A Few New Vegetable and Flower Varieties for 2024

by Yvette Henson, CSU Extension, San Miguel Basin

It’s that time of year again!  That time when garden seed catalogues are arriving in our mailboxes, either in our post office boxes or in our email inboxes.  Most seed companies highlight new introductions for the year.  I recently attended a webinar hosted by a well-known seed company all about their veggie introductions for 2024 and so I thought it would be fun to write about some of the new varieties I have seen in catalogs that I am thinking about growing in 2024.  As a CSU Extension employee, I want to say that I am not recommending certain seed companies or varieties over others.  There are too many seed companies and too many new listings for me to cover in this blog.  Do your own research with your own growing goals, your own specific growing conditions, and your favorite seed companies in mind.  Try something new.

A local seed company that I get a lot of seeds from is High Desert Seeds.  Their seeds are all grown regionally.  I have grown a couple of seed crops for her myself.  This year, I want to try her ‘Blue Star’ mustard. I want to use it like a southern stewing green (my hubby’s request) but it can also be used young in salad mixes.  In the south, they grow mustard greens in the winter months, but I will have to grow mine in spring and fall.

Photo credit High Desert Seed

Johnny’s Seeds are popular with small farmers and gardeners.  They have many talented breeders on staff.  Each year, I like to grow something I haven’t grown before and this year I am planning on growing a variety of Asian greens.  I would like to grow two of their new introductions in the Asian green category: ‘Haku’(F1) Chinese cabbage and  ‘Green River’(F1) komatsuna green.  They are also offering what they claim is the first white Romanesco cauliflower called ‘Whitaker’(F1).  Baker Creek also offers a white spiraled cauliflower that is open pollinated called ‘De Jesi’.  The standard Romanesco has the equally beautiful and tasty chartreuse green spirals.  White is more unique. While I will give one of the white ones and a green one another try, I have found cauliflowers difficult to grow, especially the beautifully fractalled Romanesco varieties. 

'Haku' Chinese cabbage
Photo credit Johnny's Seeds

'Green River' Asian green
photo credit Johnny's Seeds

'Whitaker' romanesco cauliflower
photo credit Johnny's Seeds

There is a cost for the Whole Seed Catalog from Baker Creek but it may be worth it to you because it contains interesting articles with history, growing conditions and recipes for a select number of crops.  The regular printed catalog is free, and they have a website where you can find all they offer.  Most of their seeds are open pollinated so it makes it easier to save your own seeds!  In this year’s Whole Seed catalog, one of the featured plants is Couve Fronchuda, a Portuguese semi-heading kale, Brassica oleraceae var. viridis.  It is more closely related to sea kale than to the kale we generally think of.  It is traditionally used in soup.

photo credit Baker Creek Seeds (Rare Seeds)

When we go visit our grandsons in California, I often go to a local health food store.  There they have a seed rack for Redwood Seed Company.  I usually buy 1 or two packs of seeds and have had success with them.  This year they are offering Japanese indigo, Persicaria tinctoria, a dye plant.  I live at 8,200’ with cool nights but I think it is worth a try since it is the leaves that produce the dye, and it is supposed to mature in 80 days.  It can also be started early indoors and planted out when it’s warm enough.  This may give it a jump on the season.

Photo credit Redwood Seeds

Floret Flowers is a cut flower/seed business that has gotten into breeding some lovely flowers in atypical colors.  They have their own lines of celosias, dahlias, and zinnias.  I want to try growing their ‘Limonata’ celosia.  It is another warm season variety that may be a bit difficult to mature in my garden.  I will start them early and grow them outdoors as well as in my high tunnel greenhouse. 

photo credit Floret Flowers

Check out this beautiful ‘Mission Giant Orange’ marigold introduced for 2024, exclusively by Burpee Seed company!

Photo credit Burpee Seeds

I would be curious to know what you are planning on growing in the coming season.  Be sure to check out all the new introductions in the catalogs, both in print and online!

Fresh Cut Flowers Bring the Beauty Inside

Posted by: Deryn Davidson, Horticulture Agent, Boulder County

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is make bouquets and flower arrangements from freshly cut flowers out of the garden. Lots of people plant flowers in their vegetable gardens and those common species are great for arrangements. Sunflowers, zinnias, dahlias, marigolds, snapdragons, and even herbs like dill and mint make great material for bringing a splash of garden beauty into your home. Of course you can combine any of those, with flowers from your annual and perennial beds too.

Sunflower, zinnias, mint and dill

There's a good chance that if you cut a handful of flowers from your garden and pop them in a vase, they'll look pretty good, but pro floral design definitely requires technique, practice and creativity. Here are a few tips you can follow to take your garden bouquets to the next level.

THE FLOWERS
1. Cut your flowers early in the morning before the heat of the day sets in.
2. Make clean cuts at an angle with a sharp tool. This allows for better water uptake.
3. Choosing flowers and plant material to combine: larger flowers for mass; tall thin material to create lines and define the shape of the arrangement; fillers to fill in empty spaces.
***Sometimes you'll have an arrangement that is all mass or all fillers, but when starting out look for a variety of shapes and texture to give your design more interest***

THE CONTAINER
This can be anything that holds water. Vases, coffee cans, pitchers, mason jars, you name it! You want to generally match the container to the flowers. Big heavy flowers (ex: peonies) need a container that will visually balance them out and also avoid making the arrangement top heavy and possibly falling over.

THE ARRANGING
I like to spread my plant material out on the table and assess what I have. Then you can start adding pieces to the container one by one and build the arrangement.

Key things to keep in mind as you design

1. Proportion: This is not only about the flowers, but also the container. As I mentioned, find the right container for the flowers you've chosen, but also pay attention to how each flower relates to the others in size. You can start to image your arrangement before you begin to build based on what you see in front of you. You want your container to be about 1/3 the height of the overall arrangement.

2. Balance: You can go with symmetrical, where each side is pretty much a mirror image of the other side. Or asymmetrical where if a line is drawn through the middle of the arrangement the two sides are not mirror images, but they are equally "weighted". Perhaps you have 5 small flowers on one side and 1 large flower on the other to balance things out.


3. Harmony: Look at the colors you've chosen. Are they complimentary (opposite sides of the color wheel like yellow and purple) or perhaps monochromatic (one color).

                                                                        

Sunflowers, zinnias and mint

Bachelor buttons, Engelmann's daisy, dill, larkspur (arranged by Allison Appelhans)

Zinnia, prairie sage, blanket flower, marigold (arranged by Allison Appelhans)

Goldenrod, cosmos, maxmillian sunflowers, salvia, aster, verbena (arranged by Allison Appelhans)

As single flowers start to fade, you can pull them out and either replace with fresh, or simply allow the arrangement to change over the course of the week, freshening water and doing minor rearrangements until it's time to start completely fresh (usually about a week). Hopefully these simple, but beautiful creations will inspire you to bring some of your garden's beauty inside to enjoy!

A Trip to the Dahlia Farm...

By Amy Lentz, Weld County CSU Extension  - Horticulture

It's that time of year when many of our garden's flowers start to putter out or look kind of drab. But the end of the summer is when the dahlias shine! Two weeks ago, a small group of CSU Extension folks took a tour of Arrowhead Dahlias, a family owned and operated dahlia farm located in Platteville, a small town in Weld County. It was a beautiful morning with good weather and lots of ooh's and aah's as we meandered through the many hoop houses filled with dahlias of all colors and sizes.

Arrowhead Dahlia farm in Platteville, CO

Arrowhead Dahlias was established in 2000 by Calvin and Julie Cook and specializes in growing a wide range of dahlias, along with a smaller crop of other popular cut flowers like lisianthus, zinnias and sunflowers. But their main attraction...the dahlias!

Some of the many, long hoop houses filled with dahlias!

Another popular cut flower grown - Lisianthus

The three-acre farm is filled to the brim with over 200 different dahlia cultivars, many in full bloom for us to admire while we toured the long hoop houses. The structures were covered with a light shade-type covering used to protect the flowers from hail storms that can be common in the area. They have approximately 12,000 plants in the ground and harvest often to keep the product at peak freshness to send to market. Here are a few of my favorites seen on the tour:

Cornel Bronze

Julio

Karma Chocolate

A view from inside the hoop houses

Dahlias find a very favorable climate in Colorado that allows them to grow large, showy flowers. However, they must be grown like an annual since they are not hardy here. They grow as tubers and can be planted much like tulips, but the seasons are switched. With dahlias, you would dig them up in the fall and plant the tubers in the late spring after any chance of frost has past. They don't need a lot of extra care right after planting, just wait until they sprout above the soil then start them on regular irrigation. A drip line set with an automatic watering system or timer can help to keep the dahlias watered on a regular basis as they don't like to dry out. Dahlias prefer a sunny location with plenty of room to grow. You can also grow them in containers, but make sure to give them a larger pot and staking so they don't flop or blow over - they can get quite large and tall, depending on the cultivar. For more information on planting dahlias in Colorado, check out the Plantalk article from CSU, HERE.

Calvin cutting a dahlia at the ideal stage to send to market

There are over 15,000 florists in the US, and about 70% of the retail flowers sold in the US are imported from Colombia. Other big players on the cut flower scene are the Netherlands and Ecuador. Although the US doesn't even make it into the top 10 for countries with the most exports of cut flowers, the local Colorado-grown cut flower scene is vibrant and growers like Arrowhead Dahlias offer a local product that doesn't have to board an airplane or cargo ship to make it into your bouquet. Check with your local farmers market to find cut flower growers near you!

To learn more about dahlias and other spring-planted bulbs, corms and roots, check out CSU's fact sheet, HERE.

Easy Cut Flowers For Drying

by Yvette Henson

Over the years, when I’ve purchased cut flowers at the Farmers Market, I have tended to favor the ones that dry easily.  They last a long time in a vase and then I like to use them again by making wreaths or adding them to potpourri.  Following are 5 easy-to-grow-from-seed flowers that you can plant in containers or in borders.  These can all be used as cut flowers and for drying.  

Sweet Annie, Artemisia annua

Sweet Annie photo credit Johnnyseeds.com

Once established in your garden, Sweet Annie is a politely re-seeding cool-season annual with a wonderful sweet and tangy fragrance to the foliage and flowers.  You can sew them outdoors a few weeks before the last frost in the spring but be patient—they can take a little while to germinate.  Sweet Annie is most commonly grown for the foliage to use as a base for wreaths.  It can grow quite tall (up to 6’ tall and 3’ wide) but it stays around 3’ in my cooler, higher elevation garden.  It will be shorter grown from transplants than from seed.  It needs sun and well-drained soil.  It should be harvested when the small yellow flowers just begin to open.  If you wait too long, they will shatter and make a mess. 

Globe amaranth, Gomphrena globosa 

Orange globe amaranth photo credit mountainlilyfarm.com

Globe amaranth is the only warm season annual that I included in this blog.  It is an old fashioned flower that makes a good bedding plant, cut flower and dried flower.  The most common colors are a range of pinks and purples but they come in whites, oranges and reds.  Given sunny and warm conditions, they grow quickly to 1-3’, depending on the variety.  They need medium to dry well-drained soil.  If they are planted close together, they may grow longer stems.  They dry best hung upside down in a shady, well-ventilated location.  If dried upright in a vase, the flower stem may bend near the head. 

Love-in-a-mist, Nigela damascena

Love-in-a-mist photo credit monicelloshop.org

Love-in-a-mist is a cool-season annual with white, blue and pink flowers.  It grows 1.5 -2’ tall and wide.  It likes well-drained, medium-moist soil and full sun.  The flowers, feathery foliage and seed pods make great cut flowers. The bristly, beige, inflated seed heads dry better than the flowers but the flowers can be dried too.  Their color will fade slightly when dry.

Painted sage, Salvia viridis (syn. Salvia horminum)

Painted sage photo credit Trade Winds Fruit

Painted sage or annual clary sage is a hardy annual that prefers well-drained soil and full sun to part shade.  It grows upright to 2’x1’.  The showy white, pink or purple parts of the inflorescence are actually colored bracts that hold long after the tiny flowers are spent.  It is a lovely cut flower and dries well. 

Bells of Ireland, Molucella laevis 

Bells of Ireland photo credit seedsavers.org

Bells of Ireland is a half-hardy annual that grows better from seed than transplants.  Plant seed early in the spring when the ground is still cool.  It grows upright 2-3’x1’ wide. It prefers moist, humus-rich, well-drained soil and full sun to part shade.  The showy parts of the inflorescence are the green calyxes.  They will retain their color when drying if placed upright in a vase filled with only 1 inch or so of water.  This allows a slow dry down as the water is used up.  Also, when you cut the stem, before placing it in the water, singe it with a match flame to prevent the sticky sap from blocking its ability to take up water.

After writing this blog, I want to grow every one of these this summer!  Most of the seeds can be found wherever seeds are sold. 

Cut Flower Challenges

Posted by: Sarah Schweig, Broomfield County Extension

Valentine’s Day is upon us. Love it, hate it, or indifferent, let’s at least appreciate the holiday as an excuse to enjoy fresh flowers! The beauty of cut flowers is ephemeral by nature, and maybe that’s part of the appeal. Still, folk remedies and DIY solutions for prolonging vase life abound. We can explore the science behind these solutions by taking a look at the most common reasons flowers don’t last at home.

Challenge: Insufficient food supply

DIY Fix: Table sugar

This idea here is simple. Plants need sugars to maintain cellular processes. Cut flowers have carbohydrates stored in leaves and stems, and these reserves will be depleted to maintain basic metabolic activity. For flowers that are harvested when fully open, like gaillardia or yarrow, insufficient food supply may lead to early senescence. For flowers that are harvested at earlier budding stages, like gladiolus or peony, insufficient food supply means those flowers may never fulfill their destiny.

Flower food is formulated to provide the ideal amount of sugar (typically glucose), as well as acidifiers (see next problem). However, because sugar is so essential to prolonged vase life and continued development, adding table sugar (sucrose) will do in a pinch.

Challenge: Microbial activity

DIY Fix: Softened water, lemon juice, aspirin, pennies

Unfortunately, plants aren’t the only sugar-lovers living in your vase water. Fresh cut flowers will lose some of those stored carbohydrates where the stems are cut, resulting in a sugary solution that encourages the growth of microbes. While supplemental sugar will support plants, it only exacerbates the microbe problem. Bacteria and fungi block flow of water and nutrients through xylem tissue, and some produce ethylene, which encourages senescence.

The vase life claims of our first DIY fixes are based on the fact that lowering the pH of your vase water will discourage microbial activity. Although hard water tends to be alkaline, chemically softened water contains sodium and should not be used in flower vases. The citric acid found in lemon juice, however, is quite effective and is a common component of commercial floral solutions. While dissolving aspirin in water does lower pH, studies are mixed on whether it has any effect on vase life. Even those studies that report a positive effect on vase life agree that floral solutions are much more effective.

Adding pennies to vase water is based on the fungicidal properties of copper. Pennies have been made from around 98% zinc since 1983, and the copper in pennies is not - and never was - water soluble. We can fully myth-bust this one (satisfying, huh?).

Challenge: Ethylene-induced senescence

DIY Fix: Vodka, gin, whiskey, etc.

Ethylene is a plant hormone involved in ripening and senescence, and thus there is generally an inverse relationship between ethylene and shelf-life. The principle here is that the ethanol, which is contained in distilled spirits, can affect the production of and response to ethylene. Ethanol has been shown to delay maturation in plants in a number of contexts. A study published in HortTechnology investigated adding distilled spirits to water to reduce tipping of paper white narcissus by reducing plant height. At certain concentrations of ethanol, plant height was successfully reduced without apparent toxicity to roots and with no effect on flower size or timing. Ethanol has also been shown to delay the ripening of tomatoes, among other fruits. While there is evidence to support this solution, at-home success would require a high level of precision. Depending on your vase size, the difference between an effective ethanol concentration and a toxic ethanol concentration could be a matter of a few drops!

What You Can Do

There are many practical and effective ways to reduce the effect of ethylene on your cut flowers without the need for laboratory precision. Place them in a spot with good air circulation, away from heat sources. Do not place flowers near your fruits and vegetables, which produce ethylene as they ripen.

Though I generally support the DIY spirit, commercial floral solutions are by far the safest bet for meeting your flowers’ basic needs. One size is not fits all for maintaining cut flowers. Roses and snapdragons, for example, need extra sugar to push blooms open. Sunflowers are highly susceptible to bacterial plugging of xylem tissue and may require a stronger biocide. While it’s tough to get a perfect solution for a mixed bouquet, you can get as close as possible by going with the pros on this one. Floral solutions are readily available and contain, at a minimum, necessary plant food and an acidifying agent to help keep xylem tissue freely conducting water and nutrients.

Another cause of reduced xylem function in cut flowers is embolism. Cut stems under warm water to help prevent these air bubbles from forming. Use clean, sharp tools to prevent crushing the stem tissue. Ensure that leaves growing below the water line, and any fallen leaves or flowers are removed, as this decaying matter will encourage microbial growth.

Eventually, even though you’ve done everything right, you’ll see signs of the battle with the microbes. When water turns cloudy or you notice fuzzy-looking growth on stems, change your vase water and re-cut stems.

How long will your Valentine’s Day flowers last? Try it out, maybe add a penny for good luck just in case, and let us know!