Brian Minter: Our long gardening season has just begun

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Well, this is it — the May long weekend — when, traditionally, most Canadian gardeners plant the majority of their food crops. It’s quite uncanny how similar the high and low temperatures are across our country, even as we look north.

Thanks to the April warm spell, many folks in southern B.C. already have their gardens in. Whether resulting from the early mild temperatures or the COVID-19 pandemic, or both, the demand for heat-loving tomatoes and peppers is through the roof. It makes me chuckle a bit because the intensity has been equivalent to the toilet paper rush of a year ago.

As someone who never plants his garden until late June, let me assure you, we have a long season ahead, and there is time for everything to thrive and mature. Both seeds and transplants will grow far more quickly with longer daylight hours and warmer day and night temperatures.

As for the availability of seeds and plants, there is a reasonable supply in garden stores across the province. Because of the high demand, seed companies are currently restocking seed racks and vegetable growers are producing second and third crops of starter plants. If you can’t find your preferred variety, there are lots of great alternatives.

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Let’s start with the big three heat-loving veggies.

Tomatoes are certainly the No. 1 favourites, and they fall into four categories. Among the early-ripening group Early Girl and Ultra Girl (Stokes Seeds) are among the best. As transplants, they mature in about 60 days and are the first to ripen in July. Super Fantastic, Celebrity and Champion are great alternatives. For the best flavour, make sure they are fully ripe before harvesting.

Cherry tomatoes rank next in popularity. Tall-growing Sweet 100 and Sweet Million produce large quantities of bite-size fruits that mature in approximately 60 to 65 days, followed closely by Sun Sugar, Sun Gold and Sweet Gold, three very flavourful yellow varieties. Grape tomatoes have also jumped in popularity. The grape-shaped fruits of Red Grape and Juliet mature in 65 days.

The demand for larger slicing tomatoes is still huge. While everyone knows the name Beefsteak, the improved spinoff varieties, like Big Beef, Beefmaster, Better Boy and Big Boy, are wonderful large slicing varieties.

Over the past few years, interest in growing tomatoes in containers has grown exponentially. The spillover varieties, such as Tumbler, Tumbling Tom Red and Tumbling Tom Yellow, are, by far, the leaders for hanging baskets and pots.

Today, there are literally over 100 tomato varieties, including La Roma and San Marzano paste varieties and the many long season, flavour-packed heritage tomatoes. So, you clearly have a wide range of choices.

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Peppers are right on the heels of tomatoes in terms of popularity. Although hot peppers are trending, sweet bell types (green, red, orange, yellow and chocolate) are still No. 1. Sweet Hungarian peppers are not only sweet but also incredibly versatile for preserving.

Among the hots, jalapenos are the best known, but the slightly milder Anaheim, Ancho and Poblano are becoming very popular.  The slightly hotter Serrano types also fall within the comfortably hot range. They all ripen in 70 to 80 days.

Interest is growing in super hot peppers, like Habanero, Scotch Bonnet, Ghost Chili, Caribbean Red and Carolina Reaper. They all take far longer — approximately 120 days — to mature. You must be very careful when handling these incredibly hot varieties, especially if you have children.

Like tomatoes, there are over 100 varieties of peppers. Many are unique, and all have varying heat levels. To find out which ones are best suited to your tastes, Google the Scoville Scale, a system measuring the heat of various peppers.

Cucumbers round out the top three heat-lovers, and I break them down into four of the most popular categories. For simple slicing varieties, the old Marketmore types are just fine, but there have been some huge improvements. Bitter-free varieties, like Sweet Success and Slice More are burpless types.

English Telegraph and other so-called long English types of burpless cucumbers are well loved, but quite frankly, the Japanese burpless varieties, because of their easy-to-grow and super tasty fruits, have really taken over this niche, particularly varieties like Tasty Green, Burpless Supreme and Burpless 26.

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Today, there are so many great pickling varieties. Cross Country, Pioneer and Homemade Pickles are some of the old reliables, but the new gherkins are bitter-free. With pickling varieties, this is less of an issue.

Cucumbers for growing in containers are very much in demand, and Spacemaster, Patio Snacker and Bush Pickle are ideal candidates. Fast-growing and early-maturing, they perform nicely in containers, especially if they are trellised.

And then there are the specialty cucumbers, like Perseus and Picolino, two short, burpless gourmet types and the older, Middle Eastern sweet varieties, such as Ishtar and Babylon that have quite a following.

If you have lots of space, you might want to try the bite-sized cucamelons that look like miniature watermelons. They are nice for eating on their own or in a salad but watch out — the plants tend to muscle in and take over more than their fair share of territory.

As temperatures continue to warm up, it will soon be time to plant out the serious heat lovers, like eggplants, squash and melons.  Eggplants are growing in popularity as we begin to expand our appreciation of dishes from around the world. With squash, there are both summer types, like zucchini, and winter types, like buttercup, acorn and butternut.

Because they need a long growing season (80 plus days), start melons in containers to grow them quite large before setting them out. In a very hot spot, we can grow great cantaloupe, honeydews and baby watermelons.

All these heat-loving, summertime plants first need to be acclimatized outdoors. For a few days, place them in a spot that is out of the sun and wind. This will help then tolerate any variable weather conditions.

There’s still lots of time over the next two to three weeks to plant these garden favourites, and there continues to be good availability in most garden stores.  So, folks, it’s time to get planting.