End of 2025-veggie garden review

Dec9

We tore out all but the chard and perennial fruit plants in the garden. I can hardly believe the Argentata chard is still doing good as of Dec 9th in the garden what with the nighttime temps getting down into the mid-high 20’s and only the rainwater now. It has green leaves with white ribs that are very tender. All the other chard are gone now.

But now on with the review!

I got a late start in sowing seeds this year due to us being in Europe in spring. When we planted seeds inside on March 28, it was a full 2-3 weeks later than I normally start seeds so this affected the harvest. This year in 2026, I’m going o drop some tomatoes and grow some others alongside my favorites. It’s fun to experiment and perhaps I’ll find some new winners in 2026.

PEPPERS
I thought I might not get peppers this year due to the fact I normally start pepper seeds inside in early March as it take 8-10 weeks to be big enough to plant outside by the time the frosts are gone. I wasn’t too far off as we had a less than spectacular pepper season with most producing only a few peppers before the season ended. But one outstanding variety, Sweet Calabrian Caviar pepper produced exceptionally well and saved the pepper season. Next year we are planning to be here during seed starting season. So, Poblano, Lava Red, Jimmy Nardello, and three other pepper varieties only got a few peppers. Over the years, I’ve come to like sweet peppers more than hot. I like to grill or saute them. Because they’ve done well in previous years, YES to all for next year.

TOMATOES
Surprisingly we did pretty well with most of the tomatoes this year despite the late start. The plants didn’t get as tall (4+’) but most produced well. We planted them outside on May 28 due to some late freezes and they were only 4-5 inches when they went in the ground. 8 yes and 5 no. Read on for details.

CHERRY TOMATOES
Super Sweet 100-red cherry tomato-very prolific and very sweet-good continuous harvest throughout the season. YES for next year.

Black Cherry-dark purple cherry tomato-very prolific and very sweet, smoky flavor-good continuous harvest throughout the season. YES for next year.

Sungold-yellow cherry tomato-very small, disappointing, average harvest. Fruit were too small for me although the flavor is always very sweet. Looking for a larger yellow cherry tomato for 2026. NO for next year

EARLY SEASON TOMATOES
Large Barred Boar-I’ve always like the flavor of this mahogany colored with green metallic stripes tomato BUT it does not have a long shelf life once picked. You must eat them within a few days or they turn soft-too soft. For 2026, I’m looking for a dark tomato with a longer shelf life and great flavor. Let me know if you know one. NO for next year.

Sunny Goliath-yellow medium size tomato-my second year growing them. Nice tomato but not very prolific both years. NO for next year.

Goliath Pio-red medium size tomato with little to no cracks-Great old fashioned flavor with balance of sweet-acid. Always a star, My biggest producer this year. It did not disappoint this year-good for canning or fresh eating.YES for next year.

MID SEASON TOMATOES
Black Sea Man-black/purplish-75 days to harvest -med-small size tomato with good flavor and good production.Going to try other black tomatoes this coming year. NO for next year.

Cherokee Carbon-Purple with green shoulders-75 days to harvest -med size-tomato with good flavor and average production. Unusual this year but perhaps because they got in so late, they didn’t produce as well as previous years but it is a winner. YES for next year.

Cherokee Purple-purple color-75 days to harvest -Perhaps because they got in so late, they didn’t produce as well as previous years but it is also always a winner. YES for next year.

Pantano Romanesco-Red-70-75 days to harvest.Red medium size tomato-old fashioned flavor but didn’t produce that well. I had others that did much better. NO for next year.

Jaune Flamme-orange-70 days to harvest -Can’t say enough good things about this one. Outstanding flavor, very prolific. YES for next year.

LATE SEASON TOMATOES

Lucky Cross-yellow with pink blush inside-74 days to harvest-Every year either Lucky Cross or Virginia Sweet do well. I like both but Lucky Cross didn’t do as well this year so NO for next year.

Paul Robeson-black/brick color-75 days to harvest-exceptional flavor-wins all kinds of tomato tasting awards. YES for next year.

Big Zac-red-80 days to harvest . Not very productive this year and fruit were a little smaller than the large fruit they truly are. Excellent old-fashioned flavor. NO for next year.

Virginia Sweet-yellow with red blush inside-80 days to harvest. Did fantastic this year, producing many very large-1.5 to 2 lb tomatoes. A real treat. YES for next year.
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CUCUMBERS-A bumper crop of 2 of the 3 cucumber varieties I grew this year. So much so, I got tired of making pickles and pickle relish. We couldn’t eat them or can them fast enough.

Poona Kheera-Our favorite fresh eating cuke. A yellow cuke that did exceptional well-sweet melon flavor that we use for fresh eating only. Good producer. Non bitter. YES for next year.

Boothbys Blonde-Another great yellow cuke-I use this variety for making bread and butter pickles and pickle relish. Good producer this year. YES for next year.

Salt and Pepper-new variety for me this year. Not a good producer and small. NO for next year.

Parisian-I use this variety for making cornichon pickles but I still have many jars I canned from last year, so I didn’t grow any this season but I love this one, especially if you like Cornichons, which mean tiny tart pickles.

RADISHES-Two new varieties this year and one I always grow
Pusa Gulabi and Pusa Jamuni-I loved these two and I don’t love radishes so that says a lot. Both were great flavor and look beautiful. They are not round but long. Seeds from Baker Heirloom. YES for next year.

Watermelon radish-I love this variety too but it takes a little longer till harvest. YES for next year.

PEAS
Super Sweet Sugar Snap pea- I normally try to grow these in a pot in SPRING- I say ‘try’ as the plants and harvest are usually small but this year I grew them in the garden in the FALL in a raised bed. What a difference that made! Super big 5′ plants and great producer! YES for next year.

CAULIFLOWER
I grew both orange and white varieties and both did well in the spring/summer. In the previous year, we had a hot summer and I tried a purple cauliflower that didn’t do well in the heat, so I stuck with the other two this year not knowing if we would have a hot summer.
Freedom-white variety-love this. YES for next year.

Cheddar-orange variety-love this. YES for next year.

CHARD
Argentata-a big winner with the white stalks soft like butter when cooked. Very cold and heat tolerant.
YES for next year.

Orange and Ruby varieties-both grew great and looked good together when cooked. YES for next year.

CARROTS -All carrots did well this year.
Dragon Purple -Purple outside with orange inside. YES for next year.

Atomic Red-Red outside and orange inside. YES for next year.

Black Nebula-Black inside and out. Makes the most beautiful, tasty purple soup. YES for next year.

Scarlet Nantes-standard orange inside and outside but big! YES for next year.

SQUASH-I grew a yellow, bumpy summer squash called Friulana-looks kind of yellow green in this photo and Butternut winter squash-both did well. YES for next year.

BEETS
Cylindra -deep red cylinder shaped- grows upright out of soil-easy to pull. Cuts into nice even disks-nice flavor. YES for next year.

Badger Flame-beautiful reddish ,orange-yellow outside with yellow inside. Exceptional flavor. YES for next year.

Chiogga-I can’t resist these red outside with concentric circles of red/white inside-like a bullseye.YES for next year.

Merlot lettuce-Courtesey of Seattle Seed Company

Manoa lettuce-courtesey of Siskiyou Seeds

Joker Lettuce courtesy of Hudson Valley Seed Company

Cardinale lettuce courtesy of Wild Garden Seeds

LETTUCES– I grow many varieties under 30% row cover this year outside starting in
early spring. All did well under shade.
Santoro–butterhead -My favorite lettuce-YES for next year.

Yugoslavian Red-butterhead-good cold tolerant-YES for next year.

Salanova-butterhead-red and green-good cold tolerant-YES for next year.

Oakleaf-good heat tolerant-YES for next year.

NOTE:Fruits and flowers will be in separate posts coming up.

My favorite peppers To Grow

Jun13

I love growing peppers. But not the hot ones New Mexico is so famous for. Now I love NM chiles but I can buy those chiles (that is how we spell it in NM-not chilis). And not those screaming hot ones that are the latest fad for those who want to see how much heat and pain they can endure. No thank you. I like to grow other sweet varieties from Italy, and other peppers from around the world.

One of my favorites is a large cone shaped red pepper, Corno di’ Toro, which means horn of the bull. I named mine Lava Red from my friend Lava, who brought some back from Germany but didn’t know which variety of Corno di Toro they were as there are several varieties. It is 5-8″ long, and starts off green but will turn red as the season progresses. Very sweet with thick skin. We like to grill them (like our NM green chilis) to char the skin and then I peel them. I lay them flat on several layers of wax paper (separating each layer) and freeze them in freezer ziplock baggies. Then I bring out a layer at a time and put them in various dishes-pastas, salads, eggs, etc. I try to wait till they turn red but last year I had to harvest some green and they were sweet also.

Another pepper I discovered last year is called Calabrian Caviar. I got the seeds from Secret Seed Cartel online. It comes from Calabria, Italy. It has a sweet, crisp flesh and a chili flavor without the heat. I like to stuff it with goat cheese, grilled and serve as an appetizer. I understand there is another variety called Calabrian hot pepper also. These are becoming one of my favorites.

A third variety I love is Jimmy Nardello peppers. They are a red thin-skinned pepper which is even sweeter than either of the two mentioned above. I like to grill or saute them with their skins on. In fact you can’t skin them as the skins are too thin-just eat them raw or sauteed or grilled. Sweeter than most peppers.

Here are the list of peppers I’ve grown so far and like:

PEPPERS
Lava Red– a variety of Corno di Toro or “Bull’s Horn”-sweet pepper
Calabrian Caviar-small bright red pepper hails from Calabria, Italy. Rustic and sweet.
Jimmy Nardello-sweet thin walled pepper-came to US from Italy
Piquillo Lodosa-Hails from Lodesa, Spain. It is an official Basque pepper-very sweet
Habanada-sweet (not to be confused with Habanero which is very hot-this one is not hot at all)
Shishito-not particularly sweet or hot but very tasty (used in tapas)
Poblano-mild heat-used for chili relleno

All these pepper seeds you can find online (except for Lava Red). But you can find other varieties of Corno di’ Toro peppers online.

New pepper this year-Lava Red pepper

Nov4

Corno di Toro peppers-Lava Red peppers

I use to start my Jimmy Nardello and Shishito sweet peppers inside under lights the first week of March but since they take so long to germinate and grow out to tranplanting size, I started buying them from Agua Fria Nursery in the past few years. When the nursery ran out of these sweet peppers last spring, I was bummed. Not only because they didn’t have those varieties but also because it takes peppers 8-10 weeks to grow from seed to transplanting size which is why one needs to start them super early or buy in a nursery. I thought I had run out of time.

Lava Red peppers

My best friend, Lava, from Germany had saved some sweet red pepper seeds that her son gave her from a farmers market in Germany. She described them as long red, sweet, thick walled peppers but didn’t know the name. I had the seeds for a few years but didn’t try them since I was hooked on the ‘Jimmys’. In my desperation, I decided to try to grow them out late. I grew four of them from her seeds and to my surprise, they are a type of Corno di Toro (horn of the bull or bull’s horn pepper). We don’t actually know which variety of the Corno di Toro peppers they are and there are several. I named this one Lava Red pepper after her. Corno di Toro peppers are named after their shape and are a type of Italian frying peppers that are sweet green or red but if you let them turn red, they are a little bit sweeter.

Now at Harry’s Roadhouse here in Santa Fe, I remembered (seems so long ago) they serve some kind of sweet grilled peppers strips in their house salad which I love. So I decided to grill the Lava Red peppers as I now call them and take off the skins like what we do for our hot green chilies here in New Mexico. But before I grilled them, I saved some seeds to freshen up my supply of seeds for future use.

Notice I put one of those dessicant packets (from my vitamin bottles) in with the seeds to make sure they are completely dry. Then I will remove it later.

Normally they would be grilled on the BBQ till the skins are black and then cooled in cold water and the skins slide off from the peppers, leaving the sweet pepper meat. This steps takes a little more work but the flavor of the skinless peppers is superb and well worth the effort.

Using a small grill in my fireplace to roast the peppers

The night I wanted to grill them was way too cold outside (in the 20’s) to be standing by the BBQ so I decided to grill them in my fireplace in my house while I watched the World Series. I made a fire of cedar wood and put a small portable grill over the hot coals.

Then I sat there and grilled my peppers over the cedar wood coals. The smell is fantastic and the flavor of the peppers is sweet and the cedar coals added a subtle smoky nuance to them.

After the skins are off, I put them on wax paper in layers an freeze them and take them out as needed.

I use them in scrambled eggs, on my salads, in sandwiches and I’m sure there will be many other ways to use them. I got 5 lbs of grilled peppers!

They are now one of my favorites. I like the thick walls and sweet flavor. Isn’t it funny, I was forced to try something new and it turned out fantastic! So try some Corno di Toro peppers next year, you won’t be disappointed! You can also eat this pepper raw as well!

Tomatoes, peppers and eggplants in!

Jun8

All my tomatoes get planted into wall of waters when first transplanting them. Really helps them get a good head start.

So I’m gonna try to catch up on the garden in the next few posts…

All the tomatoes went into the garden in their Wall of Waters on Wednesday, May 24. My friends, Janet, Mernie and Linda plus myself manage to get all of my tomatoes in by 2 pm. Thank you for your wonderful help! I was 5 tomatoes short, so I went over to Agua Fria Nursery (my favorite nursery) and picked up what I needed the following day and they are now in as well. I have 3 sections in my main garden and now section 1 is filled. One third done! I always espoused we should harden off out tomatoes before setting them out, but I’ve found out that if you put them into Wall of Waters, one doesn’t need to harden them off. The Wall of Waters, act like a little greenhouse and keep them warm at nite and the winds at away-well worth the money and effort. Once the tomatoes reach the top sometime this month, remove the WOWs. Still have many things to plant but the ‘maters are in!

Rhubarb is doing well even with a hail storm we had. Somehow it was sheltered.

My perennials are coming up-rhubarb, raspberries and grapes-yeah! I didn’t have to do anything (except water)! The cabbage is already in as well.

Himrod green seedless grapes grow great here. They are recovering from deer damage

Some deer came by an munched about half the leaves and grape flowers on one grape plant so now they are under row cover and recovering nicely. I pulled it off so you can see the recovery. I hope we get the grape flowers (that will become grapes) again. The deer have not been back or at least haven’t eaten any more of them.

Fushimi pepper and all peppers planted under fencing material and row covered until they adjust to heat

This week, June 1-4, I transplanted all peppers-the varieties are: Jimmy Nardello (sweet Italian frying pepper), Poblano (mildly hot use for chile rellanos), Fushimi (similar to shishitos only bigger-not hot), Shishito (good frying pepper-not hot) and Corno de Toro (big sweet Italian pepper). I put epsom salts in bottom of hole to increase flowers and peppers. I also planted all my eggplants-the variety is Fairytale. I love them, they are my favorite-I don’t grow any other. The bigger eggplants take longer to ripen and you only get a few on each plant vs fairytale eggplants are extremely prolific and ripen earlier. Fairytales are small, never bitter, thin-skinned, great sliced in half and sautéed with garlic in oil or on the BBQ-ed on the grill. You can still use them for Eggplant Parmesan, only takes more.