Cornucopia Utopia

This year, we decided to experiment with some heirloom varieties of vegetables. Given the limited gene pool from which commercially marketed vegetables are developed, keeping the heirloom varieties going is important in order to increase the chances that we may have alternative food sources should the biological “big one” ever hit, i.e. we get a widespread epidemic of disease or fungus. Plus, the different colors look cool in your garden and growing heirloom varieties makes it sound like you know what you are doing to your less enlightened friends.

We picked Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds ( http://rareseeds.com) because they had the greatest variety of vegetables and fruits that no one has ever heard of. As important, they have a colorful catalog that is just fun to read. We ordered the “Southern Collection.” Within about a week, we received more seeds than we will ever plant in our lives. So we decided to work with just a few at a time.

We planted six varieties of tomatoes. These are: Cream Sausage, Egg Yolk, Arkansas Traveler, Coer de Boef and Heartland. Yes, that was only five, but I have forgotten the other one. We have yet to produce the first tomato from these because the spring was long and cold and they were slow to take off. Germination was good for all varieties (100%). Considering the dry weather the past couple of months, they’ve all made steady progress, despite occasional stealth attacks from Tomato Hornworms the size of kielbasa. But recently, the Cream Sausage, an ivory-colored, banana pepper-like variety has developed blossom end rot on nearly all of the still-forming tomatoes. This is a pity because this variety is my personal favorite. As this is a problem that occurs during blossom set, we hope it will ultimately correct. But we will have to chalk this one up as less resistant to moisture and temperature fluctuations (so far) than the others. The Egg Yolk and Arkansas Traveler are doing especially well.

In my continuing quest to make us more self-sufficient (and because I really, really like to eat in the name of research), I also planted Jerusalem Artichokes and Asian long beans. The Jerusalem Artichokes are a great success. The tubers look like ginger root or cannas. You can leave them in the ground all winter and they will continue to spread, or you can start new plants with very small sections of tuber. They are drought-resistant and the bugs seem to hate them. The big question is whether or not we will hate them, too, as we have actually never eaten one. The long bean seeds (those that did not end up in the washing machine by accident) were very slow to germinate, but as soon as the really hot weather arrived, they were off and running. These are slower growing than green beans, but far more interesting. The longest at the moment is about a foot long and still growing. We’ll stir fry these when we have enough of them.

Note to self: Start seeds inside earlier in the year, in case of cold, long springs. Check lunar planting calendar. Cheat and buy started plants from Dale at work.