Harlequins Gardens

Boulder's specialist in well-adapted plants

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Vegetables

Bulb Update

 

BULB ALERT

We have a wonderful selection of bulbs coming; the problem is they aren’t here yet. And we were just notified yesterday that the broker in Holland failed to notice that our requested delivery date was the first week of September, so our order is packed in a shipping container on the docks in the Netherlands waiting to be loaded onto a slow boat to Michigan. There is simply nothing to be done but wait. We are told that our order will hopefully ship from Michigan in the first week of October.

This situation leaves us with only a few weeks before we close on October 30th to sell thousands of dollars of bulbs. We know that in the meantime you could buy your bulbs elsewhere, but we are hoping you will wait for their arrival at Harlequin’s. In the meantime, we encourage you to peruse the BULBS page on our website, with photos and descriptions of all our offerings and plan your bulb purchases in advance.

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Harvest Time

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had to forego some of my morning rituals to make time to reap the bounty from my garden these last couple of weeks. I fully expected the temperatures in the 90s and occasional triple digits to stall the production of my tomatoes, but somehow the blossom-drop and lack of fruit-set experienced in previous very hot summers never materialized, and now I’m bringing in armloads every few days! And how about them eggplants! Swiss Chard, Collards and Kale abound, and my Tromboncino climbing Zucchini is feeding the neighborhood.

I have two new tomato varieties to add to my list of top favorites: Tidy Treats and Tasmanian Chocolate (I’m a sucker for anything with chocolate in the name or ingredients list).

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Season-Extending Tools

As Colorado gardeners, we’ve come to expect snow in October (in 2019 it was October 10). But on September 9, 2020 we saw a temperature swing of more than 60 degrees, going from record-breaking heat to one of the earliest recorded snow falls in the state (the earliest recorded area snowfall was in 1961 when Denver received over 4″ of snow on Labor Day).

This translates into a lot of flower, fruit, and vegetable crops cut short, and a lot of unanticipated work protecting vulnerable plants, harvesting, and preserving. There are measures you can take now to be prepared to protect your gardens from cold weather and snow when they arrive, suddenly or not. The following tools, techniques, and ‘props’ can make the difference between life and untimely death of your plants during inclement weather. [Read More]

Harvest Guidelines for Vegetable Crops

Okay, you prepared your soil and planted your vegetable garden with all kinds of wonderfully flavorful, nutritious foods, you’re watering and watching them grow, and wondering ….. When can I start to eat them, how do I harvest them, and how do I get the most out of these plantings? Here are some tips on vegetable crops harvest timing and techniques that may not be self-evident. Even if you’re a seasoned gardener, you may not be aware of some of these procedures! [Read More]

Specific Pepper and Tomato Arrivals

Black Krim Tomato

It’s that time of year! And last weekend many of you were here to gather your summer vegetable starts. Are you looking for a specific variety of Peppers and/or Tomatoes? Here are the varieties of pepper and tomato that are arriving later this week, around Thursday or Friday (May 12/13).  [Read More]

PEPPER OFFERINGS – 2022 Newsletter

A few of our NEW PEPPERS

SWEET PEPPERS

BANGLES BLEND
60 days green, 80 days color, Open-pollinated
For eating fresh by the handful, stuffed for hors d’oeuvres or pickled. The large seed cavity of each sweet, crunchy, squat 1.5”-wide pepper is perfect for stuffing. Upright 18-24″ plants are excellent for decorative containers. Each plant produces a single color of pepper, purple, gold, or red.

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The Vegetable Report

What a glorious spring! Having been blessed with generous snow and rain, the land is bursting with energy, greener than green, and flowering in kaleidoscopic exuberance! Migratory birds have been arriving or passing though our region this month, offering sightings of avian treasures like Lazuli Buntings and Western Tanagers, not to mention the hummingbirds. We do live in a wondrous world!

THE VEGETABLE REPORT

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The Tomatoes are Coming!

The bad news is that last week’s small delivery of tomato starts froze when the wind blew open the back door of our greenhouse in the middle of the night.
The good news is that the next 38 flats will be ready for sale on Friday! (and there will be many more becoming available through April and May). This week’s tomato starts include:  [Read More]

COLLARD GREENS: Easy to Grow, Nutritious & Delicious

Though commonly associated with culinary traditions of the Southeastern US, collards originated in Europe, along with kale, cabbage etc., and are easy to grow in cooler climates, too.

Grow collards in full sun (for fastest growth), or part shade. Give them plenty of space, 18” apart. Collards appreciate moist, fertile soil with plenty of organic matter (compost) and applications of compost tea.  [Read More]

Welcome New Gardeners!

We are here for you! You’re in the high desert/steppe now, with short growing seasons, sudden temperature changes, unpredictable precipitation, low humidity, drying winds, alkaline soils that are low in organic matter and nitrogen, hot summers and cold winters. Despite these challenges, gardens can thrive here, and be productive, rewarding and beautiful!

Our gardens can support us by providing beauty, nutrient-dense food and plant medicine, and shelter from temperature and weather extremes. At the same time, our gardens can give us an opportunity for nurturing that goes beyond our own garden plants, supporting our entire local ecosystem, including our essential insects, birds, native plants and other wildlife. [Read More]

All about Basil

Basil is one of the great culinary pleasures of summer, and it’s definitely NOT TOO LATE to plant Basil and enjoy a good crop! Basil plants are beautiful, grow equally well in the ground or in pots, thrive in hot weather, provide a continuous, bounteous crop, and Basil’s many different flavors are essential to a variety of distinctive cuisines. It can be used fresh, dried, or frozen in oil or as pesto. Though basil leaves lose most of the aromatic oils when dried, we have still found that basil dried from your garden is so much more flavorful than commercial dried basil.

ALL of our Basil plants are organically grown!  [Read More]

New Seeds for Fall, Winter, & Early Spring Planting!

Sow Fall Crops and be ready for the 2022 growing season!  We’re bringing in fresh seeds, packed for 2022, from our local Botanical Interests Seed Company, and should have them on display sometime this Thursday. Most of these seeds are certified organic.

Now is a great time to plant seeds for fall crops such as spinach, lettuce, mesclun, kale, swiss chard, arugula, mustard greens, and watermelon radish.  Sow seeds this fall for mache, which will provide tasty salad greens in late winter, before the more conventional spring greens are ready. Fall sowing is also ideal for hardy, drought-tolerant annual flowers like borage, California poppies, cornflower, larkspur, love-in-a-mist, breadseed poppies, and Shirley poppies.[Read More]

Solar Caps – A Cozy Sweater for your Veggies!

We’ve passed the average last frost date but know that unexpected cold snaps can still occur.  Just as we need to add another layer of clothing during cold snaps, our warm-season veggie starts also need additional insulation as the spring season and soil slowly begin to warm up.  This layering can come in several forms, each with their own advantages and applications: low-tech overturned plant pots, row cover anchored over wire or plastic pipe frame (as illustrated in the “Hardening-Off” portion of this article), and Solar Caps. 

Because of their versatility and re-usability, Solar Caps have been one of our favorite garden tools for over a decade. [Read More]

Tips for Root Vegetable Success

Some veggies seem to shy away from the limelight, flourishing underground to provide a surprising, beautiful, and nutritious surprise later in the season. Growing root vegetables is generally easy, and can be a fun way to engage children in gardening.  In addition, mountain gardeners often find that root veggies thrive in their cooler conditions.

Once planted, root veggies do not like to be disturbed and therefore are best planted by seed.  (We do sell Bull’s Blood Beets as a starts, but these are generally grown for their greens.)  We have Botanical Interests, Masa, and Seed Savers Exchange seeds for many root veggies including: [Read More]

OTHER VEGGIE STARTS – 2022 Newsletter

Purple Majesty when cooked

POTATOES

Yellow Finn, Purple Majesty, Harvest Moon, and Norland Dark Red.

 

 

 

 

Heirloom Tohono O’odham Multiplier Onion plants

ONIONS

Patterson Red, Redwing, Walla Walla, Ailsa Craig, Red Long of Tropea, Red Geneva, Gladstone, Borrettano, Dakota Tears, Bianco di Maggio.

ALSO, Leeks and Shallots.

 

 

 

ASPARAGUS

JERSEY KNIGHT  (roots, 5 per bundle)

All male hybrid with big spears. Does not make seed, so doesn’t become weedy.  Best selection for dense clay soils.  Very productive and disease resistant.  Hardy to Zone 2.

PURPLE PASSION  (roots, 5 per bundle)

Beautiful deep burgundy-colored spears with high sugar content, delicious, tender, less fibrous, great in raw salads.

TOMATO OFFERINGS – 2022 Newsletter

TOMATO OFFERINGS

A FEW of our NEW TOMATOES: offering 75+ varieties in 2022. 

TIDY TREATS
50-60 days, Hybrid, Dwarf Indeterminate
Bred specifically for container growing, this dwarf vining tomato is quite early, high-yielding and, best of all – the 1” fruits are sweet and tasty. Johnny’s Seeds considers it the best cherry tomato for patio containers. Dwarf plants stay a manageable size, to 3-4’ tall, with healthy green foliage, and are easily tamed with a tomato cage or trellis. [Read More]

Ready, Set, Plant!

Even though we are about to receive our biggest snowstorm of this winter thus far, you can still make great progress on your garden by starting seeds indoors or even outside if your garden is prepared and you’re quick and can sow them tomorrow morning! You can also plant our hardy perennials, vines, shrubs and trees that have overwintered outdoors ahead of the storm. And our Onion plants – they’re very cold-hardy, and the earlier they’re planted, the larger their bulbs at harvest time! And, if you can plant in a cold-frame, or under a low tunnel of sheet plastic or Row Cover Fabric, you can plant our spring vegetable starts! Heading varieties like Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower will give you [Read More]

Summer Veggie Gardening Q&A

We have been getting questions from customers about some of the vegetables in their gardens. Here are questions and answers about squash pollination and the many uses of fennel.

 

Q: Why did the first fruits of my squash plants fail to enlarge and ultimately turn yellow and fall off the plant?

A:  Squash and other crops in the Cucurbitaceae family (known as Cucurbits), like cucumbers, melons, gourds and pumpkins, bear separate male flowers and female flowers on each plant. [Read More]

Successional Planting

How to maximize your output

Successional Planting is the continuous planting of crops following the harvesting of another planting. Depending on the plant, this can mean one annual planting for a long-season species, or multiple plantings for short season species. This process will help your garden to be as productive as possible, which is important in our short, highly fluctuating growing seasons.  Our friend, and occasional class instructor, Tracey Parrish, has developed a comprehensive Successional Planting chart that she has generously permitted us to share with you.  —Thank you, Tracey! 

In her document, Succ. planting-most updated, Tracey outlines Colorado’s Five Seasons, gives you ideas for succession plantings, and then provides detailed planting charts for root vegetables, peas/beans, herbs, greens/salads, brassicas, onions, and summer crops.  This five-page document is a wealth of information!  Succ. planting-most updated

 

Watermelon Dreams

(and Winter Squash, Canteloupe, Honeydew, and Pumpkin, too!)

Do you love the sweet fruits and vegetables of late summer as much as we do? Well then, PLANT THEM NOW! We’ve got the heat now, which they thrive on. To develop those natural sugars, these crops take more time to mature than many other veggies, mostly between 70 and 100 days from seeding. We’ve saved you some time by growing starts, LOTS of them, and most of the varieties we’ve chosen will mature relatively early.

All are open-pollinated unless otherwise indicated. Our selection includes:[Read More]

AMISH PASTE

80 days, Open-Pollinated, Indeterminate
A consistently great sauce tomato. This heirloom variety from Wisconsin’s Amish community produces large, long, meaty, and juicy 8-12 oz. red fruits on vigorous plants and is one of the few paste tomatoes that also taste great fresh. The juiciness makes a thinner sauce – cook down for a thicker, super-sweet sauce. Excellent for use for salads, canning, pastes, sauces, drying and roasting! Water evenly and add bio-available calcium to prevent blossom-end rot. Amish Paste is part of Slow Foods US Ark of Taste, a catalog of over 200 delicious foods in danger of extinction. By growing Ark varieties, you help ensure they remain in production and on our plates.

2019 Tomato Tasting Results

This year’s tomato tasting was a great success, with a total of 41 tomato varieties present over the 3-hour event!

Participants brought in some wonderful new varieties this year, including Pink Bumble Bee Cherry, Gajo de Melon, and Blue Cream Berries. We always take people’s votes into account when deciding which tomato varieties to carry, so look for the most popular varieties from this year and previous years when you come to buy your organic tomato starts next spring at Harlequin’s Gardens. Every year we grow 80+ great varieties for all kinds of uses and growing conditions! A huge thank-you to Growing Gardens for providing our the location, helping us publicize the event, and for bringing us some fabulous volunteers. Thank you also to the volunteers of Slow Food Boulder County. We couldn’t have done it without you!

2019 Taste of Tomato Vote Tally

 

 

 

 

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2018 Taste of Tomato Results

This year’s Taste of Tomato was a blast! We love the new location at Growing Gardens’ Barn, with its’ beautiful view of the Flatirons, easy access, and wonderful staff. The tasting featured 44 different varieties of tomatoes, with Aunt Ruby’s German Green winning the greatest number of votes. Participants brought in some wonderful new varieties this year, including Brad’s Atomic Grape, Thornburn’s Terracotta, and Indigo Cherry. Look for the most popular varieties from this year and previous years when you come to buy your organic tomato starts next spring at Harlequin’s Gardens. Every year we grow 80+ great varieties for all kinds of uses and growing conditions![Read More]

Harvest Guidelines for Summer Crops

Here are a few harvest guidelines for summer crops: 

Eggplants should be picked while they are still firm and glossy.  Once their skins have become dull, they will be softer and have dark seeds, which can spoil the flavor. Eggplants don’t keep long, so use them soon after harvest.

Bell peppers and sweet frying peppers are sweetest when allowed to ripen fully to their mature color, yellow, orange, red, purple or mahogany.  Bell peppers are often picked green, but their flavor will be a lot more pungent and they may be more challenging to digest.

Some of the hot peppers are traditionally enjoyed green – poblano, mulatto, jalapeno, Anaheim-type, while most of the rest are allowed to ripen to red (cherry, habanero, cayenne, lanterna, any chile dried for a ristra, etc.) orange (Bulgarian Carrot), or dark brown (Pasilla).[Read More]

Food Safety and GMOs

Food safety is one of the most critical issues of our time. What we eat is directly related to our health, and health care has a direct impact on our personal and national economies. Major chemical companies like Monsanto, Bayer, Dow and Dupont have introduced 86,000 synthetic chemicals into our environment, food, drugs, cosmetics etc and most of them have never been tested for toxic effects on human health and the environment. Since the mid 1990s, some of these same companies have been filling our grocery stores and feed stores with genetically engineered food products which may be causing serious health problems but are being approved by our government without safety testing.[Read More]