Time To Plan the 2008 Garden

Saturday, January 12, 2008 03:45 AM

January is always an exciting time of year for many gardeners because the new seed catalogues are arriving in the mail and seed displays are being set up in the garden center. Also replacing all the Christmas decorations are the new gardening tools, pots, and anything else that is associated to gardening. This is a great time of year to begin thinking and planning about the garden so that when spring finally arrives everything is prepared. I have already gone through the seed racks and paged through the catalogues seeing what is new for 2008 and what I would like to try in the garden this year.

When I am checking out new varieties of flowers and vegetables to try out I have a check list that I like to follow. One of the things I look for are how many days to harvest or for the plant to bloom as this is important in our Northern climate where the growing season does not have a large number of frost free days and is not as long as the growing season in the southern part of the province. Another thing I check for is the plants hardiness and its ability to withstand temperature changes as we have warm daily temperatures and a cold night temperature which is difficult on some plants especially tomatoes. When it comes to choosing flowers I tend to choose flowers that can handle a slight frost and stay away from impatiens, dahlias, begonias, coleus, fuchsia, etc. which have a very poor frost tolerance. Flowers such as pansies, flowering kale and cabbage, have excellent frost tolerance and will bloom until it snows. Moderate frost tolerance plants such as verbena, petunia, aster, poppy, sunflower, geranium, etc. can take a couple of degrees of frost. What I have started to do over the last few years is plant more perennials and grasses. Even if the perennial is not hardy for our area (Prince George is a zone 3 or lower on the hardiness chart) but will look beautiful throughout the summer months I will plant it as an annual because it will last for the entire growing season.

Also when looking at new seed varieties I like to see what type of soil they require, and the maintenance and how hard it is to germinate the seed. I tend to choose varieties that are easy to care for and do not require a lot of care. Also how disease resistant are they. Certain varieties are more tolerant to certain diseases, pests, fungus, than others. When choosing vegetables that I want to keep for winter storage such as carrots, onions, parsnips, cabbage and potatoes I look for mid-season or late crops and if it is a good keeper it will often be mentioned in the description. Of course a very important element in choosing a vegetable variety is taste, size and appearance and in flowers it would be appearance, height/width and whether it is a shade loving or sun loving plant.

Every year I try out a few new varieties but I always plant my trusted old favorites that have proven themselves over the years. For example if I see a new variety of carrot that I want to try, I will plant one row of the new variety but will also plant a row of the variety that I had successfully grown last year. This way if the new variety does not work out I will not be totally disappointed because I still will have a good row of carrots! One last pointer is to always keep notes of what worked well in the garden and what did not. This way, you do not make the same mistake twice!

-Jos

Jos Van Hage owns and operates two Art Knapp Garden Centres in Prince George: