Tag Archives: open-pollinated

Garden Advice

17 Varieties New to SESE in 2018

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At Southern Exposure we’re dedicated to preserving and sharing open pollinated and heirloom seed varieties. As part of that mission we’ve added many new varieties that we’d loved to see grown, shared, and enjoyed like SESE’s classic favorites.

These varieties are new varieties selected to help small farmers and gardeners overcome disease and insect pressure using sustainable, organic methods. They’re heirlooms lovingly nutured by generations of gardeners who’d love to see their rich flavors and unique traits enjoyed by others. They’re seeds from aorund the world that can bring a little piece of other flavors, cultures, and traditions into your garden and onto your plate.

Monticello Old Breadseed Poppy

This gorgeous variety was saved by Seed Savers Exchange members Christina Wenger and Patrick Holland! Along with its beauty it also offers a long bloom time.

Silverleaf Sunflower

A rare species added to the SESE ranks, this sprawling sunflower is native to the Gulf Coast and Southern Texas. If planted early the stalks can reach 15 feet tall and are highly attractive to pollinators and birds.

Willowleaf Colored Lima Beans

With a rainbow mix of colors this bean is sure to win your heart. It’s named for its narrow, willow-like leaves which make the plants appear more like willow trees than lima beans.

Hog Brain Southern Peas

Though we don’t know how this Alabama heirloom earned its name we do love this variety for its good flavor and excellent drought resistance. This seed was sent to SESE by Douglas Pitts.

Odell’s Large White (White Stoney Mountain) Watermelon

The rich sweet flavor of these melons is said to rival the legendary “Bradford.” This rare South Carolina variety dates back to 1840 and has been stewarded by Karen Metze’s family since 1880. Her husband Rodger Winn now grows and cares for the seed. It produces very large melons (30-35 lbs) with excellent storage quality.

Zapallo del Tronco Summer Squash

This rare Argentinian variety is a great summer squash to try for a unique, sweet, rich flavor and texture. It’s ready to harvest in just 48 days!

Bettersnap Southern Peas

Unlike many southern peas Bettersnap can be eaten young in the pod like green beans. They’re also an excellent choice for southern gardeners because they’re resistant to root knot nematodes and many other southern afflictions.

Mayan Jaguar Lettuce

Mayan Jaguar was the heaviest yielder in SESE’s 2017 lettuce trials! This variety has a lot going for it with dark green leaves with bold dark red splotches, attractive pink hearts, upright leaves that reduce splashback of soil onto leaves, and it’s slow to bolt.

African Drum Gourd

These huge, thick walled gourds are perfect for making baskets, buckets, or drums! They’re round to slightly teardrop-shaped and hold up well to downy mildew.

Rotten Clarage Dent Corn

Rotten Clarage is a rare Ohio heirloom from the early 1900s that was a cross between Yellow Clarage and another blue corn. This variety grows sturdy 9 foot stalks, 8-9 inch ears, with mostly two ears per stalk. Its seed has been grown and stewarded by the Appalachian Heirloom Plant Farm in Winchester, Ohio.

Early Nozaki Chinese Cabbage

This chinese cabbage variety fairs better than others in warmer areas being slower to bolt than our other varieties. It’s also tender and mild perfect for salads, stir frys, and ferments and is quick to produce.

Aji Chinchi Amarillo Hot Peppers

These peppers pack a lot of flavor into there small size. They’re fruity with medium to high heat and are typically about 3 × 1/2 inches. This variety is a heavy yielder and a key ingredient in Peruvian cuisine.

South Anna Butternut

The South Anna Butternut is a cross between the Seminole Pumpkin and Waltham Butternut develop by Common Wealth’s Edmund Frost. They have good productivity, excellent storage ability, and high levels of downy mildew resistance.

DMR 401 Slicing Cucumber

Another downy mildew resistant variety, these cucumbers can withstand levels that would kill another standard slicing variety. They were grown as part Michael Mazourek’s breeding program at Cornell University and did the best in Cornell’s 2015 trials.

Jasmyn Rissie Hot Peppers

Jasmyn Rissie Hot Peppers offer a lot of sweet peppery flavor along with mild heat. The seed for these little beauties was collected in Hartbeespoort, South Africa.

Prize Choi

This quick growing, cold hardy heirloom grows 2lb heads in just 7 weeks! Prize choi has dark green leaves with crunchy bright white stems and did excellent in our 2017 Asian green trials.

 

We all have our tried and true favorites but we hope you’ll try some of our newly available varieties too! We’re sure there’s a variety here that will win over your heart or tastebuds.

 

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Summer Sowings: Continuous Harvests all Summer and into Fall

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With summer’s intense heat in full swing, it can be hard to remember to sow cool season crops, but some fall crops need to be started as early as June, and many need to be started in July.

On our farm in central Virginia our average first fall frost falls in late October, but even where frosts come later or not at all you should start fall crops during the summer. Later plantings will struggle with fall’s low light levels, and won’t produce before growth slows to a near standstill in early winter (the “Persephone Days,” November 21-January 21).

To make sense of all the seeds we’re sowing during the summer months, I divide our summer plantings into three types:

1. Warm-season, slow growing summer successions: these are the bonus crops that many gardeners forget. A second round of tomatoes, summer squash, sweet corn, or cucumbers can keep you harvesting all summer long without interruption.

2. Fast growing summer successions: these crops require frequent, regular sowing all through summer. Because we’re sowing so often, these can be easier to remember. We sow beans, carrots, salad greens, beets, and radish seeds weekly. Be ready to baby your summer sowings: we water daily to keep them from drying out before sprouting. Lettuce needs the soil temperature to be below 80 degrees F, so you may need to sow in flats indoors, or even in the refrigerator, or sow in the evening and cool the soil with crushed ice.

3. Cool season, slow growing crops for fall harvest. We sow the Brassicas first: Brussels sprouts in June, and then broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower in July. By mid-July we’re sowing fall greens: collards, Swiss chard, leaf beet, and kale, plus winter radishes. We sow Chinese cabbage in late July. Sow thickly in nursery beds and keep up with your watering; we protect these young plants from summer’s insects with spun polyester row cover or the new more durable and temperature neutral “proteknet.”

For further resources on planning your summer sowings, check out: Brett Grohsgal’s article Simple Winter Gardening, our article on Summer Succession Plantings, and our Fall and Winter Planting Guide.

Successions can be overwhelming, so we have some tricks that help extend harvests with fewer plantings:

1. Plant indeterminate varieties of tomatoes and cucumbers, and pole-type beans and peas. We still find we need a late tomato planting, because our earliest plantings taper down toward the end of summer (and our Heritage Harvest Festival at Monticello needs lots of tomatoes for the Tasting Tent).

2. Select heirlooms bred to provide extended harvests: many modern farms want concentrated harvests that can be harvested with one or two passes; but for more traditional growers an extended harvest was the ideal way to manage the bounty. Look for roots that hold well in the ground. Lutz beets are one of our favorites: they can be spring planted and will hold all summer without turning woody. However, they will be very large, so this only works if you’re happy cooking with multi-pound beets (try slicing cross-wise for beet burgers). Open-pollinated broccoli provides extended side-shoot harvests. Choose bolt-resistant greens and harvest by the leaf before before taking whole plants.

3. Choose seasonally appropriate salad greens: we want salads all year-round, but this can be tricky both when it’s hot and when it’s cold! Mustards and brassicas are more mild in cold weather, so get adventurous by adding young kale and tatsoi to winter and early spring salads. Choose cold-tolerant lettuce: red varieties tend to hold up better in frost. For hot weather, choose fast-growing summer crisphead lettuce like Sierra, or heat-ready greens like Red Malabar spinach or Golden purslane.

4. Set up a root cellar or similar storage system. Ultimately, some of your crops will ripen all at once, or you’ll be faced with a glut of produce when frosts threaten. Be prepared: have a proper storage area ready to go for your carrots, parsnips, turnips, cabbages, winter squash, and more. Be ready to finish ripening the last fresh tomatoes indoors. For fresh produce through till spring, we need good systems for storing and slowly working through the harvest. Nancy Bubel’s Root Cellaring is an invaluable resource if you’re looking to improve your winter storage system, and has lots of low-cost and little-time options, if you haven’t blocked off your whole summer to dig a cellar.