Veg Variety Winners 2021

It has been a tradition, every year from 2007 to 2019, for the Genuine Faux Farm to provide a list of the Veggie Variety Winners for the season.  We neglected our duty in 2020, so our last entry was 2019.  If you want to see what we have selected in season's past, you can take this link to Veg Winners in 2019.

Production at the farm has changed dramatically since we last provided a list, so some of the things we're looking for are different.  And, the number of crops and varieties within those crops has also changed.  What is interesting to note is that our success with certain varieties in prior years informed our decisions as to what we should grow in 2021.  For the most part, those selections were good. 

So, without further ado, let's get to the top ten veggie varieties at the Genuine Faux Farm in 2021.

11. Halladay's Mortgage Lifter

We'll start the list with the new introduction.  And, yes, my list actually goes to eleven.  Isn't that normal for a top ten list?

We often try out a new (to us) variety (or three) every year.  Last year we tried Halladay's and felt that it might be worth doing again.  We had seed left-over - so...  And here it is, the end of the year and I liked it well enough to put it on our winners list.  Halladay responded well to our high tunnel environment and produced some excellent, larger red tomatoes that aren't quite a beefsteak in style.  They seemed to crack less than other varieties and had a really good tomato flavor.  Even though we have been reducing the number of tomato varieties we grow here, this one will actually get added into our future grow list!

10. Dolciva Carrot

We've grown as many as two thousand row feet of carrots in one season and up to five varieties - not always successfully, since our heavy soil often gives us some fits during wet seasons.  This year, we just grew Dolciva, a good combined purpose carrot (storage or fresh eating) and it comes in pelleted seed, which serves our new look farm quite well.  On top of it all, Dolciva is NOT an F1 Hybrid.  While it is not an heirloom or heritage variety, it is open-pollinated and that's something we strongly support.

Germination was on par with other hybrid and heirloom varieties we've grown in the past and production has now been consistent over three seasons.  While we don't anticipate scaling up this particular crop again unless something changes with our cleaning equipment we'll happily keep on growing a couple hundred foot rows each season.

Dolciva was #5 in our 2019 list

9. Imperial Broccoli

In the past, we grew Gypsy for earlier production windows and Belstar for the longer succession.  Imperial fell between those two, so it made for a pretty good way to spread out harvest so we could have broccoli over more weeks of the year.  So, what happens when you actually want to compress your harvest window?  I guess you pick the one in the middle for most of your production.  Now, don't get us wrong, we still believe in variety within a crop type.  But, when the volume doesn't support that much variety, you have to pick - and we picked well.  

Harvest for most plants landed in a two week window, as we preferred.  The only down side is that Imperial seems to react to differing soil conditions a bit more than the other broccoli varieties we've grown.  That can certainly be addressed with targeted fertility adjustments, so we have no reason to complain.

Want to read more about broccoli?  How about this: Broccoli: Seed to Transplant

Imperial made it to #10 in 2018

8. Provider Green Bean

Tammy and I tend to prefer the taste of Jade, but there has been some germination inconsistencies with some suppliers over the past few years with that one and our available labor has decreased.  We've grown Provider for years and we appreciate the consistency and the taste just fine, thank you very much!  The benefit of Jade is that it produces less at a time, but more consistently over time.  Provider, on the other hand, tends to have two major harvest peaks.  That fits our new model far better because we just don't have the labor to keep up with a few hundred row feet of Jade anymore.

Provider was ranked #7 in 2010

7. Italian Heirloom Tomato

We have certainly come up with a fairly solid group of heirloom tomato varieties that we rely on from year to year.  Now that we have moved all tomato production into our high tunnels to counteract some of the dicamba drift issues we feel impact our plants, we have to stick with those tomatoes that make the transition to a new environment well.  

Italian Heirlooms tend to be smaller plants, even though they are an indeterminate.  That means we don't have to do a whole lot of staking and trellising, which is important when you reduce your labor hours significantly.  Plant them, cultivate them, irrigate them and put a square cage around them.  Then, harvest.  It works well for us and we get plenty of those meaty, almost ox-heart shaped tomatoes that often reach one pound in size.

If you are interested in growing tomatoes, here's something more to read: Interplanting in Tomatoes

Italian Heirloom was #5 in 2013, #9 in 2010 and #3 in 2007.

6. Montauk Sweet Corn

One of our personal goals for 2021 was to make sure we grew enough sweet corn to process for ourselves and to have a few excellent summer meals.  Unfortunately, the distractions of upcoming surgeries and other health issues led to a delay in our orders and we had trouble finding any varieties we knew and wanted.  So, we picked what we could - and couldn't be more pleased.

Montauk provided us with sturdy stalks that were consistently giving us one top quality ear and sometimes two.  We found them a bit harder to harvest than some varieties because the ears did not want to separate easily from the stalk, with the outer husk hanging on tenaciously  But, shucking was pretty quick and the taste was very good.

Were we pleased simply because we succeeded in putting sweet corn high enough on our list in 2021 that we actually grew some for ourselves, or was it because Montauk was good?  It doesn't matter, we're happy.

5. Napoleon Sweet Bell Pepper

We were privileged to grow Napoleon Sweet as a seed crop for Seed Savers in 2021.  As expected, production levels were quite good, but we had to do a fair amount of selection to make sure the seed came from plants that showed the best characteristics of this plant.  As we finish cleaning the seed and do a germination test, we are pretty pleased with the results.  But, if we had been growing these for fresh eating, we would have been ecstatic.

As it was, we were still able to work a deal where a customer helped us core out the seeds so they could use the red flesh on the outside.  The quality was excellent and we're glad we got to participate in growing them.  

Napoleon Sweet was #12 in our 2015 list

4. Blizzard Snow Pea

This year we finally dedicated some early high tunnel space to starting the peas.  We got them in when we wanted to and then we rolled the high tunnel off of them and they flourished.  We easily met our normal goal of a half pound per foot quickly and then exceeded it with the late flush of fruit.  Several years ago, we compared and contrasted a number of snow pea varieties and found that Blizzard had the best taste, was the easiest for us to harvest, and it produced at a level that was close enough to more productive varieties like Oregon Sugar Pod II.  Selecting Blizzard for this early planting was a very good choice.  

We even have a blog post that features this variety: Blizzard

Blizzard was #1 in our 2015 list

3. Waltham Butternut Squash

I am not sure I can impress on everyone how pleased we were to get our squash and cucumbers into the ground at what we felt was the optimal time and optimal soil conditions in 2021.  By scaling back to our available labor, we were able to hit those time slots despite Rob's surgery in late April.  Imagine now how disappointing the very late May 29 frost was for us.  The cucumbers did not survive, but the winter squash did.  And, they did a fine job of producing quality fruit at the rate of about one per row foot.  We've stuck with Waltham for the duration of our farming, despite all of the new and "sparkly" butternut varieties out there.  Sure, we've tried some of those, but Waltham is consistent in quality, production and taste.  And, it's open-pollinated, so we'll stick with it.

Waltham has appeared more than once on our lists, #2 in 2016 and #3 in 2017.

2. Musquee de Provence Pumpkin

As was the case of the Waltham's, we got our pumpkins into the ground, only to have a frost.  There was a good deal of scurrying around the farm as we tried to cover all of our young plants that we had diligently (and happily) placed in the ground.  Then, a strange thing happened.  After a slow start, these vines really took off, enjoying their space between the sweet corn and the borage.  They produced a very fine first crop.  

Then, the Fall just kept going and these vines actually produced a SECOND crop that was only a tick below the first one for size and number.  And, we love the taste of these pumpkins. It is no wonder that this was our selection for the variety that would stay with us after all of the big changes at the Genuine Faux Farm.

Musquee de Provence was featured in this blog post: That's Not Orange

Musquee landed at #6 in 2012 and #7 in 2015.

1. Adirondack Blue Potato

It feels kind of odd to be writing about Adirondack Blue because I have to admit that I have been stuck on Purple Majesty for our blue/purple flesh potato ever since we started growing that one in... maybe 2011 or so?  But, seed availability and other factors forced my hand and we had to find other options.  And, for the most part, this was the ONLY option unless you wanted to pay exorbitant amounts of money for seed (which we did not).

Well, we tried something new this year.  We started some of our potatoes early in Valhalla (the bigger high tunnel), putting them next to the early beans and peas.  Once May rolled around, we moved the building off of that area and, like the crops around them, they did beautifully.  I am usually happy enough with a five pound return for one pound of seed potato, but I would prefer something over a seven or eight to one return.  How does sixteen to one sound to you?  Yeah.  We're happy with that.

Will it happen again in 2022?  My brain says, "why not?" but my heart says "nope" simply because we've learned to never treat the exception as your new expectation.  Still....

And, yes, there is even a blog post featuring Adirondack Blue, how nice of us!

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Thank you for joining us for our 2021 Veg Variety list of winners at the Genuine Faux Farm.  Remember, every farm is different, so your choices may not line up with mine over time.  But, maybe something you see here will help you with your own growing.

Have a great day everyone!