Monday, February 27, 2012

Veg Variety Changes for 2012

The seed order is complete.  And, since it is complete, we thought we'd fill everyone in on new varieties, varieties that have gone from trial to full production and varieties we have dropped (and why).

New Trials:
   Chinese Cabbage - Minuet
   Daikon (spring) - Discovery
   Leek - Bandit (for overwintered leeks)
   Romanesco
   Cipollini Onion - Yellow Borettana
   Bunching/Green Onions - Guardsman, Deep Purple
   Kale - Ripbor
   Green Bean - Empress
   Pole Bean - True Red Cranberry
   Melon - Minnesota Midget (for tunnel production)
   Zucchini - Golden Zucchini
   Summer Squash - Success PM
   Pea - Mammoth Melting Sugar

Move from Trial to Full Scale:
   Daikon (fall) - Miyashage
   Onion - White Wing, Redwing
   Kohlrabi - Gigante
   Fall Radish - Misato Rose and Black Spanish
   Lima - Christmas Lima
   Turnip - White Egg, Red Round
   Green Bean - Black Valentine

Returning:
   Kale - Lacinato
   
 No more on the farm - unless we convince ourselves to reverse this in the future - or the seed is available again:
   Broccoli - Packman (seed not available)
   Pea - Blizzard (seed not available)
   Pea - Maestro (cutting back on shell peas - takes too much to produce enough for the CSA)
   Cucumber - Poinsett 97 (seed not available)
   Cucumber - Longfellow (seems that most people won't take these big cucumbers - even if they do taste great)
   Melons - Schoon's Hard Shell, Prescott Fond Blanc, Sweet Granite (we're cutting back on melons since we've had crop failures of late - trying to focus on a few that have had more reliable results in the past - no more playing around)
   Pepper - Buran will not be planted in the field.  We'll try a few in the high tunnel and see if they like that.  If not, that's it.
   Zucchini - Cashflow (seed no longer available - we have a few left over to plant)
   Summer Squash - Superpik and before that Multipik (This one annoys us - the industry has taken both out and it seems as if we can't expect any constancy in this area.  We're hopeful a new (to us) open pollinated variety from High Mowing will work.  If it does - we may have ourselves the consistency for straight neck summer squash we have wanted for years.)
   Winter Squash - Potimarron and Pennsylvania Dutch (neither liked us much, thus we didn't like them so much.  We have to admit that we wanted Potimarron to work and Penn Dutch was just for fun.)
   Leek - Prizetaker (we like King Richard better)
   Onion - Sierra Blanca (had to buy plants = $ with not so good results = "not coming back")
   Onion - Ruby Ring, Copra (we think we've found better options now)
   Lima - Henderson (we're going to try Christmas Limas - trials show there is potential for a more reliable crop that is easier to pick.  No real qualms about Henderson - but if you can opt to pick bent over all the time vs standing up at least *some* of the time....)

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