This Year I'm Gonna.....

 Every year we go into the gardening season with some goals.  This year I am going to stick mostly to the standard plan.  Peas, Beans, Tomatoes... the usual.  But there are always little fun things that we add or concentrate on that make each season a little different from the rest.  The cake mix is the same, but the frosting can be a little creative.  I have several new ideas to keep gardening exciting this year.

Last fall we took a trip to North Carolina.  We visited an amazing Garden Center which was all decked out for autumn planting.  That's something that our local nurseries do very sparingly because our snow can start in October, but this place had pansies and pumpkins and gourds by the truckload.  They also had some beautifully potted ornamental peppers.  Oooo... I would love to have ornamental peppers on the deck in the fall instead of the usual Chrysanthemums.  I've grown them before and I already grow peppers in pots every year.  It seems a natural choice.  So I added three different types of ornamental peppers to my seed lists.  The best part about them.... they are too hot and spicy to be palatable to deer.  That oughta teach 'em!

I used to grow a lot of eggplants.  Sometimes three or four varieties.  The flea beetles finally took the fun out of it and I haven't grown any for the past four seasons.  The last time I grew them, I put them in containers up on the brick patio which was fairly manageable and the plants didn't sustain too much damage.  But they weren't really productive.  This time I am going to try a variety bred specifically to thrive in containers.  This should be every bit as ornamental as the peppers.  And the eggplants are single serving size which is also helpful.

Little Prince Eggplant

There are a couple of things I am going back to.  Last year I sort of took a gardening break and eliminated the crops that are a bit of a challenge in raised beds The main one is sweet corn.  Last year I didn't grow corn because I was tired of watering it every day.  And I was grateful all summer because it was a very dry summer and it would have used up a huge portion of my water resources.  But yet again, I was disappointed in the taste of locally grown sweet corn.  I even tried a new farmstand.  The neighbors were very complimentary of the sweet corn there so I bought a dozen.  They were even sh2 super sweet varieties so I was very optimistic.  They were exactly what I would have chosen to grow myself.  The ears were huge and beautiful and the taste was like... cardboard.  How does one mess up sh2 sweet corn?  The husks were fresh.  They didn't appear to have been sitting around for days.  Did she plant them too close to non super sweets?  That has to be it.  If you do not isolate sh2 from the non super sweets by either pollination time (14 days) or 200 feet (some sources say 350 feet!), then the cross pollination will ruin the taste of the same year's crop.  You can't trust nobody anymore.  I guess I'm going to have to do it myself.

The other thing I am going back to is white potatoes.  I like to grow potatoes in containers, but those are also a huge resource hog.  Not only water but potting soil too.  I do have some room to plant a small crop in the ground.  I do not have a great place to store potatoes over winter, but I love new potatoes so I will concentrate on that.  I'll grow myself some nice new potatoes and not worry about growing a large crop to store.

And my last main gardening novelty is going to be something I have never tried before and that is Dahlias from seed.  And I'm not buying seed, I am using seed I collected from my singles and collarettes last fall.  You see, when you dig Dahlia tubers and divide each year you get a clone, or exact copy of the same plant.  If you allow them to cross pollinate freely and collect the seeds, you have absolutely no idea what color or characteristics you are going to get.  That is how new Dahlia varieties are created.  Yes, many breeders purposefully isolate and control crosses to breed for certain traits, but some also leave it to the bees.  And that's what I am going to do.  Maybe I will get something fun and unique that I can save year after year.  It sure is cheaper than buying a dozen different tubers to get a pleasing color range in the flower bed.

These are the plans that keep me going through the long winter months.  I am looking forward to new potatoes in early summer, hot days of watering the corn patch, and the anticipation of each new Dahlia opening to reveal a surprise.