Saturday 31 March 2007

Vegetable inventory for 2007

Here's an inventory of all the vegetable varieties I've got on the go so far. There are more still to be sown, and some of these listed below may not make it through to harvest, but it'll give you some idea of what you can expect to see featured on my blog over the coming year.

I haven't bought any F1 hybrids this year, so the ones you see in the list below are from previous years and I haven't yet managed to grow them successfully. I'm increasingly feeling that the supposed superiority and vigour of F1 hybrids has more to do with marketing hype than any practical reality in the garden.

Beans, climbers
Caseknife heritage variety (Beans and Herbs)
Coco Bicolour heritage variety (Beans and Herbs)
Pea Bean heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue)

Beans, dwarf
Canadian Wonder heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Dog Bean (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)
Early Warwick heritage variety (Beans and Herbs)
Nun's Belly Button heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)

Beetroot
Cheltenham Green Top heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue and Thomas Etty Esquire)
Egyptian Turnip-Rooted heritage variety (Thomas Etty Esquire)
Golden heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Rouge Crapaudine heritage variety (Thomas Etty Esquire)
White Beetroot (The Real Seed Catalogue)

Broad Beans
Martock heritage variety (W Robinson & Son)
Red-flowered heritage variety (W Robinson & Son)

Broccoli
Bordeaux (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Veronica F1 (Organic Gardening Catalogue)

Brussels Sprouts
Rubine heritage variety (Thomas Etty Esquire)
Trafalgar F1 (Thompson & Morgan)

Carrots
Jaune Obtuse de Doubs heritage variety (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Rainbow (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
St Valery heritage variety (W Robinson & Son)

Chard
Bright Lights (Organic Gardening Catalogue)

Garlic
Music (Really Garlicky Co.)
Persian Star (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)
Solent Wight (W Robinson & Son)

Leeks
Bleu de Solaise heritage variety (Thomas Etty Esquire)

Onions
Australian Brown heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Cipolla di Genova (Red Onion of Genova) (Franchi Sementi)
Purplette (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Rouge Pâle de Niort heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)

Peas
Alaska heritage variety (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)
Alderman heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Carruthers' Purple Podded heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Champion of England heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Clarke's Beltony Blue heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Corne de Bêlier heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Desirée (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Ezetha's Krombek Blauwschok heritage variety (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Golden Sweet heritage variety (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Kent Blue heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Magnum Bonum heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Mr Bethell's Purple Podded heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Ne Plus Ultra heritage variety (W Robinson & Son)
Oregon Trail (Penya Seeds)
Salmon Flowered heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
Sugar Ann (Thompson & Morgan)
Telefono (Telephone) heritage variety (Franchi Sementi)
plus my various breeding projects ...

Peppers
Cochiti heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Fresno (Association Kokopelli)
Georgia Flame (Association Kokopelli)
Hungarian Semi-Hot (Association Kokopelli)
Jupiter Elite (Association Kokopelli)
Lemon Drop (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Lipstick (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Napia (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Ortega (Association Kokopelli)
Perfection (Association Kokopelli)
Red Marconi (Marconi Rosso) heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)

Potatoes
Red Duke of York heritage variety (home-saved tubers)
Shetland Black heritage variety (home-saved tubers)
Witch Hill heritage variety (home-saved tubers)

Squash
Butternut (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Waltham Butternut (Association Kokopelli)

Tomatoes
Black Cherry (Tomato Growers Supply Co.)
Black Prince (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)
Boondocks heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Caro Rich (Association Kokopelli)
Copia (Tomato Growers Supply Co.)
Clementine (Organic Gardening Catalogue)
Des Andes (Association Kokopelli)
Golden Sweet (blogger seed swap: Spade Work)
Green Tiger (grown as an experiment from Marks & Sparks tomatoes)
Isis Candy (Tomato Growers Supply Co.)
Muskovite heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Peacevine (Association Kokopelli)
Pink Jester 3 (dehybridising experiment)
Purple Calabash heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Roma (Franchi Sementi)
Salt Spring Sunrise heritage variety (Heritage Seed Library)
San Marzano (Franchi Sementi)
Siniy heritage variety (Association Kokopelli)
Speckled Roman (Association Kokopelli)
Venus' Nipple (Teton de Venus) (Association Kokopelli)
Tigerella heritage variety (Thompson & Morgan)
Yellow Taxi (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)

Turnips
Noir Long de Caliure heritage variety (The Real Seed Catalogue)
Orange Jelly heritage variety (blogger seed swap: Bifurcated Carrots)

I really do buy too many seeds, don't I?

8 comments:

I need orange said...

So I was reading down your list, three of these, five of those, and then I got to the peas, ok, she likes lots of peas, and I started to scroll faster, and got to 12 of these and ... how many tomatoes????

:-) :-) lol.

I'd be the last to say "too many" but that is surely ... a lot!

:-)

Wish I lived next door to benefit from your extras! :-)

Silvia Hoefnagels . Salix Tree said...

Oh my gosh, you will be growing all this? My goodness, that's a lot of work! You surely must enjoy your veggie garden!
I haven't been by here for ages, nice to see you posting again, I always enjoyed coming around last summer. I did learn a lot from you! Looking forward to a new growing year.
Cheers!

Rebsie Fairholm said...

I know, I'm nuts.

I don't even have that big a garden, I'm just very resourceful with space. With most of those tomatoes I will only be growing one plant of each variety. With peas I can stagger the plantings so they aren't all growing at once. And I dug up another bit of the lawn the other day when my neighbour wasn't looking.

Anonymous said...

I've just fallen for the Green Zebra tomatoes from M&S too - I found your posts from last year about it on Google and wondered, did you have any luck with them at all? I wasn't sure if they would be an F1 type being a commercial crop, but thought if they taste OK I could possibly squeeze in a couple of extra plants when my better half isn't looking...

Anonymous said...

Darn it, I meant green tiger, not green zebra!

Rebsie Fairholm said...

I was trying to grow Green Tiger last year but I was a bit late starting them off and the blight got to them before they set fruit. So I'm trying again this year. As you so rightly say, most commercial varieties are F1 hybrids and I haven't been able to find out whether Green Tiger is or not. However I'm never deterred from planting seed from F1 hybrids because it's often relatively easy to dehybridise tomatoes. And even if they don't come true from seed they are usually still interesting and tasty!

If you do decide so sow some seeds (and you've nothing to lose by doing so) please do come back and let me know how they get on!

Rebsie

Anonymous said...

Thanks Rebsie - I think I will just have to have a go, out of pure, selfless scientific interest you understand...I'll definitely let you know how I get on (am actually working on a site/blog at the moment so there may even be pics) and if I find anything else out about their origin.

Anonymous said...

Quick update - great germination from the saved Green Tiger seeds, I've narrowed them down and now have six plump, healthy looking plants outside in 6 inch pots waiting to go in a final position, when I find one...they look fairly uniform, but I'm not sure how they should be grown, as cordons or bushes. For want of any way of telling the difference from looking at the plants - does anyone know one? - I'm going to go three of one and three of another.

There was an article in the Times in early June by Lindsay Bareham referring to them as a heritage type - http://tinyurl.com/38rkl3 - but I'm not sure that she might not be mixing them up with other "tiger" types, as everywhere else I read the M&S publicity, or that of their growers, said they were a hybrid type exclusive to them...

Time will tell - hopefully!