Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County

Vegetables & Fruits

Information about growing edibles.

Cool Season Veggies: Growing Greens—Simple as Child’s Play!

Sprinkle lettuce seeds on soil, cover with soil, water, and in about 45 days you will be picking lettuce! Growing cool season greens is so simple that kids in early childhood programs often plant and grow them!

Greens_Billtacular_CC BY-NC-ND 2.0_Flickr
Arugala and mixed lettuces at Rutgers Student Sustainable Farm

What to plant
In addition to lettuce, consider planting arugula, collard greens, kale, mustard greens, spinach, or Swiss chard, depending on your family’s preferences. All greens are nutritious and fast-growing. Check the seed packet or transplant tag for planting depth, spacing, and time to harvest specifics.

When to plant
North Carolina is blessed with three growing seasons—spring, summer, and fall—so gardeners can enjoy vegetable crops nearly year-round. Cool season crops prefer the spring and fall when temperatures are below 70 degrees. These crops can take light frosts, and some will even tolerate temperatures in the upper teens. Sow seeds directly into the ground or start with transplants from early March to early April and again in July or August, depending on the particular plants. (See online planting calendar listed below for specifics).

Growing Vegetables at Childcare Centers_photo by NC State Extension
Planting veggie seeds, easy and fun for children

Where to plant
Greens like full sun—6 to 8 hours of direct sun a day. Your plants will also do better in a weed-free environment.

Soil & fertilizers
Leafy greens thrive in a variety of soils—you can also grow them in containers. They prefer well-drained soil, rich in organic matter that is slightly acidic—a pH of 6.0 to 6.5—although spinach prefers a pH of 6.5 to 6.8.

It’s best to do a soil test before you start to see if you need to lime your garden and for specific fertilizer recommendations. Soil test kits can be picked up at the NC State Extension, Buncombe County, 49 Mount Carmel Road, Asheville, NC.

For average soil, work 3 pounds of 10-10-10 per 100 square feet into the soil before planting. Or you can side-dress plants after they start to grow (apply fertilizer about 4 inches from stems on both side of the plants) using 3 ounces of 10-10-10 per 100 row feet.

Maintaining your greens
If you are starting with seeds, keep them continuously moist until they sprout. After your seeds emerge, your garden will prosper if it gets at least one inch of water a week. Veggies grown in containers tend to dry out faster than garden soil and need to be monitored daily during dry, warm, or windy conditions. Thin your seedlings as they grow to provide the recommended space between plants. Base additional side-dressing with fertilizer on how the crop looks. Does it have good color and strong growth?

Managing insects
Green leafy veggies are subject to attack by aphids, and those in the Brassicaceae family—arugula, collards, kale, and mustard—will attract cabbage worms and cabbage loopers.

Follow an Integrated Pest Management (IPM) approach to reduce insect damage:

  • Look at your plants regularly.
  • Identify any pests.
  • Decide if the degree of damage requires action.
  • If so, consider a combination of treatments: mechanical (picking or washing off insects), cultural (keeping your plants healthy, rotating crops using trap crops to attract insects), biologic (using predator insects or parasites to control harmful insects), and chemical (use of insecticides).
  • Evaluate your success!

Best leafy green varieties for Western North Carolina

Lettuce
Head: Strains of Ithaca, Salinas, Pennlake
Romaine: Romulus, Signal, Medallion
Green Leaf: Salad Bowl, Slobolt, Royal Green, Green Vision, Grand Rapids
Red Leaf: Royal Red, Red Sails, Ruby
Butterhead (loose head): Butter-crunch, Nancy (a.k.a. Boston head), Esmeralda, Ermosa
Kale
Winterbor, Toscano, Improved Dwarf Siberian, Red Russian, Redbor
Spinach
Chesapeake, Hybrid #7, Tyee, Melody, Old Dominion
Collard greens
Vates, Morris, Georgia Southern, Blue Max, Heavi Crop
Swiss chard
Bright Lights, Ruby Red/Rhubarb Chard

Article written by Kay Green, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

Learn more
Western North Carolina Planting Calendar
by NC State Extension

NC State Vegetable Gardening Resources
by Dr. Lucy Bradley, Extension Urban Horticulture Specialist, NSCU
Provides links to Extension vegetable publications.

Vegetable Varieties for Gardeners
by Cornell University
Rates and reviews hundreds of varieties.

Blight-Resistant Tomatoes: WNC Leads the Way in Research

There are two words that elicit a deep sigh and considerable head-shaking from backyard and commercial vegetable gardeners: tomato blight. 

A costly and deadly pathogen
Of the tomato blights, the deadliest is late blight caused by Phytophthora infestans, which infects some members of the Solanaceae plant family, especially tomatoes and potatoes. Although this pathogen superficially resembles a fungus, it is an oomycete that is more closely related to brown algae. This is the culprit that produced the Irish potato famine in the 1840s, so to say it’s a problem is an understatement!

For the home gardener, late blight is the destroyer of a beloved summer treat—a freshly picked, vine-ripened tomato, bursting with flavor and warm from the sun. The pathogen overwinters in infected potato tubers. Its spores are carried by the wind, which means that it spreads easily. Once it starts, it is next to impossible to stop.

Conditions favorable to blight
Don’t be fooled by its name. Late blight isn’t limited to later in the growing season. It can develop anytime between early and mid-season, depending on weather conditions, and it is a threat wherever tomatoes are grown.

The very things that tomatoes need to grow create conditions favorable for Phytophthora infestans to take hold—plenty of moisture (rain, dew, irrigation, and fog) and temperatures between 64 and 71°F. Under the right conditions, the disease lifecycle can occur in as little as five days and can spread quickly any time humidity is over 80 percent for two days or more. There are many days when conditions are just right in WNC for tomato blight! It is for this reason that NC Cooperative Extension tracks and reports where the disease is appearing and how quickly it is spreading from farm to farm and county to county. You can also follow the disease each year through the USA Blight website (https://usablight.org/).

Prevention and control strategies
Phytophthora infestans is a formidable adversary for any gardener and requires multiple strategies to combat it. Prevention and control are particularly challenging for organic gardeners and farmers. Choosing the right location for tomatoes can help. Full sun, good air movement, reduced leaf wetness, and well-drained soil all help plants stave off the blight for as long as possible. Chemical products may slow down the spread of blight, but need to be applied frequently and on ALL plant surfaces with every application. It’s a lot of work.

WNC, a leader in tomato research and development
There is some good news on the horizon for tomato growers worldwide! Unlike infected potato tubers, tomato seeds do not transmit the blight pathogen. This makes it possible for researchers at Western North Carolina’s Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River, Henderson County, to develop tomato varieties resistant to Phytophthora infestans and many other tomato diseases.

Dr. Dilip Panthee, Associate Professor of Horticulture at North Carolina State University (NCSU), leads this research. Developing disease-resistant, higher-yielding plants for North Carolina’s $30-million-a-year tomato industry will reduce the global economic impact of diseases like Phytophthora infestans.

It was Panthee’s work on tomato breeding in his native Nepal that grabbed the attention of NCSU. “You’ll find tomatoes growing on every continent except Antarctica. We tend to associate them with Mediterranean food, but tomatoes are a favorite ingredient world-wide,” Panthee said in an April 2015 interview. “The varieties we are creating are important for two reasons. First, we are reducing the need for farmers to use pesticides, and we know that is good for the environment. Second, we are creating fruits with better food quality, both in flavor and appearance. That means greater availability of nutritious fresh tomatoes, particularly in developing countries.”

Disease-resistant tomato varieties
Working with NCSU professor emeritus Randy Gardner (the man behind ‘Mountain Pride’ and many more tomato varieties), Panthee developed ‘Mountain Merit,’ a high-yielding, fresh-market cultivar that is resistant to three tomato plant problems—late blight, tomato spotted wilt virus, and root-knot nematodes. Panthee also developed ‘Mountain Majesty,’ a large tomato with improved fruit color and resistance to tomato spotted wilt virus. Both are commercially available.

Panthee’s latest creation is ‘Mountain Rouge,’ a pink heirloom-type hybrid that is also resistant to early and late blight, as well as root-knot nematodes. “The flavor of this tomato is excellent,” Panthee says. “And its heirloom appearance makes it very appealing to commercial growers and backyard gardeners.”

Because the Mountain tomato series (‘Mountain Pride,’ ‘Mountain Rouge,’ ‘Mountain Merit,’ and ‘Mountain Majesty’) was developed here in Buncombe County, it is well-suited to local growing conditions. You’ll find one or more of the cultivars in the series throughout the planting season at area garden centers.

Learn more
To learn more about the important tomato breeding work being done at the Western North Carolina’s Mountain Horticultural Crops Research and Extension Center in Mills River, go to http://mountainhort.ncsu.edu/fletcher/programs/tomato/. Better yet, plan a visit in late summer 2017 for Tomato Field Day, talk to the experts, and taste the fruits of their labors.

Article written by Janet Moore, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

Resources
http://www.apsnet.org/edcenter/intropp/lessons/fungi/oomycetes/pages/lateblight.aspx

A New Take on Vegetable Standbys

Do you grow the same vegetable varieties every year? Or are you easily seduced by the latest new thing? I’ve tried both approaches, but neither reliably supplies me with the bounty of veggies I imagine! Now, I think I’ve found an easier way to have delicious produce, while minimizing disappointing crop failures.

New/old vegetable varieties
Whether you’re perusing the latest seed and plant catalogs, or cruising your favorite nurseries, box stores, and farmer’s markets, you’ll see plenty of familiar vegetable varieties that are tried and true. You’re also going see the latest award-winning varieties. But have you considered that sometimes it is an older, less touted variety that can save the day? 

What’s different?
Although many gardeners are rediscovering heirloom varieties—typically defined as open-pollinated species in cultivation for at least 50 years—the choices I’m finding more useful in my home garden are not necessarily heirlooms. I’ve succeeded by trying more obscure varieties, as well as different species, subspecies, or even a different genus than the vegetable varieties you’d typically plant. Genetic differences may make these choices better-suited to our soil and climate conditions, or make the plants more resistant to the pests and diseases we typically encounter.

Asparagus bean

Green beans
I know I am the exception, but I have a terrible time growing green beans (Phaseolus vulgaris). Even when I succeed, I don’t enjoy picking them, cutting or breaking off the ends of each bean that grows beyond the tiny stage, or “stringing” those that require fibrous bits removed.

I tried “asparagus beans” (Vigna unguiculata subspecies sesquipedalis) on a whim when my daughter gave me a packet from a Japanese seed company as a “stocking stuffer” one Christmas. They not only grew and produced a steady crop of beans, but the long beans were easier to pick and cut into lengths to fit your recipe!

These beans are the same species as cowpeas—southern peas, black-eyed peas or crowder beans—usually grown for shelled beans. The subspecies that comes to us via Asia produces very long beans, delicious picked once the pods are filling out, but the individual beans aren’t yet visible. You can shell these beans if the pods mature. Grow them on a trellis, like pole beans. These beans do have a “drier” taste, but one I enjoy!

Cucumber 'Poona Kheera'_by TangledBranches_CC-BY-NC 2.0_Flickr
‘Poona Kheera’ cucumber

Cucumbers
Cucumbers often succumb to a variety of pests and diseases, and when they don’t, you may find them bitter or that they produce more than you want to eat fresh or pickled. Poona Kheera (Cucumis sativus), a variety from India, is one cucumber that is not as likely to be bitter, is edible at almost any size, and good for cooking as well as eating fresh.

Poona Kheera looks quite different from other cucumbers, fatter with a whitish skin that turns brown as it matures. Grow this variety as you would any other cucumber, but enjoy the unique appearance and excellent flavor!

Tatume squash_by Karen Hine_CC-BY-NC 2.0_Flickr
Tatume squash

Squash
The squash borer is my worst garden pest. I don’t use pesticides in my garden, in part because I don’t want to bother about the timing of spraying or dusting. Every year I consoled myself that the few summer squash (Cucurbita pepo) I harvested before the borers struck were plenty—but I could eat yellow squash all summer, just like I do tomatoes and never tire of it!

I’ve had some success with timing plantings or watching for egg masses or killing grubs when they first invade, but nothing reliably worked. I’ve tried growing summer squash substitutes—some edible gourds (Lagenaria siceraria, Luffa species) and winter squash (Cucurbita moschata) harvested early—because they are less susceptible to borers, but the taste just didn’t compare.

Enter Tatume or Tatuma (Cucurbita pepo) and I fell in love! This variety does require space, but is either less attractive to borers or better able to survive their attacks. If you don’t harvest it small—before it reaches softball size— you can use it as a winter squash, too.

Finding vegetable seeds
I always look forward to garden catalogs as the first signs of spring! Whether you are new to gardening or not, you may need help in finding sources for the varieties you want to plant. Many seed companies are now putting their catalogs online and a resource for searching these catalogs makes finding varieties and comparing prices a lot easier! Once you’ve identified a company that sells the seeds you want, check to see if their seeds are available at local retail outlets to save on shipping costs. 

Article by Debbie Green, Extension Master Gardener Volunteer.

Resources:
https://gardening.ces.ncsu.edu/plants-2/vegetables-2
https://www.pickacarrot.com/about.html

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Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

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