy cloud cover, smoke reflects a portion of incoming sunlight, reducing the amount of light available to plants,” he wrote in a paper on wildfire smoke’s potential effect on crop yield.

   On the other hand, blocking some light can be a benefit on days when full sun and extreme heat might otherwise stunt growth. Coincidentally or not, our average temperatures for June (the peak of wildfire smoke) were 2 degrees cooler than normal even while the northern hemisphere as a whole recorded its warmest summer in 174 years of national record-keeping.

   Another potential benefit is that fallen ash contains potassium, calcium, and magnesium that can fertilize plants once incorporated into the soil.

   The bottom line is that it’s hard to determine whether the smoke this summer was a plant harmer or a wash between the pros and cons.

   As Jeschke concludes: “Determining the actual impact of wildfire smoke on crop yields is extremely difficult for a number of reasons, including the multiple, competing effects involved and the difficulty in isolating the effects of smoke from other influences.”

   If we get a smoky repeat in 2024, researchers recommend that concerned gardeners rinse their plant leaves to head off ash-clogged pores and to wash produce well to remove any smoke-carried residue.

   Five other lessons to ponder from 2023: