The time of year I get excited about and dread at the same time has arrived! Seed catalogs have started to arrive enmass :) I order from the same ones year after year even though some tempt and tyr to lure me away from my tried and true companies...... Jung Seed Co. have been my goto guys since I planted my first garden 35 years ago, then came Vermont Bean and Seed Co. and a relative new commer to my stables is Totally TOmatoes. Jung covers the basics and a few things odd, Venmont has proven to have the best green bean and pole bean seeds IMO, and Totally Tomatoes has a huge variety of tomatoes and peppers both heirloom and hybrid (Again Hybrids are NOT GMO/GEO plants) I do so get tired of that endless debate at markets.... Every cultivated plant in the world became a hybrid at some point in the evolution of agriculture, there is a very large difference between the abominations that are Genetically engineered in a laboratory and decades or even centuries of selective breeding and cross pollination ;) As I glance through I see the T5R staples Gypsy Peppers that I took off the farm to markets for the first time in 2014. It took some time to convince folks they were not wax peppers or hot peppers but rather very sweet and tasty peppers.... The best pepper in the world IMHO :) The Jalepenos as always will return as they are quite popular with our ethnic customers and hot peppers lovers, I hear tell I am getting fairly well known for growing a very hot and still very flavorfull jalepeno, although I actually grow 6 varieties of jalepenos that range from very mild to sneak up on you and set your mouth on fire :) Bell Peppers will be the same old tried and true, Fat n Sassy and Merlots. I have decided to cut many of the tomatoes from the markets, the Rosa Sicillias just did not sell well, no idea why they were hands down the most flavorful tomatoe on our tables and probably at the markets. The wild boars also wont be returning very pretty, good flavor but the green and red metalic stiped skins generated a lot of interest but not many people who wanted to try them :( What will be returning in tomatoes, Super Sioux (Imagine that ;) ) , Centenials, Giant Oxheart, Mortgage lifter, Sugar Lumps, grapette, and our own Hybrid ThunderMaters. As usuall there will be LOTS of green onions, endives, romaine lettuce, leaf lettuce, bib lettuce, swiss chard, collards, Curly and Tuscan Kale, carrots, cucumbers, radishes, and squash as well as our usual line up of herbs. NEW things and returns to past things...... Brussell sprouts, a lot of folks were disappointed that we did not plant any this year. Eggplant, we planted them but they drowned :( Pumpkins, since there will be no hired help in 2015 I wont be told the pumpkins got planted and find all of the pumpkin seeds rotting in a coffee can burried where the pumpkin patch was suposed to be.... Of COurse I am guessing I wont find 500 green onions sprouting up in a 1 square foot area at the end of each row either. But that is the past and from now on less markets and more Mike on the farm. I am finally happy with my own variety of lettuce that I have been working on for the last 9 years. I call it Breath of Fire It is a leaf lettuce that is light green in the center and as the leaf grows it changes to a dark green through the middle of the leaf to a deep red at the tips. It has a very pleasing flavor and adds a new dimension to salads in both eye appeal and flavor. I will have very limited amounts of this new lettuce starting next Saturday at the CCFM Winter Market. It is doing very well in the high tunel and I am kicking myself for not starting more of it for the tunnel :) after nearly a decade of cross pollinating and selective breeding, it germinates true 98% of the time and it time to introduce it to the world. LOL as far as I know the only people to have seen it are Amber, Andrew and Blake :) I am NOT planting anymore bush greenbeans. Twice over the years I have severely damages my back. First time was a couple of fractured lower Vs, Second time the same two Verts got cracked again and as a bonus my tail bone was shattered into lots of pieces.. When you go see a CHiropractor and he is looking at the Xrays and then looking at you and back and forth and finally ask Just how many times have you broken your back? LOL you get the idea...... I am not going to crawl up and down rows of bush beans on my hands and knees and not be able to stand up straight for a week afterwards :) The Alternative and I find them equal to or better than bush beans are Blue Lake Stringless pole beans. I can pick them and maintain them pretty much standing up and wont feel like death for 5-7 days afterward. There is quite a bit more going on in the gardens in 2015 but I am not going to steer very far away from what folks consider traditional garden fare. There are ample other growers that grow the exotic stuff :)
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 08:22:38 +0000
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