Seeds from Italy News
Vol 8, #4, December 2008
THE NEWSLETTER IS BEST READ ON LINE. THE PHOTOGRAPHS MENTIONED BELOW ARE IN THE ONLINE VERSION. IF YOU WANT TO READ ON LINE, GO TO:
http://growitalian.com/sep_2008.htm
We publish four times a year (usually) and include information on all aspects of Italian vegetables, herbs and flowers: selecting, growing, harvesting and storing and cooking. We would be happy to receive and if space permits, publish your experiences in these areas.
If you have a friend who is interested in all things Italian (at least for vegetables, herbs & flowers, please feel free to forward this to them.
1. Privacy Policy
2. What is new for 2009
3. Growing Tip: Celery & celeriac
4. Winter Squash Report
5. Christmas is Coming - Gifts for Gardeners
6. Recipe. Pumpkin Marmelade, Stuffed Zucchini Update
7. A cookbook worth buying.
8. Christmas.
9. Unsubscribe from the newsletter.
1. Privacy Policy. A number of people on their order forms asked me not to sell or divulge their personal information: address, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. I want everyone to understand that I take privacy very seriously. I never disclose any customer information to anyone under any circumstances. I have been bothered by too many telemarketers, received too much junk email to do that to anyone else. I don't even keep credit card numbers: a number of customers who reordered and told me to use their credit card number on file were surprised when I told them I do not keep them on my computer, nor do I have access to them from the credit card authorizing service.
2. What is new for 2009
a. Catalogs. Catalogs are at the mailing house. They should go out right
around Thanksgiving. They will go out bulk mail, so the post office will not forward them if you have moved. If you have changed your address since you last made an order, please send me an email and provide your name, old address and current address.
The new catalog will be on line soon. I am having some problems with
modifying the web site, but it should be cleared up after Thanksgiving.
b. New Items for 2009. I have several new varieties for 2009. There are two 'mixed bags'; one is a chard mix with a red, green and yellow chards and a radish mix with a red, yellow, white and purple round radish. There is
pak-choi chinese cabbage which is pretty popular in Italy. I have Chantenay carrots, famous for their taste. There is a new hybrid eggplant, Irene (ex Primatico) which looks like a black beauty but is better tasting and more prolific [I could never bring myself to import black beauty which is still grown extensively in Italy]. There is a new turnip, violet top half long; I have been eating these the past few weeks and they are really quite good. I also have a limited supply of a white seeded supermarconi bean; a customer convinced me to bring these in by claiming they were superior to black seeded supermarconi. While I find it hard to believe, I will give them a try. They are not in the catalog & are online only. I also found a reliable source for the tondo liscio tomato and Marconi Rosso pepper, both of which are back this year.
I have a really nice red poppy (Turkish or Tulip Poppy) and a French fillet bean
that really impressed me last year. Koala fillet bean is used in Italy primarily by professional growers and is pretty special. Finally, I have some regional 'collezione'. These are collections of six seed varieties, each associated with a specific region of Italy, packed in a really pretty gift box along with recipes and growing instruction. There is a collection from Tuscany, one from Rome and another from the Veneto. They are very nice. Here are some photos of the new items.
Mixed Radish Mixed
Chard Pac
Choy
Irene
Glaucum Chantenay
(tulip) poppy Carrot
Koala French Bean White
Seed
Regional Collections
Supermarconi
c. No longer available. Those of you who have read this newsletter for a while have probably figured out that I am really fascinated with seed varieties from Southern Italy. Since Franchi Sementi is from Bergamo up north, I get most of my southern varieties from seed companies in Puglia (the other seed growing region in Italy). One of these companies has some really interesting varieties; they unfortunately have a not very good attitude toward quality control and over the years I have received bad seed, the wrong seed, etc. I finally gave up on them this year and consequently, there are a few items which will no longer be available. Lampascioni is gone as is the sweet sheepnose pepper, the hot topepo rosso pepper and louvier endive. [However, I have managed to replace it with Ruffec which I always thought was a bit nicer]
d. Pricing. Prices have gone up some this year. Franchi did
a price increase on the seed packs and exchange rates and shipping charges are
brutal. The regular packs went up ten cents; special selections are up
five cents and organic seed ten cents. Shipping charges also went up a
bit; there was a postal increase this past May and there will be another
one in January. While I hate to increase prices, I hope you
understand. Since I started doing this in 1999, the dollar has dropped
significantly against the Euro; shipping charges from Europe have doubled
and postal rates are up 35% or so for packages. I absorbed some of the
increases, but have to pass some of it along. Sorry. The new prices
will be effective January 1, 2009, so if you order before then you will beat the
increase.
3. Growing Tip: Celery & celeriac. Growing Celeriac (and celery). I grew up on a small (15 acre) celery farm in Lexington, Massachusetts. Maybe that is the reason I have not grown celery in the garden from the day I left the farm to join the Army [never to go back since the farm became a suburban development] until this year. We used to work like dogs planting, weeding, harvesting and packing celery. (although we were not very efficient according to my grandfather). Anyway, this year I decided to grow celeriac which is essentially a celery, but you eat the root rather than the top leaves.
Celeriac takes somewhere around 110-120 days to mature from transplants! On the other hand, it stores exceptionally well so you can eat celeriac for the better part of the winter. The best way to grow it is from transplants. 13-14 weeks or so before your normal set out date for celery/celeriac, start some seeds in a tray. Just broadcast some seeds in an open tray, cover them lightly with your seed starting medium and wait. Celery is notoriously slow to germinate; figure on two weeks or so for it to germinate (sometimes three weeks). It grows fairly slowly. When it has its true leaves (say at 1 1/2 inches or so), transplant it into six packs or whatever you use to grow things out. Put it under lights or put it in a greenhouse and let it grow. You should have pretty healthy plants by the time it is ready to go out.
Celery/celeriac prefers a muck soil (on the farm we grew it in some bottom land that was pretty much an old peat bog and it loved that soil) but you can grow it in just about any good soil. Give it plenty of fertilizer and keep it well watered. Space your celeriac about 10-11 inches in the row and rows 12" apart. Celery can be somewhat closer. Keep it well weeded and apply a side dressing of fertilizer about halfway through the growing season.
I thought I had a photo of celeriac when I set it out, but I guess not. This is celeriac in late September, just before harvest. The other photo is of a small celeriac; most of them are considerably larger but this is one I happened to wash off. Size of this particular variety (Bianco del Veneto) is pretty good sized. Small ones are more or less the size of a baseball; normal size ones are softball size or larger. They are pretty much stringless.
To harvest celeriac, dig it up (pitchfork is a good tool), cut the leaves off leaving about an inch of the leaf stems and lightly trim the roots (you do not want to cut into the bulb, but get most of the longish roots off. Leave any dirt on the bulb. You can store it in a root celler (I store mine in my basement which has a dirt
floor and a fair amount of moisture) or you can dig a hole, put it in the hole and cover the hole with soil or lots of hay. It will keep pretty much all winter.
My favorite way to use it is cook it together with some good potatoes. Mash everything together, put some chopped parsley on top, drizzle with olive oil and eat. You can also grate it in salads, make a really good soup or roast it with other winter vegetables. It is a really
versatile winter vegetable.
If you are growing celery, you can blanch it if you want it more mild. On the farm, we used to use long rolls of reinforced paper held close to the plants with steel wire hoops, but you can use anything to withhold sunlight to blanch the plants. If you are going to blanch the plants, do it three weeks or so before they are ready to harvest. Also, save the tops. They make a great flavoring (the Italian flavoring trinity is carrot, onion and celery.) You can just put a bunch of celery tops in a blender, add some water, blend everything together and freeze the liquid in ice cube trays. Transfer to plastic bags when frozen. In the winter when making soups, beans, etc., add a celery cube or two.
4. Winter Squash Report. This year I had some extra space and decided to grow out a bunch of the winter squash. I decided to grow Padana, Marina Chioggia, Marmellata (Jaune Gros de Paris), Butternut Rugosa and Lunga di Napoli. What I will do is give you a general run down on how I grow squash, then make some comments on each particular variety.
I was not absolutely clear how long it took for each particular variety to mature although I did know that both Padana & Marina Chioggia were pretty late (at least 100 days) so what I did was start some transplants in mid May. I used 4" pots and each pot got three seeds; I thinned down to two plants per pot. [Another reason I did this was the field I was using was loaded with cucumber beetles which will destroy young squash plants as they germinate. If you direct seed, they will munch the plants as they germinate] Squash plants went out the beginning of June (in Southern New England, that is when you can be absolutely sure that you are not going to have a frost and night time temperatures will be 50F or higher. I spaced the plants at six feet in the row and six feet between the rows. About half of the plants were covered with light weight insect barrier cloth [that was all that I had] so they pretty much avoided becoming lunch for the cucumber beetles. The uncovered plants had a lot of holes in the leaves, but survived fairly well.
We had a lot of rain in June & July [that is a bit of an understatement; we had 30 inches or so which is three quarters of the normal annual rainfall here]. I had no rain related mildew problems, though a lot of farmers lost their squash and melon crops. No supplemental irrigation was provided, although usually squash will do fine without irrigation. This is a photo of the squash in mid July.
First observation. All of these squash varieties really run. They all had vines at least twenty feet long. Six feet between plants is cutting it a bit close. Some varieties were ready in late August/early September, some not until later on in September. Here are some specific notes on each variety.
Marmellata (Jaune Gros de Paris) These were early. Some were ready in late August. I got two or three fruit per plant. Fruit were five to fifteen pounds. Several customers contacted me and told me their fruit were quite large [most over twenty pounds]. I suspect that all the rain we had washed out a lot of fertilizer and that may be a reason they were so small. The Marmellata are the round yellow/orange pumpkins in the middle of the picture. I have not yet made any jam, so I can not report on how they taste.
Lunga di Napoli. These were pretty amazing. They were the next to ripen after the Marmellata. Some were ready the beginning of September. They were still growing at the end of September when I harvested all the squash. They get pretty good sized. The first one I picked weighed 29 pounds. They get bigger if you let them. They are a really good tasting squash. Flesh is orange (they take a few weeks to really ripen after you pick them) the the skin is really easy to peel. They produce fairly heavily for such a large fruit. I bet I got two per plant, perhaps more. I should have counted better, but in any case, they are a good producer. I suppose the question is, if you are a home gardener, what do you do with a bunch of 30 pound winter squash. Store them someplace dry and above freezing. Make a lot of squash soup (they make good soup), rissoto, squash fries [I cut them up in strips like a big fried potato and cook them on top of the stove - let them caramelize- They are very good] I am not sure how well they store, though since the skin is kind of thin, I plan on eating most of them first.
Butternut Rugosa. These were ready mid-season. I think the first were ready the middle of September and they came on pretty strong shortly thereafter. They are a good producer. There were at least two per plant and usually more. Fruit are tan in color (usually), ribbed and have a very deep orange flesh. They were variable in size. There were some smallish ones in the three pound range, but most were anywhere from five to eight pound and several were larger. I suspect that in a more normal summer they would be a bit bigger and produce somewhat more heavily [there were a number of periods over the rainy summer when the bees went on vacation] These things taste really, really good. They are very good for soup, but also perfect for a flavorful risotto or for stuffing ravioli or making gnocchi.
Padana. These are the green/yellow heavily ribbed pumpkin shaped squash. They weigh five or so pounds. They are late. If you grow them in an area with early frosts, definitely use transplants. They are moderate producers; I probably harvested one or two squash per plant, though if the weather had been better I would have had more since there were a lot of small ones that were not ready. Taste is very good. They store well. They are popular in Northern Italy and consequently are very good for things like risoto, ravioli, gnocchi, etc. They make a really nice Halloween decoration; I have a bunch of them out front of the kitchen door.
Marina di Chioggia. These are the dark green warty pumpkins in the front left. Like Padana, they are late and should be grown from transplants in areas with early frost. They weigh four or five pounds and have a reputation for excellent storage. They produced somewhat less than the other varieties; I probably averaged one squash per plant. Again, I think weather was a factor. Taste is excellent. They are quite dry and really good for stuffing pasta, risoto, etc.
5. Christmas is Coming - Gifts for Gardeners Consider sending a gift of seeds to a fellow gardener. I can send them out with a personalized note with a message from you. You can also send a Seeds from Italy gift certificate. They are available in $15, $25, & $50 denominations. You can put a personal message on them and they are sent out with the new catalog. You can order them on line and if you get an order in within 7 days of Christmas, there should be no problem getting them to any U.S. destination before Christmas.
The
new collezione would also be a really nice Christmas gift. There is a
Roman Collection, a Tuscan Collection (five packs since one of the items is a
box of chick peas) and a Venetian collection. Each comes in a really
pretty printed box and includes six packs of seeds that are favorites in the
respective regions. The box includes descriptions, growing instructions
and recipes. Here is a brief description of each of the collections:
999-60
Tuscan Collection. Includes
rosa lunga di Firenze onion, Cavolo Nero (kale); zucchini fiorintino, costuluto
Fiorentino tomato & chickpea Principe.
$18.75
999-61
Roman Collection. Romanesco
Zucchini, Violetta Artichoke; Romanesco Cauliflower, Supermarconi bean, Tomato
Roma, Romana lettuce (romaine). $18.75
Again, here is a picture of the boxes they come in:
6. Recipe. Pumpkin Marmelade, Stuffed Zucchini Update
Pumpkin Jam. [marmellata di zucca] There are a lot of variations on how to make this, but this appears to be the basic recipe. Get a big pumpkin (preferably the marmellata you grew yourself), remove the seeds and any strings and peel it. Cut it in smallish pieces, put it in a pot, add a cup of water or so & cook it until it is good and done and the water is gone.
Add sugar; the quantity use varies from recipe to recipe, but the general consensus is that you use ten parts pumpkin to four parts sugar. So, if your quantity of pumpkin is 2 pounds, use 3/4 pound or so of sugar. Grate a lemon peel and add that. Cook for another hour or two on low heat; when done, run it through a sieve, pack it in sterile jars and process them in a water bath.
This is the basic recipe. Most people add other things. A bit of high quality vanilla extract (or some whole vanilla bean are often added. Sometimes a bit of liqueur are also added (amaretto, cognac, etc) Other people substitute cinnamon or nutmeg for the vanilla. Whatever works for you is fine.
If you want to look at the variations used by cooks in Italy, go to google and type in 'marmellata di zucca'. If your Italian is not very good, just click translate in the brief description and you will usually get a fairly understandable English translation. Enjoy.
Stuffed Zucchini Update. Last issue I did a bit on my wife's favorite stuffed zucchini. Well since then there has been a frost; zucchini are gone and so are the tomatoes. What to do. In Italy you would wait until next year when the zucchini are back in season. Not here, however. So, it was make the zucchini with store bought zucchini & canned tomatoes [I never did get around to freezing any]. While the zucchini are ok, the canned tomatoes do not make it on this. So, one night I tried it without tomatoes. Same old recipe: boil a zucchini until more or less done, slice it in half, scoop out the pulp & chop it. Brown a small onion chopped small, the pulp and a slice of really good bread cut into tiny cubes [very easy to cut if you put your bread in the freezer. Use one of those metal graters (the kind that grate off the tips of my fingers) and grate some cheese using the third largest setting so you get longish strips. Mix everything together, put in the toaster oven & cook until the crumbs are crisp and the cheese melted. Lo & behold, my wife preferred this to the one with tomato & basil on top. She loved the crispy bread chunks and melted cheese and I have to admit, I think she is right.
7. A cookbook worth buying. I can not remember if I mentioned this book in a previous newsletter, but if I did, it is good enough to mention twice. I even bought this one [usually I check them out from the library and if they are really good, then buy them so this one definitely passed muster. Take a look at Anna Teresa Callen, Food and Memories of Abruzzo, Italy's Pastoral Land. In addition to some really good recipes, the book is full of useful information and memories of growing up in Abruzzo. It is a lot of fun. Give yourself a copy for Christmas.
8. Merry Christmas to all of you and thanks for helping me make the past nine years both successful and a lot of fun. What got me thinking of this is that I got a phone call this morning from a customer who started out by asking me if I was associated in any way with a specific company that also sells Italian seeds. She had a bad experience with this particular company. I explained that I am not connected with any other company in the US, and that I just deal with Franchi Sementi in Italy and two little companies in Puglia for some South Italian items that Franchi does not carry. She then said some very nice things about me and the seeds I sell. This sort of thing has happened quite a few times over the years. It makes for a nice day.
I know I have said this before, but I really
appreciate all of you. Many of you are not 'customers' but friends whom I
have just not yet happened to meet personally. I try and treat everyone
just like I would like to be treated and folks seem to respond quite well to
that. I like sharing what I have learned over the years about
growing & cooking Italian seed varieties; I like you sharing your
experiences with me and in many cases, allowing me to pass that along to others
through the newsletter. I turned 66 earlier this month and this past year
have thought about retiring. I am still doing it, however. The
primary reason is that this is a lot of fun [and fortunately I am still
physically able to hump 25 kilogram bags of beans] So thanks
again.
9. Unsubscribe from the newsletter. . If you received this newsletter and you do not want to be on the subscription list, just click on the unsubscribe link below.
http://www.growitalian.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=GrowItalian
Good growing. As always, may your garden be woodchuck and deer free. Also, for those of you who have squirrels get in your attic, may you have a couple of red tailed hawks patrol your yard.
Additionally, may you not have mice in your seed storage area. The traps
came out today. Looks like I lost twenty or thirty packs of zucchini seed.
Bill McKay