Joan Swenson: And the winning flowers and vegetables are ...
| Tuesday, Aug 19 2008 03:36 PM
Last Updated Friday, Mar 27 2009 06:07 PM
All America Selections has announced its 2009 Flower and Vegetable Award Winners.
This year one flower and three vegetables won the awards, which are given on the basis of the plants’ ease of growing across the country and special traits that make them particularly pretty or delicious. AAS winners can be identified by the red-white-and-blue “All America Selections” shield to be found on plant tags or seed packages.
The flower chosen this year is a cool-season bedding plant, the viola “Rain Blue and Purple,” which is said to be both cold and heat tolerant and can be grown in the southern San Joaquin Valley in the fall and winter, with growth into spring, too. The viola’s unusual trait is that the flowers change from purple and white to purple and blue as they mature. Like other violas, Rain Blue and Purple violas trail nicely in pots and hanging baskets. The variety will be available as seeds and in bedding plants and was developed by Tokita Seed Co in Japan.
The three vegetables winning the AAS seal are a white mini-eggplant, a sweet green melon and an acorn squash.
Eggplant “Gretel” is said to have a sweet and tender skin, even if allowed to grow past the recommended maturity size of three to four inches. Harvest time is 55 days. The plants are fairly small for eggplants, growing three feet tall and three feet wide. Gretel may be grown in a pot, but it should be more than 16 inches deep. This winner was bred by Seminis Vegetable Seeds of Oxnard.
Melon “Lambkin” is an early green melon with white, sweet flesh that matures in 65 to 75 days. Lambkin is a “Christmas” or “Santa Claus” melon known for their long shelf life because of a thick skin. They can be stored in a cool place — a refrigerator is probably best in Bakersfield — for several months. Bred by Known-You Seed Co. of Taiwan, it will be available as seed and young transplants.
Acorn squash “Honey Bear” was chosen by AAS because of the sweet flavor of the squash flesh, the plant’s compact size and high yield. The plant will grow to about three feet in height with a spread of four to five feet, producing three to five one-pound squash per plant. From planting seed to maturity, 100 days. The seed was developed at the University of New Hampshire in Durham.
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My correspondent Robert Mergler suggests using moth balls, although they will dissipate, in limited areas. And, he writes, “We are going to save a bucket or two of the spheroid seed pods off our liquidambar and put them in place like the lady did with pine cones.”
Gail Lack writes that “For errant cats I have used powdered laundry detergent spread sparingly on the soil surface. It seemed to discourage them.”
