Uncle Mike’s Top 5 Cold Crop Veggies
Swiss Chard ‘Bright Lights’ : So good looking you won’t want to eat Bright Lights. This chard mix has stems in gold, pink and crimson. Harvest young for a sweeter taste, great for salads.
Collard Greens ‘Georgia’: A great performing collard green with a sweet, cabbage-like flavor. Leaves are ruffled and blue-green and taste best when young.
Broccoli ‘Pacman’: The home gardener favorite. Produces large 8″ heads and continues to yield loads of smaller, tender heads on side shoots. Sautee in olive oil and garlic!
Kale ‘Toscano’: A Lacinato or “dinosaur” type kale. The extra large and dark green leaves are savoyed (blistered) and have a more tender taste than regular curly-leaved kales.
Lettuce ‘Mesclun Mix‘: The French approach to salad greens–“mesclun” means “mixture.” Early sweet lettuces and tangy, tender greens are pre-mixed to grow together for easy cutting.
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Hellebores thrive in rich, well-drained soil in part-sun or dappled shade. The species Helleborus niger (also known as the Christmas rose) is the earliest to bloom, with flowers appearing as early as February/March. The species Helleborus orientalis, or Lenten Rose, has been used in breeding efforts, resulting in the beautiful hybrids we know today. Plants are clump forming with thick evergreen hand-shaped leaves. In late winter the flower spike tops the leaves, branching out to produce a cluster of silver-dollar sized flowers. Each flower remains in bloom for 3 months or more. We use the term “flower” loosely as the flower is actually a modified calyx and it is this feature that accounts for such a long period of bloom.
Pulmonarias are a wonder in the woodland garden and can be counted on to bloom soon after the Hellebores. Flowers appear in profuse clusters that can be blue, pink or white, and frequently two or more colors will be found on a single plant. The flowers often start out one color and fade into another color as the flower ages. The whole effect is lovely. A distinctive feature of Pulmonaria is its foliage: rich green with silver spots. Recent introductions have predominantly silver leaves that shimmer in a shady setting. Plants grow approximately 9 to 12 inches tall and will spread to two feet. They perform best in shady, moist soil that is rich in organic matter. ‘Raspberry Splash’, ‘Mrs. Moon’ and ‘Trevi Fountain’ are just three varieties of this charming and hardy plant. And like the Hellebores, Pulmonarias are deer resistant.
Brunnera is considered by many plant aficionados to be one of the most attractive plants for the shade garden. A clump forming plant, its foliage has a rich green base overlaid with a silver crackle finish. The baby blue flowers appear in early to mid-spring and resemble forget-me-nots.
Truly a classic, old fashioned Bleeding Heart, Dicentra spectabilis remains an essential plant in any garden. Its light green foliage is deeply cut and lobed, and its stems are fleshy. Flowers appear in chains of puffy pink petals with white tips. They dangle from stems that stand above the foliage. A mature plant will be 2 to 3 feet tall and as wide. It is also available in a white flowering form, Dicentra spectabilis ‘Alba’. A relatively new variety, ‘Valentine’ offers the same charms as the species but with arching spikes of elegant cherry-red, heart-shaped blooms with white tips held on dark burgundy stems.
Aquilegia plants have an airy appearance, with small, rounded leaves and tall flower stalks that hold bellshaped blooms above the foliage. Each flower has 5 petals that flare out from the base, surrounded by a collar of 5 larger sepals. The long, nectar holding spurs arch backward out of the flowers, making the flowers popular with hummingbirds and bees. Petals and sepals come in a variety of colors and combinations, in shades of light blue, pink, purple, red, white and yellow. Aquilegias relish dappled shade and love deep, rich soil.
