AAS Regional Program and Great Lakes Award Winners

Last week’s topic was the All-America Selections awards, and as promised, this week I will share the new regional award winners for our gardens.

After more than eighty years of awarding plants that had proven themselves throughout the US and Canada, AAS realized that their rigorous testing revealed top-performing plants that would never see an award. Plants well-suited to growing conditions in some climates would be disqualified for less-than-stellar performance in others. Without compromising standards, the regional awards have been created to bring these locally proven plants to the attention of gardeners who can use them.

Six geographic regions with similar climate conditions were established. Perhaps not surprisingly, we are part of the Great Lakes region, along with Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Ontario, Canada. Since the AAS organization had been compiling detailed data for many years, they decided to review three year’s history to announce the first regional winners for 2014. Any additional qualifying plants are announced annually along with the national winners.

So far, there are six winners for our Great Lakes region—five vegetables and one in the ornamental bedding plant category.

A compact sunflower is the lone ornamental. Suntastic Yellow with Black Center sports blooms that are five to six inches in diameter—quite impressive given that plants grow less than two feet tall. And unlike traditional sunflowers, Suntastic blooms in three successive waves of five to eight flowers, producing up to 20 flowers per plant through the summer. Flowers 50-65 days from planting.

Cinderella’s Carriage pumpkin is the first hybrid variety with the distinctive Cinderella-pumpkin shape and near-red color. Hybrid vigor translates to higher yields and greater resistance to powdery mildew on the foliage. Delicious as well as decorative, each plant will produce as many as seven pumpkins ranging between 25 and 35 pounds apiece. About 100 days from sowing to harvest.

Not surprisingly, Pick A Bushel cucumber produces high yields of crisp, sweet cukes. Heat-tolerant, semi-bush plants are well-behaved in the garden and can also be grown in a large container. Begin harvesting at three to six inches, about 50 days from planting. Great for pickling gherkins or pickling spears, and delicious fresh.

Bopak is the first pak choi to win an AAS award. This mild-flavored cabbage-relative is popular in Asian cuisine. Tender leaves are great in salads or sandwiches, and the broad, crisp white leaf stalks can be used like celery. Harvest as a baby vegetable 45 days from transplant, or allow heads to mature at about eight inches tall. Like most cole-crops, pak choi is best in cooler weather, but this improved variety keeps its good flavor even in hot weather.  

Chef’s Choice Pink is a large 12-14 ounce beefsteak-type tomato with the perfect balance of sugar to acidity. Disease-resistant plants are indeterminate, and require staking to support their abundant yield of 20 to 30 plump fruits.

For excellent flavor with a little heat, try Hot Sunset pepper. This 7” banana or wax pepper is thick-walled and excellent fresh, grilled, roasted or pickled. Spicy, but not fiery, averaging about 650 Scoville units, compared to a sweet bell pepper at 0 units, or a chipotle or jalapeno at around 2,500. Harvest about 85 days from transplant.

AAS awards are an excellent tool for identifying superior choices for your garden. However, these regional awards will require some diligence. In researching for this column, I found that some mail order sources simply identified varieties as AAS winners, without any detail. To be sure that you are choosing a national or great lakes regional winner, reference the AAS website: www.all-americaselections.org, or save a copy of this column.

AAS Cucumber Pickabush

AAS Chef's Choice Pink

AAS Sunflower Suntastic

AAS Pumpkin Cinderella's Carriage

AAS Pepper Hot Sun Set

AAS Pak Choi BoPak