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Evaluating the garden crops seems natural in the Thanksgiving season when we're eating them. Many gardeners traditionally include vegetables and fruit from the garden in the Thanksgiving feast. Now's a good time to make some notes about the success of crops -their yield and their tastiness. Having some notes on hand makes the fun of ordering seeds for next year more intriguing. You can reorder old favorites when the catalogs come, or experiment with some new crops.
Be aware that the maritime Northwest has an unusual climate. Summer cool nights and cool days refresh us throughout June, July, and August. Very few of us feel the need for air conditioned homes! But many crops that we enjoy, such as succulent peaches, watermelon, and big Beefsteak-type tomatoes grow best in hot, hot weather. How, then, can we get the best garden yield on tomatoes, corn, peppers, and eggplant, all heat lovers?
First, choose vegetable seeds or plant cultivars that are adapted to cool summer temperatures. Plant hybridizers and commercial seed producers have recognized the problems of cool climates. To choose the seeds that will do best, select from catalogs produced locally or those that recognize cool-season summers. If you do select from a catalog with national distribution, remember that the indication of "Days to Maturity" for vegetables may be too low by up to 50 percent, depending on garden conditions. For instance, a "Yellow Crookneck" summer squash, which is noted as maturing in "50 days" from planting in one national catalog, may take 65 or 70 days in the coolest parts of the maritime Pacific Northwest.
Farmers rely on a simple weather measurement called "Accumulated Heat Units." It's revealing to note what this tells gardeners about conditions west of the Cascades. To figure the Accumulated Heat Units, or AHUs, keep track of the daily mean temperature between April 1 and October 31, an average growing season for edibles. If the temperature exceeds 50 degrees on a day, the AHUs are calculated as degrees over 50. For instance, a mean temperatures of 55 F. would yield AHUs of 5 for the day, that is 5 over the 50 degree mark.
How this relates to crop success is simple. Most crops require a specific ideal minimum of AHUs for productivity. On average, the AHUs in the Seattle area are only about 1800 per growing season; in the Bellingham area, they are only about 1330. To put this in perspective, PACs in eastern Washington has an average of about 2600 AHUs, even though they have many fewer frost-free days than Seattle. To ripen many grapes, for instance, AHUs of over 2200 are a necessity. Variety choices are the key.
Tomatoes, for instance, one of the most popular vegetables for home gardens, can resist ripening unless the plant choice is adapted to cool conditions. A few that have been proven to taste good and produce well are "Stupice," "Oregon Eleven," and "Fantastic." Cherry tomatoes ripen well here and many gardeners do well with "Sweet Million" and "Sweetie."
A cheerful sidelight to the difficulty of growing warm-weather crops is that gardeners in this area can grow cool-weather crops nearly year-round. Greens of all sorts from lettuce through spinach, chard, kale, and endive, do beautifully and produce well. Succession plantings of greens can keep maritime Northwest salad bowls filled throughout the summer, when spinach in hot-weather areas has long since bolted and stopped performing.
Check with local nurseries and locally-produced catalogs for more information on specific varieties. Here are a few catalogs: for vegetables, Territorial Seed, Cottage Grove, Oregon. 1-503-942-9547 or Abundant Life Seed Company, Port Townsend Washington, 1-360-385-7455. For fruit, Raintree Nursery, Morton, Washington. 1-360-496-6400. (Listings are for information only and do not imply endorsement of the catalogs.)
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