Dear Helen: I appreciate your columns for the ideas they give me for different varieties to try. I’d like to grow Sun Dipper tomatoes but cannot find a seed source. I’d also like to try Fall Gold raspberries.
E.W.
These are two of the very best food items in my garden. I first grew Sun Dipper in 2022, from a transplant sent by the variety originator, PanAmerican Seed, as a trial planting prior to Sun Dipper’s introduction in 2023.
I was surprised to see transplants of Sun Dipper in a garden centre close to my home in the spring of 2023. That was unusual. New introductions don’t usually appear in local outlets so soon. I can only guess that enough trial plantings proved the variety to be a real winner that wholesale growers made Sun Dipper widely available to retail stores.
You may well find transplants in the spring. Consider inquiring at garden centres near you. For seed access, my source is William Dam Seeds. More companies may well add Sun Dipper to its 2025 listings.
Fall Gold raspberry canes should be available early in the spring at some local garden centres. I see it among the spring 2025 listings of a major supplier to our local outlets.
Dear Helen: I’ve never had a problem growing good beets until this year, when the garden produced beets with no flavour. As in previous years, I used aged horse manure and chicken manure as well as a sprinkling of Dolopril before seeding. Can you think of any reason for this disappointment?
C.T.
I am presuming that you move the planting site for beets from year to year, as a basic plant and soil health measure.
That your planting procedures suddenly failed after working well in the past is a puzzle. Here are some factors that could be in play.
Water stress is a common cause of beets with a tough texture and lack of or bitter flavour.
Some varieties are naturally more flavourful than others. Merlin and cylindrical type beets are most often rated as among the sweetest and most intensely flavourful.
Time of picking makes a difference. Beets harvested in warm weather will be more starchy and flavourless than those gathered in cool temperatures, which turn starches into sugars.
Animal manures, in particular poultry manure, tend to be high in nitrogen, a nutrient that beets and other root crops do not need at high levels. It is possible also that the chicken manure can raise a soil’s alkalinity to levels not suitable for beets, which do best in a very slightly acidic soil.
Dear Helen: Can you identify the weed in the attached photo? It is spreading throughout our vegetable plots and flower beds. It lies flat and can be even hard to see. It’s not hard to pull out.
A.M.
Your plant has the same ground-hugging, spreading habit as common purslane, a weed that has invaded many home gardens. But the small, oval leaves are darker and not so smooth-edged. And the flowers are whitish, not the yellow of purslane.
I think your plant is one of the creeping spurges, either spotted spurge (Euphorbia maculata) or prostrate spurge (Euphorbia supina). Your photo shows dark smudges at the centre of just a few leaves, enough perhaps to identify the plant as E. maculata.
Consider comparing online photos of both species with the living plants in your garden.
Keep the plants pulled up. This is most easily done when the soil is moist. To get the entire tap root, pull directly upward. If the soil has a tight texture, loosen it around each plant first.
To a void rampant spread of this weed, don’t let the plants bloom and set seed — something they can do quickly. Pull before flowers appear.
GARDEN EVENTS
Gordon Head meeting. The Gordon Head Garden Club will meet this evening (Wednesday, Nov. 6) from 7 to 9 p.m. in the Gordon Head Lawn Bowling Club, 4105 Lambrick Way. Susan Weiss, representing Lee Valley Tools, will present Lee Valley’s Top Selling Garden Tools. Visitors are welcome at no charge.
Dahlia meeting. The Victoria Dahlia Society will meet on Thursday, Nov. 7, at 7 p.m. in St. Michael’s Church, 4733 West Saanich Rd. The evening will include an Annual General Meeting followed by a program dedicated to members’ favourite dahlia varieties. Visitors are welcome.
