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This Year's Lineup
As promised in an earlier post I'm going to list my seed lineup for this year. It's going to seem like a lot (well, it is a lot), but there's a reason for that. And no, it's not because I can't make up my mind.
It all boils down to diversity. Biodiversity is the best insurance for having enough to eat. Carol Deppe writes in The Resilient Gardener that there were two things that saved humankind's bacon during the Little Ice Age, which started in the 1300's and lasted until about 1850: biodiversity and early varieties. Granted: I don't have a Little Ice Age with which to contend, but neither am I a battle-seasoned grower. I want to succeed at growing most of our food, and a lot of different kinds of seed that are for the most part early varieties will go a long way to make that happen.
My original intention with the Franchi seeds which are sold by Seeds From Italy was to trial a few and see how they did. I've read in various places that the packets are generous and that the germination rate is high. I can't comment on the germination rate but I'm happy to report that the packets feel fat with seed. Really fat; given the amount of seed that appears to be in the packet and the price, I would hazard a guess that their seed is a really good value. At any rate, I ordered a lot because once I got in there I couldn't help it. I would have ordered more but restrained myself.
So here's the lineup:
The Italians (and some of them have impossibly long names):
Chicory Catalogna Puntarella Foglie Stretta- this was described as a salad chicory that can also be braised and is in demand by restaurant chefs all over Italy.
Radicchio Rossa di Treviso- this is a long, romaine-shaped radicchio I once had with a steak at Basta in NW Portland. It had been coated in olive oil and cooked on the grill next to my steak and it was incredible. Certainly an experience I'd like to enjoy again!
Arugula Ortlani Market Grower- I love, love, love arugula, especially fresh on top of a pizza.
Bean Vanguard Filet- for green beans my vote goes to the French Filet. This was described as being the best of the best.
Cardoon Bianco Avorio- I've been wanting to try cardoons for years. They are in the artichoke family, and are grown for their ribs, which taste like artichokes. Under the right conditions (most likely not mine) they are perennial.
Celeriac Bianco del Veneto- it seems that all you can get stateside for celeriac seed is 'Brilliant' and I wasn't too impressed with it. This is hopefully a good alternative.
Cima di Rapa Maceratese- I gotta admit that I just love saying this stuff out loud- this is a broccoli rabe that resists bolting, but the best way to prevent broccoli rabe from bolting is to direct seed it- transplanting it makes it bolt. I'm very fond of broccoli rabe in pasta.
Ramolaccio -Spanish Black Radish- this is a storage radish
Kale Galega de Folhas Lisas Smooth Green- its name says it all
Tomato San Marzano- doesn't need explaining
Tomato Red Pear- large, fleshy, few seeds. I hope I like this tomato.
Valerian d'Olanda – this is a mache, or corn salad for winter salads
Chard Verde de Taglio- of all the Italian seed I'm growing this year, I think this is the one in which I'm most interested, with the chicories a close second. When I was a kid, we had chard growing in the backyard, and chard's one virtue is its cut-and-come-again growing habit. But I didn't like chard, and consequently got charded to death as a kid. Even vinegar did not make it taste better. As an adult I find I like sauteed greens very well, so one year I tried chard to see it I've grown out of my dislike for it. Chard is still a waste of garden space, in my book. This particular variety of Italian chard is supposed to taste like spinach!
Basil Bolloso Italiano- for lots of pesto, which freezes well
Sclupit- an Italian herb; I'll report on this one later
Big Daddy onions- I bought plants for these. This is supposed to be a good storage onion and they will ship them to me mid-March. However, onions, while they grow well here, are a tricky thing to grow successfully because the caprices in our spring weather can trick the onions into thinking they've survived a winter and now that it's warm again it's time to grow a flower stalk, which completely ruins the onion. So we'll see.
The seeds from Nichols Garden Nursery:
Costata Romanesco summer squash, because Carol Deppe says it's delicious dried cooked up in soup.
Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead winter squash – Sweet Meat is a Cucurbita maxima that was bred in Portland, Oregon by the Gill Brothers nearly a hundred years ago. Oregon Homestead has been bred back to be as close to the original as possible. Sweet Meat stores well in a cool room and gets only sweeter and better as it ages.
The seeds from Johnny's Selected Seeds:
Ailsa Craig Exhibition onion- hopefully my insurance against funky spring weather if we have it. Supposed to be a good storage onion.
Lancer parsnip- an open-pollinated variety, Lancer is supposed to be better at resisting canker than Harris Early Model, and HEM was the variety I was going to plant this year. I am pretty sure HEM was the variety that I planted the first year I grew parsnip and it did really, really well. Last year I grew Hollow Crown and I couldn't get them out of the ground. It was very disappointing, because I love parsnips.
Cucumber Marketmore 76 – just a good, all-around slicing cucumber. I'm done with pickling them. I'm not as good at it as my neighbor Larry and he shares.
Helenor rutabaga- just because I wanted to try it; I didn't have any luck with the Laurentian, so this year I will trial them against each other.
Fenberg baby romaine- good resistance to bolting, sweet leaves
The seeds left over from previous years (by the way, check your seed against a viability list- don't just throw it out):
Boy, do I have a lot of carrot seed: Danvers Half Long, Nantes, Parisienne (those cute little round carrots) and my favorite, Caracas.
Boy, do I have a lot of cabbage: Mammoth Red Rock, Early Red Acre, Early Flat Dutch, Early Jersey Wakefield, Late Flat Dutch
Rainbow Lacninato kale
White Russian kale
Tango celery
Laurentian rutabaga- I did not have any luck with growing this variety, hence the purchase of Helenor from Johnny's, but I have enough to try this one again this year.
Italian Saladini Blend lettuce mix
Detroit Dark Red beet
Three Root Grex beet
Stowell's Evergreen white corn- this is for Steve, who specifically requested sweet corn this year. I would have preferred to grow another stand of Painted Mountain flour corn, but can't risk cross-pollination from the Stowell's, so I'll wait until next year for the Painted Mountain.
Zefa Fino fennel
Tadorna leek
King Richard leek
Denver fancy filet bush beans
Early Black Egg eggplant
California Wonder Bell (saved seed)
Ethnic Sweet Italian pepper
Cherry Belle radish
Chinese Winter White radish
Mayfair shell pea
Siletz tomato
I also have some Kentucky Wonder pole beans in the freezer which I hope will grow. The packet said that you could grow Kentucky Wonder as all three bean types: green, shell, and dry. I found that I didn't like them as green beans, possibly because I'm spoiled by the wonderfulness of French filet beans, but mostly because they get tough and stringy when they're a little long in the tooth.
But they are unsurpassed as a dry bean. They are delicious and very creamy when they are cooked up, and are a cinch to grow. Last year I grew three tripods of Kentucky Wonder, with four seeds sown per leg, so that's thirty-six seeds. I don't believe they all came up, but I harvested two pounds of dry beans from that space. I think if you are growing beans for subsistence or don't have a lot of room you could do a lot worse than growing Kentucky Wonder. They are wonderful.
Some of the seed I've ordered is for sumer gardening, but probably most of it is for cool weather and fall and winter gardening. Summers are pretty short here. This winter we had a pretty serious freeze, and I am pretty sure I lost both citrus trees, even though I had them under wraps like last year and they survived well then. This year they look pretty dead. The only thing in the garden that survived the freeze were the collards, so I'll grow collards again, but I forgot to order seed, so I'll have to let some of them go to seed so I can collect my own.
I am only slightly concerned that I will have space for all this; I'll have to succession sow and stay on top of when things will be ready. I'm building yet another bed in the back corner of the yard, which is why I'm moving my blueberries and hazels around, but I'm doing it a little unconventionally. I'm building soil with straw bales, but that's a subject for another post.
This seems like a lot of food but it doesn't take into account all the soft fruits, fruit trees and edible plants I already have in the garden: asparagus (I expanded my bed this year and planted some volunteers, as my mother calls them), apples, Italian plums, cherries, strawberries, blueberries, and Boysenberries. I'm planting new pluots and a Montmorency pie cherry once they get here as well.
So that's this year's lineup. What are you planting?
Source: http://weedingforgodot.blogspot.com/2014/01/this-years-lineup.html
