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Behind the Scenes: Pest Management at Red Wagon Plants

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Red Wagon Plants operates as an organic agricultural business. What does this mean for pest and disease management?

Beneficials, our best friends

When visiting our greenhouses you will occasionally find a hanging basket with nothing but tall grass growing in it. Aesthetically maybe not quite pleasing enough to hang on your front porch, and you might wonder what it’s doing here! When you look more closely, you will see that the grass is covered in little black aphids. Depending on how long this ‘banker plant’ has been in use, you will likely also find aphid-sized golden balls attached to the blades of grass. Some of them have a tiny hole cut into one end.

Parasitized aphid mummies

What’s going on here? One of our best and most effective ways to control aphids is the use of parasitoid wasps. If you’re imagining a swarm of yellow jackets buzzing around in our greenhouses, let me paint a different picture: These tiny wasps are less than an ⅛ of an inch long and won’t sting us, so they are not very scary to humans. Aphids are the ones that should be afraid, though. The female wasps lay their eggs into live aphids! When the egg hatches, the larva eats the aphid from the inside, then pupates, turning the dead aphid into the golden-tan mummy out of which it emerges.

We use these beneficials as a preventative measure, so we may not have aphids in our greenhouses when we release them, but we want them to be ready as soon as we have an aphid outbreak. This is where the banker plants come in.

The banker plants - made up of some species of grain and bird cherry-oat aphids - is a nursery for the wasps to lay their eggs in. Bird cherry-oat aphids will only attack cereals and not other crops in our greenhouses, so we are not spreading one pest while trying to manage another.

There are various types of parasitoid wasps, many of which will also visit your garden and aid in your pest management. One of my favorites are the ones that lay eggs on tomato hornworms and eat them up from the inside!

Parasitoid wasps are not the only invertebrate helpers we employ here at Red Wagon Plants. There are many other beneficials that can be used as a preventative measure. Most of them specialize in eating aphids, thrips, spider mites or all of the above, as well as other tasty pests.

Lacewing larva enjoying an aphid meal

Scouting for pests and diseases

Besides beneficials, scouting is the key ingredient to good pest and disease management. This means taking a close look at one plant of each variety each week. This is a lot of work, but it keeps us up to date with what is going on in the greenhouses. As soon as a pest or disease is detected, we can intervene. Oftentimes this means squishing pests by hand, picking off diseased leaves, or moving plants to a dedicated “hospital” area for special treatment and monitoring. Knowing where the pest hotspots are, tells us the most effective place to spread our beneficials each week.

Only if all other measures fail, do we apply broad-spectrum insecticides. Even though these products are approved for organic production, they do not differentiate between friend and foe. So we use them very sparingly and in a localized manner. This is how Integrated Pest Management (IPM) differs from conventional pest control: We only spray after a certain level of pests have been detected, not on a calendar schedule. This has obvious benefits for the environment, and the health of staff and customers.

Preventative Sprays

As any gardener in Vermont knows, fungal diseases are widespread in our humid climate. To limit diseases like powdery and downy mildew, we use preventative sprays. Some of these products actively kill spores on contact by drying them out and changing the pH level. Others contain a beneficial bacterium that will compete for space with pathogens. This means that if the beneficial bacteria is there first, the mildews have less room to spread. Unfortunately every new leaf that grows will need to be treated with this beneficial, so this spray is applied on a weekly schedule as soon as conditions are conducive for mildews. So if you see me walking around at Red Wagon Plants with a Ghost-Busters backpack sprayer, that’s likely what I’m doing!

A display of healthy blooms and foliage plants

This post was written by Kat Consler, RWP’s Integrated Pest Management specialist.




Our Production Team

If you are a regular shopper at RWP, you have likely met the kind and smart people that work in our retail spaces, but you probably have not seen behind the scenes. We have a team of incredible people seeding, planting and growing the plants you take home. It is because of their tremendous work ethic, attention to detail and love of plants, that our plants just hum with vibrancy. Thanks to Sara, Sarah B., Sarah M., Steph, Jill, Chad, Kat, Audrey, and Megan for making the magic happen with your hard work.

Pickled Garlic Scapes

Garlic scapes are the stem of the garlic flower. In late June or early July, they are harvested to help the garlic grow under ground and not put energy into making a flower. They are a delicious by-product of growing garlic and my favorite way to use them is pickled. I keep them all winter and chop them small to top dishes that need a little acidic lift - grain salads, cheesy gratins, tuna salad, egg salad…you get the picture.

They are easy to make and if you don’t grow garlic yourself, we have some to sell right here. Order by midnight Wednesday for pick up Friday.

PICKLED GARLIC SCAPES

  • Snip or cut off the tip of the scape (the pointy bit) and discard it.

  • Fill a quart jar(s) with curled up scapes. Add 4 tsp salt and 3 tsp sugar to each jar. Add a hot pepper, dried or fresh (optional)

  • Heat up a mixture of 1 part vinegar, 1 part water to a boil (enough to fill the amount of jars you have filled with scapes).

  • Pour the hot mixture into each jar to ½” from the top. Screw the lid on.

Let cool, and keep refrigerated for up to 6 months. These taste best after about a week. You can also keep these shelf stable by sterilizing your jars first and then finish the sealed jars in a hot water bath according to the specifics of your jar manufacturer


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The Lemon-Scented Garden

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Lemon bergamot

If you wander through the herb section of our greenhouse, you’ll notice quite a few plants with “lemon” in their name. While their aromas and flavors differ slightly, these herbs all offer a bright, citrusy scent that will perfume the herb garden as well as your kitchen. 

Many of these lemony herbs are actually in the mint family (Lamiaceae), a group of plants already well known for their diverse and potent aromas, thanks to high concentrations of volatile oils that are encased in bubble-like trichomes on the leaves and flowers. When the leaves are rubbed or dropped into hot water the trichomes open up, offering the heady aromas and flavors we have come to love.

Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis) is a beloved herbal remedy that is as tasty as it is healing (we love it so much we already wrote a whole blog post about it). The plant itself is a mounding perennial that grows about two feet high and up to three feet wide. Harvesting the leaves for fresh or dry tea will also help this plant keep its shape.

In the kitchen garden, lemon basil and lemon thyme are indispensable. At Red Wagon, we love layering piles of fresh lemon basil underneath a chicken before grilling or roasting it. And lemon thyme is fabulous both fresh and dried. Crumble the dried leaves into soups, rubs, and marinades to impart a citrusy zest all season long- no real lemons required. Lemon basil is an annual, but lemon thyme may perennialize if it’s happy, similarly to lavender in the northern garden.

The fourth member of the lemon-scented Mint family is lemon bergamot (Monarda citriodora), with no relation to the citrus plant Bergamot orange. This plant has a lovely upright habit and tall pink flower spikes that pollinators adore. Use the leaves and flowers in tea, where it offers a lemony, floral aroma with a hint of spice, although less potent than its cousins, lavender and scarlet bee balm. Unlike those species, M. citrodora is an annual, although it may self seed in the garden. Try planting alongside Verbena bonariensis and clary sage for a riot of fragrance and pollinator attraction.

Lemon verbena (Aloysia tryphilla) is one of the most potently fragrant lemon-scented herbs. Grown as a woody perennial in warmer climates, in Vermont it does well in a pot, brought inside to overwinter. The coarse, lanceolate leaves are full of citrusy aroma and flavor. Bring bunches inside to perfume the home, and blend into teas and simple syrups. For a very Mediterranean tea blend, toss a few lemon verbena leaves and a sprig of fresh rosemary into a cup and fill with hot water. It’s a simple afternoon pick-me-up with no caffeine and a delicious, easy-to-love flavor.


Perhaps the most well known lemony herb is lemongrass (Cymbopogon citratus). While the cool Vermont summer doesn’t produce stems that are quite as thick as what you will see in stores, it’s still easy to grow this grassy annual in a pot or herb garden for fresh use. To best retain the full flavor, cut back and freeze the stalks at the end of the season- you will capture more of the citrusy essence than with dried leaves. The leaves have a tough texture, so they’re best used similarly to a bay leaf and removed after cooking. We like to infuse coconut milk with homegrown lemongrass before adding it to soups and curries.

Lemon verbena in our high tunnel

This blog post was written by Sophie Cassel, Red Wagon’s wholesale coordinator and community outreach team member. Sophie is an herbalist and educator. You can find her workshops here.

Cleaning up the Asparagus bed

After producing all spring, asparagus benefits from a clean up and some fertility. First, weed the bed carefully using a knife and your hands. You want to cut the weeds out and gently remove them without disturbing the asparagus roots.

After weeding.

In order to not disturb the roots later in the season, it is important to prevent weeds from growing during the summer. I laid down cardboard along both sides of the row. This is a young asparagus patch, and still growing in a row. If yours is older, it is likely much wider than this or growing in a circle or oval. If that is the case, mulch the whole perimeter with cardboard.

I use Perennial Blend and compost from VT Compost Company. The Perennial Blend covers the cardboard, which will later break down, turning into soil along with the Perennial Blend. The compost is applied right to the crown of the asparagus and will feed the plant which will in turn feed the roots to make a great patch for next year.

The darker compost is in a strip right over the asparagus crowns. The lighter soil is the Perennial Blend. It hides the cardboard (which blocks out the weeds) and both will break down to feed the soil and the asparagus.

A Poem in Honor of Paul Robeson on this Memorial Day

The writer Anna Blackmer, recently sent us this illuminating and moving poem which she generously agreed to share here. Anna wrote this in the spring of 2020. I am so touched that a tomato plant from us had small role in the spark that created this beautiful piece.

Paul Robeson in 1942

Tomato Harvest 

This year, to evade blight, I planted three tomato plants  in pots on the south side of the house. 

The Green Zebra went in last, because all the plants had sold out amid the pandemic rush 

to imagined self-sufficiency in late May. 

A week or two earlier I’d bought a Sun Gold 

and the Paul Robeson, each maybe six inches tall,  from Julie R., whose father came to Vermont from France  and baked the best bread anybody around here ever tasted.  Julie’s greenhouses are miracles of care and warmth, the tiny heirloom seeds laid down into cells months before  we flock to buy them. 

Now the three plants have grown so much 

they entwine and escape their cages, fruits 

turning ripe every day, faster than I can imagine  how to eat them. No canning, probably 

no freezing—these fleshpots deserve more 

than thrift or prudence. Every day 

I pick seven or eight of the small, orange Sun Golds and eat some before I go inside. 

I roast them, sauce them, cut them in half  

to expose the seeds and jelly. The Zebras 

are tricky—they can turn yellow and soft overnight,  and the trick is to eat them before they lose that subtle bite,  the citrus edge that sets them apart from any other tomato. I avoid cooking them, though maybe I shouldn’t— it makes me feel innocent to eat them  

plain with salt. 

But the Robesons are my favorites—rarer,  

redder, bigger, darker. Thin-skinned, almost always  cracked across their olive-green shoulders, 

and when sliced across the grain, 

there’s a universe inside. They taste smoky  

and sweet and stay on the tongue. 

When I harvest them, I have to cut the stem carefully, and hold each fruit in two hands. 

But the plants are hardier, can stand  

some cold, because they were bred in Siberia,  

no one seems to know exactly when or where.  

Somehow, I imagine it was a woman who created this tomato,  as it was a woman, Marina Danilenko,  

who, with her mother, started the first seed company in Russia 

in1991 after the fall of Communism, 

and brought the seeds of the Pol Robeson to America. The young women farmers at my local Saturday market  grow them now, and they’ve never heard of Paul Robeson, even though they probably have a Black Lives Matter sticker  on their cargo van. 

They don’t yet know his father was a minister  

who’d escaped slavery, his mother a Quaker,  

that he was born in Princeton but wasn’t admitted  to the university because of his skin color, that  

he was a football star at Rutgers,  

that he earned a law degree from Columbia 

but couldn’t stomach the racism he encountered in the law, so turned to acting and singing.  

That he played in the NFL, then played 

Othello on Broadway, that he changed the lyrics to Ol’ Man River, that he made more than a dozen films before he eventually stopped taking demeaning roles, that he traveled to Spain during the Civil War  

and sang for the International Brigades  

and went to the Soviet Union many times, 

where he said, “This is home to me.” 

That he used his celebrity to fight lynching, 

support white steelworkers,  

and promote anti-colonialism in Africa and Aboriginal rights in Australia. 

Until I grew this tomato I didn’t know, either, 

that he had an affair with an English actress 

that almost destroyed his marriage, that he ended segregation in Los Angeles hotels by sitting 

in the lobby of the Beverly Wilshire every day 

he stayed there, that he was never a member  

of the Communist Party but was hauled before the HUAC,  where he said, “Whatever has happened to Stalin, gentlemen,  is a question for the Soviet Union.…  

You are responsible, and your forebears,  

for 60 million to 100 million black people dying in the slave ships and on the plantations,  

and don’t ask me about anybody, please.” 

I didn’t know that he was blacklisted, that his films and records were soon hard to come by, that 

his passport was confiscated for several years  

so he had to sing over a telephone cable to 5,000 people in England, or that when he went to court and won his passport,

he left the US and was hospitalized 

in London for heart problems and manic depression, then tried to kill himself in a Moscow hotel after a wild party.  

For years he was dogged by the CIA, MI5, the FBI, treated in clinics with drugs and electro-shock therapy, until he came back to America and retired. He argued with James Farmer and Bayard Rustin over his political beliefs, never renouncing Stalin, and lived with his sister in Philadelphia, 

in seclusion, until he died in 1976. 

He was a complicated man, and I’m in tears now, just thinking about his life, 

what he did and didn’t do, what he could 

and couldn’t do. What I’ve done, 

and not done.  

The tomato sits on my cutting board,  

waiting for me to slice it open. 

Anna Blackmer 

September, 2020

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Growing Gourmet Greens

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We are growing some truly gourmet greens this year for you to try out in your garden. In addition to adding new flavors to your plate, many of these vegetables have better pest, disease and heat tolerance than some of the more commonly grown vegetables like spinach or arugula. If you love growing your own salad, you should pick a few of these to try this year!

Mache- Mache is the best cold-season salad green, and woefully underutilized given our long, cold spring climate. Sweet, thickly textured glossy green leaves add depth and nutty flavor to your salads, and are best eaten as a whole plant, cut right above the roots. Wash well and dress lightly with olive oil, hazelnut oil, or walnut oil, a squeeze of lemon and some good sea salt.

Radicchio- This spring we have a few radicchio varieties available: Leonardo, Virtus, and Bel Fiore, and you should try growing them all. These chicory family members develop small, cabbage-like heads that are mildly bitter, with a delicious crunch that make them ideal for raw salads, dressed with a creamy vinaigrette. They are also delicious grilled or broiled. All radicchios prefer cooler growing temperatures and are mildly frost-tolerant, so they’re a great option for the early spring garden. Plant again in the late summer for fresh greens that will last well into the fall.

Frisée- Another member of the chicory family with frilly, finely cut leaves that mature into a giant head. Use the young leaves in salad, or allow the head to fully mature, when the center will blanch and become extra tender.

Escarole in the garden

Merveille des Quatres Saisons

Escarole- A staple of Italian cooking, escarole shines as a cooked green alongside brothy white beans. When growing, patience is an asset, as the flavor improves and the inner leaves become more tender when allowed to fully mature. Pale inner leaves are great raw in salads.

If you’d prefer to stick with the more familiar head lettuce, you can still experiment with some new varieties! Two of our favorites are Merveille des Quatres Saisons and Forellenschluss. Merveille de Quatres Saisons is a French heritage variety that translates to “Marvel of Four Seasons”, and it lives up to the name with sweet, red-tipped bibb leaves that produce in all types of weather. Forellenschluss, AKA Speckled Trout Back, is an Austrian heirloom romaine that boasts speckled leaves and grows well through the summer heat.

Mache, Frisée, lettuces and chicories ready for the garden

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What is Hope up to in the Garden?

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Here is a little update from Hope Johnson about what she has been up to in her garden. Hope is an unmatched talent in many departments and creative ventures including quilt making, garden design, and as an advocate for bees and pollinators. We always look to her for inspiration and now you can too!

She says:

Turned the compost which is now thawed enough to do so.

Pruned back and reduced the bed size of the Fall Gold Raspberries. Added a dusting ofwood ash (not enough to alkalize but good for potassium), lightly weeded and mulched a lot.

After a very positive experience growing winter squash last year, I am expanding my vegetable beds in the sunny area of my yard since the star magnolia has turned my kitchen garden into a part-shade environment with the consequence of inadvertently growing miniature vegetables.
NO DIGGING. Put down a generous layer of partly decomposed horse manure and bone meal, then wet cardboard, and a layer of locally sourced leaves (from my lawn) and straw. By planting time in late May, I think the microbes and invertebrates will have done their thing and I'll addhomemade compost to each planting hole.
The garlic is up and I planted two new varieties this year, Duganski and Vietnamese Red.



Edible Annual Flowers

Many of our beloved annual flowers have applications beyond their beauty in the garden or the vase. You may already be growing edible flowers without realizing it! These flowers are great for adding color and flavor to summer dishes or freezing in ice cube trays for magical floral beverages. Choose from this list when growing a kid-friendly cutting garden to allow for as much hands on interaction as possible.

It’s important to note that “edible” does not necessarily translate to “delicious”. But many of these flowers do offer a nice addition of flavor, and those that are more bland or bitter are still worthwhile choices for decorating cakes or using as a garnish. 

Additionally, as with anything headed for the kitchen, it’s important to either grow from seed or purchase plants from an organic greenhouse like Red Wagon, so that you know they haven’t been treated with chemicals that would render the flowers less than lovely to eat.

Stock and Sweet Alyssum, both edible flowers in the Brassica family

Sweet Alyssum (Lobularia maritima): This sprawling member of the Brassica family has the four-petaled flowers that identify that genus, and the leaves and flowers are characteristically peppery. Include in an arugula salad for some color and extra zing. As a bonus, alyssum (and its bigger cousin, the Lobularia cultivar) provide some helpful early pollinator habitat and pest protection when planted in the vegetable garden.
Violets and Pansies (Viola spp.): The colorful violas and pansies found early in spring at the greenhouse are nearly identical to those sweet spring flowers poking through the grass in your backyard, and all parts of the plant are edible. The fresh flowers have a sweet, almost wintergreen-like flavor and look gorgeous when candied and pressed into cookies or iced cakes.

Calendula and Marigold (Tagetes spp.): We’re such big fans of these two genus we made a whole other blog post about them! Calendula has long been used as a tea herb, and the different marigold species have a wide array of edible and medicinal uses dating back to Aztec times. 

Bachelor Buttons (Centaurea cyanus): One of the easiest “true blue” flowers to grow, Bachelor’s Button flowers also come in a sweet array of purples, whites and pinks, with a mildly sweet and vegetal flavor. The petals retain their blue color quite well when dried, so be sure to harvest and dry some to brighten up herbal tea blends this winter. 

White Snapdragons against a backdrop of African Blue basil

Snapdragons (Antirrhinum spp.): While the flowers of this eye-catching species certainly aren’t going to win any taste tests (they are typically described as “bland” and “bitter”), they are in fact edible. Pluck the petals from the bitter base of the flower and arrange on a platter to create a showstopper garnish for any summer meal. 

Nasturtium (Tropaeolum spp.): Nasturtiums are one of the most commonly used edible flowers, and are well known for their bright, spicy flavor. Add leaves and flowers to salads, infuse a flower vinegar, pickle the buds and seed pods… the possibilities are only limited by your imagination and affinity for their peppery bite.

Stock (Matthiola incana): A longtime favorite of florists, four-petaled stock is in the Brassica family like sweet alyssum. The flowers are peppery and clove-like, so try adding them to salads or atop grilled fish and vegetables for a colorful kick.

Dianthus (Dianthus caryophyllus): The annual species of this classic carnation has been in cultivation for well over 2,000 years. The flower petals are fragrant and have a mild clove-like flavor, perfect for adding to iced beverages and fancy desserts. Pluck petals off the bitter green base before use.

Scarlet Runner Bean ‘Painted Lady’ (Phaseolus coccineus): This vining relative of the common bush bean is native to the highlands of Central America. The beautiful red and white flowers can be enjoyed as a snack or in salads, or left to ripen to mature beans which can be eaten fresh or dried down. 

Hyacinth Bean Vine (Lablab purpureus):This gorgeous vining bean is similar in habit and use to scarlet runner bean, and has been cultivated as a food crop in Africa and the tropics for millenia. The elegant purple leaves make a good cooking green, and the beans are edible when fully cooked.

Ruby Moon Hyacinth bean vine

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Grow a Purple Food Garden

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Purple Napa cabbage ‘Merlot’

If you thought that color-coordination was reserved for the flower garden, try expanding your palette (and your palate) this year. These purple-hued veggie and herb varieties combine to make a dramatic edible display, whether grown together or interspersed in the garden. In addition to being stunners in the garden, highly pigmented foods tend to contain high levels of antioxidant anthocyanins, elevating healthful eating from garden to plate.

Early in the season, tuck vivid purple alyssum alongside herbs and salad greens like ‘Red Batavia’ lettuce, one of our favorite head lettuces for its vibrant color and sweet tender leaves. The alyssum will continue to bloom even as spring lettuces are replaced by summer herbs. Purple basil and purple shiso are both grown in a similar manner- pinch back after transplanting to encourage bushier growth, harvest leaves for culinary use or allow them to flower for a more ornamental look. Purple basil is used just like green Genovese basil, and shiso is a popular Japanese herb with a flavor like cumin and clove. Use the leaves to make lettuce wraps or color radish pickles a vibrant red.

If you have the room and patience, cauliflower offers a fun payoff, and the ‘Graffiti’ variety boasts a wild purple head peeking out from blue-green leaves. Cauliflower can be sown in spring as long as they are kept watered through summer (and maybe offered some purple shade using ‘Hopi Red Dye’ amaranth); sow mid-summer for a fall harvest.

While traditional red cabbage always deserves a place in the garden, this year we are thrilled to be growing purple Napa cabbage, which offers all the versatility and crunch of green Napa in a stunning wine color. We can’t wait to chop it into colorful slaws and kimchi later this year.

Freshly dug garden potatoes are easy to grow and very rewarding, and digging up ‘Adirondack Blue’ potatoes really feels like unearthing buried jewels from the garden. The reddish-purple skin reveals violet flesh that holds its color even when cooked, making for stunning roasted or mashed potatoes.

Another unusual addition to the purple garden is the ‘Colorado Star’ artichoke, whose spiny 1-3’ tall plants produce a relatively high yield of buds in a range of purple hues. This artichoke variety matures earlier than others, making it a good option for our relatively short season. Grow them as an annual, and combine with purple-topped Verbena bonariensis and flavorful bronze fennel to create height and architectural interest in a garden that transcends the boundaries between edible and ornamental.

Verbena bonariensis

This blog post was written by Sophie Cassel, Red Wagon’s wholesale coordinator and community outreach team member. Sophie is an herbalist and educator. You can find her workshops here.

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Many Marigolds

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Giant African Marigolds in the garden of RWP friend Bob Furrer

Marigold: even the common name evokes a sense of radiance and joy, which is exactly what these plants bring to the garden. But not all members of the Tagetes genus are the same, and it can be confusing for the new gardener to know which type is best suited to which part of their planting plan. Read on to learn about some commonly confused species and a few other marigolds you’ll want to include in your garden. All marigold petals can be dried and used as a seasoning in winter time.

French Marigold

Tagetes patula, French Marigold. This cute, compact species is often planted as a companion in vegetable gardens, as it attracts beneficial insects and produces alpha-terthienyl, which helps deter nematodes and other pests. T. patula only reaches about a foot tall at most, and doesn’t have a spreading habit, so it’s easy to tuck in between tomato plants or around the edges of the garden bed. They come in a rich display of saturated sunset colors on 2” blooms, with many cultivars boasting variegation on the petals and a crested, double bloom.

Tagetes erecta, African Marigold, American Marigold, Mexican Marigold. Also known as Giant Marigold, which is a helpful reminder that this species can grow well above 3’ tall depending on the cultivar. T. erecta has large 3” blooms with dozens of petals packed tightly together, and come in single colors of vivid yellow and orange. Strategically placed, these tall flowers can provide afternoon shade for greens like arugula and cilantro, which tend to bolt in the hot summer sun. They provide the same beneficial insect and pest protection as T. patula in a larger, showy package. They also work beautifully in a cut flower garden alongside Benary’s Giant zinnias and tall snapdragons. Pick off flowers regularly to encourage blooming all summer. Giant marigolds are especially useful as dye plants and make gorgeous flower garlands, which are important elements in marriage and death rituals around the world. 

African Marigold, ‘Crackerjack’

Both of these species are technically edible, though not particularly delicious. The aromatic petals should be removed from the base of the flower, which tends to be quite bitter. Add to a pot of rice for a saffron-like effect, or include in baked goods for a splash of edible color. Read on for two more less common Tagetes species that are definitely must-haves for the edible flower garden.

Lemon Gem Marigold

Tagetes tenuifolia, Gem Marigold. These plants are a favorite at Red Wagon for their feathery foliage, compact clumping habit, and profuse blooms. Their petite flowers attract insects and keep blooming even without consistent harvest. Plant gem marigolds in their own containers or include in the herb and vegetable garden. Your imagination is the limit with how to include these flowers in your kitchen: top salads, pizzas or pastas with the bright petals, or decorate cupcakes for summer birthday celebrations. The green sepals and stems can be bitter, so remove those before eating.

Mexican Mint Marigold

Tagetes lucida, Mexican Mint Marigold, Mexican Tarragon. Easily the most delicious of all of the Tagetes species, Mexican Mint Marigold has small, yellow flowers that are primarily employed for their sweet licorice flavor, which can be added to beverages and salads. The Aztecs considered T. lucida sacred and used the plant in the preparation of their famous drinking chocolate. True to its native habitat, this compact plant thrives in heat and full sun, and will bloom from late summer through fall.

Calendula officinalis ‘Alpha’

An honorable mention goes to Calendula officinalis, often referred to as Pot Marigold. Although Calendula is not in the Tagetes genus, it does, like marigold, share a place in the Asteraceae or Daisy family. Calendula has oblong, waxy leaves and a flower that looks more similar to a tiny sunflower than a true marigold. Calendula has been similarly bred to display single and double blooms in a wide array of yellows, oranges and reds, and is held in high esteem as an herbal remedy (see our post about it here). Use the whole flower heads in fresh or dry tea blends, pluck the petals from the bitter center and sprinkle them on salads and cookies, or use as medieval folk did and throw a handful of the dried flowers into broths and stocks, where it lends rich color, flavor and medicinal benefit to soups all winter long. 

Whether planted for their beauty, defensive strategies, or edible petals, marigolds will provide a dash of sunshine well after the garden has been put to bed. With a variety of cultivars in each species, you could be forgiven for filling up your entire garden in Tagetes (and Calendula) flowers this year. You can find a list of all the marigolds we grow here.

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Turning Towards the Garden

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As always, the garden has been a refuge during difficult times for many of us. And the fresh snow that just came through does not have to hinder that practice. We can retreat into planning mode, escape into the creative process and find solace in what is to come. The garden is a place for hope and renewal.

Chad Donovan, Red Wagon horticulturist and all around great human, showed me some pictures he took earlier this winter after he stomped around in the snow to map our 2022 display gardens. He is reworking the layout so that it is well suited to classes, tours and work parties. I just loved his process and had never seen that before and am eager to share it with you. What a creative way to map out the garden in real space, and to see just how it fits into the landscape. And it is a fun thing to do with kids or grandkids. Speaking of those, have yours been on school vacation this week? Maybe you would you like to plan your veggie garden with them in mind. Some of our favorite ways to do that can be found here, in a blog post Sophie wrote about some of our favorite vegetable varieties to grow for little helpers who want to snack while they “work”.

Every garden should be built with use and practicality in mind, with beauty not far behind. The month of March is a great time to work on garden plans and designs. We are here to help, and have lots of resources to offer you in that vein.

Ellen Ecker Ogden, who designed the beautiful garden in the middle image above (illustration by Ramsay Gourd, from Ellen’s book The Complete Kitchen Garden), will be teaching an online course for us on The Art of Kitchen Garden Design. She will highlight some of her favorite ways to approach the vegetable garden with an artistic eye so that you can create a space that is welcoming and special. You can register for her class and see our 2022 curriculum by clicking the button below.

If you are just starting out with vegetable gardening, our owner, Julie Rubaud, will be teaching an in-person class geared towards first time gardeners on March 19th. You can find out more here.

We also have our complete 2022 plant list up on the website. You can find that here. Making a plant list is a great place to start with garden planning, and Sarah M. has been very diligent in updating our website so that it reflects all of the 1200+ varieties we are growing. Please take a look and tell us about your favorites! We love feedback on varieties, so also tell us which ones are duds in your experience.

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Veggie Gardening with Kids

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If you’re planning to do a lot of gardening with young ones this year, consider some of our most popular “kid’s sized” vegetables. These varieties are easy to grow and crank out prolific, tasty produce that take well to consistent harvesting by eager garden helpers. With this list, you’ll have something snackable  in the garden every month of the growing season.

Mexican sour gherkin

If your family loves cucumbers, both Picolino cucumbers and Mexican sour gherkins should find a spot in your garden this year. Picolino are a prolific and crisp cocktail cucumber, harvested at just 4-5” long for maximum sweetness and crunch. Mexican sour gherkins are also known as “mouse melons” and their inch-long fruits resemble something out of a fairy tale. They have a tart, lemony flavor and firm bite that kids love. Both varieties produce long vines and tendrils, so offer plenty of support with a trellis and watch them climb up, up, and away. They could even grow on a little teepee. Remember that they also benefit from consistent harvesting, which make them perfect for a daily scavenger hunt to find the ripe fruits.

Lunchbox peppers are so named for their snackable size, maturing at just 2-3” long and coming in shades of yellow, orange and red. These peppers are super sweet, and their small size also encourages more prolific fruiting per sturdy plant. While perfect for fresh eating, lunchbox peppers do equally well sauteéd and stuffed.

There’s no better seed to sow with kids than radishes. Sown directly in the garden early in the spring and carefully thinned to 1-2”, radishes offer a relatively quick payoff of bright pink roots with a sweet, pleasantly peppery flavor. Watered adequately and harvested early, radishes can be seeded in the veggie garden all season long. Try a mix of French breakfast and cherry red varieties for a range of harvest times and colors. 

Alongside your radish patch, set in some sprouting broccoli (also known as broccolini). It’s well known that broccoli is a favorite green with kiddos, and these sprouting types offer a “cut and come again” approach that is much more consistent and satisfying than waiting half the season for one full-sized crown. Broccolini are also more heat tolerant, although they’ll want plenty of water and decent soil. The sweet stems and florets are easily incorporated into mixed grills, crudité platters, and mixed into classic mac n’ cheese. These broccoli shoots are so sweet, they are also perfect to eat out of hand in the garden.

Baby Bear pumpkins mature to about half the size of a typical pie pumpkin, late in the season. They have very sturdy handles that make them appealing to children because they are easy to hold and don’t risk losing their stems. While they make excellent decorative pumpkins, Baby Bear has a sweet flesh that is perfect for pie making, and semi-hulless seeds that make a tasty roasted snack.


Of course, no children’s garden would be complete without cherry tomatoes, and Sungolds continue to win out with their bright orange color and candy-sweet flavor that kids can’t get enough of. Be sure to provide trellising and harvest consistently to prevent fruits from cracking. One plant will provide enough for snacks, but plant more for drying, freezing, canning, roasting or adding to salsa and sauces.

This blog post was written by Sophie Cassel, Red Wagon’s wholesale coordinator and community outreach team member. Sophie is an herbalist and educator. You can find her workshops here.

Our New Look!

You may have noticed we have a new look! We are excited to share it with you and hope you love it as much as we do. When I started this business, in 2005, my daughter was 8. She had a hand in coming up with our first logo - the sweet girl pulling the wagon. Louissa is now 25 (gulp!), out on her own big adventure and fully adulting.  As a team and business , we have grown up too.  While we still love these memories and that image, we have felt ready for a little makeover. Our new look better represents the abundance that surrounds us and embraces the community we’ve grown into today.  To us, it feels fresh and reflects our optimism for the future, yet remains grounded here in Hinesburg and in the 15+ year journey that has brought us to this moment. 

Big thanks to designer Tara Lynn Clayton, who has been an absolute pleasure to collaborate with. And to Lily Belisle, Sophie Cassel, April Howard, FM Muñoz, and Dan Kirk who have been busy guiding this process and making all new materials that you will see around the greenhouses, online and at our plant stands around town.

Fun fact: we have 1088 new plant signs in the works!

I am incredibly grateful to this team, and everyone on the Red Wagon crew (past, present and future) for taking this plant growing venture from a card table at the Burlington farmers market in 1996 to what it is today - a bustling oasis of plants, people, greenhouses and an herb farm. Dreams do come true. 

We are Hiring!

Open Positions for the 2022 season……

Red Wagon Plants is known for high-quality organic plants, an efficient, system-based work flow, and stellar customer service. We have a fun work atmosphere with fellow plant lovers, a paid lunch break, free plants for your own garden, and a beautiful work environment.

Want to join our team?

Red Wagon’s RETAIL TEAM in Hinesburg, VT has openings.

Our retail crew is the face of the operation and we count on our staff to be knowledgeable, courteous, and confident. Since 2020 we now have multiple ways of shopping at Red Wagon, in person and online (limited). When not helping customers, people on the retail crew are moving plants all day long, restocking, and keeping the greenhouses clean and tidy. We are continuously making room in the retail greenhouses for new plants from the production greenhouses, creating displays and filling our space with color. We expect our retail crew to have a strong memory so they can recognize our regular customers, remember plant names and also know where all the plants are located. Our retail crew is responsible for watering and maintaining plant health within the retail greenhouses.

Interested in being a Retail Crew Member? 

Requirements: 

  • You are a gardener and plant lover with a strong background of gardening in Vermont. 

  • You have a growing interest in perennials, annuals, container gardening, vegetable gardening, you have the confidence to give advice to beginner and more advanced gardeners. 

  • You are physically fit to work outdoors in all weather and lift heavy plants repeatedly. 

  • You are friendly, kind, and patient. 

  • You enjoy working in a team. 

  • You are able to keep your calm in a busy and crowded retail setting. 

  • You can work independently and have a sense of responsibility. 

  • You have already worked in either a retail garden center, a vegetable or flower farm, for a landscaper or a nursery OR you have at least 5 years of experience gardening in a climate like Vermont's. 

When? 

  • Seasonal Position, Mid April to June/July/August - end date varies case by case. 

  • Full time and part time positions are available.

  • Daily schedule varies. We’re looking for both opening shifts, beginning at 7:30am and closing shifts, ending at 6:30pm.

  • 3 to 5 days a week, and must be available for at least 1 weekend shift per week. 


If you would like to apply, please Contact Retail Manager, Lily Belisle, lily@redwagonplants.com with a resume, 3 references, and a cover letter describing why you’d like to work with plants and with Red Wagon. Tell us what you love most about gardening! Show us why you want to share your love of gardening with others.


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A year for growing and learning

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Welcome to a new year, friends. We are putting together our workshops and classes for the 2022 season and would love your help. Would you let us know more about your garden learning goals for this year and what type of events you would like to attend, virtually or in person? We cannot wait to hear your thoughts, and we have created a quick survey for you to fill out. It should take less than 5 minutes, and to thank you we will enter you in a raffle to win a complete set of our homegrown and handmade herb salts and vinegars. Thank you so much for your time and help. We cannot wait to see you all soon.

Cheers from Julie, Sophie, and Sarah - the Red Wagon Community Outreach Team

Simple Gifts

I have been drying orange slices and making all sorts of simple holiday decorations this past week. It is a fun and uplifting way to get into the holiday spirit or to honor the return of the light at solstice.

Hello and warm wishes from all of us at Red Wagon. I just wanted to pop in and give you a little reminder that this coming Friday, December 17th, will be our last order pick up for any purchases you make in our online store. If you would like any gifts for the gardener or the cook on your list, or you want to treat yourself to a little something, here is your chance!

Our suggestions:

Our cute new gift packs of herb salts are the perfect hostess gift, all ready to go. You can find those here. Each package is lovingly packed and dressed up with a cotton ribbon and includes a wooden miniature salt cellar and salt spoon.

How cute is this?

This sickle weeder is easily everyone’s favorite hand tool at Red Wagon Plants. I never step into the garden without it if there is weeding to do.

The Hori Hori knife is also a staple in my garden tool box. It is so handy for making a planting hole, digging out tough roots, or cutting back fibrous stems.

While this won’t win “Most Romantic Gift”, we think that any serious houseplant owner would be thrilled to receive a bag of potting soil or Compost Plus made by our friends at VT Compost Company.

And these gardening gloves are a sweet little gift that will fit into a stocking or parcel just fine. They are another favorite of mine that I stash in my tool box, car, and garden shed. You never know when you might want to get your hands in dirt!

Finally, thank you for making 2021 another amazing season for us. We are excited for our future with you, and have lots of new developments that we will be sharing soon. Your love of plants, nature, and people is what fuels us.

With love from our gardens to yours,

Julie and the crew