By Josh Kirschenbaum, PanAmerican Seed
Photographs courtesy of PanAmerican Seed
If you’re like me and many others during the COVID-19 lockdown, you probably cooked more at home with the fresh herbs and vegetables you grew yourself. The media took notice of this trend, too. There has been a huge increase in vegetable and herb gardening, and more folks are growing and cooking their own food. What’s perhaps even more exciting is that these trends are expected to continue and potentially grow in 2021.
According to the “2021 Garden Trends Report” (Garden Media Group, 2020), 67% of adults in the United States are growing or plan to grow edible plants. Many of these gardeners are first-timers; many of them are young; and many who want to grow their own food don’t have any outdoor space to do so.
PanAmerican Seed now has a wonderful option to service these consumers with our new brand of Kitchen Minis™ vegetables.
The Kitchen Minis collection consists of tomato and pepper varieties that consumers can grow indoors or outside. These are meant to be purchased in small pots (4-8 inches depending on the variety) and a consumer can grow them on a sunny countertop, windowsill, or outside on a patio table or in a window box. Kitchen Minis plants are sold at retail not only with fruit emerging on the plant, but ideally, they should have a few ripe fruit, essentially making these ready-to-harvest straight away. When properly cared for, the plants will produce fruit for several weeks, at which point a consumer can go back and buy more “living produce” that can be incorporated into tasty homemade meals.
Here are a few varieties currently offered by Kitchen Minis:
Fresh Bites is a sweet snack pepper available in orange, yellow, and red. It’s thick-walled for crunch and deliciously sweet.
Siam cherry tomato gives you handfuls of fruit over a few weeks.
Hot Fajita is a long, tapered medium-hot chili that starts an eye-catching lime green and ripens to bright red.
See the full assortment at the PanAmerican Seed website. The new Kitchen Minis collection offers year-round opportunities to enjoy home-grown vegetables. No garden? No problem! Look for Kitchen Minis plants at garden centers this spring. Seeds are also available from Seeds N Such (seedsnsuch.com), Jung Seed (jungseed.com) and Park Seed (parkseed.com).
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By Dan Heims, President, Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Photographs courtesy of Terra Nova Nurseries, Inc.
Terra Nova’s breeders have created a series of outstanding world-class echinaceas that are consistent in size, bloom power, color intensity and are a pollinator buffet. What’s not to like.
To learn more, click here for an interesting article.
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