University of Illinois Extension
Garden catalog season gives gardeners chance to explore, shop for next year's
seeds
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[February 05, 2022]
January begins the annual flight of vegetable,
flower, and fruit tree catalogs to your mailbox or inbox. Depending
on your level of gardening, the catalogs are starting to arrive
frequently and en mass. |
“It used to be you would get either a vegetable
catalog or a fruit catalog or flower catalog,” says Richard
Hentschel, University of Illinois Extension horticulture educator.
“Many catalogs now contain something for everyone, including the
garden gadget addicts.”
Illinois gardeners should start by looking for plants that thrive in
USDA Hardiness Zone 5. Many catalogs offer heirloom vegetables,
flowers, and fruit trees. These heirloom varieties can be some of
the best tasting and or more unusual looking fruits and vegetables
we get to eat.
“They are called heirloom since they have had no or very little
traditional breeding,” Hentschel says. “This can mean they will have
more disease problems though and often less production as well.”
With all the plant breeding work going on, vegetables can take on
new colors that are a bit outside the lines. Consider a blue potato
or perhaps the more acceptable colors of green peppers being yellow,
red, purple, and orange. These look great in salads and other
dishes. It used to be that Swiss chard was green, but it is now also
available in shades of pink, orange, yellow, gold, white and purple.
Newer varieties have a slenderer stalk and can be used to brighten
up salads or cooked as you would use spinach.
Small fruits such as strawberries come in a variety of shades of red
now. More small fruits options are also now available. Plant
breeders have had success transforming smaller fruiting shrubs such
as currants, gooseberries, and Aronia into well performing plants
for the home garden. Rhubarb and asparagus are great additions to
the garden. [to top of second
column] |
Technology has been transforming gardening. There is
a garden gadget for everyone. Gardeners who start their own seeds
will find a variety of pots, seed starting soil mixes, markers, and
more.
“You can start your seeds in flats individual cell packs like you
see when you buy your annual flowers, or even expanding pellets,”
Hentschel says.
Planting can be done in pots made of plastic, bio-renewable
materials, or an organic fiber. Additional accessories that make
seed starting easier include warming mats in sizes from one six pack
to a full tray, plant stands with growing lights and self-watering
trays, or a variety of temporary outdoor structures to use to grow
out and harden vegetable plants before they go into the garden.
Hand tools are forever evolving each with their own unique
characteristics.
“Choose wisely and choose what feels comfortable for you,” Hentschel
says. “Your gardening style changes as you age, so will your tools.”
If your mailbox is not quite full enough, go online and sign up for
a few more. It is quick and easy.
[Richard Hentschel, Horticulture
Educator, University of Illinois Extension]
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