Seeds from Italy News
Vol 9, #4 December 2009

THE NEWSLETTER IS BEST READ ON LINE. THE PHOTOGRAPHS MENTIONED BELOW ARE IN THE ONLINE VERSION. CLICK ONCE ON A PHOTOGRAPH TO ENLARGE IT. IF YOU WANT TO READ ON LINE, GO TO:

http://growitalian.com/dec_2009.html

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. Christmas
3. New Varieties for 2010.
4. 2010 Catalogs
5. Really Good Recipes.
6. Growing Onions & Onion Trial Results
7. Growing tip. Cucumbers
8. Great photos of Italian vegetables.
9. What is this thing: Erba Stella
10.Community Garden Plots
11. Subscribe or 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. 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 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

999-62 Venetian Collection. Marina Chioggia winter squash; pole bean Meraviglia Venezia, Radicchio Castlefranco, zucchini rugosa friulana, Chioggia beet, Borlotto Bean Lamon. $18.75

Again, here is a picture of the boxes they come in:

3. This is what will be new for 2010. All of the new varieties are here and are available now. I have the following: Single click on the thumbnail below to get the full sized photo.

Carrot mix. This is a mix four different colored carrots: white, yellow, orange and purple. It looks pretty.

Lettuce, passione brune. I took one look at the catalog photo and decided I had to have this lettuce. It isstunning. It is an heirloom buterhead French lettuce (mid 19th century) It has a reputation of being very cold hardy. The name comes from the fact the lettuce could be planted early in the Paris winter gardens and be ready on Passion Sunday [more commonly referred to as Palm Sunday, the last Sunday before Easter.

Custard White. This is a white pattypan squash that is another heirloom variety from the 19th century. It has a reputation of being early, very good tasting and prolific. Quite a few customers have requested it, so go for it.

Beet, bikores. I have really become a fan of beets since I started growing and eating Italian beets. I just love them and when Franchi added this to the line, it was a no brainer to pick it up. Bikores is a round bright red beet with very thin skin and a reputation for resistance to bolting (though to be quite honest, I have never had a problem with that).

Pepper,Rosso dolce da appendere. New from Puglia. Sweet red thin skinned pepper, larger than frieriello. 6" or so long. Use fresh as a frying pepper; they dry exceptionally well for use in the winter. These are one of the varieties you see bundles of, hanging from the sides of houses. 70 days or so.

Tomato, Belmonte. Large pink tomato from Campagna. I have been looking for a source for this variety for some time. It has a really good reputation for taste and production.

Garrafal Oro Pole Bean. Back again as I have found a reliable source. Large flat green bean with a slight curve.

Wild Cardoon. Also back again since I now have a good reliable source for the seed. I opened a pack just to make sure there were seeds in it (the previous supplier provided lots of chaff, but no seed) There was some chaff, but lots of seeds also.

4. 2010 Catalogs. The new catalogs will go out sometime around December 3rd. They went out to everyone who has ordered seeds in the past and also to those of you who have made catalog requests over the past few months that I have been out of catalogs. They went bulk mail, so it can take anywhere from a few days to 16-17 days for them to get to you. It is amazing how bulk mail works. If you do not get it before Christmas, drop me a note. Something went wrong. [every year a lot of them get munched in the post office sorting machines. It gets me crazy, but that is how things work. You can also download them. They are on line.

5. Really Good Recipes. If you are not familiar with Kyle Phillips, definitely check him out. He does Italian Recipes for about.com and also does an email newsletter. It is very, very good. This is the general site: italianfood.guide@about.com What got me thinking about this was this week he was talking about cima di rapa and how it is often the first course at Christmas Eve meals in southern Italy. If you are looking for some good recipes for cima di rapa, Click Here

6. Growing Onions & Onion Trial Results Onions are pretty easy to grow. In a few places you can grow them direct from seed, but in most parts of the country you need to start your onion plants 10-12 weeks before you plant them out in the garden. Partially this is just because onions take a long time to mature and if you direct seed in the North, your onions will be pretty small. Also, since they are such slow growers, you have to be really careful with weeds. It is just infinitely easier to grow your own onion plants and transplant them.

Onions are usually classified as long day (they begin to make bulb when day length gets to 14-16 hours; intermediate day (12-14 hours) or short day (10-12). The general rule for best size onion is to grow long day in the North, short day in the south and you can grow intermediate day anywhere. Most of the onions I sell are long day; the exceptions are barletta and tropea rossa which are intermediate day.

Starting onions. I sart mine in a 10" x 24" open plastic tray. I just fill it with soil starting mix, wet the mix and scatter onion seed across the top, trying to keep the seeds 1/4 inch or so apart. I cover the seed with soil mix , cover with some plastic to keep in moisture and put them on the heat pad. They are usually up in 10 days or so. Remove the plastic as soon as the first seed germinates and let them grow on. I keep them inside under lights. If they get too tall, you can trim them some with a scissors. They are ready to set out at 10-12 weeks.

Planting. I plant in raised beds. Onions need good fertile soil to produce well, so use plenty of fertilizer. I just cut out a block of plants, separate them carefully and plant them an inch or so deep with spacing at four to five inches. This is a block of lunga firenze in the garden this year. Make sure your onions get plenty of water.

Harvesting. They are ready when the leaves have begun to turn brown and perhaps flop over. Pull the onions and dry they for a week or so. I usually do mine inside an old shed to keep them out of any rain. You can then trim the roots and if needed, cut back the tops to an inch or so. Store them in a cool and dry place. You can braid them or you can also store them in a mesh bag. The general rule for how long onions last in storage seems to be that late maturing long day onions store longer.

This year I grew tropea rossa, borretana and lunga firenze. I had really good transplants, it was a good year for onions (lots of rain) and they grew really well. I have boxes and boxes of onions. The tropea rossa were quite large, 2-3 inches and very sweet. Great color and taste. They were the sweetest but also stored the shortest period of time. Lunga firenze were enormous; some of them were six inches or so long. They tasted good (a bit stronger than the tropea) and stored a bit better. I am just eating them now (mid November). Borretana store the best of all; they are quite strong but are wonderful cooking onions and are divine when roasted with other winter vegetables. I really like them. [Very bad news; there was a failure of the borretana crop this year and there is virtually no seed. Any seed available will be from last year and since onion seed does not store well, sow heavily. Try Piatta di Bergamo which is similar to borretana, although it is red/brown rather than yellow.]

7. Growing tip. Cucumbers It is always easier to grow cucumbers on some sort of a trellis, if for no other reason than they are easier to find. I used to use a dedicated trellis for my cukes; one day I noticed a fellow gardener at the community garden and he was using the fencing around his plot to grow his cukes. Great idea I thought, so I started doing this at home. Here is a picture of some parigi cukes on my fence. These are probably my favorite cuke. They are early, taste good, produce like crazy and produce over a long period of time. They are good to pickle or eat fresh. What more can you ask for.

8. Great photos of Italian vegetables. Earlier in the newsletter I mentioned the recipes and newsletter of Kyle Phillips from about.com He also has a project to photograph Italian vegetable varieties. Every time he is at an outdoor market and sees something different, he photographs it and posts it on line. He has eighty or so up there now. It is a lot of fun to look through them. Click here.

9. What is this thing: Erba Stella Italians love green slightly bitter things. Erba Stella is the ultimate green and slightly biter thing. They are really easy to grow, tough as nails (they will survive a New England winter without a touch of damage) and taste pretty good. You can grow them year round, but they are most tender if grown in the cooler months. You can start picking them after thirty or so days. Just scatter the seeds in a wide row (the seeds are really small, so take care to space them well so you do not have to thin them), press them down into the soil and they will be up in a few days. They are really nice in a frittata, but you can eat them as you would any other tender green. Here is a picture of some I grew this year.

10.Community Garden Plots. I have become a bit of a community garden fanatic. Driven out of my yard by shade (the non-gardening partner thinks it is a mortal sin to cut down a tree, even a fifty foot black locust ortwo that shades the entire garden) I got a couple of plots in the local community garden. What a joy to grow there. The soil is better than in my yard since it was an old farm with good river bottom soil. It is in a conservation area and while there are lots of garden predators like woodchucks and rabbits, there are also lots of creatures that prey on said garden predators such as coyote, red tailed hawks and best of all, a fisher cat which has reduced the woodchuck population to near zero. The place is beautiful; there are lots of interesting folks who grow. The photograph is from my garden plot looking over to the west. The pond has swans, geese, ducks, fish, frogs, blue heron and some of the biggest snapping turtles I have ever seen. Here is some of the harvest from the plot over at the community garden.

If you are considering a community garden plot, then start looking now. Most of them have waiting lists and if you sign up early, you will probably get a plot. If you wait until registration day in the spring, you will probably be out of luck.

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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.