The Catalog Season – E Letter

Before we get completely past the catalog season, I want to issue a caution about what you choose to order.  Note I said “choose,” and it is your choice.  And you’ve no doubt noticed how the garden catalog merchants attempt to guide your choice by emphasizing the size and color of the fruits and vegetables they sell.  Just look at those pictures.  And the descriptions of flavor and juiciness?!  You can taste it already.

As desirable as these characteristics may seem, they are not the most important first criteria on which you should base a selection.  The first requirement is that the plants you select both survive and thrive in your environment.  Otherwise you get to plant a lot of stuff that would have tasted really great if it had lived.  The catalog merchants seem to think that any of the plants they have will thrive in any location you have.  “It ain’t necessarily so.”

I would humbly suggest that you cross reference your catalog selections with lists of plants that have a track record in central North Carolina.  You can find a number of such references on my Home Horticulture web page at

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/ag/homehort/homehort.html

There you will find links to pages on vegetables and fruits and individual publications on specific crops.  Start with “Home Vegetable Gardening” or “Producing Tree Fruit for Home Use.”  Just as an aside, you won’t find much there about cherries.  They don’t have a dependable track record around here.

None of this is to discourage you from trying your own experiments.  But if you look at it as an experiment, you may approach it differently than if you assume a number of quarts per plant from the outset.  I frequently encourage gardeners to plant 75 - 90% of their gardens and orchards in things that have a local track record.  Use the other 10-25% to experiment.  You may find that your location is better suited to European grapes than your neighbor’s.  Most of you won’t, but some of you may. 

So decide whether you are experimenting and give those a shot.  As long as it’s an experiment and your goal is to learn something, then you won’t be disappointed.  Even if it doesn’t rain, you’ll learn what is or is not productive under drought conditions. 

alcooke

E Letters are archived at

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Al Cooke

Extension Agent, Horticulture

Chatham County Center, North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service

N C State University

PO Box 279, 45 South Street, Pittsboro, NC  27312

Phone: 919.542.8202; Fax: 919.542.8246

email: al_cooke@ncsu.edu

http://www.ces.ncsu.edu/chatham/staff/acooke/home.html