First Look: Blue Ribbon Vegetable Gardening

This is an excerpt from

BLUE

★

★

RIBBON VEGETABLE GARDENING Available December 2015

edited by Carleen Madigan and Elizabeth P. Stell art direction by Carolyn Eckert cover design by Jeff Canham and Carolyn Eckert book design by Kelley Galbreath indexed by Christine R. Lindemer, Boston Road Communications cover photography by © Ryan Donnell, except author’s photograph by © John Pendleton

Interior photography: © Ryan Donnell, 3, 23, 31, 111, 120, 157 (right); © Courtesy of Dixondale Farms, 128; © Jodi Torpey, 154; © John Pendleton, 157 (left);

© 2015 by Jodi Torpey

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CONTENTS Preface • 1 CH APTE R 1

THE COMPETITIVE LEGACY 5

C HA P T E R 7

CUCUMBERS

95

C HA P T E R 8

EGGPLANT

109

CH APTE R 2

WHY NOT GI V E IT A GO?

C HA P T E R 9

15

CH APTE R 3

BLUE RIBBON BASICS A PL A NTING CHECKLIS T

37

CH APTE R 4

BEANS

123

C HA P T E R 10

PEPPERS

137

C HA P T E R 11

PUMPKINS

155

C HA P T E R 12

47

SQUASH

CH APTE R 5

BEETS

ONIONS

171

C HA P T E R 13

TOMATOES

65

191

CH APTE R 6

CABBAGE

79

Acknowledgments • 206 Resources • 207 Bibliography • 208 Index • 210

The Schnicker family of Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, grows giant vegetables each year for the Iowa State Fair.

I can’t promise you’ll gain fame or fortune by entering your homegrown vegetables in a contest, even if you follow every strategy. What I can promise is that you’ll have a bit of fun, meet some interesting folks, and gain a new appreciation for the traditions of our country’s rich

agricultural heritage. If you need a simple mantra to encourage you to plant a prizewinning garden, remember this: Seeds want to sprout; plants want to grow.

CH A P T E R 1

THE COMPETITIVE LEGACY YOU KNOW YOU GROW GREAT TOMATOES. YOUR FAMILY KNOWS

you grow great tomatoes. Heck, even your neighbors can’t wait to get their hands on your garden-grown goodies. So why not take your best vegetables to the fair for some official accolades? Like the fair’s other competitive events, a vegetable competition is a challenging opportunity to walk away with ribbons and some prize money.

If you happen to have a natural competitive spirit, the bragging rights alone may be the best reward of all.

"

THE GARDENER

VERSUS THE

FUTURE FARMERS

collect miniature pumpkins for competition.

DO YOUR RESEARCH

Select for reliability. You can prevent some plant problems by selecting fruits and vegetables bred to be disease-resistant. Plant breeders have spent years tinkering with vegetables so they’ll grow well in different climates and produce consistent crops of good quality. Look for plants labeled as F1 , a first-generation hybrid that’s the result of crossing two pure plant lines.

Some popular examples of hybrids include ‘Premium Crop’ broccoli; ‘Straight Eight’ cucumbers; and ‘Sungold’, ‘Better Boy’, and ‘Celebrity’ tomatoes.

23 WHY NOT GIVE IT A GO?

As with any good project, planning is key. It pays to start thinking about the end of the season before the season actually begins. During the off-season, research the fruits and vegetables you want to grow. Read through seed catalogs and look for vegetable varieties with descriptors that signal potential prizewinners: reliable, consistent, prolific, dependable, huge yields, delicious, flavorful, and good performer. Look for regional information to help you find plants that will do especially well in your gardening area.

CHAPTER 2

Ginger and Chuck Werner

WHEN I CALLED ABOUT ENTERING the vegetable competition at the Colorado State Fair, the clerk told me most competitors were members of clubs, but individual entries were welcome, too. When she said “clubs” I assumed she meant garden clubs.

Actually, the clubs are for teens, groups like 4-H and the National FFA Organization (also called Future Farmers of America).

I didn’t learn this until after I got up before dawn and drove 2 hours to get to the fair.

I also discovered that these young competitors can enter the open classes as well as junior classes.

So there I was, the only adult competing against kids — and these kids were taking the competition very, very seriously. In addition to individual championship honors, a Best of Counties award was at stake.

I tried to remain invisible until my vegetable class was called. During the hot pepper competition, one of the young competitors pointed to my plate of 10 colorful and creatively arranged ‘Mariachi’ peppers.

He asked, with more than a hint of surprise in his voice, “Did you grow those?”

That was right before the judge began shuffling the entries around the table as he inspected each and ranked them in order. For a brief moment, my peppers were first, before he moved them to the second-place spot.

To tell the truth, I was relieved to get out of there with a couple of red ribbons and some of my gardening dignity intact. I didn’t mind at all losing to a future farmer.

Judges spend considerable time

examining the quality of each entry, looking for picture-perfect specimens that represent the market ideal for that vegetable class.

‘HANSEL’

‘CLASSIC’

‘BLACK BEAUTY’

‘FENG YUAN’

‘WHITE STAR’

CHECKLIST FOR

BLUE RIBBON

EGGPLANTS

120

LOOK FOR FRUITS that are medium to large and firm, with a uniform, deep color and glossy sheen. To make sure eggplants are ready to exhibit, apply the thumbprint test.

Lightly press your thumb into the eggplant. If the pressure leaves a dent, the eggplant is not ripe and shouldn’t be harvested. If the thumbprint springs back it’s ready to be picked.

Harvest eggplant as close to the competition as possible, so the “cap” or calyx is fresh and green, with no brown edges. Use hand pruners, scissors, or a knife to cut fruit from the plant. Cut into a sample fruit to make sure seeds are still soft; hard seeds mean an eggplant is overmature.

Exhibiting younger fruit at the fair is better than showing specimens that are past their prime. Handle carefully to prevent bruising or dulling the skin with oily fingerprints.

PICK

PRESENT

¨¨ Heavy, firm, shiny eggplant ¨¨ Uniform color ¨¨ Small blossom scar ¨¨ Cap and stem still attached ¨¨ Unblemished skin

¨¨ Handle with care to prevent bruising ¨¨ Gently wipe with a damp cloth; don’t scrub or polish; trim stem to specifications (usually 1 inch beyond calyx base)

PASS

¨¨ Undersized or overmature with hard seeds ¨¨ Dull skin or off-color for the type ¨¨ Bruises, dark spots, blemishes, or damage ¨¨ Dry, brown cap

+ BLUE RIBBON PROFILE ?

ADVICE FROM

THE ONIONMAN BRUCE F R ASIER

IF YOU’RE WORRYING about the

128

onion transplants you spent all afternoon planting, multiply that amount of worry by 900 million. That’s the number of onion plants Bruce “Onionman” Frasier frets about every season. As president of Dixondale Farms in Carrizo Springs, Texas, Bruce is in charge of one of the largest onion-growing operations in the country.

“People are dependent on us to make a living,” Bruce says. Because of the popularity of locally grown produce, “farmers’ markets and roadside stands are no longer a hobby. It’s a business for them.” Bruce understands that even for home gardeners, each order means someone will be on their hands and knees in their gardens planting an average of 10 bundles, with 50 to 70 plants per bundle.

Bruce says the most important consideration for growing good onions is selecting the right variety for your area of the country. If you plant short-day varieties in the northern states, the onions won’t have enough time to make much top growth. If you plant long-day varieties in the southern states, the plants will keep making tops and won’t ever form a bulb.

If you want to grow blue ribbon onions, you’ll need to do a little math to make sure you get the timing right. “A perfect onion has 13 rings,” Bruce says, and each ring corresponds to a leaf on the plant. “Plants arrive with 4 leaves, so they need to grow 9 [more] leaves. An onion shoots a new leaf

once every two weeks,” he explains. So for great onions “you need 18 weeks of growing, which is 126 days or 4 months. June 21 is the vernal equinox, the longest day, so every onion will have to have started bulbing by then or not at all.”

To figure your planting date, count back 126 days from that June date, which makes it difficult for onion growers in areas with short seasons.

Bruce says it’s hard to grow big onions because gardeners have to have their transplants in the ground

by February 21. Most settle for equally perfect but smaller-sized onions.

Bruce says that although you need to speed up growing tops, overwatering isn’t the answer. Selecting the right variety, having good loose soil, and fertilizing provide the best chance for success. Once plants have developed a good root system, they need a steady diet of nitrogen to make foliage and keep growing.

Anything that harms the leaves is a problem because the leaves affect the size and health of the bulb. So it’s important to protect foliage from spores of harmful fungi. If onion diseases are a problem in your area, that might mean using an organic or synthetic fungicide to keep onion tops disease-free. “If you’re east of the Mississippi, there’s high humidity, and spores can be created within 10 hours of leaf wet,” Bruce explains. Even if the weather then dries, he says, spores can survive on the ground. When it rains, the spores splash up and can reattach to the leaves.

As much as you may want to grow colossal onions to exhibit at the fair, in some parts of the country you simply can’t grow extra-large onions. That’s why Dixondale Farms also sells boxes of jumbo-sized sweet Texas onions for grilling instead of growing.

WILD GOURDS

Pumpkin stems are square and woody; squash stems are round and tender.

157 PUMPKINS

Giant pumpkins are usually entered in a separate contest, and it’s not a beauty contest either. One of the most vivid (and politically incorrect) images I’ve read describing a giant pumpkin comes from Michael Leapman’s book The Biggest Beetroot in the World. In Leapman’s words, a giant pumpkin is more telegenic than a long carrot because of its “bright amber skin and shape faintly reminiscent of a fat lady’s bottom on a saucy seaside postcard.”

Giant pumpkins are judged by weight, and prize money is significantly more than in other pumpkin contests. Some giant pumpkin weigh-offs have a minimum weight for specimens or require an attached five-sided stem to prove it’s not a squash. Many giant pumpkin weigh-offs are events sanctioned by the Great Pumpkin Commonwealth (GPC), an international organization that developed standards and regulations for weigh-offs around the world.

Other qualities besides weight can determine jumbo pumpkin winners. Contests for the largest pumpkin are judged by measuring around the fruit from stem to blossom end and also around the midsection. The sum of these two measurements gives the total number of inches. In case of a tie, the pumpkin that weighs the most is declared the winner.

CHAPTER 11

GIANTS AMONG US

PUMPKIN ANCESTORS didn’t hold quite the appeal their modern-day relatives do. The wild Cucurbita pepo gourds that originated in South and Central America were small with bitter flesh. The only edible parts were the oil-rich seeds, and the gourds were more useful as containers than food.

It took many years for humans to develop pumpkins into the colorful round fruits we celebrate today. The early-cultivated pumpkins were probably lumpy on the outside and stringy and bland on the inside.

Surely the Pilgrims had to learn to love or at least tolerate the texture and taste of pumpkins if they wanted to survive those first trying winters.

Of the cultivated pumpkin-type Cucurbita, gardeners are most familiar with varieties of C. pepo. These are ones we grow into jack-o’-lanterns. Another common species is C. moschata; it includes pumpkins and winter squash. Cucurbita maxima includes pumpkins that can reach mammoth proportions.