For those who haven’t done so already, it should now be safe to plant a garden, says one of Canada’s leading gardening authors.
“This has been the toughest spring that I can remember,’’ said Niki Jabbour, who is based in Halifax, N.S. “We even had a frost warning two nights ago in Nova Scotia. At this point, I think we’re going to be frost-free, knock on wood.’’
Jabbour is coming to Charlottetown as part of the city’s Charlottetown Garden Days (which, coincides with National Garden Days). She’ll be doing a presentation on year-round vegetable gardening at Theatre-Carrefour de L’Isle-Saint Jean on Tuesday, June 19 from 7-9 p.m. It’s a free event and no registration is required.
For nights that make gardeners nervous where the temperature dips, she recommends simple things like row covers or bed sheets over vegetables.
“I have not been planting early this year because of the weather. I’ve been waiting like everybody. My tomatoes went in (Tuesday). I think the summer is here to stay now. For me, it’s been a wait-and-see game. I’ve been bringing things in at night. I’ve been covering them up but, unless the temperatures go back down below 6 C at night I’m going to let the spring play out (and) that’s what I’m doing now.’’
She said, at this point, produce such tomatoes won’t be happy about cool evening temperatures but should still be able to deal with it.
“Even across the U.S. it’s been a tough spring. There’s been frost in a lot of areas but I think it’s mainly been a northeast thing.’’
Jabbour said people are even behind with flowers, by two weeks in fact, and have noticed frost damage to their hostas, perennials, trees and shrubs. All will recover fine, she noted.
“It will correct itself with the warmer weather arriving but a lot of things you’ll find are going to start to bloom.’’
But, she won’t be coming to Charlottetown to just talk about the frost. She’ll mention her new book “Veggie Garden Mix’’ (her books have sold in excess of 130,000 copies worldwide) And, one of her favourite topics is getting people to try cool things, new things in their garden.
She said cucamelons (a grape-sized watermelon that tastes like a cucumber with a hint of citrus) and cucumber melons are the craze this year in the Maritimes. She also suggests trying something like growing ground cherries or tomatoes.
“Cucamelons, right now, is the number one crop in the Maritimes. People are loving it. It’s an exciting new thing to try as are ground cherries. People are really trying all these interesting vegetables that aren’t new but just weren’t widely known before. My whole goal right now is to try and get people to try new things this year and that’s what people seem to want to talk to me about.’’
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