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AAS Winners for 2016

Hanbidge on Horticulture
radish
Radish Sweet Baby F1 is a beautiful purple/white/rose-coloured radish. Photo courtesy All American Selections

All America Selections (AAS) is the place to go for the next best thing to guaranteed success in your garden. Each year AAS tests a number of plants that are tested by a network of independent judges who determine which plants exhibit superior garden performance. For us as gardeners, this is a great bit of advice to help us in achieving success in our gardens.

The vegetable winners of 2016 are concluded with this article so we hope you try one or two of the winners we have detailed over the past three weeks. It is sometimes difficult to get the seed desired when the winners are just announced but if you go to the All America selections website they list the seed houses that sell seed of the winning plants. The url is http://all-americaselections.org/buy_winners/index.cfm.

Pumpkin Super Moon F1 is another great white pumpkin to grow. This regional winner boasts of eye-appealing ghostly white colouration on a well-formed round pumpkins. It is a vigorous grower, hardy and disease resistant with a lovely yellow flesh that is perfect for creating hearty soups in your kitchen.

Radish Sweet Baby F1 is a beautiful purple/white/rose-coloured radish. It has uniform size, excellent taste that is crispy, crunchy and a little bit spicy. Inside it is mostly white with just a few splashes of purple colour. Maturing in 40 to 45 days you can be sure to get a few crops out of our short growing season!

Strawberry Delizz®F1 is a vigorous strawberry plant that even a beginner can grow. It produces uniform, compact berries that do well even in the heat. Plant them in containers, beds and hanging pots and enjoy the beauty and quality of this selection.

There were two tomatoes chosen this year as winners. Tomato Candyland Red is a currant-type tomato, which means they are smaller than the cherry-types so perfect to eat whole! It is a tidy growing plant and conveniently fruits on the outside to ensure easy picking. The other tomato chosen was Tomato Chef's Choice Green F1. If you recall last year one of the winners was an orange Chef's Choice, just another great tomato of the Chef's Choice series. This year's winner is the perfect gift in spring to your foodie friends. The fruit is a beautiful green with subtle yellow stripes and an unbeatable citrus-like flavour, and perfect tomato texture. The plant is resistant to disease and has a well-behaved form.

We hope you have enjoyed these three articles on the current AAS Winners. Our thanks to the AAS for helping gardeners across North America to be more successful.

Hanbidge is a horticulturist with the Saskatoon School of Horticulture and can be reached at 306-931-GROW(4769); by email at growyourfuture@gmail.com or check out our website at saskhort.com