Monthly Archives: January 2012

Last summer, our place had multiple gardens. I had one. Dad had many. Mine was all from Territorial Seed Co., and located out past the windbreaks. Dad’s were from everywhere imaginable, and in many places. There was the “little garden,” a garden we’ve been planting since I was a kid. (There used to be a “big garden” to the north, hence the name.) The rest of his gardens were in the corral. We haven’t had cows for years, and the fertile soil called to him. Our corral is divided into several pens, which resulted in several gardens.

I wanted to run through some of the plants I had last year, before I get completely obsessed with the plants I’ll have this year.

• Rocky Cucumber – I adored these little cucumbers, that are meant to be picked at about 3 inches. They were tender, perfect for snacking, and never bitter. I reordered these for this year’s garden.
• Fountain Cucumber – These grew more all-over-the-place as cucumbers tend to do. They tasted good, and weren’t bitter.
• Little Gem Lettuce – This was a romaine lettuce that formed small heads. It made perfect salads. I reordered this one, too.
• Victoria Lettuce – A buttercrunch lettuce. I liked it well enough, but not as much as the Little Gem.
• Petite Treat Watermelon – This was a seedless watermelon that was pollinated by a seeded watermelon (seeds provided). It was supposed to be a smallish melon, but all I managed to get were the giant seeded watermelons from the pollinator. Whatever they were, they did taste good.
• Candy Onion – I love sweet onions, and this was no exception. I just didn’t much like waiting for the onions to sprout from seed. I’ll try onion sets this year.
• Sugar Sprint Snap Peas – I don’t know why, but these plants never grew more than 6 inches high. The peas were very tasty, though.
• Yukon Gold Potato – This was my first attempt at growing potatoes. I think I overwatered them. However, I did get several potatoes that just ruined storebought potatoes for me.
• Tigress Zucchini and Cube of Butter Yellow Summer Squash – Both of these produced tons of squash, as squash plants tend to do. I liked the flavor of Tigress, but if you didn’t pick them early, they were tough. The yellow squash produced more (I think) than most yellow squashes, but I think the yellow crooknecks taste better.
• Cherry Buzz Tomato – Our tomatoes had a hard time of it last year, in the extreme drought and heat. They’d flower, and produce nothing until we started getting some rain in August. Because of that, I only got about five cherry tomatoes. They were absolutely delicious, though.
• Sunseed Sunflower – My first attempt at sunflowers didn’t go well, but it’s not the plants’ fault. One day, the centers were starting to show the mature seeds, and the next day, they were eaten by the birds. All I could think was, “I should’ve seen that coming.”

I had a few more plants, like sweet corn, that just didn’t survive the heat and drought. (We had an unbroken streak of 100+ degree days that lasted over a month.) I wouldn’t blame the plants, though, because it really was an extreme summer.

Dad had tons more plants and varieties than I did, but I don’t know what most of them were. The few I do know:

• Pinkeye Purple Hull Cowpeas – I think these were from Henry Field’s. They were extremely good producers, and tasted great immature, cooked like green beans. We didn’t let too many get big enough to shell, because we just didn’t have time or patience for shelling.
• Brown Crowder Cowpeas – I don’t know the source for these, but they were also very good producers. We had to shell more of these than the Purple Hull, but the Purple Hull attracted wasps, and these did not.
• Anasazi Beans – These were for dry beans, and we planted them from a package of dry beans from the supermarket. They’re fantastic, and my second favorite dry bean.
• Blue Lake Climbing Beans – Good flavor, no strings, but they turned tough quickly.
• Kentucky Wonder Climbing Beans – Good flavor, but stringy. They didn’t turn tough as quickly as the Blue Lake.
• Contender Bush Beans – These were the best, hands down, of all the green beans I’ve ever tried. They tasted markedly better than all the other green beans. They produced like mad, even after all the leaves had died in the fall. They were tender. They were stringless. They’re getting planted again this year.