Pole Beans. Grew Trionfo Violetto, Meraviglia Venezia, La Spagna & Lamon. Did all of them on teepees (cut some saplings 8' long, tied 4 together and sunk them in the ground well, planted five or six beans around the base of each pole. If you do this and you are in a windy area, you might want to anchor the teepee down with a stake or two. All the beans were real winners. The
Trionfo Violetto is a round purple pole bean. Was ready in 60 or so days. Great taste, incredibly productive, and will grow to 9-10 inches and still remain very tender and stringless. Meraviglia Venezia was another real winner. Very early for a pole bean at 55 or so days. Very long (up to 10-11 inch) flat roma type. Great taste &
texture and no strings. Also very productive. Seeds do not begin to swell up until bean is 7-8", so you can let them get fairly big. La Spagna was another surprise. It is described as a large white 'soup bean' and it is large. Pods run 10" or more in length and contain 6 or more large white beans. You can either (1) leave them on the plant until they dry and collect them for dried beans (2) pick them when they just begin to turn from green and begin to turn brown (use them as fresh shell beans) or (3) you can pick them when they are 5-6 inches long, before the beans have swollen very much and eath the entire bean (mangiatutto). At this stage they are a 1/2 inch or so wide dark green flat bean. I picked some at that stage and they taste pretty good. In fact I had to stop picking them that way so I could get some dry beans. The Lamon is a borlotto bean from Venice and the Venetians claim it is the best borlotto bean in Italy. It was pretty good; right now I have only had them as a fresh shell bean, but they were really excellent. Real 'meat' taste and very smooth texture. They are six-seven inches long with a rose mottled shell and a white/cream bean with red mottling. They seem quite productive.
Bush beans. Grew La Victoire and Dolico-Dall'Occhio. La Victoire is a really tender, slim dark green bean. It is not a 'fillet' bean, but it is quite slim and runs six or so inches long. It was ready in 50 or so days. Produced a very good crop of very tasty beans. My tenant, who shares the garden, pronounced this a 'really good bean'. The dolico-dall'occhio was a real surprise. All I had to go on was a seed pack picture. I grew them with the same spacing I used for regular bush beans-12" rows. This, however, is not your average bush bean. By day 40 when the other beans were in flower, it was still growing and started sending up runners. My god, I thought. This is a pole bean. But no. Eventually, I got sets of 3 flowers along the runners and three six-eight inch long slim green beans which swelled up nicely. Tried eating them green. Impossible. Waited until I could shell the pods and lo and behold, I had a tiny bean with a black eye (I suspect we are talking about black eyed peas here). In any case, they are very tasty. Very prolific. Lots of three bean sets. Best technique is either to wait until the pods begin to turn brownish (shell and use as a fresh shell bean or let them dry completely and use as a dried bean).
Cima di rapa in the summer. Reported on 40 & 60 day varieties in the spring newsletter. This summer I did 40,60,90, senza testa and a new one, foglia d'olivio (olive leaf).
The foglia d'olivio is on the right. Contrary to common belief, all do well in the summer. The 40 days
was ready in 30 days; bolted quickly once seed head formed so pick as soon as that head forms. [All of these will store a lot longer in the refridgerator in the crisper than they will last in the field] The 60 day was ready in 34-38 days. It also bolted fairly quickly. Once they send up the flower shoot, the stems get tough (you can peel them) and eating quality suffers. The 90 day was ready in 50-55 days. It has the largest leaves and head (grows 16-18" tall) and very thick stem which is really tasty, but it should be peeled, much like a broccoli stem. Took the longest to go to seed, but it still needed to be cut fairly soon after a head forms. The Foglia d'olivio has a very thick stem, probably as thick as 90 day and it had good taste. The leaves are large and look just like an olive tree leaf. Nice flavor. About the same resistance to bolting as the 90 day. Senza testa was very interesting. It is really a turnip green (but then so are cima di rapa's). It was a very quick grower and was ready in 30 days. No head. Very nice flavor although with a bit more bite than the above. As of this date, it is still growing in the garden; it has not gone to seed. It just has kind of sat there. Flavor is a bit stronger, but then, it is green and tastes good with pasta. Next year the cima di rapa maceretese should be back.(there was a crop failure last year). So which ones to choose. They are all great. There is not a whole lot of difference between the 40 & 60 day varieties in maturity time, but then they are pretty close in size. The 90 day & foglia d'olivio are longer to mature, but larger. Pick a couple and grow them at the same time. Lessens the need to succession plant so often.
Cucumbers. Grew parigi pickling cuke, bianco primaticio white pickler and beth alpha. All were started in 4" pots on 15 May, a week before the last frost date. (usually I start them 3 weeks before last frost date, but this year the weather was really cold so I held off). They went out to the garden on 7 June. Some were grown on a trellis, some grown on the ground and some using 'veggie cages' which I was trialing. First to be ready (40 days or so)was the beth alpha (but only by two days). Beth alpha is a 'mid-east' type: thin skin, smallish & very tasty. They are best picked when five inches or so. No bitterness and they produced very well. The bianco primaticio is an old favorite. It is a very productive pickler type; very nice taste. Pick before it turns completely white, since by then it is a bit overmature. Also a good producer. The parigi is an amazing cuke. Also a pickler, it is best picked when 4" or so, though taste and quality remain good even when they get bigger. It was the most amazing producer I have ever seen; I could not give away all the cukes I had. Those on the trellis did best; second best was those on the ground, though I did miss a lot of fruit in the foliage. Veggie cage was the least satisfactory; it was not strong enough to hold up the weight of the cucumbers. As of mid-september, all are still producing.
Tomatoes. New tomatoes trialed this year were Lilliput and Pantano. They went out on 7 June (by then they had been repotted twice and were in six inch pots). The lilliput even had some flowers. They were grown in two foot diameter
concrete wire cages. The lilliput is an F1 hybrid determinate cherry. Grew three feet high. It was the first tomato in the garden to produce. Fruit set was high; typical truss had 20-25 fruit which ran about an inch in diameter. Production was really amazing. The fruit did not crack after rains and held longer than normal on the plant. Taste was good. While a really nice home garden tomato, this one also has excellent commercial potential. Pantano is an old favorite from
northern Italy. It is a huge plant; very vigorous. Produced a very heavy crop of somewhat flattened slightly ribbed red 12-13 ounce fruit. They were quite tasty. First tomatoes ripened in 70 or so days. It exhibited pretty good disease resistance-this year most of my American heirloom tomatoes just wilted away; Pantano kept on going.