Bananas in Vermont!

Here is a fun fact! Some bananas can live through a Vermont winter outdoors! Our friend and permaculture garden expert, Jacob Holzberg-Pill has done it for a few years now and he has graciously written a description of his method. Jacob owns and operates a garden design business called Juneberry Landscaping, helping people create resilient and bountiful food scapes around their homes. While bananas won’t produce fruit here, they will grow into big tropical plants that will stop you in your tracks every time!

I planted two musa basjoo hardy fiber bananas at our house in Burlington in June 2018. I purchased them at the City Market Red Wagon Plants’ stand. I wanted to maximize warmth in summer and winter, and to minimize winter wet so I planted them on the south side of our house, near the foundation, under a bay window. We have excessively well drained sandy soil. I think wet heavy clay soil gets much colder in winter than dry sandy soil. When I planted the bananas, I dug a hole an extra foot deep and placed the bananas at the bottom of the hole and top-dressed them with a foot of compost. When I plant trees or shrubs, I match the soil level in the pot with the planting depth. In the late fall, I added a foot of woodchips on top of the few inches of mulch I had placed on the compost at planting.   Every other year I add another six inches of woodchips. The hole was about a foot away from the foundation of our house. It’s not a willow tree, I’m not worried about the roots destroying the house. In winter when the stems freeze, I let the stems get brown and mushy and leave them on the ground. I drag them to the compost in the spring during cleanup. Each plant sends up 3-6 stems every year. Usually, they grow over ten feet tall. They would get much taller if I watered and or fertilized, but I don’t. They never flower. I love the large tropical leaves and the joy and surprise of visitors who recognize the plants.

Thanks, Jacob, for this and for all you do to bring wonder and beauty into this world! Want to try it at home? This is a great week to do it. All of our banana plants are 30% off!

Bake Shop this week

Looking for your next picnic dish? You can order whole focaccia from our bake shop and make cucumber sandwiches with feta and olives. That, with a green salad, makes a perfect beach meal.  And cookies too. Or make it even easier for yourself, and grab some sandwiches from our case. We brine and roast the Stonewood Farms turkey in house, and it is exceptional.

July Jungle Time

July is all about weeding, pruning, staking, and generally containing the jungle. Water all your new plantings daily or at least every few days, to help them get well-established. We are in jungle time, and weeds can grow remarkably fast, so staying on top of them as much as possible will help make sure that the plants you like are getting all the sun and water and nutrients available to them.

Now is definitely the time for staking perennials that fall over and, to feel extra fancy, take some notes for yourself that, next year, those floppy plants should be staked earlier (for self-awarded bonus points, even put it on the calendar). An alternative to staking leggy perennials, to consider for next year, is to prune them before mid-June - a technique the English called the ‘Chelsea Chop,’ because a good time for doing it is around the Chelsea Flower Show in late May.

This is an apt technique for plants with multiple stems with offshoots, and especially plants that tend to grow tall and leggy. By cutting them back in the late spring, you can encourage your perennials to be shorter, more sturdy, later blooming and even more floriferous. With a proper Chelsea Chop, they might not even need staking.

If you’re intrigued, check out this video from the Royal Horticultural Society on the Chelsea Chop, and even more information about how to do it here, and file these sources away for next May (we’ll try to remember to remind you, too).

Do you have an empty spot in the veggie garden? Maybe you harvested garlic this past week and you are wondering what to put in that place? In our Plant Shop, there are plenty of new generations of heat-tolerant lettuces and greens, a few summer squashes, sprouting broccoli, kale, mustards and chicories. Now is a great time to refresh your garden with a round of fresh vegetable plants for a fall crop, or to add to the color palette of your flower beds.

You could also give the bed a rest, and plant a cover crop. We have some buckwheat seed in the Plant Shop for just this purpose. It is a beautiful plant and pollinators love the flowers. Buckwheat grows in really thickly and smothers out other weeds. After it flowers, you just mow it or chop it down, and incorporate it into the soil. It will add lots of organic matter and give your soil a little boost for next year.

Time for Herby Salads!

It is the season for salads and herbs! Here is a great recipe from our friend Molly Stevens that uses basil from the garden and is perfect for all of the greens and cucumbers and tomatoes that summer brings.

This is also your friendly reminder to salt your cucumbers before making a salad with them. They will be extra crunchy, won’t release their water into the dressing and thereby dilute the flavors, and they’ll absorb the herb flavors a little more. Just peel, slice, and toss with salt or herb salt in a colander over a bowl or in the sink. Wait 30 to 60 minutes (even overnight can work), and then taste. If they are much too salty, then rinse and pat dry. If the salt level works for you, toss with your favorite dressing or just lemon juice and olive oil.

Perfect summer side with grilled meats or fish or a sandwich.

July is Jungle Time and Plant of the Week

Height of summer means the plants are tall and towering. It is best to prune and stake a bit to give everyone a little breathing room for airflow and sunlight. In the vegetable garden, it also makes it easier to harvest. We recommend simple bamboo stakes and twine for simple supports in the vegetable and perennial gardens. With annual cut flowers, horizontally placed netting is the best. We have a couple of raised beds in the display garden that use horizontal netting so you can see how we do it.

In terms of pruning, cut back anything that is crowding other plants, branches that have broken, and anything dead or diseased. It will help plants in the long run even if it feels terrible to do it now.

Our plant of the week deal this week is a good one. ALL QUART ANNUALS are Buy Two, Get One FREE.

Anise Hyssop Appreciation Post

Anise hyssop appreciation post! This plant is an easy to grow perennial; it also self seeds so will pop up all around, but not too aggressively; it makes great tea; and it’s a pollinator magnet (see our stories).

We are offering this in the bake shop this week!

Anise Hyssop, Mint and Lemon Refresher
Drop into boiling water-
A handful of lemon verbena sprigs
A handful of anise hyssop sprigs
Juice of 1 lemon
1 to 3 TBS honey (to your taste)
1 small pinch of sea salt
Let cool, strain, and serve over ice.
This is a great and beautiful thing to keep in the fridge on hot days!

We’ve got big plants of lemon verbena and anise hyssop right now.

In the Garden, Early June Edition

The weather has turned just enough towards warmth and my schedule has turned just enough towards leisure that I can now find time to do my own gardening projects. Early June is when I get to planting all the containers around our house and the heat loving crops in the raised beds and greenhouses at Red Wagon. I have had lots of help this year, from Sara, Rachel and Uli which has been most welcome and fun.

Here is what is new in the greenhouses that I am finding fun and exciting.

  • Huge Dahlias in big pots

  • New Guinea Impatiens for shady spots

  • Perennials for naturalized, native meadow plantings grown from seed that Chad has collected from his own meadow plantings.

  • Fun herbs like a frilly Parsley called ‘Minuette’, Culantro which tastes like a stronger cousin of cilantro but it does not bolt and it is a cool looking plant; Curry Leaf which is very ornamental with a tight, silver, thread-like appearance; dwarf sage which would be adorable in a tiny clay pot on a patio table.

  • Our current generation of zinnias includes my favorites, Oklahoma Salmon and Aztec Sunset

  • New generations of broccoli, lettuce, chard, melons, cucumbers, summer squashes and winter squashes.

This week’s hot tip - if you are looking for some budget perennials to fill in some spots or make a new bed, look at the herb selection in the plant shop. Anise hyssop, regular hyssop, oregano, thyme, sage, lavender, chamomile, garlic chives, lemon bergamot are all great additions to a perennial garden. They don’t need to stay in the herb garden. There are also some really fun annual herbs that self-seed and add a great splash texture, fragrance and color to all kinds of gardens. These include bronze leaf fennel, chervil, cilantro, dill, chamomile, and summer savory. Let them flower for some airy and delicate edible blossoms and let them make seed so that they will come back next year.

Happy gardening!

Julie

It has been the best possible 16 years with Lily!

I have been procrastinating writing about this for 8 months, since last October, when Lily Belisle told me that she would be leaving at the end of the 2026 busy season, and that her 16 year career at Red Wagon would be coming to an end. Lily has been managing our retail operation for most of our 20 years, and deserves so much of the credit for what makes Red Wagon so special. She has been the steady hand that keeps us consistent, organized, beautiful and welcoming. She has trained countless people to excel at customer service; she has worked through heat, hail, cold, and sheer exhaustion season after season. Lily’s passion for gardening and plants comes through every day while patiently answering countless customer questions, taking great care of the plants in our displays and keeping the inventory moving at a break neck speed.

Alongside all of that hard work, Lily has been my ballast. The person that keeps everyone steady when the ideas spin out of control or the vision extends past reality a little too much. My tendency is to always push for more, and Lily has helped me remember over and over that days off are important, time in our own gardens is valuable (literally and metaphorically) and that there is deep beauty in living a balanced life. She has taught me to take time to look for those moments in the garden that are fleeting vignettes when the bloom, the light, and the neighboring plants all work together to achieve a fleeting sense of balance and harmony.

She forgives errors by calling them “whoopsies” and moving on.

Lily will be leaving at the end of June, but hopefully we can have her come back for the occasional watering shift, or potting up strawberries in March when the wind is howling and time in the greenhouse with friends feels extra special. We will miss you so much, Lily! Thank you for a glorious and special run. It has been a true pleasure and an honor to build this business with you.

With heavy hearts but many good wishes for the future, we love you, Lily!

- Julie

Blueberries for June

Growing blueberries in your own back yard can be very rewarding, and a collection of blueberry bushes makes for a great Father’s Day gift that will keep on giving for years to come.

Here are a few things to pay attention to when planning your new blueberry patch:

  • Cross-pollination: Like many other backyard fruits, you will need to plant at least two varieties to get good cross-pollination and fruit set. Following is a list of varieties that we carry or have carried in the past. Personally, my favorites are ‘Northland’ for their exceptional flavor reminiscent of wild blueberries and ‘Bluecrop’ for their large clusters that make for easy picking.

  • Your soil pH: Select a sunny site in your garden and then get your soil tested! Blueberries will only thrive in acidic soil and most garden soils will need to be amended with a soil acidifier. This is the same product you would use for hydrangeas.

  • Spacing: Give your blueberry bushes enough elbow room. Depending on the varieties chosen, this will be 4-6 feet of space between the plants. Check the tag on the plants you purchase to know their mature size and recommended spacing.

  • Take your time: Blueberry bushes can be planted any time of year but will require good watering (mulching helps!) and weeding especially in the first few seasons. As tempting as it is to let your berry bushes fruit as soon as possible, it is recommended to remove all flowers in the first year. This way your plants can put all their energy into growing a healthy root system. That will in turn give them more energy to bear more fruit the next season. Patience pays off.

For more growing and maintenance tips, please refer to this handy growing guide or come by in our greenhouses and ask one of our plant experts!

Epistle from April: Ulupica, Grandmother of Peppers

The ulupica in my yard, in bloom and fruiting

When I arrived in Cochabamba last August (early spring in Bolivia), my gardenmate Tatiana excitedly introduced me to a dry, leggy, woody weed, towering six feet tall in the middle of our garden bed. She assured me that, come the rainy season, we would be rich in tiny, spicy ulupica peppers. And so we were: as the months went by, small green pepper leaves were followed by beautiful dark purple flowers, which swelled into glossy, round berries with a serious sting for the palate. Tatiana taught me to smash one on the bottom of my bowl with the back of my spoon, and serve soup over it for an intensely spicy meal. 

Our ulupicas turning red (aka even hotter!)

Months later, I saw a woman selling bunches of herbs and vegetables from a cloth on the sidewalk. There was also a small pile of pale green, peppercorn-sized berries, which she also called ulupicas, her side of the conversation translated from Quechua by her neighboring vendor. They both laughed wickedly when, after purchase, I comically pretended to toss my handful into my mouth. Those tiny ulupicas also proved to be very potent. It seems to me that, if served as pictured, this recipe for llama steak with ulupica sauce would be overpoweringly hot. Maybe they are mainly for show. Most estimates give ulupicas a 30,000 on the Scoville scale.

I am used to seeing hot peppers in Bolivia, called locotos, ajís, cumbarí, kituchos or uchus in the indigenous languages of Quechua and Aymara. Decades ago, I remember a housemate who used to alternate bites of her meal with bites from a fresh yellow, green or red locoto pepper, in absence of the ubiquitous Bolivian salsa called llajua. Llajua/llajwa/llasjua/yasgua/llasgua (indigenous languages haven’t all come to standardized spellings in Spanish) is made with locotos (though I have since learned, also with ulupicas or the distinctively shaped yellow ajís), an optional tomato (or tree tomato), and beloved herbs quirquiña (sold at Red Wagon as pápalo) and wacataya. Llajua is a required condiment at Bolivian meals, and is usually made in a blender these days, but traditionally made on a flat stone mortar, called a batan, mashed with a round stone pestle. In main dishes, dried red and distinctively shaped yellow ajís (chiles) make rich sauces for poultry, meat, potatoes and pasta. Fideos uchu, a popular Thursday lunch dish in Cochabamba, for which residents are willing to travel, serves several kinds of meat over noodles in a spicy broth. 

But I had never seen, or even heard of, the ulupica before I met the one in my yard. I became even more enamored when light research revealed that botanists consider these wild-growing peppers, indigenous to the very valley I’m living in, to hold the genetic key to all the hot peppers of the world. In fact, Bolivia is still home to the greatest diversity of wild-growing hot peppers. Most varieties of wild peppers are not consumed by humans, but the ulupicas are, and have been for some time: archeologists have found hot peppers in Andean cooking vessels used over 6,000 years ago. Today, Bolivians continue to use Capsicum species in traditional medicine for colds, pain, digestion and inflammation. 

Some of the hot peppers grown in Bolivia

Ulupicas grow most happily in Andean valleys of 6,500 - 8,000 ft in altitude. Like many wild species, they have a natural resistance to sicknesses afflicting domesticated crops, and in this case, to the Tobacco Mosaic Virus (an infectious plant virus that primarily attacks Solanaceae crops like tomatoes, peppers, and tobacco). Plant breeders seeking to genetically fortify more contemporary Solanaceae species find this genetic trait of ulupicas very compelling. 

For the taxonomically inclined, I found that ulupicas were very likely documented by non-Andean botanists beginning with the 1911 collection of German botanist Otto Buchtien (whose impressive herbarium of 45,600 Bolivian and Chilean species is now in the US Museum of Natural History), and then catalogued in 1953 by American Charles Bixler Heiser.  Later botanists looking to identify the oldest species of hot peppers in the world, including American botanist W. Hardy Eshbaugh in the 1970’s, and more recently Bolivian botanists Rita del Solar y Lupe Andrade, have concluded that the southern valleys of Chuquisaca and Cochabamba, Bolivia are the origins of the genus Capsicum. Furthermore, many botanists agree that ulupica peppers belong to the exact ancestral group of wild Capsicum from which all domesticated hot and sweet peppers evolved and are the closest living relatives to an original progenitor pepper. In 2022, a national law declared 30 species of native hot peppers to be ‘immaterial cultural patrimony of Bolivia.’ 

As is often the case, I found that the common name ‘ulupica’ actually comprehends a range of Capsicum species, including but not limited to the two I’ve seen:  the much taller plant, C. cardenasii, which which grew the plump 7-9 cm berries in my garden, and the smaller C. eximium, which produces the miniscule peppercorn-sized fruits I bought at the market… I think. A lovely publication of the Bolivian National Museum of Ethnography and Folklore, ‘El Uchu en padilla,’ lists the common names of nine different varieties of ulupica, all currently classified under the same scientific name: Capsicum eximium Hunz. 

Bolivia’s ulupicas, grandmothers of peppers, are a quiet presence on the culinary scene, given that they grow mainly in the wild. Products made with foraged peppers are few and far between because the harvest is so seasonal. In a market in Cochabamba, where they are plentiful, a vendor might sell 4 pounds of ulupica per month. Some Bolivians might not come to know the ulupica in its vegetable state, but rather only as an idiomatic term for a person of small stature but irascible character. 

It’s now mid- May. As Vermonters are now considering whether to plant their peppers or wait for warmer soil, the ulupica in my garden in the southern hemisphere is dropping its leaves and going dormant for the cool winter weather. I myself am starting to prepare to travel back to Vermont in early June, for my third summer in one year.  I can imagine the tables of peppers at Red Wagon, having made their ways to us from across the globe, now labeled with their colorful tags, coveted by their dedicated pepper-growing fans. When I consider all of those wonderfully different pepper descendants, their range of sizes, rainbow of colors and diversity of cultural and culinary traditions, I’m so very honored to have had the chance to meet my ulupica in her ancestral home.

***

Do you have pepper stories? Do you have more information about ulupicas, Capsicum and botanical pepper origins? I would love to hear from you at april (at) redwagonplants.com.