Sowing Onions

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Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

As you’re planting your spring kitchen garden, leave room for one of cooking’s basics that’s delicious enough to bring tears to your eyes.  Growing onions in Colorado is easy, and if you want to add this allium to your vegetable plot, the time to get planting is now.

Seeds, seedlings and sets are available to the home gardener, so here’s a quick primer on the difference: seeds are directly sown into the garden from mid-March through the end of April and are very successful in Colorado.  Sow them shallowly, about three-eighths of an inch deep. 

Seedlings are started plants, grown this season and not yet mature enough to begin forming bulbs.  Locally, onion seedlings are readily available in small clumps that you tease apart upon planting.  Plant them one inch deep and slightly later than seeds, so any time in April will do.   

Sets are onion bulbs that are about one inch in diameter and planted as you would a tulip or daffodil.  Both seeds and seedlings can be used for green onions, often called scallion-stage, or for sizing up into storage bulbs.  But if you use sets, keep in mind that they’re best if you want bulb onions. 

 Look for long-day varieties that form bulbs once we have 14 or more hours of sunlight daily; in our area, onions will begin producing pungent, sweet bulbs beginning in July.  

 Onions prefer fertile, well-draining soil liberally amended with organic material.  Spread compost one to one-and-a-half inches deep across the bed, then till it in, working it eight inches into the soil. 

 If you’ve sown seeds, thin them once the seedlings have five leaves.  For best bulb production, thin to three inches apart.  Pulled seedlings are delicious as fresh or grilled; eat them as you would a scallion.  As your onions grow, each leaf they put on represents a ring in the bulb itself, and size matters: larger leaves mean bigger rings.

Water them frequently, never allowing their shallow roots to dry, which can cause bulbs to be stunted and tough.  Onions are nitrogen-greedy during the first part of the season, so fertilize until mid-July, then put them on a diet – onions don’t need much nitrogen past that point. 

As onions bulb, they often push themselves out of the soil; this is normal and your plant will be fine.  Avoid giving in to the urge to “hill-up” your onions; hiding the beautiful bulb will work against the plant’s desire to plump it and you won’t get good production.  As the plant prepares to bulb (the neck will feel a little soft), if your soil is hard from the summer sun, gently loosen it to let the plant expand.

Keep weeds to a minimum, since they rapidly crowd out the less-vigorous onion.  Careful, shallow hoeing around the plants is a must to avoid damaging the developing bulb, so if you’re a bit of a brute with the hoe, mulch is a good option for your onions.

Thrips are common insects in our area, rasping off the surface of the onion leaf, leaving a tell-tale trail of silver.  They hide out on weeds, so weed suppression is key to control.

You can tell if your onion is mature by its floppy tops, which start laying over in mid-August.  Hold off on watering at this point and when most of the tops have fallen, gently lift the onions from the ground. Let them rest on top of the ground for up to two days, trying to keep them oriented the same way they grew in the ground to prevent sunburn.

After two or three days, take the onions into a warm, dry location to cure for several weeks until the necks are completely dry.  Trim the tops, then store the bulbs in a mesh bag out of sunlight in a cool location.

Related Articles

• All Things Onions (doyoudig.wordpress.com)

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Video Friday: Pruning cherry and peach trees

Now that gardening season is so close we can taste it, I’ve returned to the digital screen in a series of how-to videos, produced by the Boulder Camera, a newspaper that carries my gardening column. 

The first in this year’s series is a blatant attempt by me to distract all of you green thumbs from rushing forth into the garden and, in your enthusiasm for spring, do harm.  This happens in several ways, such as tilling soil, wet from snows, which creates clumps that dry into cement-like hardness. 

Other gardeners are starting seeds, which is fine.  Except some people are starting plants like cucumbers or summer squash, which, as a warm season vegetable, don’t get planted out until mid-May.  Giving a plant like that a 10 week head start is alarming – imagine how big they are on the 1st of August, which is ten weeks from when we direct sow them into the ground!  My zucchini is easily three-feet wide by that time.

Yes, the madness must stop, at least temporarily. 

Instead, dance between the rain showers this weekend and prune your fruit trees.  Check out how to work with cherry and peach trees in this week’s video.

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All America Selections are all-stars for the garden

Getting your garden started seems simple:  you dream big, make wish list, then with warm weather, head to the garden center to pick out your plants.  But as those doors slide open to the warm, moist air of the greenhouse, a daunting tableau unfolds:  bench after bench filled with seedlings, rolling racks bursting with trays, containers crowding floors, until all that’s left is a narrow path snaking down aisles.  

At this point, gardeners react either in frenzy, gathering everything within grasp until their cart resembles a Dr. Seuss tower; or in fear, by turning on their heels and fleeing to a more orderly locale.   This is understandable: when facing an ocean of plants, how do you know which plants will work, or what to avoid?

“When I first started gardening and went to the store, I was in awe of what they offered; overwhelmed by the number of plants available,” says Diane Blazek, Executive Director for All America Selections, an organization dedicated to testing and recommending plants for gardens in North America (all-americaselections.org/).  “But most gardeners just want to know “what’s going to do well in my yard?”

Putting plants through rigorous trials since 1932, All America Selections winnows out the best of the best, finding tough plants that are star performers in almost every garden.  Capturing a coveted “AAS Award Winner” designation is like getting the Better Homes and Gardens Seal of Approval, says Blazek, because if they do well in 30 trial gardens across the U.S., they’ll probably grow in your backyard.

“The seed breeding world is competitive; everybody wants their products in front of gardeners.  There must be a way to ensure that they live up to their claims, if not, breeders can say whatever they want but it’s not always true,” she said. 

To put their claims to the test, corporations, individuals, and universities developing plants enter the yearly trials.  “We have plants from large seed companies, but we like to give smaller guys a chance too, like Gordon Smith.  He was breeding peppers in his Illinois backyard, entered and won – now we have Cajun Belle, a pepper developed in his home yard. “

Once the breeder has what they think is a winner, the journey from seed to celebrity spans a season.  Contestants are entered in November and seed is dispersed to gardens across the country for trialing the following summer.  The number of places a plant is tested depends on its category:  vegetables are trialed at 32 locations, cool season bedding plants in 25, and flowers in 42 gardens.

Judges are given strict guidelines for growing these plants: do nothing special.  “We insist that they treat them like an average gardener would so we’ll see how they are on their own.  Don’t spray them, fertilize them more, or treat them special,” says Blazek.

Throughout the season, contenders go through a litany of competitions, where contestants are judged against one another, plus two to four outsiders – ringers that excel in certain traits.   “Not a lot of trial programs have testing like ours.  We compare them against one plant for size, and another one for disease resistance; then they compete against a third plant to see which is earliest, or a fourth for bloom size.  An AAS winner has to be better than them all, in every category.”

Look for 2011’s AAS winners this year:

  Gaillardia ‘Arizona Apricot’ (Gailardia x grandiflora) , a blanket flower that blooms all summer

 Ornamental Kale ‘Glamour Red’ (Brassica oleracea), for intense color that shows off in fall

 Salvia ‘Summer Jewel Red’ (Salvia coccinea), with brilliant red, early spikes of bloom

 Viola ‘Shangri-La Marina’ (Viola cornuta), a pale blue, mounding viola for cool locales. 

The small pumpkin ‘Hijinks’ and two tomatoes perfect for containers, Lizzano and Terenzo, round out the winners. 

Related Articles

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Pumpkin taste-off reveals best choice for pie

Pumpkins in throwdown, clockwise from top: Snow White, Mystique, Baby Pam, Winter Luxury, New England Pie, and Kabocha, center.

The last time I stepped into the Boulder Daily Camera, I carried in a container of fish fertilizer that ended up exploding in a miasmic stench over the newsroom floor.  The smell was overwhelming, not leaving even after mopping up, and I was pretty sure it would take a lot to make myself welcome within those walls again.

So this time, I brought pie. 

Not just any pie, but seven types of pumpkin pies, baked from different pumpkin varieties grown by local farmers.  In bringing the treats, I wasn’t just trying to win back the newspaper’s affection; my ulterior motive was to find out which pumpkin tastes the best in the custardy dessert. 

When asked by gardeners which vegetable varieties are the best to grow, I hedge my answers.  It’s not that I don’t have favorites; it’s just that flavor is subjective.  My taste buds are different from theirs.  So I usually stick to suggesting that gardeners shop the farmer’s markets, to taste fruit and vegetables until they find the ones they like.

But with so many varieties of pumpkins to choose from, how can a gardener tell if this pie is better made from one pumpkin or another?  The only way to find out was to have a pumpkin throw down.

Pitching the idea to my editor, Cindy Sutter, was easy:  she’s a food writer and curious about all things edible.  Together, we hatched a plan to gather up six different pumpkins – all touted as delicious pie types – and, using the same recipe for each, make pies for a panel made up of restaurateurs and average Joes to sample.

Local growers were eager to help, since they want to know what is best to grow for their customers.  So in mid-October I set off to pick up a few pumpkins to try.  But what started as a simple seven-squash journey turned into a Volvo full of gourds; the farmers so kind and helpful that they pressed more than one type of pumpkin into the running.  I had to unload the car under cover of darkness so my spouse couldn’t see just how full that car was with pumpkins.

Cindy and I narrowed down the field to six: 

New England Pie – came up often in searches for the definitive pie types, along with Baby Pam, listed below.  Small to medium sized, deep orange color, and perfect roundness makes it a quintessential fall squash; its flavor has long been listed as the choice for pie makers.

Baby Pam Sugar Pie – one of the Sugar Pie pumpkin clan, Baby Pam is touted as a top choice for baking.  Widely grown for market, this medium sized (four pounds) squash is strongly recommended for commercial growers due to its vigor, yield, and medium-sized fruit.

Winter Luxury – an heirloom pumpkin with delicious, smooth flesh and old fashioned flavor.  The orange skin is netted with white, giving the gourd a frosted look.  This was my entry into the taste-off; as a gardener I’m a bit disappointed in the yield of the plant.  From six vines only four pumpkins were produced, which is unacceptable if you only have a small space to grow food.   

Mystique – a small pie pumpkin with medium orange color.  According to the farmer, yields are fairly good with this type, making it attractive for market growers.  The small size – two to three pounds – makes it a perfect one-pie pumpkin.

Kabocha - a Japanese pumpkin with dark green, striped skin was tossed into the mix.  Considered one of the sweetest of the Japanese winter squashes, Kabocha offered an element of the exotic to our pie entries.

Snow White – mammoth in comparison to the smaller pie types, this white-skinned heirloom surprised me.  Cutting open the 10-pounder, the skin was deep red-orange – I had been expecting a lightly colored flesh.  Though yields are average for a pumpkin of this size (one or two per vine), you’ll get enough squash to freeze and use in baking for the rest of the winter.

As the control, Libby’s canned pumpkin was added, on the thought that it was what most people think of as pumpkin for pie.

And the winner is……?  Read the results of the throwdown in Cindy’s article in the Boulder Daily Camera.

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Grow your own vampire repellant

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They’re everywhere, filling books, airwaves, and cable shows with their toothsome tales.  Seductive, beautiful, and irresistible, they’re a perfect example of how good public relations can take the dead and turn them into superstars.  If you’ve been anywhere near pop culture recently, you know the nation’s been bitten with vampire fever. 

And if you’re anything like my monster-purist son, you’re probably wishing these sparkling, soft-hearted, new-age-fiend wannabes would grow a pair of fangs and start acting like the archfiends they’re supposed to be.  Yet if they do return to their bad boy roots, gardeners will be ready for defense, planting bulbs that give these ghouls nightmares.

The one, sure way to keep a bloodsucker at bay is with garlic, a belief that might have sprung from the Romanian tradition of crushing and smearing garlic on everything from doors and windows to livestock horns to repel disease.   A known antibacterial, garlic is also shown to help prevent blood clots, some cancers, and reduce cholesterol.

While wearing braided bulbs is certainly a fashion statement, the Romanians knew that to get the most from garlic, you have to break the clove.  Garlic holds two compounds, alliin and alliinase, in different cells and you don’t get the pungent, sulfurous flavor of garlic until the cells are damaged, allowing the two to mingle. The product they create is allicin, which researchers credit with the most health benefits.

Leave the clove whole, and allicin isn’t created; the garlic is mild, nutty, and well behaved.  Chop or crush it, and the allicin activates, imbuing the air with the odiferous tang that vampires, and lovers, find offensive.

Garlic thrives in Colorado, and if you want to grow your own protection from vampires, there’s still time to pop some in the ground if you act quickly.  Because grocery store garlic might be treated with a growth inhibitor, purchase garlic for planting from garden centers or on-line suppliers.

Softneck garlic (Allium sativum var sativum) has a soft, flexible stem at the top of the bulb that makes it THE choice for braiding into ropes and necklaces for warding off vampires.  Commonly sold in grocery stores, they grow readily. 

Hardneck garlic (Allium sativum var ophioscorodon) produces a curled, flowering stem, called a scape, that eventually turns woody.  Rich with flavor, they have fewer, but larger, easy-to-peel cloves.  Use hardnecks early; they don’t store as long. 

Elephant garlic (Allium ampeloprasum) won’t help protect you from Dracula and his fiends because it’s more of a leek than garlic.  But the big cloves and subtle flavor make this giant a cook’s garden favorite.  For best size, plant these three inches deep.

Plant now, while we still have four to six weeks before the ground freezes, in a sunny spot with well drained soil.  Plant only the largest cloves, saving the smaller ones for eating.  Push cloves root end down, one to two inches into the soil, about six inches apart. 

Mulch to keep the soil moist and prevent heaving during winter.  Water the garlic if we’re having a dry spell in winter, then plan to harvest in mid-summer, after foliage browns and dies back. Cure in a dry, warm, dark, airy place for a few weeks, then cut stalks one inch above the bulb for storage.

If you didn’t grow garlic and still want to keep the vampires off your neck, don’t worry.  According to legend, they’re also compulsive counters, stopping to tally anything in their way.  An old trick is to strew millet or poppy seeds around, so that the vampire spends the night counting until dawn arrives and it’s forced to return to the grave.

Related Articles

• Mysteries of The World – Vampires (socyberty.com)
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• Grow your own garlic at home, but buy “seeds” from the masters (cleveland.com)

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Rocky Mountain spuds

Recently, a friend handed me a bag containing six different types of potatoes dug from her garden.   Thrilled with the gift because I hadn’t yet unearthed dug mine, I scurried home to use the potatoes with dinner that night. 

Clockwise from top: German butterball, Purple majesty, Rio Grande russet, Nicola, Yellow Finn, Northern russet.

Grabbing the first group from the lot, I lifted out gorgeous red potatoes, their skins rosy and thin.  Washing them carefully and plopping them into some water to boil, I cooked them, skin and all, then pulped them into a soft mash.  They were delicious.

Curious about the other gems my buddy gave me, I rummaged through the other bags to discover spuds in traditional brown, but also buttery yellow and intriguing purple.  It made me excited to dig my own up, but I waited a few weeks until the plants started fading for the season.  The harvest was small, pathetic really, so I went to my friend to beg for her secret to good potatoes.

“It’s all an experiment,” said Tamla Blunt, gardener and author of Mountain Gardening: Not for the faint of heart blog, “and we get tasty food to eat after I’m done with the experiment.”  Laughing, she described her garden at 8,600 feet.

“We do live in the Rocky Mountains, so my soil is pretty rocky, but not as bad as other parts.  I amended it with well aged horse manure – it adds a lot of tilth, and the ground wasn’t as hard.”  Blunt worked a grassy spot into a patch containing potatoes, onions, garlic.  “I planted on June 5, but we got snow on June 13.  That set the plants back a little; the soil was too cold.” 

 If the short growing season doesn’t defeat a gardener, the wildlife will, and Blunt has been battling critters big and small for her plot of vegetables.  But the potatoes shrugged off attacks.  “They’re a solanaceous plant; related to tomatoes and peppers.  So deer and moose don’t eat them,” said Blunt.  “The voles and chipmunks might nibble a root, but they quickly left the plants alone and the rabbits never bothered them.”

Using drip irrigation to water her potatoes with non-potable water, Blunt coddled them through the short season.  Weather played havoc early and late – with frost singing the foliage in September and a cold snap killing the plants to the ground.

 She decided it was time to call it a season.  Digging through the quarter-acre patch, her reward was 100 pounds of delicious spuds.  “Colorado is a well-known state for producing seed potatoes, and I planted a few varieties the experiment station sent up for me to try,” said Blunt, who works at Colorado State University as a plant pathologist.  “They sent Rio Grande Russet, Russet Norkotah, and Purple Majesty.”

“Then I ordered Yellow Finn, German Butterball, Nicola and Colorado Rose.  The funny thing is, the company I ordered them from was in California, but the potatoes were shipped from growers in the San Luis valley, here in Colorado.  I asked the company if I could waive the shipping fee and go pick up the potatoes myself – I probably know who the producers are.”

 All of the varieties did well for Blunt, turning out good-sized potatoes.  Her favorite?  Those beautiful Colorado Rose potatoes.  “They did nice this year, and I’ll definitely order more of that for next season.  But the Yellow Finn surprised me – I got some really nice tubers out of them, too.  One thing I won’t plant again is Yukon Gold.  For some reason it doesn’t do well up here.”

Blunt isn’t likely to try the russets again, because they seem to require a much longer growing season than her high altitude home has.  Blunt offer these tips for mountain gardeners:

- Choose the sunniest site on your property, to maximize sunlight in the short growing season.  Watch how the sun moves across that spot, east to west, to choose a warm spot for the spuds. 

- Amend the soil well – potatoes won’t grow through heavy clay or stone.  “They have to expand; if they can’t you won’t get a good-sized tuber.” 

At elevation, potatoes don’t have the insect or diseases gardener battle at lower elevations, but the summer quickly gives way to killing frosts.  Select spuds for short seasons, harvesting some young for fresh eating and letting others sit in the soil for a few days after the plant dies back to set their skins.

“When the foliage dies down, if you leave the potatoes in the soil, the skin sets and they store longer with a thicker skin.  Taking them out of the ground right away results in thinner skin, perfect for fresh eating,” she said. 

Order your potatoes for next year early, to ensure you get the varieties you want – then cozy up in your mountain home to wait out the winter, dreaming of spring.

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In crush

Today’s post can be heard on the public radio show Crop to Cuisine, hosted by Dov Hirsch.

I learned a new phrase the other day when I was visiting Palisade for the Colorado Mountain Winefest.  If you haven’t been, this three-day event features seminars, tastings and activities designed to celebrate the harvest.  In that time you can lose yourself in discovering new wines, or spend your days learning.

“We’re in crush,” were the words that changed my day.  Technically, the phrase means grapes are in harvest and brought to the wineries for preparation of fermentation.  Yet the simple words mean so much more:  a moment each fall when time seems to still, when the daily grind is set aside in favor of focus on turning vines into wine.

I’m a winemaker and, along with my husband, brother, sister-in-law, and friends, have delved deeper into the culture of the grape each year.  Armed with a book and the courage born of ignorance, we’ve turned out 14 types of wine, one vinegar, and a spectacularly spoiled science experiment.  Each year, we bravely try again. 

We’re in the middle of crush right now in Colorado, a delicate time for grapes.  For such a tough plant, it’s a princess when it comes to its fruit: too much sun, not enough sun, mildew, rain, frost, these are all conditions the clusters won’t tolerate.  Each one has the power to affect the vintage for good or for bad.

But ripeness isn’t just sugar, it’s also a balance of acid, plus subtle flavors that come with warm days and cool nights.  The longer the clusters spend on the vine – known as hang time – the greater the complexity of the fruit.

This season, winemakers have been anticipating the ripening of the clusters, which has teased us with a slow-rapid-slow pace.  We’ve been on alert and suffering delays or sudden deliveries for weeks, seesawing between idleness and panic.   Schedules are cleared for delivery, then filled when harvest is delayed, then worked around to accommodate the grapes.

The crazed uncertainty has become a staple of fall for me, and I feared it was simply due to a novice’s inability to select and schedule delivery of grapes.  Until the phrase “we’re in crush,” was uttered by Horst Caspari, our state viticulturist, as an explanation for an insane day he spent travelling to and from Fort Collins – 12 hours round-trip – for a two-hour meeting. 

With these words, the clouds of craziness in my mind parted, and realization dawned:  this isn’t insanity, it’s part of winemaking.  What’s more, I reasoned, the phrase could be used to explain away all sorts of distracted behavior, lack of commitment to meetings, or adherence to schedules.

“I’m in crush,” carries a romantic mystery that keeps non-winemakers at bay, who universally think I dress up like Lucille Ball, strip off my shoes, and stomp around a giant, grape-filled vat.  As appealing as that sounds, the reality is less cinematic:  modern equipment churns the berries, crushing them into pulp that slides into buckets.  At that time, yeast is added to begin fermentation.

From there, turning the grapes into a drinkable wine is up to the vintner.  Colorado boasts some of the finest grape growing areas in the United States, with two American Viticultural Areas (called AVA’s, federally-designated grape growing region with unique characteristics) in the Grand Valley and West Elks, along the North Fork of the Gunnison River.  Merlot, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, syrah, Riesling, and other well-known varietals are grown in these regions. 

With good grapes, great wine will follow but not everyone has the talent to produce a fine vintage.  Try a few of the wines from the pros – the wineries that have popped up across the state.  You’ll find a beverage to suit your taste, and when you feel stressed, stop, hoist a glass and toast “to the crush!”

Related Articles

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These melons are tasty

Ask a gardener what you should plant in your vegetable garden, and you might be told to put in what you like to eat.  This is great advice if what you like is a good grower in your location.

But experienced gardeners know that local conditions have a lot to do with plant success, and not everything grows where you want them to.  You wouldn’t plant a lime tree in the yard here on the Front Range, unless you plan to treat it as an annual. 

Our short season, highly alkaline clay soils, and dry climate put the brakes on many goodies others grow elsewhere, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have options.  Savvy gardeners keep track of what is adapted to their region, experiment with new plants every year, and make a list of the tried and true that taste good when grown in their backyard.

If you’re a melon lover like me, I’d like to add three varieties to your list.  Each year I try to grow a few types that turn out sweet, juicy and delicious.  These turned out best in my garden, but don’t just take my word for the flavor – an informal group of Master Gardeners tasted them and voted them a top choice:

Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon – although not as sugary as some of the red watermelons, this white-fleshed one does well in our short season.  The flavor is lightly sweet and citrusy.  The only drawback I find is that the rind is thin – so much so that when a buddy knocked her knuckles against it to ‘sound’ the melon, it burst.  Handle it gently, and because it isn’t a super-sweet, wait until the tendril nearest the melon dries back to ensure best flavor (see post on how to tell if your watermelon is ripe).

Charentais cantaloupe – a true cantaloupe, unlike the large, netted-skin muskmelons we’re used to, Charentais is smooth and green right up until it ripens.  Then the skin turns slightly yellow and the perfume of cantaloupe fills the air.  The flavor of this petite, two-person melon is deep, rich, and sweet, guaranteed to make those tasting it for the first time moan in happiness.  Watch this melon’s ripening closely – when mature, the blossom end bursts open.  An exploding melon is a fun thought, but a disaster if you plan to eat it:  ants and millipedes quickly swarm the exposed fruit.

Collective Farm Woman – if you love honeydew but are stymied by how to tell its ripeness, try this relative.  Smaller, early to ripen, the hard green rind blushes yellow when ready.  The crisp, green flesh is sweet and honey-like, never soft.  I couldn’t find any negatives to this melon, once I learned to pick it before it turned fully yellow.  Left to ripen fully, the flavor slightly declined; my palate prefers the melon when it’s half to two-thirds yellow.

Related Articles

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Peppers: a sweet, hot summer

After years of envying other gardeners’ bounty, I finally got my wish for a little more spice in my summer.  Year after year, despite my best effort, the garden lacked a little zest until Bill Renner, a friendly Colorado Master Gardener, gave me his secret:  all I had to do was let things heat up and Mother Nature does the rest.

The result is a harvest of peppers bigger and bolder than any I’ve ever had – so full of chiles, belles, and jalapenos that I fear for my family’s stomachs this winter.  After a weekend spent harvesting, roasting, and peeling, 16 bags are nestled in the freezer just waiting to warm cold evenings with a hot, sweet meal.

His secret?  Peppers love the heat, and I was cooling them off with a blanket of mulch too early in the summer.  Keeping roots cool is a core tenet of gardening in a hot, arid land, but not every plant likes to be coddled.

Peppers are tough plants that like their soil a tad dry and plenty warm, so I didn’t mulch until well into July, when soaring temperatures baked the earth.  The peppers loved it, setting fruit and growing large until they produced so many pods just looking at them made me sweat.

Sure, there were a couple of blemishes, but with this primer, you’ll learn to ignore a few spots and get rid of the problems:

What:  Light colored, thin-skinned spots on the fruit, becoming sunken, bleached, and papery. 

Cause:  Sunscald.  Skin crisps under the baking glare of our high altitude sun.

Cure:  Select cultivars with good leaf coverage.  Because our wind can push leaves off of the fruit, provide wind buffers if you live in a windy spot (essentially the entire state of Colorado).  Cut off affected area and enjoy the rest.

What: Ends of the peppers are rotten, look water-soaked, then dry out.

Cause:  Blossom end rot, caused by poor uptake of calcium.  Though calcium is plentiful in our soil, irregular watering and excessive heat prevent the plant from using it.

Cure:  Use a timer to automatically turn on and off the irrigation, and mulch plants to keep the soil from drying out too rapidly. 

What: Peppers are malformed, with yellowing, concentric rings around spots.

Cause:  Cucumber mosaic virus. Viruses can cause odd-looking problems. 

Cure:  Spread by aphids and occasionally by gardeners, once virus has gotten into the plant, pull it.  There is no cure; the plant just becomes the mothership for the disease.  

What:  Plants are wilting, leaves have brown spots and the fruit develops large, rotten spots, often bordered by white mold.

Cause:  Phytophthora, a soil borne fungus that is a problem in chronically moist ground.

Cure:  Provide good drainage, and later your irrigation.

What:  Leaf spirals, cupping or distortion.

Cause:  Peppers are sensitive to herbicides. Many gardeners don’t spray their food plants; instead, the damage is from drift.  Drift can occur from applying weed killer on windy days. 

Cure:  Limit applications of weed killer to cool times of the day when wind is calm.

Related Articles

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The not-so-giant pumpkin

Early in the summer, I dreamed big.  The weather was warming and the spring garden abundant, so when the small package of Pumpkin Pro arrived in the mail, I gave in to my inner child and sprinkled the powder into my pumpkin hills.  Touted as “the secret ingredient to growing gigantic pumpkins,” I let myself believe that this year I’d finally get a gourd the size of a Buick in my backyard.

The trio of bio-products (mycorrhyzal fungi, Azos bacterium, and calcium carbonate), promised a pumpkin that needed a little elbow room, so I planted only seeds with the genetics of giants in that area, then waited.  Nothing happened.  After 10 days, I planted again.   

Over in the regular garden, the miniature pumpkins sprang up with gusto, running over the ground and fruiting like they were trying to set a record.   In the giant pumpkin patch, a small, weak vine struggled up, growing feebly throughout the summer.  I nurtured it, putting up wind breaks and fertilizing it with care. 

The vine set fruit and I quickly caged it to protect it from squirrels.  Checking it daily, I was happy to see the swell of what would surely become a prize-winning Jack O’ Lantern.  Visions of carving the expanse of squash filled my mind: do I stay traditional with a simple Jack face or sculpt it to illustrate Dante’s Inferno? 

As summer rolled by it was clear no further pumpkins would be borne on the vine, so I resigned myself to one show stopping gourd.  One is better than none.

It’s now matured, with orange blushing its skin, and today, I can proudly announce that I have applied the latest research and cutting edge technology to grow a pumpkin the size of my shoe.  The miniature pumpkins are larger than this.

Stuck without a decent-sized Jack O’ Lantern, I’m forced to go shopping.  Fortunately, the local pumpkin patches offer plenty of fun and a wide variety of designer pumpkins. 

Check them out this fall, but visit the farm’s Web site for daily hours.  Find a pumpkin patch near you at Pumpkin Patches and more. 

This post was previously published in the Longmont Ledger.

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