Growing vegetables in the winter

For seven winters, Carol Ford and Chuck Waibel have been supplying weekly boxes of fresh cold-weather vegetables and baby greens to a 12-member CSA (Community Supported Agriculture). Under the name “Garden Goddess,” they grow the food in their self-designed 16×22 low-energy northern greenhouse. Inside that deceptively small space is 3,520 cubic feet, with roughly 150

Shifting sands: Late blight populations changing quickly

The symptoms of late blight don’t vary much from strain to strain, but recent evidence suggests that these strains are changing more quickly than ever before, setting growers up for an even bigger control challenges. Rick Peters, a Charlottetown, P.E.I.-based research scientist with Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (AAFC), told growers at this winter’s Manitoba Potato


Late Blight Found In Tomatoes

The first case of late blight, the bane of Manitoba tomato growers last year, was confirmed last week on garden tomatoes in Ashern. Five cases of the fungal disease responsible for the Irish Potato Famine in the 1840s, have been detected in potatoes, including in a “sentinel” plot at the Canada-Manitoba Crop Diversification Centre near

Start Fresh This Spring, Says Vegetable Expert

After last year’s late blight apocalypse, many home gardeners have spent a dreary winter opening tin cans instead of jars of their own delicious preserved tomatoes. Added to that disheartening experience, was the sinking feeling one gets when reaching into the potato bin and pulling out the odd stinky, mushy tuber. There are no guarantees

Home And Market Garden Losses From Blight Can’t Be Ignored

Most commercial potato farmers sprayed their way through last season and ended up with a normal- enough-looking crop. But 2010 was a heartbreaking year for home gardeners, as a nasty blight worked its way across Manitoba decimating all but the most remote or chemically treated tomatoes. First word of the blight appeared in a June


Manitoba Tomatoes Ravaged By Disease This Year – for Sep. 9, 2010

Nothing beats the taste of a homegrown, vine-ripened tomato, but there are a lot fewer this year due to fungal diseases that have defoliated plants and rotted the fruit. There’s no controlling it now, but Manitoba gardeners can pick uninfected fruit and let it ripen off the vine. They can also cut out the infected


In Brief… – for Jun. 10, 2010

Dow gets access to Roundup: Monsanto Co. has agreed to license its Roundup Ready 2 Yield herbicide trait to Dow Chemical’s agricultural unit, an agreement that will let Dow boost its presence in the soybean market. Dow AgroSciences will pay Monsanto a royalty for stacking the technology with its seeds. As part of stacking, seed


Gardening With Meals In Mind

When planning the garden this season why not think about ethnic cuisine? Italian – Try easy-to-grow basil, oregano, rosemary and parsley. Then add some Romaine, Bibb and Butter lettuces to the garden and follow that with vegetables such as tomatoes, onions, zucchini, beans and of course, garlic. French – Make your own herb mix with

Gene Transfer Can Help Fight Pests

An international team of scientists has managed to transfer disease resistance from one plant family to another, offering broader protection from potentially costly and destructive pests. A team led by Cyril Zipfel at Britain’s Sainsbury Laboratory found that transferring a single gene from a wild plant to disease-susceptible crop plants made them more robust against