You can have great success with broccoli in northern climates. It’s a cool-weather crop that doesn’t mind cold nights or even moderate frosts, and grows best in daytime temperatures between 10C and 24C.

Broccolis and the other cabbage-related crops (“cole crops”) like their soil pH in the normal-to-slightly-alkaline range. Many soils in our region, including mine, fill the bill. However, if your soil is peaty or sits on a layer of rock, it may be on the acid side and not good for the cabbage family. Grow blueberries, beets or potatoes on this instead. If you know that your soil is somewhat acid but you’d like to try broccoli, you can give the pH some help by using bone meal and wood ash as fertilizers, along with possibly amending with a load of non-acid topsoil.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere on this site, you can make a special contribution to biodiversity by growing your own broccoli. According to Michael Pollan in his recent book, In Defense of Food (a very good read, by the way), half of all the broccoli grown in the USA is one variety: Marathon. Nothing wrong with Marathon as a variety, but if you’ve been gardening for a while you know that different broccolis have different colours and subtly different flavours. Try many!

In 2008 I tried two early varieties, Windsor (56 days) and Belstar (66 days), both from Johnny’s Seeds. Intending them for the farmers’ market in late August, I planted in mid-June – but that was a mistake. Both varieties took longer than I expected to reach maturity, and picking did not start until late-September on Windsor, and mid-October on Belstar (after I was finished at the market).

The days-to-maturity quoted on seed packets can be tricky (this is my excuse). Some seed houses count the days after emergence, and others count the days after transplant (in species that are commonly transplanted). Whatever the case, in my experience it takes 10 weeks from emergence to maturity in early broccoli here in Thunder Bay region.

Aside from my timing problems, both varieties performed well. I think Windsor is the more attractive of the two, as it has the bluish colour that veggie consumers seem to look for. It also forms lots of side-shoots after the main harvest. My Belstar planting never had time to form side-shoots, but it’s reputed to provide lots of them. Side-shoots are always a boon whether you eat the broccoli yourself or sell it – bunched side-shoots are just as attractive as whole heads, and many customers actually like bunched broccoli better because they get lots of tender stems.

This year (2009) I’ve planted Windsor, and again I’m late, but I’ll have it on my stand by mid-Septmber.

My post on peppers doesn’t contain too much material, but I’ll introduce the subject in the hopes that other local growers will chime in. We grew many varieties of pappers in Southwestern Ontario back in the “old days”, including jalapenos! Naturally, I was eager to try peppers here in my first year, 2007. I grew some green bell pepper and other pepper seedlings early, and planted them out at the end of May under plastic. They were happy enough, and I removed the plastic once the plants were over a foot high. But the summer never seemed to get hot enough to “blast them off”, and by September I had only a handful of smallish green peppers.

So, with my limited garden space, I have moved on to veggies that I find more successful (although I admit to wandering into eggplant territory this year – I’ll let you know how that goes).

I do know that peppers are grown in this area by many gardeners with a special interest in them. I assume that most use hoop houses or greenhouses, or perhaps in pots in sunny locations. If you are one of these gardeners, let’s hear from you!

Potatoes are so successful in Thunder Bay Region that they are grown commercially on a large scale by such farms as B & B Farms and Breukelman’s Potato Farm.

I haven’t had the time or the inclination to try too many varieties of potatoes, partly because I find the variety Superior to be such a winner. Superior is a early-to-mid-season white potato with a smooth skin and uniform plump oblong shape. Large amounts of small “new potatoes” are ready early in July, and larger tubers a few weeks later. Once full-size, they hold well in the cool soil, with no tendency for the mature tubers to sprout. At least – that’s my experience! So far, I have had no trouble with scab either, although my soil was alkaline enough, apparently, to scab up adjoining rows of beets.

So far, my potato plantings have not been attacked by either blight or potato beetles – I credit my isolation with this, since larger local plantations do suffer these problems. The first year I grew them, there were a few injuries from grubs, likely because the garden area had been grassed over for a couple of years before its “rehab” and still contained the kinds of insect you find in sod.

Since the crowds at the farmers’ market seem to enjoy red vegetables, I have added both Viking and Norland red varieties this year (2009), which I will report on once they’re harvested. If you have any “northern potato experiences” or advice, please post it here!
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Resources:
Canada Food Inspection Agency’s Potato Variety page – very useful!

Hi Folks,

One of the things that surprised me, driving through the Thunder Bay area as a kid, was the fields of corn. I knew enough by then to distinguish field corn from “people” corn, but I was surprised to see corn growing at all on the eaves of the boreal forest.

Well, whether it’s cow corn or sweet corn, the key is to choose varieties that require a fairly short growing season. There are varieties that grow reliably here – although you will occasionally be caught short by frost. Ripening ears of corn will not tolerate frost, even if the leaves will. This is what happened to mine during my first “experimental” gardening season in 2007, when we had our first hard-ish frost on the morning of September 12. My corn had a few days to go, but that was that.

Still, I noticed at the farmers market the next weekend that the Slate River Valley corn producers, like Belluz Farms, were still going great guns. Their land is a little lower in elevation than mine, and a little further south. Increments make a difference!

The variety I grew was Sugar Buns, an early “sugary-enhanced” (se) yellow type from Johnny’s Seeds. Examining the ears, I saw that they were good size with complete tip fill. If you try corn in a northern climate, find a good variety that ripens in 70 days or less.

Another consideration is germination in the spring. You want to take advantage of as much of the growing season as you can. How early can you plant? Answer: as soon as the soil is warm anough that the seeds won’t rot. And here’s where things can get technical. Back in the “old days”, sweet corn was sweeter than “cow corn” simply because it was picked younger. Then breeders began selecting to create sweeter varieties. These are the “normal sugary” (su) varieties, and these plants are fairly robust, with seeds that will germinate in cool-ish (but not cold!) soil.

The next development in sweet corn occured when breeders began selecting specifically for a naturally occurring gene that promoted even more sweetness and tenderness in the kernals. The resulting varieties are called “sugary enhanced” (se) and (se+). Their seeds, which contain less starch, are somewhat more sensitive to cool, wet conditions when they are planted.

[A note here - we're not talking about genetically modified or GMO varieties on this page, but rather varieties developed with normal breeding methods to promote naturally occurring corn genes]

As time went on, breeders discovered one more naturally occurring gene in corn that they could breed for. This one promoted extreme sweetness, and the resulting varieties are called “Super Sweet” (sh2). Take note, the “sh” stands for shrunken. These kernals are so high in sugar and low in starch and protein that, when dry, they look like little chips. They have so little substance that they absolutely love to rot in cool temperatures. They can’t be planted early. Also, the ears of these varieties must be fully mature before picking – undermature ears have no flavour or sweetness. On the plus side, when picked at the right time the ears are very sweet, and hold their sweetness well in storage.

The Johnny’s Seeds catalogue has a good explanation of all this, and of how to isolate the different sweet corn types if you are growing more than one of them. But back to the relevance of all this for northern gardeners – the older, less sugary types germinate better in cool ground. Beginning gardeners should definitely go for (su) or (se) types. I don’t know what Belluz Farms grows, but they may do this, too. And, in my personal opinion, the older, yellow varieties is where the flavour is. Picked at their peak, they are very sweet, with real “corn” flavour!

If you want to get fancy or try a variety that needs more than 70 days, you can try germinating kernals indoors between wet paper towels, and carefully planting the sprouted seeds. Another aid you can use, if you are not growing organically, is seed treated with mild fungicide (that “pink stuff”). This will buy you a few days on the spring end of the season. And finally, several seed catalogues are now offering seed with a coating called Natural II, which is said to protect the seed from cold and wet conditions and provide a few nutrients to get it going. The coating is compliant with most organic guidelines.

My final corn word, for now, is about pests. In Southern Ontario our corn was plagued with corn borers. I found them very yucky, and of course they ruined many ears. Discouraging them in large plots seemed to call for very nasty pesticides, and I was ready to give up. There are natural methods for killing pests on corn, but before I had a chance to try them I moved here to the North. When I grew my plot here in 2007, no pests visited it. I’m sure the isolation and newness of the plot was a big part of that, but it could also be that there are somewhat less pests here. When I try corn again, I’ll give you an update.