Greg and special guest, Pieter from Seminis (a company that develops, grows, and markets vegetable seeds for the home gardener) do a deep dive into the seeds you should be growing this season! Discussing heirlooms and hybrids, the difference in parthenocarpic, monoecious and gynoecious varieties, pests in tomatoes, best practices for starting seedless watermelon varieties, and much more!

CUCUMBERS

Hoss carries many types of cucumber varieties. Understanding the scientific terms can be a bit confusing. Let's dive in.

Gynoecious cucumbers are varieties that are predominantly female. There are far more female flowers on the plant than male flowers. It provides heavy harvests in a shorter period of time but does require more pollinators in the garden. Monoecious cucumber varieties have more of an equal ratio of female and male flowers and do not require bees as the gynoecious varieties do. They are designed to have more of a longer harvest period. Parthenocarpic varieties are typically what you find in the grocery stores, they will make fruit without being pollinated.

PEPPERS

Gypsy peppers are great to grow in containers, by pepper growing standards this variety produces early than most other varieties. Roulette Heatless Habanero is the perfect snacking pepper, it gives you the habanero flavor without the heat. The traditional green bell pepper to grow (even in a container) is the King Arthur.

There is a trend on social media that people are pinching off the terminal bud of the pepper plant to force lateral growth. We haven't seen any benefits to this method. It is not practiced commercially.

TOMATOES

Heirloom varieties are becoming more popular again in the home garden, while hybrid varieties are still very popular. Hybrid tomato varieties have been bred to produce more fruit. What is the difference between determinate vs. indeterminate varieties? Determinate tomato varieties require little to no staking of the plant. Indeterminate varieties develop into vines that never top off.

Products of the Week:

Cucumbers

Peppers

Tomatoes

Watch the Complete Show on YouTube Below:

https://youtu.be/PxgvAPFxYp0