2026 VEGETABLE LIST

Here is my list of vegetables I’ll be growing this year

TOMATOES
I organized the tomatoes by how many days to harvest from the day they are transplanted outside. Of course this is just an estimate depending on where you are growing them and other conditions. In the past, I’ve organized by color only, but wanted to get a better representation of early, mid, and late tomatoes. In the past, I’ve grown too many late tomatoes forcing me to wait all season. All are Heirlooms or Open-Pollinated (OP) except for a few hybrids which are listed. as such. I always try a few new ones-keeps my interest up!

CHERRY TOMATOES 
—Black Cherry-dark purple-65-70 days to harvest
––Super Sweet 100s -red-cherry-65 days to harvest-very sweet and very prolific
—Moby-yellow-dwarf plant-65 days to harvest-slightly larger cherry tomato
NEW! California Sungold-supposedly a little bigger and crack resistant than original Sungold

EARLY SEASON 
—Goliath Pio-HYBRID-red-65 days to harvest-excellent old fashion tomato flavor
NEW! Matina-red- 65-70 days to harvest-prolific early tomato
NEW! Prudens Purple-67 days to harvest-New to me!

MID-SEASON
—Black Krim-black/purplish-75 days to harvest
—Cherokee Carbon-Black/purple-75 days to harvest
—Cherokee Chocolate-brick color-70-75 days to harvest
—Jaune Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest-super prolific-super tasty
—Black Prince-70-75 days to harvest?
—Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest

LATE SEASON
NEW! Black Beauty-black-75-80 days to harvest -I grew this years ago
NEW! Striped German-yellow with pink blush inside-big-78 days to harvest
—Virginia Sweets-yellow bi-color-80 days to harvest
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OTHER VEGGIES

BEANS-William Woys Weaver-TBD-He sends rare bean seeds for me to grow out for his 501c3 every year

GREEN BEAN-Fresh eating —Rattlesnake-fresh eating green/purple splashes on pods-good in heat/droughts

SUMMER SQUASH —Friulana -Does not attract squash bugs as much as other varieties of summer squash in my garden. These produce an abundance of light yellow, “bumpy” fruit. They aren’t beautiful, but they taste great. Doesn’t get watery when cooked. This is the most common zucchini in the markets of Venice in summer.

WINTER SQUASH —Waltham Butternut-Does not attract squash bugs as much as other varieties in my garden.

PEPPERS -the last few years I’ve been trying different sweet peppers from around the world.
—Lava Red-from Italy-70-80 days to harvest-a variety of Corno D’ Toro/sweet-thick wall
—Jimmy Nardello- from Italy/80-90 days to harvest/sweet-thin wall
—Calabrian Caviar-from Italy/75-95 days to harvest/sweet-thick wall
—Piquillo Lodosa-from Spain/Basque/75 days to harvest/sweet-thin wall
—Poblano-from Mexico//65-80 days to harvest/mild heat-thick wall
—Criolla de Cocina-from Nicaragua-78 days to harvest-sweet-thin wall
—Doux D’ Espagne-from Spain/75 days to harvest/sweet-thick wall
—Shishitos-from Japan-small tapas green pepper
—Habanada-like Habanero but no heat-mall orange pepper
NEW! Bridge to Paris-from Italy-prolific red 8-9” thick skin
NEW! Giant Aconcagua– from Argentina huge red pepper
NEW! Marconi-from Italy-huge 8-12” peppers from Italy

CUCUMBERS-FRESH EATING —Poona Kheera-our favorite fresh eating cuke to eat-never bitter

CUCUMBERS-PICKLING —Bothsby Blonde-good for Bread n butter pickles/sweet pickle relish

CAULIFLOWER
—Freedom-white variety
—Cheddar-orange variety

WINTER/SPRING LETTUCES 
—Santoro–butterhead
—Yugoslavian Red-butterhead
—Speckles Troutback-butterhead
—Italienischer-oakleaf

ARUGULA —Rocket

SPINACH —Bloomsdale-early —Space-early

ONION
NEW! Purple Bunching onion (scallion)

SUMMER/FALL LETTUCES-Batavians or Summer Crisp lettuce (plant seeds in June)
—Salanova-Batavia-red and green
—Jester-Batavia
—Joker-Batavia

CHARD
—Ruby chard 
—Argentata-white stems-most cold hardy
—Orange chard

KALE
NEW! Red Russian

OKRA
NEW! Jing Orange

RADISHES
—Pusa Gulabi and Pusa Jamuni-beautiful tasty radishes
—Watermelon radish

PEAS
Super Sugar Snap-grows 5’ tall

CARROTS
—Dragon purple
—Kyoto Red
—Black Nebula
—Scarlet Red

BEETS 
—Cylindra
—Badger Flame
—Chiogga

ASPARAGUS
NEW! Jersey Knight-plants will be delivered in March

Growing and preserving cabbage

Nov3

As I’ve written before I’ve grown a cabbage that I really like called Kalibos. It is a beautiful red cone shaped cabbage that takes pretty much all season to grow. It is very tasty and sweet. The good news is that it doesn’t bolt in the summer and is ready to harvest in the fall. I think I planted it in early May.

What I didn’t know is if you harvest it a little higher on the stalk, instead cutting it level with the ground, it will produce a bunch of baby cabbages on its offshoots. Now I have a few more baby cabbages to use. I harvested them of course before the big snow storm that came in.

Preserving cabbage

Two ways to preserve cabbage is by either refrigerating it or freezing. If you want to put it fresh in salads like coleslaw, then keep some of it in your refrigerator in a zip lock bag. If the cut edge looks a little dry, just trim it off If before use. I had my cabbage last from October to February last year.

If you are not sure how you will use your cabbage or have too much to use at one time, you can preserve some of it in the freezer. To do that, quarter it, blanch it for 3 minutes in boiling water and immediately cool it in ice water to stop the cooking. Then put it freezer bags and freeze the wedges. That way you can cut it into whatever size you need later. Blanching vegetables will stops the enzyme action which can cause loss of color and flavor. Or you can rough chop it and if you use this method, you’ll need to blanch it for 1.5 minutes instead of 3 minutes. Then cool it and put it freezer bags.

You can also preserve it by making sauerkraut, or kimchi or use other fermentation recipes as well. For a great sauerkraut recipe go to: http://funfermenting.com/veggie-sauerkraut/

Kalibos cabbage-unbelievably beautiful!

Mar21

For the last 2 years I’ve grown Kalibos cabbage. A friend of mine, Alessandra turned me on to it. This beautiful Eastern European variety is cone shape with huge outer leaves that surround the cone. The cabbage has a high sugar content and intense reddish-purple leaves. The flavor is sweet. Finally a cabbage I like! I never liked cabbage before. It is so beautiful in the garden and makes quite a statement.

I especially like planting it with flowers like in the picture above. It will be equally beautiful nestled in with other plants or in the veggie garden. Needs full sun and takes 2-3 square feet in the garden. Start seeds indoors and transplant them outside under some lightweight row cover. Harvest in late summer or fall. I got my seeds from rareseeds.com (Baker Heirloom Seeds). 90 days to harvest.

New varieties in veggie garden

Nov2

Now that the season is over I can review some of the new veggies I tried.

Borlotti beans: The pod of this Italian shelling bean is so beautiful and once I picked them, let them dried and shelled them the actual beans are pinkish/cream-colored with red splashes-more beauty. The variety was ‘Lamon’ which is a vining type. Can’t wait to try them in a pasta e fagioli soup this winter.

Kalibos Red cabbage: A friend gave me some plants to try. This Eastern European heirloom cabbage has a pointed shape and intense red/purple leaves. They turned out beautiful and I gave my friend the biggest one as I’m not a big cabbage fan and she makes great fermented foods-like Sauerkraut or Kim-chi.

Butternut Rugosa (wrinkled butternut): This variety from Italy is larger than the American Butternut variety. I only got one as powdery mildew eventually took over the plant but can’t wait to eat this. Much more interesting than the regular butternut variety. This one hadn’t turned butternut brown yet.

Chartreuse Scarlet Runner bean: I grow runner beans for their beautiful flowers although I know we can eat them too. I like this variety because of its chartreuse coloring of the leaves and the scarlet flowers. I love the contrast between the yellow-green foliage and surrounding other greens in the garden (in this case it is next to the strawberry plants.)

Sunset Runner bean: I grew this for the beautiful peach colored flower. The leaves are the normal green of other runner beans. I grew it on my arbor at the entrance to the garden.

Artichokes: I wrote about this in an earlier post but definitely worth mentioning again. Wonderful good size chokes with great flavor on a beautiful plant. In fact I like the plant as much as the artichokes. Wonderful showstopper in the garden. Another one I didn’t think would harvest in time but they did. See previous post here.