2020 All-American Selections Winners

Cassie Homan, Horticulture Agent
 

January is the perfect time to relax and plan for your gardening season. A key step to a thriving garden is choosing plants that are adapted to our area. All-America Selections tests and introduces new flowers and vegetables each year that have done well in trials across North America. Others have done well in certain regions of the US. This year there were ten vegetable winners of which seven are tomatoes and four ornamental or flower winners. The AAS Winners offer gardeners reliable new varieties that have proven their superior garden performance in Trial Grounds across North America, thus, their tagline of “Tested Nationally and Proven Locally®”.

When you purchase an AAS Winner, you know that it has been put through its paces by an independent, neutral trialing organization and has been judged by experts in their field. The AAS Winner label is like a stamp of approval.

Cucumber Green Light

Here are a few exciting winners for 2020. To view the whole list visit: https://all-americaselections.org/winners/

This little beauty is an excellent mini cucumber, said many of the AAS Judges. The yield was higher than the comparison varieties with more attractive fruit, earlier maturity, and superior eating quality. “I would absolutely grow this in my home garden” commented one judge. Grow Green Light on stakes or poles for a productive, easy-to-harvest vertical garden that will yield 40 or more spineless fruits per plant. Pick the fruits when they’re small, between 3-4” long, and you’ll be rewarded with great tasting cucumbers, even without peeling. Succession plantings will ensure a summer-long harvest.

Tomato Chef’s Choice Bicolor

Fun fact: This cucumber is parthenocarpic meaning the flowers are all female and the fruits are seedless without needing to be pollinated.

The first bicolor tomato in the Chef’s Choice series is here! Indeterminate plants produce large 7-8 ounce flattened beefsteak fruits with beautiful pinkish red internal stripes within a yellow flesh. The lovely stripes extend to the base of the outer fruit skins. These heirloom looking tomatoes are as sweet as they are beautiful with a better flavor and texture than the comparisons. Gardeners will enjoy earlier maturity and more uniform fruits that hold up all season long, producing well into September in the Heartland. As with all the colors in the Chef’s Choice series, each plant can produce about 30 fruits per season.

Watermelon Mambo

Summertime means melon time and Mambo watermelon will grow and yield well even in cool cloudy conditions! Gardeners who plant Mambo will enjoy multiple, perfectly round melons with a beautiful dark green rind and deep red flesh. The sweet crisp flesh is extremely tasty and holds well (doesn’t over ripen) if you can’t harvest them right away. Each 9” fruit will weigh about 11 pounds at maturity, which is only 75 days from transplant. A smaller seed cavity means you almost get the look of a seedless melon but the superior taste of a seeded melon. The AAS Judges agree this is one of the easiest watermelons they’ve grown because of high seed germination and vigorously healthy vines.

If you would like more details about choosing the best plants for our area contact Cassie Homan, Post Rock District Horticulture Agent, at (785)738-3597 or by email at choman@ksu.edu.