9/30/2014
A Tight Squeeze
Jennifer Polanz
The trends indicate urban and small-space gardening, including container veggie gardening, are on the rise. Our industry’s breeders are on top of the trend, producing new varieties that thrive in these small spaces and produce a bountiful harvest. Here are just a few examples.
BrazelBerries
From this beautiful collection of decorative berries comes Pink Icing, a new blueberry variety for 2015. It has sweet, robust fruit along with dazzling multi-season foliage for even more interest once the berries are picked. It can be planted in containers or in the landscape en masse. Hardy to Zones 5 to 10.
www.brazelberries.com
Burpee Home Gardens
Multiple introductions from Burpee Home Gardens fall into this category and we’ll highlight two here. Sweetheart of the Patio tomato features great flavor, late blight tolerance and a long harvest window, so the fruit doesn’t all ripen at once. Pepper Tangerine Dream is a sweet pepper that looks like a hot pepper. It ripens from green to orange and is a prolific bearer of fruit.
www.burpeehomegardens.com
HGTV HOME
This brand introduced new patio varieties of a handful of edibles at this year’s Spring Trials and included some at Cultivate’14 this year. New varieties include a dwarf cherry tomato called Mater Tots Red and a chili pepper plant called Mamacita Fuego. Mater Tots Red is designed for table tops and matures out at 10 in. tall and 8 in. wide. It’s hardy down to Zone 4. Mamacita Fuego also is hardy to Zone 4 and matures out at 12 in. tall and 24 in. wide with red, yellow and orange peppers.
www.hgtvhomeplants.com
PanAmerican Seed
Eggplant Patio Baby is a plant that’s been around for a year or so, but was just named a 2014 Regional All-America Selection Winner. It produces a high yield of baby eggplants in a long harvest window on a mounded plant that reaches 20 in. tall at maturity.
www.panamseed.com
Syngenta Flowers
Valleycat is a beefsteak tomato with built-in disease resistance. It delivers high yields of large-to-extra-large, 10-oz. fruit and offers great flavor and an extended post-harvest shelf life. Whether planted in a container on the patio or in a small garden bed, Valleycat matures to an attractive, firm, meaty red fruit.
www.syngentaflowers.com
Vegetalis
This 5-year-old company offers several varieties for small space gardening, including Megabite tomato, a compact plant that produces larger, beefsteak-style tomatoes. It has a very strong stem that supports the plant, but may require some staking to aid the large amount of fruit that it produces. A 10-in. pot is recommended and it maxes out at 16 in. tall and 12- in. wide.
www.vegetalis.co.uk
Sakata
Kandy Korn Plus is a small but mighty pumpkin with a compact, bush-type habit that shows intermediate resistance to powdery mildew. Plants are early at 85 days to harvest and productive—setting large numbers of fruit per plant in a small amount of space. The dark green handles and deep orange, 1-lb. fruit make it great for fall decorating and sturdy enough for the kiddos to carry around.
www.sakata.com GP