 Okay, here we go everybody and you know who I am. I'm Tom called an extension horticulturist for North Dakota State University and I'm a failure as a moderator. We're going to lay it a little could you get so many great questions We're having tonight, but I'm going to do my best to get us out on a good time And we are going to talk about some top vegetable varieties for North Dakota So do you want to have a great garden this year? If you want to have a great garden you've got to have great seeds and let's talk about some of the best varieties for North Dakota and where to get them Some people say the first sign of spring is a Robin. I say no The first sign of spring to me is going out to the mailbox and getting all those seed catalogs. Yeah When I was a kid, I did not read comic books. I read seed catalogs because they are full of adventures You can dream about growing a yellow watermelon or how about a red sunflower? Seed catalogs are full of adventure And in one of your handouts you have a front and back publication about vegetable cultivars for North Dakota on the second on the back page there We have a list of seed sources. These are seed companies that will mail you a free seed catalog Free adventure books that you can order and I'm going to just briefly talk about some that I really insist that you order Start with Johnny selected seeds if I could have one seed catalog I would get the one from Johnny seeds out in Maine Johnny's has an aggressive and successful breeding program But besides their quality seeds. I also like the information they provide They want you to succeed and I always keep the Johnny's catalog with me to give me information about when the sow the seed How to sow the seed what bugs are going to be a problem? What diseases are going to be a problem and how to harvest the crop? This is a great resource for everybody even if you don't buy any of their seeds Another good seed catalog I highly recommend is the one from Randolph, Wisconsin the junk seed and plant catalog And what we found in our trials is the varieties that are offered by junk do well here in North Dakota If you're looking for a lot of seeds bulk seeds You may not know about this company, but you should get to know them Jordan seeds out in the Twin Cities area They offer great quality varieties at hard to beat prices just great prices On the other hand if you just need a few seeds Gardeners have given me this tip about pine tree seed company pine tree Offers a lot of seeds that in smaller packets only and they cost only about $1.95 a packet And you can see they even have free shipping and a lot of times and that really helps because some seed catalogs Just to buy a packet can cost four to five dollars and then they hit you with the shipping cost Pine tree is very affordable and they have great qualities varieties If you're into heirlooms, and I am not I'm not especially into heirlooms because I believe there's a reason why heirlooms are heirlooms Like I didn't drag the fargo today in a horse and buggy We made progress and same with seed breeding. We've made progress heirlooms are generally speaking less productive less reliable More susceptible to diseases They require more management skills But nevertheless there are some great flavors in some heirloom varieties and Great stories, and I like the seed savers exchange. I admire that company. It's a group of thousands of gardeners who save seeds for That saves seeds since for centuries You can get old seeds like for me. I'm Irish I can I can go on the seed savers exchange as a member and I can get the same potatoes that My Irish ancestors almost died because it was such a failure of a variety But I can experience the same suffering as they did and see those potato vines wilt It's a fun situation and here's another thing Here's a good story for North Dakota through the seed savers exchange I can get the a rickra yellow dry bean the same bean that's been grown for centuries by the Rikra tribe of North Dakota The same bean that they shared with Lewis and Clark the same being that Lewis and Clark shared with Thomas Jefferson So I can have the same flavors that have been enjoyed in North Dakota Again for centuries and the White House too. So there's some great stories With heirloom vegetables But now what's the problem with seed catalogs is that they're trying to sell you something and they're not going to say Oh, this variety ain't no way is it going to ripen in North Dakota or they're not going to say well, this is a good variety Tastes good, but I'm sorry. It's really susceptible to powdery mildew You've got to find that information yourself and that's one reason why we started the North Dakota home garden variety trials We've got a network of over 200 families that we work with every year to test Promising varieties in their own backyard and everybody is welcome to participate we hope to have our announcements out in about a week and We encourage everybody to join our network We have very simple trials and very powerful information to find out what works here in North Dakota The way the trials go are simple like let's say we have an early Nantes carrot, which is a garden carrot trial We'll give you two varieties to test side-by-side so you get two seed packets enough to sow about a 10-foot roll We'll give you two labels. So you remember which ones which we'll give you the official 10-foot strain So you have a this is really hardcore science we got going on and then a simple sheet We want to know which one germinated better which one was healthier which one was ready to harvest first Which one had a higher yield and then we want to know which one tasted better and Get this information. We also need to know which of these varieties that you recommend and from that information We get the research results. We have like about a hundred forty page report We write every year from your results. We do over 1,000 of these trials across the state and And and from that comes your list of vegetable cultivars for North Dakota that handout you have So those aren't my recommendations Those are recommendations from over a thousand families in North Dakota and surrounding states These are the varieties that perform well in their backyards and that's what it's all about, right? How do you find the best varieties for a gardener you test them in a garden? And so this is a very powerful tool That said these are the traits that generally we recommend for a superior variety We want stuff that ripens quickly in a hundred days or less or it may not make it here in North Dakota We want varieties that are flavorful that resist diseases. So we don't want to spray with fungicides We want very productive and varieties that are adapted to North Dakota I'm going to go over quickly some of the best performing varieties and most popular varieties in North Dakota And we'll start with the one that everybody's most interested in and that is tomatoes We talked a little bit about this tonight about what tomatoes there's different types of vines. They're Determinant and indeterminant types The determine types are compact and bushy you don't have to prune them And you don't have to trust them if you don't want to their yields are generally early and Concentrated and that's good. I like determined vine types. They're very easy to grow Indeterminant types are tall and climbing They They must you must prune them and you must trellis them Indeterminant types often will have a larger and more flavorful fruit I think it's there it's more flavor because there's always new leaves being produced always healthy leaves Producing lots of sugars for the plant Indeterminant types have an extended harvest and hey if I lived in Florida I would grow indeterminate types and I would appreciate that extended harvest But I don't know if we really need that here in North Dakota Because they're growing season that's so short So I don't mind an early concentrated yield because at least I'm gonna get a yield that way But just know there's different different workloads with these two different vine types Here's some of the most popular varieties in our state Early girl on the top there is an early one if and it's Indeterminate type if you want to determine the type and as they de-impacted There's bush types of early girl that can grow on a patio Celebrity I think is the most reliable variety that we can grow here in North Dakota Big beef is a beef steak type. That's early and flavorful and it can tolerate a Wide range of growing conditions a lot of people don't know about mountain Fresh plus it's I don't see it in a lot of greenhouses here in North Dakota But it's the number one tomato of the Midwest and the east in the United States And it can tolerate cool conditions. It does well in North Dakota and it's a quality fruit For cherry super sweet 100 is a very productive variety and then for tanning like you heard Harleen early talk about how she lives for Roma tomatoes that's so easy to grow has a very short line But some people like San Marzano for For its special flavor, but that's an indeterminate type or a little bit more difficult to grow I I saw in the chat box and we said you've got to try Juliet and I agree with you Juliet is uh, it won the all america selections award the aas winner because it was something new And does well over a wide range of environments Juliet is like a cross it's like half cherry half roma type So it's a really meaty type and it doesn't crack easily Juliet's a winner Another type I would encourage you to try are some of these orange cherry tomatoes They have a very fruity and a very sugary taste Sun gold and sun sugar Are outstanding varieties for North Dakota Let's talk about beans now. I'm going to go beans to squash an alphabetical order Rapid fire go and start with beans one of the most popular vegetables and a lot of people like the green bush beans and Bush blue lake 274 is the number one variety Across america for snap bush beans In North Dakota, it does well But one thing I want when we compare it to another variety. It doesn't really blow anything out of the water It's always like a 55% will be this Friday and 45 the other Like we've compared it against inspiration last year greenfield And pretty much garners are just as excited about other varieties as they are bush blue lake 274 So it's good, but it doesn't overwhelm you Something that will overwhelm you are fillet green beans I give out thousands of seed packets every spring and I can count in every July and August. I'm going to get people calling me saying What was that variety of bean that you gave me? I never saw such a great bean And these are fillet beans and Crockett is a winner. It's dark green slender crisp tremendous yield Serengeti serengeti is another winner for fillet beans. I encourage you try them People in our trials who try them love them Carrots this is a nanties type, which is a common garden carrot Goldfinger is a winner for North Dakota. It it does very well in our trials If you have a hard soil, you probably need more of a a stronger root And that'd be on the right side the shantanet types Hercules is a strong root. They'll penetrate through the rocky as the soils New corota has amazing flavor rich flavor and good for juicing too You know, we talked about some of these special nutritious Of vegetables and like purple carrots You know, I think that's I'm glad we do test for flavor because purple carrots kind of look pretty But a lot of them are bitter So, you know, I they're more nutritious. What good is it if you don't want to eat it? So I generally recommend the orange carrots the red and the purple ones They're just a little bit bitter Sweet corn. Wow. What a revolution we've had for sweet corn in the last 30 years When I was a kid in minnesota Every night I would pick a hundred dozen of sweet corn and take it down to the Minneapolis farmers market And this was just a normal sugary sweet corn I knew when I went down to the market I had to sell out because the next day that corn would taste terrible. It'd be good for the cows only But now we got super sweet varieties that are three times sweeter and hold on to the sugars Longer for days even The one thing about super sweets though is they have a shrunken seed kernel So they don't germinate very easily And so when I look for a super sweet variety I look for something in the catalog that says it germates good in cold soil and a wait till mid-may to so A variety we tried last year was American Dream. It was a strong performer in North Dakota Burpless cucumbers. I highly recommend burpless cucumbers I don't know why anybody would grow a classic slicer today The burpless are earlier. They're more productive They resist diseases better They're have thin skin and they're free of bitterness Just outstanding varieties available and the top one in our trials is summer dance It is very high ratings every year in our trials If you like a pickler homemade pickles wins our trials every year gardeners love its extended yield Good productivity and it has a nice crisp texture with small seeds For lettuce and everybody's tonight should be getting a packet of butter crunch lettuce For lettuce varieties. I look for something that can take the heat Butter crunch has been around for a long time and it's one of the easiest to grow Lettuces it's crisp Texture and nice sweetness. It's a great lettuce Another variety that everybody's getting a packet of tonight is flashy trout back Flashy trout back has some heat tolerance to it But I mainly just included it just for the fun of it so that I think it's a german heirloom That a lot of people say it's the most delicious lettuce It's just kind of fun to grow because it's got those wine red blotches on it. It looks like the back of a trout dish The highest rated lettuce in North Dakota in our trials is called fusion It has amazing heat tolerance It has the Christmas of romaine and the ruffled leaves of a leaf lettuce This is the one that gets gardeners excited fusion For melons melons are always a risky thing for North Dakota because of our cool summers But athena is the standout variety for the midwest Aphrodite is a little bit earlier and has a bigger sized melon And goddess is the earliest if you need an early ripening cantaloupe like up in the north Goddess is the highest quality you can grow If you want a green flesh melon, it's hard to grow honeydews reliable here I encourage you to try a galea melon and brady's passport and a rava have done well in North Dakota I like that you can just When they're when they're ripe they just fall off the vine they slip off the vine That's what that makes it so easy for us to know when to harvest If you can't take failure as a gardener, I recommend you grow korean melons They are sure fire anybody can grow a korean melon. It's just like growing cucumbers They're so plentiful they grow about eight to ten inches long and when you cut them inside They have like a white pear flesh Very easy to grow The best watermelon sweet dakota rose developed right here in North Dakota A lot of gardeners tell us that's the best tasting watermelon they've ever grown Sangria has done well in our trial. It's especially popular for its dark red flesh beautiful And I thought sangria was kind of a weird name for a watermelon But I understand that it's used a lot for Drinking watermelon juices And then if you want to add a little bit of sangria in with it or some rum To add a little extra boot boost to it then go for it And if you want to grow the easiest watermelon, it's the ones with yellow flesh They're earlier than the red ones in general Yellow doll and this is again something you can't buy at the grocery store But we can easily grow it in our backyard garden a gourmet watermelon The best pee for shelling is Lincoln Lincoln is productive. It's good for freezing and it's easy to shell If you don't want to shell pee like I hate doing that. I was every 4th of july I had a shell peas You can grow a snap pea and sugar and is the easiest most productive and reliable variety You don't have to trellis it and you eat the whole thing shells and all And we can spend the 4th of july watching fireworks We do some potato casting we look for varieties that can resist diseases And my dark red norlin is a good red potato early Yukon gold is good, but even Yukon jam Which any issue helped contribute to develop is even a higher rated potato Our highest rated potato is purple viking Just look how beautiful that marbled purple skin is and purple viking tolerates dry conditions Um, it resists scab disease and look that white flesh just snow white flesh. Just great for mashed potatoes This is a winner purple viking Here's a couple of my kids showing off their neon pumpkin and If you've got kids, this is the easiest to grow pumpkin you can grow because it doesn't turn green It starts orange and just gets bigger and bigger until get it be about a 10 pound pumpkin The vines don't take over your garden. This is the easiest to grow pumpkin and it's great for the north It's ready two weeks before every other variety But I have found if you really want to get the kids happy get a big pumpkin for one, it's easy to grow Some of these exhibition pumpkins they have to it's like having another kid You got a water mullet time. You got to feed them all the time. You got to put a blanket on them So their skin doesn't get too dry. We want to keep that skin soft so we can keep growing That's too much work. I like big moose and so do our gardeners You just plant the seed and you come back at the end of the year before the hard frost and you'll have all these 40 to 50 Pound bright orange pumpkins easy to grow big moose is a winner Another a new set of varieties that are available now are the early varieties and early giant early king Easy to grow and dark orange beautiful pumpkins about 30 pounds. These have been outstanding in our trials The best spinach variety for the spring is space It's a smooth leaf slightly crinkly variety It can tolerate the heat and so everybody it's got a packet of that that we shared with you today And lastly let's finish with winter squash. This is a buttercup squash and north dakota can be proud that we Provided buttercup squash of the world And good varieties include burgess which has a full vine and bonbon which has a bush type of vine So there you go. There's some rapid fire recommendations of varieties and maybe we can just take out a few questions I want to thank all the photographers Human credit and any quick questions Tom, uh, can you comment on which tomatoes work best in high tunnels? Okay, this is what I would recommend for high tunnels I would recommend you get that johnny selected seed catalog and they have special varieties made for tunnels special tomatoes and cucumbers and another good seed company would be the harris seed company out of new york They have special varieties for tunnel production. I'll just let it go with that Where do we find these varieties for sale? Okay The back page of that vegetable guide right there those are seed sources for you and if you ask go for those seed companies You'll you'll get them there If you see any variety, you know, we've got the wonder of google now, right? So like if I let's say I wanted to get fusion lettuce I love that one all I can do is type in fusion lettuce and google will tell us the seed companies that offer it A couple of recommendations for Socrates cucumber and Armenian cucumbers Okay, I'm glad those people like Armenian cucumbers are like a very smooth skin like green types. Okay Share the wealth share the knowledge. I haven't tested them though, but I'm sure they're good Where do you find the neon pumpkin seeds neon pumpkin seed google will tell you where to get them And actually there's there's several seed companies that will that will sell neon What was the potato with the purple skin and golden flesh? Is that called peter wilcox? Yes, that's uh, exactly peter wilcox has done good has it been a good performer in our trials Purple skin with a golden flesh. That's exactly right Oh, what type of sweet potatoes for western north dakota? Okay, what kind of sweet potato the Earliness is going to be the key and also having low expectations for success because this is not louisiana but Bull regard is the most commonly That's a commonly grown variety for the north bull regard and that's available if you go through seed catalogs or go to google You'll find sources of bull regard slips What's the best pumpkin for pie? Okay, the best pumpkin for pie is not a pumpkin. It will be a type of a squash and you know liby's liby's liby's pumpkin Actually is a butternut squash and the highest the the variety they use is called dickinson And I can even share you some seeds of that if you want to contact me. I can share your seeds of that It's uh, it's it's more towards the ohio area So it needs a it's got a marginal as far as make ripening in time But I would grow a butternut squash or a buttercup squash one of those two not a pumpkin Someone's looking for non-gmo seed for corn. How do they find it? How do they know? Okay non-gmo's Almost every variety 99.9 varieties of in seed catalogs are non-gmo You cannot grow a gmo variety unless you fill out a contract ahead of time. So That's really almost you have to look for a gmo, right? And otherwise just assume it's not gmo We talked about where to find this stuff Uh, what causes scab and potatoes? Okay, uh scab is uh It's a pathogen and I'll tell you how to Prevent it first of all you look when you buy your potato seed you pick a variety that naturally resists scab Okay, now the the next because some varieties like red paniacs are very susceptible, but dark red norrlands are not susceptible And then the easiest way to prevent scab in North Dakota It's just to make sure you have some moisture in the soil when the tubers are forming Okay, and so whenever you see that your potato variants just starting to bloom You got like about a six week period where you have to keep a little bit of moisture in the soil at all times And now will help prevent scab from forming on your tubers What about black streaks and black spots in potatoes? What's causing that? Okay, um Black streaks inside the potato. Hmm I was scurff comes to mind But I think what you have to do is we have to we have to go over this You have to write me an email about it and then I we can identify what's going on there And we've got a potato specialist at NDSU Andy Robinson You know, he's he's the man I would contact Andy Robinson. You can find him On online and contact him directly too. Have you tried the Amish Roma tomato? Amish the Amish Roma tomato or the I know of a variety called Amish paste tomato, which is a paste or so-called Roman type I have not grown that but it is an indeterminate vine and I hear good things about it Can you explain the best way to store seeds from season to season? Okay, the best way you got to keep it cool So we harvest good quality seed that wasn't from diseased Infected plants because otherwise we can transmit that disease to our next crop through the seeds So you're gonna make sure you got clean seeds clean plants and then The best way is keep them cool in like a a glass jar in the refrigerator. That's the best way to do it Two more What catalog and plant source is best for organic? Okay, it's okay Lots of seed companies will offer organic varieties You know and like for example, Johnny's Almost every Almost every seed cattle will offer some organic varieties and they will say that that this is an organic variety If you're looking for a seed company that only offers organic To what I know is seeds of change from the southwest. They are exclusively organic But again, you can buy a lot of seeds like you like especially a lot of heirloom companies seem to go that route like Like baker creek and seed savers exchange. You'll find lots of organic stuff there Uh, can you cover one more time? Yeah, where to find seeds and then when are we going to hear about variety trials for this year? And how do they sign up? Okay You want to know about where to find seeds? Okay Okay, um, where to find seeds. Okay. Well, you gotta from the trials. Oh some, you know, if you're interested in the trials, I'll tell you The last few years if you go to our website, we have a section on results In in the results section like let's say the 2017 trials Actually for every variety we tested I write where the seeds where you can order the seeds The last the last year's issue I just said there was really no point to doing that because my goodness It's all on the internet now because like if you just you should name any break where you can find neon Neon pumpkin. Well, you can find it Harris territorial Johnny's there's lots of places where you can find neon Just go online or you know Jong I don't know if he has it but a lot of companies have it just go google neon pumpkin seed bang It's there for you If you haven't if you're having problems finding a variety Please contact me because again, I live for seed catalogs and I can tell you tell you where to find it Okay, everybody there we go. We almost got out on time and uh Thank you everybody. Wow. I think we had a record breaking crowd this time We had well over 500 gardeners here And also a great success and let's keep the momentum going tell your friends about it You're welcome to the county extensions offices that are participating you're welcome to go online and participate and next week We're going to focus on Fruits and soil. So I hope to see you next week. Thank you everybody