Can’t decide just what to grow? Here are some suggestions
Preparing the garden is all well and good, but let’s cut to the fun part. What do we grow? You want to select vegetables and varieties that are right for your particular climate, says Contra Costa Master Gardener Janet Miller, but you should grow what you like to eat. Here are some suggestions.
Beans
Bean varieties vary from snap to fresh shelling or dried, and they come in bush or pole types. Bush beans — such as Royalty Purple or jade bush beans — set all their fruit at the same time, leading to a harvest that can last up to six weeks. A plus for bush beans is that
you don’t have to stake them or provide additional support.
Pole beans —such as tasty climbing French pole beans and classic Blue Lake — have a much longer harvest time and are good producers. However, they will need a pole or other structure to climb. They are easier to harvest, however, as they don’t require as much bending and stooping on the gardener’s part.
Shelling beans are left on the vine until they are just about to open, then harvested. Flavorful Borlotti beans, bush or pole, are one of Miller’s favorites. Picked just as the pods begin to turn pink, the shelled beans are wonderful cooked for about 20 minutes, then dressed with olive oil, garlic and salt.
Cucumbers
Beit Alpha are classic Persian cucumbers — high yield and sweet with edible skin. Itachi is another Miller favorite. It’s a strong producing, white skinned, non-bitter cuke that stays sweet even when left on the vine too long.
Peppers
When growing sweet peppers, be sure to protect them from the heat once fruit has set. Use a 50% shade cloth to prevent sun scald. Hot peppers are less susceptible to sun scald. Among Miller’s favorites are Ajvarski, an outstanding roasting pepper; Gypsy, a sweet pepper that produces different colors of peppers on the same plant (they’ll eventually turn yellow, if not harvested); and the much prized Aleppo. Miller waits until the hot pepeprs turn red, then dehydrates and grinds them to use as a wonderful red pepper flake.
Into tapas? Flavorful Padron peppers range from mild to hot, and there’s no way to tell which pepper is which until you take a bite. These Spanish peppers should be picked when they are 1 to 1½ inches long. Saute them in a bit of olive oil, add a sprinkle of salt and eat them whole. Ditto for the milder Shishito pepper.
Tomatoes
Mortgage Lifter is a big, beefy, delicious tomato and a good producer. Developed during the Great Depression, it was so popular that the cultivator was able to pay off his mortgage through the sale of the tomatoes, hence the name.
Cherokee Purple is a beautifully colored tomato and a good producer. (If you’re planning to dry farm, the hardy Cherokee is a good choice.) Chef’s Choice Pink is an abundant producer of delicious pink-red meaty beefsteak type tomatoes. And you can guess from its name that the Bloody Butcher is a classic, very red slicer.
Persimmon is an orange beefsteak that loves the heat. It is prized for its lovely orange color, but also because it has only a few seed pockets, making it a beefy tomato. It is only a medium producer, however.
Supersweet 100 is a popular cherry tomato. The fruit is bright red and, as the name testifies, very sweet.
And Vorlon is a dark purple tomato that is a good producer. The fruit is a little bit flat and odd looking but the flavor is terrific.