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Vegetable Variety Pages: | Beans - Carrot | Cauliflower - Corn |Cucumber - Peas Peppers - Squash |Tomato - Watermelon
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This page: 2009 Planting Guide, When to Start Seed, When to Set Out
		Wyogrow...where the tough get growing, by Fred Jacquot
I have been an active gardener in the Casper area now for over 30 years. Back when I first started no one could tell a beginner what kind of carrots or tomatoes grew best here. Because I have been taking notes all these years, you can find out what plants do best in Wyoming on the 'vegetable varieties' pages, whose links are above.
Along with my partners Mark McAtee and Paul Combe I have done a lot of experimenting and research. You can find the results of this activity on these many pages. Please click on the links and start viewing our work. I think you will find that there is a huge amount of information available here for you. Enjoy!

2010 Notes:

February 6, 2009

The three big factors for success in the garden are: Selection, Soil, Weather. Let me expand (more) on the first.

The reason Bill Simpson grows Bloody Butcher Tomato in his garden is because this variety has performed well, year after year. It produces loads of smaller tomatoes that are a bit tart, a flavor that Bill really likes. It produces tomatoes earlier than other plants and the production is consistently strong throughout the rest of the season. Bloody Butcher rated a Two Star in our 2009 Taste Trials. When I say it performs year after year, that means it does well in warm and cool seasons. Nothing seems to slow this one down.

Here are links to my Vegetable Variety Pages:

Beans - Carrot

Cauliflower - Corn

Cucumber - Peas

Peppers - Squash

Tomato - Watermelon

On each page I recommend specific varieties and list varieties we are considering. On the left side of each variety listing are four-letter codes and a number. The four-letter code is a link to the site of a seed vendor that offers the variety in its catalog. The number is the 'days' that company lists for that variety to reach maturity. For plants like tomatoes and pepper, which are not usually direct seeded, the number represents the days to maturity from the time the start (already started) plant is set out into the bed. I list all of this information as an aid to you, fellow gardener, to help you find varieties that will work in your Wyoming garden.

February 2, 2009

The Natrona County Master Gardeners were very kind to send me a certificate of appreciation for the work I have done to educated other gardeners. Thank you Master Gardeners.

I am getting ready to order seeds and plants now. I have changed my mind about trialling Burpee's Brandy Boy for another season. 2009 was a cold season. We get those. It did not produce well in those conditions. I may get back to it and give it another try some year...just not in 2010. I have too many other varieties I would love to try. Instead of Brandy Boy, I am going to try two 'old' varieties: Big Beef and Amish Paste.

The three big factors for success in the garden are: Selection, Soil, Weather. Let me expand on the first.

I list Selection as the first because I feel it is the most important choice a gardener makes. What you plant makes a huge difference in what you get by the end of the season. A good Selection will help to overcome negatives in Soils and Weather. That is why I am constantly reading and re-reading my seed catalogs. I am always searching to improve the productivity of our garden plots, and to improve the quality of what we grow. What is the point of setting a tomato plant out that will not perform well in our climate? Who wants to waste a growing season on a plant that gives you ten tomatoes that don't taste that great? Our main production tomato, Applause, outperforms, per square foot, any other tomato I've seen grow here in Casper. In addition, it got a One-Star rating in our tomato taste trial at the end of the 2009 season. It is a Determinate that really loads up! We grow the Indeterminates to produce better tasting tomatoes than even Applause. And we are constantly looking to improve both production and taste from our Indeterminates. In this process, Selection is everything.

December 26, 2009

What the catalog does not say is very important.

As I said earlier, there are three factors which determine success in the garden: Seed (variety) Selection, Soil, Weather. You have the most control over the first two factors. Your success in choosing the right variety may well begin soon as the catalogs come to your houses. We are in the catalog season. I have received most already, and will get more in the next 4 weeks. I have found that catalogs have to be read very carefully. Let me give you an example. Here is the description of Big Bertha Pepper from the Totally Tomatoes Catalog:

"One of our most popular for fresh market, home gardens and gourmet chefs. Extra-large, mostly 4-lobed, superior fruits mature up to a full 7" long by 3-1/2" across, turning deep green to red, with full-season fruiting. Upright plants grow 25 go 30"."

We grew this pepper for a lot of years. So I can say with authority that everything in the above quote is accurate. But beware. The problem we always had with Big Bertha is that is has very thin walls. There is not much pepper in that pepper. A quick re-read of the description will reveal that Totally Tomatoes never said it did have thick walls. If you want thick walls on your pepper, you had better read the descriptions very carefully to make sure your seed supplier says the pepper has thick walls.

I love it when a description for a vegetable says that it is a 'vigorous grower'. If it does not mention how many fruit it produces, all you may get is a wonderful plant with not much fruit on it. You have to read carefully. The seed catalog will not lie, but it may omit.

.................

I continue to update all these pages as new information pours in from the catalogs. I have recently updated the Bill Simpson page. I have also added a new page: Recipes

Recently I gave six pints of my green tomato salsa to a friend who has to be on a low potassium diet. Red tomatoes have twice the potassium of green tomatoes. If he wants tomatoes in his life at all, he'd better get to growing tomatoes and processing the green ones into salsa.

I discovered the green salsa quite by accident. We always had these hard green tomatoes left over from regular salsa making. They never were going to turn red. So, one year, I processed them into a green salsa. My partners went crazy over the stuff. My daughter thinks I should make it commercially. It is tarter and fruitier than the red, but in its own way it is just as good. It is something to think about making. We find that it is particularly good with pork.

November 8, 2009

Now that the beds are cleared from this past growing season, we begin the next season. For me that means looking at new varieties. This is a process that will continue through the end of January. I am beginning this new season with a search for watermelon.

There is a triumverate of main factors that determine your success in your garden:

1. Seed Choice - what you plant makes a huge difference in what you get

2. Soil - getting the plants what they need in a soil is also critical

3. Climate - weather, and the things you do to combat adverse conditions, determine success

By Spring 2009 I was convinced that the way to grow watermelon in Wyoming is to give it an extra boost of heat, particularly during June, which is usually on the cool side. I did this by building a small tent over each bed. The ten allowed light to enter, but kept heat trapped inside. The watermelon seemed to like this. At the end of the season I got a note from a fellow gardener who raised her watermelons in a hill of pure horse manure. I think one reason she was successful was that the manure, like my tent, gave the watermelon a boost in heat. Also, from what I have been able to read, watermelons are probably the most demanding of all plants in the garden for good rich fertilizer. The horse manure probably filled that need.

The seed catalogs throw a lot of information at you. It can be difficult to sort through all the data from all those sources to determine which variety to plant. I recently did a survey of watermelon from all the catalogs I get. I was looking for red-fleshed watermelon, that have short days-to-maturity, and which get good sized. Of course, the One Third Rule dictates that a 30 pound watermelon will only get to be 20 pounds in Wyoming. But, I would be happy with that. What I am not completely satisfied with is the 12 pound watermelon only growing to be 8 pounds here.

I put the data from the various catalogs into a spread sheet and ran the numbers through a formula, giving advantage to short season and large size. Here are the top ten rated watermelons I found in descending order.

Dixie Queen	Baker Seeds	80 days	40 lbs.	30 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Crimson Sensation	Gurney Seeds	80 days	32.5 lbs.	21 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Stone Mountain	Baker Seeds	80 days	30 lbs.	20 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Million Bucks	Burpee Seeds	78 days	25 lbs.	17 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Crimson Sweet	Burpee Seeds	80 days	25 lbs.	17 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Verona	Baker Seeds	78 days	20 lbs.	13 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Kleckley's Sweet	Baker Seeds	85 days	30 lbs.	20 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Sugar Bowl	Burpee Seeds	85 days	25 lbs.	17 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Fairfax	Baker Seeds	86 days	30 lbs.	20 lbs.(1/3 Rule)
Kleckley's Sweet	Shumway Seeds	87 days	30 lbs.	20 lbs.(1/3 Rule)

2010 Planting Guide

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