what vegetable varieties are are growing 2016 and why.

8 years ago

please list what vegetable varieties you growing in 2016 and why you chose those particular varieties.

I thought would be fun to see what every one is growing and why.

For me I will be posting the list a bit later but one that i am adding this year is Japanese adzuki beans not for the pods but the beans themselves.

Sort by:Oldest

Comments (11)

fbx22
8 years ago
still tracking down specific seeds and varieties through the rest of January then I should have a list
christacharlene
8 years ago
Spring and/or fall planting:

Pea Spring Blush Tendril, Purple Of Sicily Cauliflower, Pink Beauty Radish, Waltham 29 Broccoli, Arugula, Speckled lettuce, mixed carrot varieties, Marvel Of Four Seasons lettuce, Sunset lettuce, Big Boston lettuce, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce, Oriole Orange Chard, Midnight Ruffles Lettuce, Buttercrunch lettuce, Flat of Italy Onion, Chives. Most of my spring vegetables are planted in containers.

Summer:

Tomatoes:

Brandywine, Yellow Pygmy, Lucid Gem, Texas Star, Delicious, Dr Wyche's Yellow, Bear Claw, Tommy Toe, German Red Strawberry, Dixie Golden Giant, Dixiewine, Chocolate Stripes, Brandywine Yellow, Eva Purple Ball, Northern Lights, Striped Roman, Kellogg's Breakfast

Peppers:

Jimmy Nardello, Beaver Dam, Anaheim, Golden Marconi

Watermelon:

Jubilee, Orangeglo, Klondike Blue Ribbon, Bradford, Moon And Stars, Ali Baba

Other Melons:

Golden Jenny Lind, Zatta Melon, maybe Old Time Tennessee

Bi-licious Hybrid Sweet Corn, Purple Tomatillo, Rattlesnake Pole Beans, Cherokee Trail Of Tears Beans,Blue Lake Beans, National Pickling Cucumber,Yellow Zucchini, Queensland Blue Squash, Basil, Dill, probably some other herbs and maybe a pumpkin.

I can't go through and list my reasons for growing each plant. Many of these I have grown before and they are some of my favorites. Others just caught my interest for whatever reasons and I wanted to try them. My list looks big but I only plant one of each tomato and melon varieties. Looking forward to seeing what everyone else is growing!
Related Discussions
Why I grow vegetables
Q
Comments (17)
Anney in Georgia: I liked your comments about growing and preserving your own food. I think it is very true, and very perceptive of you to point out that it literally could be a matter of survival at some time in the future. In many countries right now, although it doesn't get much press here, there have been food riots, demonstrations, and other political unrest due to the rapid rise in food prices and shortages of some things -- Haiti, Nigeria, Guinea, Myanmar, and Viet Nam, among others. We, or at least, unfortunate to say, but true, the more well-off of us, the upper and middle classes, may not ever have trouble getting food, but we may pay a lot more of our incomes to get it My family has been into gardening, canning, drying, and freezing for generations, not so much as a cost saving measure, although it certainly is, but simply because it tastes SO MUCH BETTER than commercially preserved foods. You can make things to suit your own individual tastes. For example, everyone in my household is on salt-restricted diets for various reasons, so I make my own low salt/ almost no-salt tomato juice, tastes so much better than the expensive (and nasty) stuff from the store. I use just a little bit of real salt, 1/4 teaspoonish per quart (I think it needs it to help preserve it) plus some KCl salt substitute and some Sour Salt, along with various herbs and spices, including onion, celery, cinnamon. Yummy. Another advantage is making things which are hard to come by in the stores, or just fun. I made some homemade mango chutney the other day (admittedly, mangoes obviously from the store, but they were the little, yellow Mexican ones, 3 for $1.00, very sweet, excellent flavor) and canned several quarts of it. I'd never made chutney before, but it turned out so good, I went on the internet searching for recipes, and I found one for a rhubarb chutney on recipezaar.com, I have TONS of rhubarb just poking up, so guess what I'll be making in three or four weeks! Because of the rise in prices, I am expanding what I plant this year, and I intend to put up more of my own foods. Some things I'm doing differently this year -- well, a lot more of many things, but especially potatoes, sweet potatoes, onions, brassicas, greens. I want to pickle and presevere more things, try some new recipes. And, one of my goals is to share a lot more with family members who can't do it for themselves for various reasons, health and location (bad soil and tons of deer!). Two things I thought I'd mention that I'm growing this year -- quinoa, a grain substitute, actually a kind of pigweed, high in protein, easy to grow, used just like rice. The other thing I'm growing this year are several kinds of flour corns, so I can grind my own cornmeal. When the economy got really bad in Michigan in the late 1970's and early 1980's, we had some problems with people stealing produce from the garden -- we had one person who came in the night quite regularly and always took ONLY cabbage, carrots, onions, and peppers, we called him the "Cole Slaw" man. We also had a neighbor a few house down steal corn a couple of times -- we confronted him many years later, in a friendly/joking manner, and he fessed up about "how good" our corn was. We also had other things taken, but times were really bad, and people needed food. Only ONE TIME did it really bother me, and that was when someone stripped all of the Stanley prune plums off a pretty good sized tree right in broad daylight during the middle of the day, when they were just starting to turn purple. Whoever did it picked them into paper grocery bags, and then, for whatever reason, must have decided they were too green, and dumped them in the weeds across the street. THAT made me mad, because it was a total waste, and they picked and ruined over 2 bushels of plums -- could have been kids, who knows. The other people never bothered me, because I always had the produce to spare, and I figured they needed it.
...See More
What vegetables you'll never grow again?
Q
Comments (54)
Just a thought on radishes. I planted some rather late but they came on beautifully and when I pulled them they were spicy but not woody at all. They were like the radishes I remember as a child. I'm planting more because I just NEVER see them in the markets here. They vanished from the stores about 3 or 4 years ago, for unknown reasons (except maybe the ones we could get were tasteless and woody and nobody would buy them). My husband won't care HOW hot they get -- anyone who eats that many jalapeno peppers won't fuss at a spicy radish! Can you buy radishes where you are???
...See More
Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties by Carol Deppe
Q
Comments (4)
Neohippie, that is a GREAT book! I got it back in the 90s and still enjoy it. Carol Depp has such an enjoyable writing style. I've been meaning to do a write up for a Gardenweb posting on Carol's latest book. It too is a real winner. The Resilient Gardener: Food Production and Self-Reliance in Uncertain Times. Someone sent us a couple copies as a gift. We kept one, passed the other on, and ... bought a couple more for gifts! *The Resilient Gardener* deals with the basic idea of gardening in such a way as to be ready for surprises, such as personal, health of job related crisis or even abrupt changes of climate. In it Carol also passes on much accumulated wisdom on how to garden with less effort. She discusses all kinds of techniques and tools. If anyone has a friend or loved one who suffers from celiac disease, this book is a MUST HAVE. Carol has tailored almost everything in it, including recipes, to a wheat free diet. It's incredible. Okay, I can't do the book justice without doing more thoughtful work. But I assure you, if you appreciate *Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties* you'll probably love this one as well. I've been gardening over 40 years. A couple decades ago I kind of got saturated on gardening books and catalogs (yes, it can happen). So I don't buy very many books and usually take catalogs to work for my co-workers to look at. But I would not be without *The Resilient Gardener*. George Tahlequah, OK Here is a link that might be useful: The Resilient Gardener
...See More
Favorite fruit and vegetable varieties to grow in NE?
Q
Comments (49)
Maisie - Defrost's squash pictures are amazing. I'm always wishing I had a bigger sunnier spot. [g] This year, seed starting is about the fun of gardening in the offiseason for me too, but selection and timing are often the reasons I will try to do it. I like to get my plants in the ground earlier than I can find them available and I usually want varieties that I don't always find. I'm out in the garden in March if possible and still out in the garden in November, so I'm usually ready for a break from gardening during the off season. Last year I didn't do as much gardening, so I'm itching to do some this year. Indoor seed starting does take a lot of attention and I found I refined it from year to year. I haven't actually done it in awhile, so I hope I can get it right this year. One big key for me, was adding a fan. That made a lot of difference. And I try not to start them too early. It's tempting to try to end up with huge plants to put in the ground, but even a 6 week old plant is 6 weeks ahead and ready to start growing as soon as it hits the ground. Ending up with too many….lol….doesn't everyone do that?! I found my old 48" shop lights and bulbs and nothing is working, so I'm going to have to replace everything. And what is available is different then it was. I have the old T12 fixtures and I see now they have T8s and T5s. I wonder what everyone else is using?
...See More
Pumpkin (zone 10A)
8 years ago
Spaghetti, ball zukes and a striped Italian zukes for planting in 3 weeks--wanted to try growing some squash. Haven't in years. But, my husband calls it "punishment squash" so a lot of it might be going to my coworkers.

I planted many more tomatoes and chiles than last season. We love eating them and hope to make pizza sauce and stuffed rocotos. We'll see! Maybe it will balance the "punishment squash"
maxjohnson
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
My plan this year for South Florida 10b, mainly I want to grow more perennials.

Winter (now): mustard, brocolli, collard, cabbage (it won't make it in time :( ), bokchoy, radish

Spring (Feb-Apr): 60+ tomatoes plants (will stop completely at May since that's when moths arrives, can't grow tomatoes when it gets warmer since there is a big problem with whiteflies around here (leaf curl virus from the whiteflies destroyed all my tomatoes last year during summer-fall months) and I don't want to have a constant food source for them to proliferate).

Summer:
Dino kale: supposed to tolerate the heat well, want to see it can grow during summer in 100*F heat.
Egyptian spinach: tender leaves that work as lettuce replacement for me
(and more nutritious). Can tolerate 100*F heat, in fact, it can't
grow in cool temperature and needs the heat.
Okra: I have a variety I don't know the name, but it doesn't get taller than 4ft.
Zucchini: never grew before, don't know what to expect

Year round:
Miner's lettuce: contradicting wikipedia, many sources say its perennial and self seed well, not sure how well it will tolerate the heat, but I can move them in shades
Malabar spinach: reliable greens, I have a more oval pointy leaf variety that is much more tender that few people have.
Okinawa + Longevity spinach: reliable greens for soup.
Sorrel: perennial
Parsley: perennial
Watercress: perennial
Upland Cress: biennial
Chives: perennial
Egyptian walking onion: perennial
Dandelion: perennial, in containers only!
Ginger: I discovered the leaves have wonderful aroma, hopefully help with pests, and maybe use the leaves in soup.
Stingless wood nettle: it's a weed but valuable for me, I dry it for tea
Sunchokes

Ashitaba: I have a few plants, but need more since they grow so slow.
Purple Tree Collard: I only have one, the cuttings are so hard to root since they kept getting eaten by tiny maggots.
Peter (6b SE NY)
8 years ago
last modified: 8 years ago
This is my plant list this year, off the top of my head: (in addition to the perennial/self-seeding stuff)

Artichoke: Imperial Star (most reliable annual)

Beets: Red Ace (Reliable tasty roots)

Broccoli: Green Magic

Cauliflower: Some packet I bought on the seed rack and didn't use

Cabbage: Quick Start (earliest regular size/shape cabbage)

Cardoon: Porto Spineless (it was what was available)

Carrots: Bolero (Size), Purple Haze (Color), both produced reliably for me.

Cucumber (pickling): Jackson Classic (disease resistance)

Edamame: Tohya

Eggplant: Galine, Hansel (earliness/suited for the north)

Lettuce: Muir (heat tolerance), Sparx (reliable romaine), Adriana (for a butterhead)

Leeks: Megaton

Mustard Greens: Red Giant

Onions: Ailsa Craig (size & reliability), Cabernet (earliness in a red long/intermediate day)

Peas: Sugar Snap (taste)

Peppers: Ace (suited for the north), Biscayne (not shabby either), Goddess (for a banana), Numex Suave Orange (very mild hot pepper)

Pole Beans: Fortex (production & reliability)

Potato: Red Gold (taste, earliness), Kennebec (production)

Pumpkin: Cinnamon Girl (smaller plants, fruit for cooking)

Shallot: Camelot (what was available)

Spinach: Space (early)

Tomatoes: Chef's Choice Orange, Sweet Tangerine, Jet Star, Golden Rave, Sun Gold (all lower acid varieties)

Winter Squash: Pinnacle spaghetti squash (semi-bush & early), Bush Delicata

Zucchini: Alexandria (production and disease resistance), Zephyr (taste/type & disease resistance)

I was going to try planting some sunchokes but they were like $25 at Johnny's. I will see if I can find any in the grocery store.
Barbara Adams
8 years ago
I have a obsession with planting sugar snap pea's..zucchini..tomatoes and peppers..going to try and grow mini pumpkins and spaghetti squash.
antmary_Omaha_NE_5b
8 years ago
What am I going to plant? Hm... I need to sort through the seeds.

Tomatoes (may be not all of them, l am still thinking): Kiwi, Texas star, Korol Sibiri, Dina, Lucid gem, Black cherry, Black from Tula, Mexico, Mama Alla, Mushroom basket, Yablochniy Lipetskiy, Mashenka, Auria, Korean Long, Maksimka.

Peppers: Antohi Romanian, Flavorburst, Pizza, Costa Rican sweet, Jimmy Nardello.

Tomatillo: purple.

Eggplant: Black knight.

Lettuce: a number of varieties.

Spinach: renegade.

Herbs: parsley, dill and others.

Cucumbers: Alibi and miniature white.

Summer squash: Sunburst was very good every year, but I had too many of them even from the single plant, so no planting 2016.

Winter squash: butterbush and Reno, I am planning to use the young ones as a summer squash if I need them.

Watermelon: New queen, Marmeladnyi, Klondike Blue ribbon.

Melon: a number of hybrids, I want to find the variety, resistant to the wilt, I have every year.

Carrots: Scarlet Nantes, Ya-Ya.

Parsnip: Andover.

Potatoes: All Blue and Desiree.

Sweet potatoes, maybe.

Pears: super sugar snap

Beans: Fava beans, edamame beans, pole beans: unknown red and Chinese red yard long.

Broccoli: express, maybe romanesco.

Cabbage: Brunswick.

Tatsoy and Bocchoi

Leeks and Onions.

I am sure that I forgot something. LOL.
NorCal Bruce USDA zone 9b Sunset zone 14
8 years ago
I have very limited space. Two 4' X 10' - 24" high raised beds for veggies. For herbs I have a number of very large pots. I'll post my list, but there are always a few last minute changes. Like I see my yellow Thai chiles aren't sprouting as the seeds must be too old. Like a fool I haven't saved any the last couple of years.

Garden 2016

Veggies -

Pink Egg Tomato

Costoluto Genovese Tomato

Ace Tomato

Gypsy Pepper H

Toro Giallo Pepper

Emerald Giant Pepper

Gourmet Pepper

Jalapeño Chile

Orange Thai Chile

Yellow Thai Chile

Dragon Thai Chile H

Fish Chile

Buena Mulata Chile

Bunching Onions

Turmeric Root

Ginger Root

Lemon Grass

Cukes and Squash TBD

Herbs -

Genovese Basil

Mammoth Dill

Cumin

Cilantro

Parsley

BBQ Rosemary

Chives

Greek Oregano

French Tarragon

Spearmint

Peppermint
mwmunford
8 years ago
My first year growing from seed so, assuming I get transplants from everything, here is my list. Got all of mine from Baker Creek:

Eggplants:

- Antigua (Chosen for the beautiful look, the fact that it is supposed to be quite strong producer and I'm only planting a few eggplants, and that others in my area have had success)

- Diamond Eggplant (Chosen because others in my area have had success)

Tomatoes:

- Moneymaker (High producer, grows well in my area)

- Chadwick Cherry (High Producer)

- Pearly Pink (Looked cool and different!)

Okra:

- Harlow's Homestead (Strong producer and taste - we LOVE okra)

Cucumer:

- Marketmore (Production, taste)

Squash:

-Crookneck Early Golden (taste, production)

Peppers:

-Craig's Grande Jalapeno (The available jalapeno from BC and husband eats them on EVERYTHING)

- Sweet Banana (taste - great for pickling!)

-Charleston Bell (Seemed like a basic, straight-forward bell. I didn't want anything too crazy).
vgkg Z-7 Va
6 years ago
christacharlene, I see you listed Bradford Watermelon, have you grown it before and if so what's your opinion? The CBS show Sunday Morning had a segment on that melon and it seemed pretty interesting, an old 1800s heirloom that was thought lost, but a young farmer in SC now grows it as his main crop for it sweetness. Supposed to be a fantastic sweet melon but the rind is too tender to use for shipping.
tenac100
6 years ago
Zone 7A, Purple Eggplant going nuts. All else is same... cucs doing nothing.

what vegetable varieties are are growing 2016 and why.

Comments (11)

fbx22

christacharlene

Related Discussions

Pumpkin (zone 10A)

maxjohnson

Peter (6b SE NY)

Barbara Adams

antmary_Omaha_NE_5b

NorCal Bruce USDA zone 9b Sunset zone 14

mwmunford

vgkg Z-7 Va

tenac100

COMPANY

BUSINESS SERVICES

GET HELP

CONNECT WITH US