168. Award Winning Vegetable Varieties to Try in 2022 Artwork

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

Tips for beginning and experienced gardeners. New episodes arrive every Friday. Fred Hoffman has been a U.C. Certified Master Gardener since 1982 and writes a weekly garden column for the Lodi News-Sentinel in Lodi, CA. A four-decade fixture in Sacramento radio, he hosted three radio shows for Northern California gardeners and farmers: The KFBK Garden Show, Get Growing with Farmer Fred, and the KSTE Farm Hour. Episode Website: https://gardenbasics.net

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Garden Basics with Farmer Fred

168. Award Winning Vegetable Varieties to Try in 2022

February 15, 2022 • Fred Hoffman • Season 3 • Episode 168

If this is the year that you start your vegetable garden from seeds, you have some choices to make before too long. Which tomato, pepper, squash, melon, eggplant and okra varieties should you plant? We talk with vegetable expert and Master Gardener Gail Pothour about the All America Vegetable selections that have been the top performers for her and other Master Gardeners. And we will have a review of the cool season All America Selections vegetable varieties that did well. Plus a preview of the enticing 2022 vegetable seed varieties that will be newly available this year, as well. Okra, did I say okra? If for no other reason, you’ll want to grow it for its beautiful flowers! We’ll explain.

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2022 All America Selections Sweet Pepper Winner - Dragonfly F1

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GB 168 Vegetable Winners TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred is brought to you by Smart Pots, the original lightweight, long lasting fabric plant container. it's made in the USA. Visit SmartPots.com slash Fred for more information and a special discount, that's SmartPots.com/Fred. Welcome to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast. If you're just a beginning gardener or you want good gardening information, you've come to the right spot.

Farmer Fred

You may be making decisions around now about what to plant in your warm season vegetable garden. Maybe you're having some interesting luck, or no luck at all, with your cool season vegetable garden... if you're lucky enough to live in an area where you can grow them. Let's talk about some winners and we're talking about the all America selections winners. All America selections winners is a nonprofit national company that trials seeds from coast to coast. All America Selections has been around since the 1930s. So if you go to their website, all-America selections.org, you can find a list that goes back almost 100 years of good seeds to try in your summer vegetable garden and your winter vegetable garden, as well. We are looking at some beautiful, mature cool season all America selections winners here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center with our favorite Veg head, Master Gardener Gail Pothour. Gail we are standing in front of what is my favorite chard variety which happens to be an AAS winner, Bright Lights.

Gail Pothour

Bright Lights, we grew it every year. It's gorgeous. They will have stems that are yellow, white, pink, orange, kind of purple, deep red, and it's just a fabulous crop. Big leaves. It makes it through the winter and you can grow it year round, if you have it in sort of a protected site in the summer. It tends to not bolt too easily, but they're just gorgeous, big, glossy leaves. If you like chard, it's a great variety.

Farmer Fred

The chard, Bright Lights. it is an all America selections winner. Here are some lettuce and kale varieties that are winners, too. The Prizm tell us about that. It's a kale variety.

Gail Pothour

It is a kale variety, it's small, it's curly leaf and kind of compact. doesn't get too large like some of the kales. The Kale Prizm F1 has got tender leaves, so it's very tasty, if you like to eat kale. It would be good for kale chips if you make those. But we like it because it's pretty reliable. It makes it through the winter and likes the cold. It is slow to bolt so it won't go into summer but you know the temperatures that we have in late winter early spring should be okay.

Farmer Fred

One tip for picking out kale, if you want to eat the kale, is to choose the green leaf varieties. The multicolored varieties, the ornamental kale, is a little bit more bitter, but a green variety like this Prizm F1 is probably quite tasty.

Gail Pothour

It is. Other varieties can have some purple coloration on it, which makes them more ornamental, but the Prizm F1, while it's just all green, but it's so curly and compact, it really makes a pretty ornamental actually.

Farmer Fred

Let's walk down the row here, around the beautiful raised beds at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in Fair Oaks, California. Fair Oaks Horticulture Center is a project of the Sacramento County Master Gardeners and it is a working garden. The Master Gardeners volunteer out here to grow vegetables and ornamentals and fruit trees. It's really a beautiful site, and also a wonderful, drought tolerant perennial garden as well, but you oughta come visit it the next time you're in Fair Oaks, California. Or make it part of your trip to Sacramento when you come to the area. What about some of the other cool season vegetables that you trialed here that are AAS winners? What about some lettuce varieties?

Gail Pothour

Yeah, the lettuce that we grow every year is Buttercrunch. It's an old variety, while not too old, but from 1963. It was a winner. So I guess it's pretty old.

Farmer Fred

It's younger than us.

Gail Pothour

That's right. It's got kind of soft leaves. It's a Bibb type. So it's not crunchy like a romaine but it makes these huge rosette-like heads so it's really popular. And then another one that is really good is Bronze Beauty. I think it's also called Bronze Arrowhead. The leaves are an arrowhead shape. And the color is this deep red color. It's an old variety really old variety from 1947 and it's one of my favorites. I grow it every year at home. Those have all been harvested here, and we no longer have those in the garden.

Farmer Fred

So the bronze beauty lettuce variety, is that considered a leaf lettuce?

Gail Pothour

It's an oak leaf so the shape of the leaf actually looks like an oak tree leaf. if you're familiar with that kind of jagged edge. It's not really crunchy like a romaine but it's crunchier than a Bibb lettuce; the Buttercrunch is real soft. The Bronze Beauty has a little more structure to it and it's a beautiful rosette with the purple and red colors.

Farmer Fred

I asked that just to differentiate it from head lettuces, which are harvested a bit differently than leaf lettuces, which you can just go out and pick off the older leaves.

Gail Pothour

Right. Head lettuces don't do that well in our climate here in Sacramento because we're too warm, they want to bolt up. They want to open up so you don't have that dense head. The leaf lettuces we like to grow in our climate because we can harvest either the whole plant or pick off a few leaves at a time.

Farmer Fred

That's right. So for USDA zone nine, the leaf lettuce is a better variety to grow. If you want to eat them. But really, if you want to attract pollinators to your garden, you could grow head lettuce varieties, let them bolt, let them flower, and watch the good guys come in.

Gail Pothour

That's right. And that's what we often do with cool season crops when they bolt. Right now we have some kale that's bolting, and we'll let them flower to attract pollinators.

Farmer Fred

People right now are thinking about their summer vegetable garden and what they're going to be growing and again, the All-America selections winners are a good guide to help you select that. What are some of the previous warm season vegetables that you've grown here in USDA zone nine and Sacramento that have done well?

Gail Pothour

How much time do we have? Because we have grown a lot, especially a couple of years ago, the entire vegetable garden here were all American selection varieties. So we had nine raised beds of just AAS winners. Now we just tried to incorporate maybe one bed or do them throughout the garden, so we don't do quite as many. But last year, we did a huge number of sweet peppers. We kind of eliminated the chilies last year because they weren't quite that popular for the food bank where we take a lot of our produce. So we did a lot of sweet peppers. And the big winners were Orange Blaze, which is a blocky orange bell pepper, and it was a winner in 2011. Then there's Just Sweet, which is a new winner in 2019. It's a bell but it's kind of long and skinny kind of cone shaped, I guess. Gypsy, which is one of my favorites is from 1981. So it's an older variety that's still in production. And it's exceptional. it produced until almost Thanksgiving this year.

Farmer Fred

I have grown Gypsy sweet peppers every year for probably 30 years, just because they are edible and tasty at just about every stage of development.

Gail Pothour

And when they're immature, rather than be green, like a lot of peppers, they're yellow, and then they mature, kind of to an orange and then when they're really mature, it's a reddish orange and red, and they're kind of cone shaped. I guess that's how you describe them. Not really big, but you know, there may be three or four inches long, fabulous flavor, and they're just wonderful producers. I grow it every year as well.

Farmer Fred

It's great raw in salads, as well. It's a sweet pepper.

Gail Pothour

A couple of the others that we grew included Roulette Habanero. Now, that sounds strange for a sweet pepper, but it's a habanero that has no heat. And since I can't eat spicy things, I've never eaten a habanero. So I like to grow the roulette because I can get the flavor that fruity flavor of a habanero without the heat and it's done very well. Cornito Giallo F1 is another one that we grew last year. It's a yellow sweet Italian frying pepper so they're kind of long and skinny. And then another one that was an Italian frying Pepper was Escamillo F1. Both of those were 2016 winners and they were really good producers.

Farmer Fred

One non jalapeno that I grew last year was from Baker Creek, it's an heirloom variety, called Nadapeno, which basically means it's a jalapeno, but it has no heat. It, too, was very tasty. The Nadapeno.

Gail Pothour

One I grew every year at home, we haven't done it out at the Hort Center, but it's called Tricked You, which is a jalapeno with no heat. And I've canned jalapenos, but these are big green, which I like to mature to red. They are jalapenos with no heat and so I can get that flavor without the spiciness.

Farmer Fred

Is it called Tricked You or Fooled You?

Gail Pothour

Tricked you. It is an improvement on the Fooled You. One of the peppers that I want to try this year, a sweet bell pepper, is called Dragonfly. It's a purple pepper. The judges who trialed it seem to think it was fabulous. It starts out purple and it will mature to red if you leave it on long enough. But if you harvested it at the purple stage, I understand that when you cut it open it's green inside so it's kind of pretty to have the purple outside and the green inside. So we want to try that this year. It is a 2022 AAS winner, so we don't have seeds yet. Also, I wanted to mention a hot pepper that we grew last year we did grow one, it was called Pot-A-Peno. Pot-A-Peno is a jalapeno that is great for hanging baskets. And we did grow it in a hanging container this year, in a hanging basket. It was a 2021 winner so it's pretty recent, very compact. And I also grew when at home because my husband likes jalapenos. The fruit are smaller, maybe two inches long. I like to mature them to red just because I like to mature them to red. But they did have a pretty spicy flavor. Typical jalapeno. It was a wonderful plant, very attractive and very small like six to eight inches tall. It was great in the hanging basket.

Farmer Fred

Getting back to that Dragonfly purple sweet pepper. Another great purple pepper is tequila, but I too am anxious to try that Dragonfly, purple sweet pepper and I know that seeds are available from Harris seed company if you want to order it.

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Farmer Fred

You know, one thing we should talk about, we would be remiss unless we talked about tomatoes, what are some of the all America selection winners tomatoes that you've grown in the past here?

Gail Pothour

Well, there's the good old standby, Celebrity, avery popular one. It's from 1984. So it's been around a long time. It's a determinate tomato, which means it's shorter, doesn't grow throughout the entire season grows to a certain height flowers and produces its fruit. So it's good for a smaller area. It's a great red slicer. And what I like about it is that it has good disease resistance. We happen to have Fusarium disease in all of our raised beds out here at the Horticulture Center and Celebrity is resistant to races of fusarium. So that's one of the things we look for out here are varieties that do have that disease resistance. Another good one is Juliet, a very popular tomato, it's from 1999, So it's been around a while. It is a red grape type tomato, it's indeterminate, so the plant gets fairly good size.

Farmer Fred

We should point out what a grape tomato is.

Gail Pothour

It's a cherry tomato that's elongated, so it's small. Most cherries are round. A grape tomato is more football shaped or little more oblong. Also Big Beef that's been around a long time since 1994. It's a beefsteak, it's red, it's indeterminate. If you like good size tomatoes, Big Beef is a good one. It also has a good disease resistance. So it's one that we can grow out here. One of the ones that we want to try this year is Purple Zebra. It's a new winner. It's a 2022 winner. We don't have the seeds for it yet, but it's red with purple and green stripes. It's supposed to be deep mahogany red inside, and about three to four ounce fruit so they're not really big, but it has excellent disease resistance. And that's what we look for. It's beautiful. I've seen the pictures. And then there's also Sunset Torch, a new 2022 AAS winner. It's a new 2022 winner, but it's not a national winner. Most of the ones I've been describing so far have been national winners. This one happens to be a regional winner for the west-northwest, which is our region. They're small plum-shaped, one ounce, so it would be kind of considered a cherry. But elongated, little bit bigger, orange with a rose flesh. They compared it to Blush. So if you're familiar with that variety, which has been very popular, and they compared it to that, and in their trials, it was better than Blush. That's another one that we want to try.

Farmer Fred

We should point out that the All-America selections winners, there are a lot of national winners; and then as you pointed out, there are regional winners. So no matter where you live in the United States, you can find a list at their website, all America selections.org of the region where you live that has succeeded with those varieties. Because as I like to point out, all gardening is local, your results may vary.

Gail Pothour

The all America selections, actually before they are chosen as winners, they are trialed all throughout North America. So it's Canada and the US. And at last count, I think there were about 80 trial gardens in in North America.

Farmer Fred

Let's talk about a few other summer vegetables that you may want to grow that are all America selections winners that have been trialed out here at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. How about some eggplant varieties.

Gail Pothour

Eggplant, we always grow eggplant out here. Usually we do the Japanese style the lot. They're more long and skinny. And three of the varieties that we always grow that are all America selection winners are Hansel, Gretel, and Fairy Tale. I sense a theme here. Hansel is dark purple, beautiful eggplant. Gretel is white, and Fairy Tale is purple with white streaks so it's stunning when you look at it. And if you like eggplant, these particular varieties don't have a lot of seeds. The plants are compact, so they're good to grow in containers, like a half wine barrel or something a little smaller, so they don't get very tall. But yeah, these are great varieties. There's a new one that's coming out, a 2022 Winner. That's also white, called Icicle so when we get those seeds we'll try that as as well.

Farmer Fred

Yeah, that looks like a very interesting eggplant. I was looking at pictures of it earlier. It almost looks like a white carrot. It's just a elongated and and very narrow and I go hmm, very interesting. The Icicle eggplant.

Gail Pothour

Yeah, it's very long and skinny. According to the pictures it looks like it's a little less width than the Gretle.

Farmer Fred

Another favorite summertime vegetable that people like to grow is summer squash. Is there a bad zucchini? Well, let's put it this way: There are better ones that are all America selections winners. What are some of the summer squash varieties that have done well here?

Gail Pothour

Well, for zucchini, we like bossa nova. It's actually quite beautiful. The typical zucchini is kind of a black, green color, real dark. Bossa Nova is light green with dark green stripes. So it's very attractive. It was a great zucchini. We also have done Gold Rush, which is a yellow kind of orangey yellow zucchini, and then one that we always like to do is Sunburst. It's a scallop or patty pan, it's yellow with a green spot on the blossom end. It's from 1985. So it's been around a while. So that's very popular.

Farmer Fred

And of course, in many areas of the country, melons are a favorite watermelons, cantaloupes, muskmelons, things like that. Among the all America selections winners of those that you've grown here, what are some of the standouts?

Gail Pothour

the two that we like the best? One is called Mini Love watermelon. it's from 2017. It's small personal size reminded me kind of a bowling ball, only smaller. So it's real round and dark. It's a watermelon and it's from 2017. They are on compact vines, so you can grow it in a large container, which we did one year, we did it in a half wine barrel , up a short trellis. It's got really sweet, red flesh. Doesn't have a lot of seeds, which for me is a plus. Another one that we did last year, It was the first time we'd grown it, is called Gold in Gold. And it's kind of football shaped. It has yellow rind with gold stripes. And when it is ready to harvest, they'll start seeing some green on it. It's crisp, it has high sugar, it's got this yellow flesh, that is so sweet. We love it. And we grew a couple of plants last year and we got a lot of melons. So it's a high producer, I'm definitely going to grow it this year, we did find that it was a little hard to know when to harvest it because typically with a watermelon you look for the ground spot where it's been laying and that will be kind of yellowish. Well , this watermelon is yellow, so it doesn't have a ground spot. So it was hard to know. So we did the typical look at the tendril closest to the first leaf, next to the stem, is it dry? We rap it, that doesn't work. Most of the time, we'd look for the skin turning dull. Okay, well, what we found after I did some research, was you start seeing some green at the stem. And so where the stripes were, you'll start seeing a little bit of green. So that was our key to harvest them and that seemed to work pretty well. It's a great watermelon.

Farmer Fred

That's right. thumping on a watermelon has been proven not to be a very reliable indicator of ripeness.

Gail Pothour

True. Because it depends on When you rap it, if it's early in the morning or late in the afternoon, they all sound the same. And I can't distinguish between the ping, ping ping and the ding, ding, ding. I can't tell the difference. I did want to mention that Gold in Gold is a small, great, personal size watermelons, not a large one. I'd say it's about the size of, well, smaller than a football with that shape.

Farmer Fred

Could you grow it in a 15 gallon container?

Gail Pothour

I would think you could. Yeah, certainly, you would want to either let it fall over the container and trail out or provide some kind of a trellising system. We did it in our raised bed. The vines weren't too long, as some of them can go out 20 feet, but it still is a vining plant. It's not real compact.

Farmer Fred

Now how about a regional favorite that actually does well here but it's probably more popular down south and that's okra.

Gail Pothour

Right we tend to grow okra pretty much every year. We have a couple of Master Gardeners who are from the south and they like okra. So the varieties that we typically grow are Clemson Spineless, which is an old variety that's been around forever. Then there's Burgundy and Candle Fire. Burgundy has these bright purpley red pods so it's quite attractive, even the stems on the plant are that color. And then Candle Fire is a newer variety. So they all have done very well here in our climate. And I understand that okra does well in humid south so yeah, they're great varieties to try.

Farmer Fred

These southern-based Master Gardeners: did they give you any tips on how to cook okra?

Gail Pothour

Yes, actually. If you don't like the sliminess of it, I've been told that you can fry it. if you deep fry it, that eliminates the sliminess, I guess. If you want that texture, you can do a gumbo or a soup or something and it will thicken it up that way. I did want to mention the flowers on the okra plant are gorgeous. They big, yellowish white flowers. They are in the hibiscus family. So it's beautiful plant.

Farmer Fred

You grew it last year here and the flowers alone would be worth it, just to grow as an ornamental and what the heck, then you can try okra and see if you like it.

Gail Pothour

Right. and you would want to harvest the okra when they're small, maybe the size of your thumb. And you need to do it every couple of days because they grow pretty quickly. Once the pods get large, they tend to get a little tough, but then you can let them grow until they're mature. They start to turn Woody and then you can use them in dried arrangements.

Farmer Fred

Whoa, whoa, there you go. Okra added to your new palette. And what was that variety you grew last year that had the beautiful flowers, do you recall?

Gail Pothour

Well all three of them did. We grew all three: Clemson Spineless, Candle Fire, and Burgundy last year, and they all had the real pretty flowers. So yeah, they're all similar looking flowers.

Farmer Fred

Alright, quite a selection for your summer warm season vegetable garden and a wrap up on what has done well in the cool season here in 2021 and early 2022 among the all America selections winners, planted at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center. If you want more information about the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center,, go to the Master Gardener website sacmg.ucanr.edu. And, of course, visit the all America selections website, all-americaselections.org . And by the way, there was a dash between the words all and America in the website name. If you want an easier way to do it, just go to today's show notes I'll have a link for you for the all America selections winners. Gail Pothour, our Master Gardener veg head Supreme, thanks for the late winter tour and hopeful look at the summer vegetable garden.

Gail Pothour

It was my pleasure, Fred.

Farmer Fred

Because there are so many demands on your time these days, I like to keep the Garden Basics podcast to under 30 minutes. Still, there is a lot more to tackle on all the garden subjects we bring up on the podcast. So, for that, and a lot more, we’re starting up The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, on Substack. As the newsletter grows, so will the subject matter. So, yes, it will be a good supplement for the Garden Basics podcast, but there will be a lot more garden related material and probably pictures of my dogs and cats, as well. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred Newsletter on Substack. And best of all, it’s free! There’s a link in today’s show notes. Or, just go to substack.com, and do a search for Garden Basics with Farmer Fred. That’s substack.com. The Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter. Did I tell you it’s free? It’s free.

Farmer Fred

Garden Basics comes out every Tuesday and Friday. It's brought to you by Smart Pots. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. And that includes Apple, Iheart, Stitcher, Spotify, Overcast, Google, Podcast Addict, Cast Box, and Pocket Casts. Thank you for listening, subscribing and leaving comments. We appreciate it.