Tag Archives: collards

Announcements

7 Reasons to Join The Collard Community Seed Selection Project

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In case you haven’t already heard, we’re very excited about a project we’ve been working on, The Collard Community Selection Project. Last year, SESE, The Utopian Seed Project, and seven other trial sites grew a total of 21 heirloom collard varieties that were allowed to cross.

We’re now offering the Utopian Ultracross Collard as part of The Collard Community Selection Project.

The project’s objective is to save seeds from the most cold tolerant and tasty collards while preserving a wide diversity of types and colors. You can also save seeds based on your own selection criteria or not save seeds and simply enjoy the unknown wonders that these seeds contain!

  1. Learn how to save seed.

    When you join the community seed selection project, you’ll receive help and support to become a seed steward. The Utopian Seed Project will provide educational materials and videos to help you on your journey.

  2. You’re helping preserve genetic diversity.

    This variety represents a massive amount of genetic diversity. Twenty-one heirloom collards have been crossed! This project will help create more seed stewards and another open-pollinated variety for folks to grow for years to come.

  3. Come together with other gardeners.

    Sadly, we may not be able to come together in person during these pandemic times. However, we can come together as gardeners, food stewards, and seed savers.

  4. Reclaim rights to open-pollinated seeds.

    When you save and share seeds, you’re helping to support everyone’s right to save and grow seeds and breed plants. Learn more about this over at the Open Source Seed Initiative. 

  5. Adapt seeds to your garden.

    As you continue to save seeds from these collards and any other plants, you will slowly adapt them to your garden. Saving seed from the strongest will create plants that do well in your local climate. You can also select for any other desired traits.

  6. Support The Utopian Seed Project.

    The Utopian Seed Project is a crop trialing non-profit based in western North Carolina. Their vision is to develop a regional seed hub that can support, encourage and celebrate a diverse food system of regionally adapted crops. 50% of all packet sales go straight to supporting their work, and your contribution to helping save seed is priceless!

  7. It will be an adventure!

    As noted above, the project’s goal is to seek cold-tolerant, tasty collards. We are already one year into that selection, but given the broad cross-pollination of this seed mix, we are likely to experience a WIDE range of traits and outcomes (some good, some maybe not so good!). Enjoy the excitement with us.

Resources

If you decide to participate, we’ll be in contact to offer support and further resources will be available. For now, you can check out these links.

Order your seeds now to have time to grow your collard plants for the over-wintering trial and to enjoy fall-winter harvests! Plants sown now through early fall will be ready for seed harvest next year in late spring.

Garden Advice

7 Crops You Can Plant in July

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Spring and summer always seem to go so fast. There’s so much to get done in the garden. We’re headed into July, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t still get some plants in. Here are a few summer crops you can sow this month.

Beans

Beans are a productive, quick-growing crop that’s perfect for sowing late in the season. You’ll need to water them thoroughly, especially as they get established, but they tolerate the midsummer heat with no problems. 

For late sowings, some of our favorites are bush snap beans like Provider, Royalty Purple Pod, Contender (Buff Valentine), and Blue Lake Bush (Blue Lake 274). These varieties are all ready to harvest in 48 to 55 days. 

Collards

The classic hot weather green, collards can be sowed right through summer. During the summer, they’re lovely shredded and added to stir-fries, salads, and slaws or blended into smoothies. As the weather cools in the fall, you can add them to soups and chili. They can also be fermented to make kraut or kimchi.

Some of our favorite varieties for summer planting include Georgia Green (Georgia Southern, Creole) Collards, Green Glaze Collards, Whaley’s Favorite Cabbage Collards, and Vates Collards. They’re ready to harvest in as little as 68 days. 

Corn

Corn thrives during the summer heat. It’s an excellent crop for succession planting to spread out your harvest. When selecting a variety, check the days to harvest to ensure that you choose a variety that will mature before your area’s first frost date. 

A few quick maturing varieties include Buhl Sweet Corn (81 days), Chires Baby Sweet Corn (75 days), Country Gentleman Sweet Corn (93 days), and Bodacious RM (75 days) which is one of the few hybrid corn varieties we carry. 

You may notice a few dent corn varieties, such as Reid’s Yellow Dent Corn, have two maturity dates listed. The first date is for roasting, and the second is for grinding and drying. If you’re interested in roasting, Reid’s (85/110 days), Hickory King (85/110 days), and Hickory Cane (85/110 days) are options.

Homemade Pickles Pickling Cucumber

Cucumbers

Both pickling and slicing cucumbers are dependable summer crops. They can be sown in July and tolerate the heat well as long as they’re watered consistently. 

Some of our favorite options for pickling cucumbers include Arkansas Little Leaf (59 days) and Homemade Pickles (55 days). They’re both vigorous, productive, and disease resistant. 

If you’re want to sow slicing cucumbers, this July some of our favorites include White Wonder (58 days), which is very productive in hot weather, and Marketmore 76 (57 days) and Straight Eight (57 days), which are very dependable and productive. 

Southern Peas

Southern peas are also called cowpeas, crowder peas, field peas, or black-eyed peas. They’re an incredibly productive staple crop that can be grown when both days and nights are warm for a period of 60-90 days.

They’re drought-resistant and do well in warm soil. We still have some varieties available. However, the pandemic seed orders sales surge has especially affected our inventory for southern peas. New seed crops are being grown out – we’ll have more seed available again in Nov/Dec 2021!

Summer Squash and Zucchini

Summer squash and zucchini thrive in the summer heat. They’re quick to mature and are ready to harvest in between 48 and 68 days. 

Some of the varieties we recommend include Black Beauty Zucchini (48 days), Early Prolific Straightneck Summer Squash (48 days), Benning’s Green Tint Summer Squash (52 days). They’re vigorous and productive. 

Swiss Chard

Many greens don’t stand up to the summer heat, but Swiss chard will produce all summer and into fall. They can be harvested in as little as 25 days for baby greens or 50 to 60 days for mature leaves.

Perpetual Spinach (Leaf Beet Chard) is a great hot weather substitute for spinach in the southeast. Rainbow Swiss chard is a great way to add both beauty and flavor to the garden. Barese is sweeter than other chard varieties.

Add a few of these to your garden this July for delicious late summer and fall harvests. 

Garden Advice

Heat Tolerant Greens to Try This Summer

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Summer brings a bounty of garden produce but it can be a tricky time for greens production. Many leafy greens do best in the cool weather of spring and fall. When the midsummer heat hits they bolt and turn bitter. If you appreciate having greens in your garden as long as possible consider trying a couple of these heat tolerant varieties this summer.

A great tip to help you preserve your plants during difficult weather is getting air conditioning repair Columbia SC to fix or install new HVAC in your garden and house.

Green Glaze Collards

Perfect for southern and warm coastal states this collard is heat-resistant, slow-bolting, and non-heading. It was introduced by David Landreth in 1820 and is easily recognized by it’s uniquely smooth, bright green leaves. It’s also great for those who struggle with pests because it’s resistant to cabbage worms and loopers.

Magenta Magic Orach

This deep red orach is a great addition to any salad mix. It has a slightly spicy flavor and tender leaves. It tolerates heat well and leaves may be eaten even as plants go to seed.

Perpetual Spinach (Leaf Beet Chard)

This European heirloom dates back to 1869 and is an excellent summer substitute for spinach. Though not quite as sweet as spinach it produces all summer long!

Jewels of Opar (Fame Flower)

A relative of purslane, Jewels of Opar offers mild succulent leaves as well as beautiful flowers and seed pods. Read more about this awesome plant here.

Jericho Romaine Lettuce

Introduced from Israel, this variety is bred for the desert heat. Jericho has good tip-burn resistance and retains its sweetness when other varieties have gone bitter.

Red Malabar Summer Spinach 

These Asian greens are a great heat-tolerant substitute for spinach. They’re good for salads and stir-fries but they do require trellising. This season our grower has been having trouble but we have conventional seed available here.

Speckled Bibb Lettuce

Speckled Bibb is a great tasting and attractive variety for any season. It holds longer in the heat without bolting than other varieties like Slo-bolt and Buttercrunch in hot weather.

Tips for Hot Weather Greens

This summer keep a steady supply of greens coming in from your garden with one of these vareties.