What I'm planting 2021

 SPRING GARDEN (due to pandemic, grown from seed unless otherwise noted)

Tomato - Berkley Pink Tie Dye: Compact plants produce beautiful 8-12 ounce fruit with a very sweet, rich, dark tomato flavor. 10 out of 10 people liked the port wine colored beefsteak with metallic green stripes better than Cherokee Purple in a farmers market taste off. Indeterminate. 70 days.  Planted in East Garden on March 14.  Flavor:   Total Harvest:

Tomato - Black Vernissage: This 2 to 3 ounce saladette variety is very good for fresh eating, salads, drying or making sauces. Healthy, highly adaptable and very productive over a long season. Deep mahogany, striped with green. Like most black tomatoes, the flavor is pleasingly rich, especially tasty in sauces. Indeterminate. 75 days.  Planted in East Garden on March 14.  Flavor:  I have a feeling my husband has been adding these to sandwiches, I'm just unaware of it - I usually like to try the tomatoes plain to get a feel for what they actually taste like and then I'll gladly add them to just about anything.  When I finally get to try one of these by itself I'll update here. Total Harvest:

Tomato - Blueberries: A dark bi-colored purple and red cherry variety with a rich, sweet flavor. This purple leafed plant will add a unique touch to the garden. Disease resistant and can grow up to 6′ tall. Perfect for fresh eating, salsas, and salads. Indeterminate. 75 days. Planted in West Garden on March 14. Flavor:   a little watered down in the robust flavor department this year (probably because of the amount of rain we have had). This year they haven't had that acidic tomato flavor that I love.  A perfectly fine tomato to use in salads.  Total Harvest: 

Tomato - Chocolate Sprinkles: (Home Depot - Bonnie Plants). This cherry tomato has it all: good looks, great flavor, heavy yields, and disease resistance. Bite-sized, cherry-type fruits are beautifully colored — red striped with dark green — that explode with rich, robust flavor. This highly productive plant forms its fruit in clusters, and starts bearing early in the season. Support Chocolate Sprinkles Tomato with stakes or sturdy cage at planting time. Indeterminate. 55 days. Planted in West Garden on March 14.  Flavor: I really like the robust tomato flavor of this one.  This tomato goes well in salads, and would also be good in a caprese salad.   Total Harvest:

Tomato - Inca Jewels: These delicious “Roma” style container tomatoes are bred for extra-heavy yields on space-saving 3 ft. plants. Ideal to grow in large pots or in smaller garden spaces. You’ll have an abundance of plump fruits bursting with juicy flavor, delicious right from the garden or made into rich, thick, homemade sauce. Perfect to eat fresh; make sauce or grill; to put up in jars; or just freeze the tomatoes whole in bags to defrost and make sauce as needed at a later date. Indeterminate.  75 days.  Planted in West Garden on March 14  Flavor: Reserving judgement on the flavor until a little later - I have only tried 1 tomato which was mealy and watered down.  Roberta tells me its her favorite tomato this year so I gotta let the remaining ones go until they're really ripe to see if it was just a first one off the plant thing. Total Harvest:

Tomato - Tigerella:   English Heirloom. These unique fruits are noted for their stripes, hence the name. When immature they are a light green with dark green stripes. When mature the stripes alternate between red and a yellow orange. Two inch fruit have a very tangy flavor, yields are very heavy, and quite early. Indeterminate. 60 days. Planted in West Garden on March 14.  Flavor:  Has a pretty bright tomato flavor, but does not have the complexity of the darker tomatoes that I really like.  These have been more consistently added to our sandwiches which is really nice for a change.  Total Harvest: 

Pepper - Habanero: Hot. 95 days. Habanero means 'from Havana'. Habanero and its kin long ago migrated from the Caribbean Islands to Central America where they remain extremely popular today. A close relative of the Jamaican Scotch Bonnet. To complement its searing heat, Habanero has a delicious, pungent, smoky quality unlike any other pepper; many people find its flavor and aroma irresistible in sauces and salsas. Planted in both East and West Gardens on March 14.  Flavor:  Total Harvest:

Pepper - Scotch Bonnet: Hot. 100 days. The Orange Scotch Bonnet pepper is a bonnet-shaped pepper that is excellent in containers and to grow in the North. The flavor is smoky, fruity, and fiery hot! Closely related to the Habanero, the Orange Scotch Bonnet pepper plant is incredibly productive that produces pods about 2 inches long.  Get your hands on the Orange Scotch Bonnet pepper seeds! Planted in East Garden on March 14. Flavor:  Total Harvest:

Herb - Genovese Basil: (Home Depot - Bonnie Plants) Classic Italian Variety. Authentic flavor and appearance. Tall and relatively slow to bolt with large dark-green leaves about 3" long. ht. 24-30".  Use the flowers in any recipe that calls for basil, or to garnish drinks, salads, soups, pasta, and desserts.  Flavor is of intense basil. Planted in East Garden on March 14.

Herb - Purple Sage: (Barton Springs Nursery). As a culinary herb, Purple Sage is one of the most flavorful sages and can be interchanged with regular garden sage. Sage herb plants can be used in all recipes calling for the delicious flavor of sage - stuffing, sausages, soups and stews.  Planted in East Garden on March 14.

Random Seeds:  I've got a plethora of random seeds that I've had around for up to a decade, so this year I planted a whole bunch of them just all over the place - sunflowers, zinnias, cucumbers, watermelons, lumina pumpkins, pattypan squash, etc. and I didn't keep track of what I planted where figuring that most of it was not going to come up (all of these things were seeds older than 3 years - the Lumina pumpkin was 10 years).  So far, the pumpkins did come up (but are getting crowded out by Turks Cap), and the squash and cucumber came up. I don't think any of the melon came up...  I also tried ground cherry again (and just planted it in the garden on 5/21), and a "garden huckleberry: DO NOT EAT RAW" but something ate the plants before I even planted them...

No comments: