Sage Gardens

The mail man just dropped of a nice fat envelope full of seeds from Pine Tree Garden Seeds. I really like Pine Tree becuase they have a broad variety of vegetable, herb and flower seeds, but they come in smaller packages that don’t cost very much. So rather than spending $3.99 on a packet of seeds I might not like, I’m able to buy a whole bunch of different varieties at 85 cents to $1.25. If I don’t like one, or it just doesn’t do well in my area, I don’t feel like I wasted a whole lot.

So what’s going in to the garden this year?

Favorites year-in-year-out

• Increadible Sweet Corn — Big yellow ears, a fast grower (65 - 70 days), and super tasty. We pick it an throw it right on the BBQ grill in the husk. Sweet and delicious every time, and quick enough that we can get 3 rotations in every year.
• Pinetree Lettuce Mix — A mixture of all sorts of loose-leaf lettuces. I buy the once ounce pack, which is more than enough to keep producing tons of tasty lettuce all year long.
• Italian Large Leaf Basil — Pesto isn’t pesto without it.
• Sweet Banana Peppers — Perfect in salads, satuted or grilled. I used to think of these as smaller, slender peppers, but these grow long and fat enough to stuff.
• Romano Pole Beans — Fast growing pole beans that produce a wide, flat pod that’s very good when picked when young. The plants will easily grow 10-12 feet and produced a couple of pounds of beans per vine. When my kids were young I used to gow them to make a “bean teepee” the could hid in.
• Striata Di Italia Squash — A lot like a zuccini, but striped. I like them because they’re different, but they still taste great fresh or cooked.

New This Year

• Green Globe Improved Artichoke — I grew the regular Green Globe `chokes for years until the plants finally died out. I don’t know what’s “improved” about these, but I’m looking forward to fresh picked artichoke again.
• Small Miracle Broccoli — Supposed to be more compacts heads than other varieties, but still have good flavor.
• Early Triumph Cucumber — A great slicing cuke that just returned to Pinetree.
• Onions - Olga, Super Sweet, White Spanish, Super Star and Greek Salad — Normally I just buy onion sets and grow the same old varieties every year. Thought I’d change things up this year which a whole mix.
• Sweet Peppers - Big Bertha, Orange Sun, Sweet Red Cherry — I love peppers (hot and sweet) so much that I’ll try and grow just about every kind at least once.
• Principe Borghese Tomato — This is supposed to be a good sun-drying tomato (actually the sun-drying tomato in Italy). I’ve always had good success drying Roma tomatoes, so I’m interested to see how these compare.
• San Marzano La Padino — Another Italian tomato, this one a paste variety. I make a lot of sauces, so I think it’ll be good.
• Brisk Green Pak Choi — The family loves stir fry. These are supposed to be good.

Now that the greenhouse is ready, I can’t wait to get in there and start planting!