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These trials were run by Tim Wilcox who is a student at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts. His concentration is "Italian culture and agriculturally related social issues." The vegetables were grown at the farm at Hampshire College. Here is the unedited report, though I did put in a few comments. 2004
Seed Trial Results: Seeds from Italy
Tim Wilcox, Amherst, MA (Zone 5) 61-10ME
Fava Supersimonia
& 61-9ME Fava Superaguadulce 80 days to maturity. Harvest period 2-3 weeks at most. Not a noticeable difference between varieties. Planted 4/6, germinated 2-3 weeks later.
Attacked by aphids around 6/1. Harvest period began around 6/23.
Plants in full bearing during the week of July 4.
By mid-July plants black and destroyed, due to my lack of attention to
the aphids, which spread viral disease. Recommendation:
to have a harvestable quantity of early favas, plant a large area (one 250g pack
will sow plenty). The larger the
beans are allowed to get before picking, the sweeter they are.
Immature beans tend to have an unpleasant bitter/astringent flavor. I didn’t have much success with fennel. I
attempted to grow it in beds alongside other crops.
I think it should be planted in single rows due to the sheer volume of
foliage it puts out. I tried direct
seeding and the germination was poor. I
would recommend seeding in trays and transplanting, to guarantee a good stand. They should be given ample room to grow, at least 9-12 inches
apart. [His observation is correct. You need to give it plenty of
space. Also, it does best in spring & fall. Finally, if you do
start it in trays, transplant it carefully since it does not particularly like
to be transplanted] 75-98 Endive Ruffec 60 days to blanching. 75 days to maturity. Holds well. Harvest period into late fall. This is an excellent variety. Very fast growing, spreading out and becoming enormous. Blanches well when tied up, being more resistant to rot than other types. Direct seeded 7/18. Thinned to 18 inches apart (thinnings are good for salad mix). Tied up 9/15. Ready 9/27. This variety, if left unblanched, has little in the way of white stem part, the curls going all the way down to the base. Tying up makes the inner leaves much more elongated. Seeded 6/15. Tied
around the middle of August. Harvested
the first week of September. This
variety is of very good eating quality, having an elongated white stem, even
when not blanched. Grows quickly to
a large size, doesn’t bolt, even after 120 days.
August was very wet, and many of the plants succumbed to decay in the
field. I would imagine that
planting in a single row would largely avoid this, as the water would be more
able to evaporate. Endive
Tres Fine Maraichere (from Rene’s Garden Seeds)
121-2
Escarole Bionda Cuore Pieno This variety puts out very light yellow/green leaves when
young, but becomes largely indistinguishable from other escaroles at maturity.
This is a self-blanching type, growing in a nice bundle.
This variety is markedly different from other escaroles. It puts out very long, slender, tongue-like leaves. It is slow growing and is easily damaged by handling and rot. My attempts to blanch it were not successful (the plants rotted to the core), but those that weren’t tied produced large, beautiful, bouquet-like heads. This variety is susceptible to a hollowing of the root, which causes the whole plant to die from the inside out. I don’t know what causes this malady. [I have never experienced this; in fact, this is one of my favorite escaroles & is by far the most cold hardy for me]
121-8 Escarole Bubikopf 3 75-80 days This variety produces enormous spreading growth that responds well to tying-up, blanching in 2 weeks with minimal exterior rot. Flavor is not one of the better of the endives, but it is beautiful. Chicory, Pan di
Zucchero This variety has the double quality of being the easiest of
this type of salad to grow, and also having the best flavor of any of the
chicories or endives. Puts out a
huge rosette of enormous leaves (12” high by 9” across), and makes dense,
loaf-shaped heads weighing upwards of 3 pounds. Direct seeded
6/15. Harvested 9/1. Staggered
heading over 45 day period. Heads
are beginning to rupture and bolt 10/10. Susceptible
to powdery mildew, but doesn’t affect quality. 40-5
Radiccio di Castelfranco 40-13
Radicchio Rossa di Verona. 43-2
Onion, Borettana 43-1 Onion, Piatta of Bergamo Growing times same as above. This variety is stunningly beautiful, the skin being of a
unique carmine-brown color, becoming brighter in the inner layers.
The small onions (1 ½” diameter) have many layers of tightly wrapped
skins, and thus they are suitable for winter storage.
The flesh is extremely pungent. This
variety contained a fair degree of impurity, with some color and shape variation
(some of them were not flat). 42-23
Onion, Long of Florence Seeded 3/28, transplanted 5/5,
harvest period 3rd week of July-last week of August.
This onion produces the most beautiful green tops of any onion I have
ever seen. If direct seeded, it
could be thinned out and used for spring scallions.
They do not grow to a very large size, becoming elongated rather than
thick. The largest was around 1 ½
” diameter and 6” tall. Very
sweet flavor, good for salads. This onion, which I am sure would attain a much larger size if wintered over in a warmer climate, grew to medium size for me, but was of excellent eating quality, full of sweet milky juice.
106-98 Tomato, Sorrento 75 days from transplant Planted 4/13. Transplanted 5/25. First tomatoes 2nd week of August (among the earliest!). This variety is huge and pink, with green shoulders, and is truncated rather than perfectly round. Very heavy sets of fruit. I made platters of Caprese salad using these tomatoes for a friend’s wedding the last weekend of August and they were outstanding. Flesh is dense and of a rich red-pink color. Cavities hollow, containing no juice around the seeds. This trait created a phenomenon which I have never seen before, which was that the flesh around some of the cavities was dried out and leathery, while the seeds in the clusters had germinated! This is not a good quality for a tomato to have, but it was less prevalent as the season progressed, the earliest specimens being the most affected. The other poor aspect of this variety is that they contain an immense core, rendering the top 1/3 of the fruit useless. [I have had mixed reports on this variety from other growers. I do not think I will carry it next year] Planting dates as above.
Came in the same time as Sorrento, even a little earlier.
Stunningly beautiful fruit. Despite
the shape, this is actually a paste tomato.
It contains very few seeds and little water, and has very sweet flesh.
It makes an outstanding sauce. I
noticed something interesting, though. When
doing my canning, I was careful to separate and label which were Red Pear and
which were S. Marzano. A few days
later, all the red pear jars busted their lids and were a stinking, foaming
mess, while the S. Marzano were fine. I
assume this is because the flesh is low acid, so if you want to can these, be
sure to add lemon juice or citric acid. Tomato San Marzano
redorta These plants I grew from seeds I had saved the previous year from a particularly late- bearing and disease-resistant specimen. This variety comes in late, around the last week in August, and continues to set heavily on 10’ long vines until the frost. They ripen better off the plant, but are absolutely delicious. 108-2
Parsley Gigante di Napoli
50 days from transplant Seeded in
trays 3/30. Transplanted 5/25.
Harvestable by the latter part of July.
This is one amazing parsley. Huge
dark green leaves with thick petioles resembling celery!
Incredible flavor! Optimum
size is attained by harvesting regularly. By
October, my plants have started to put out many smaller leaves instead of big
ones. I will never grow any other
type of parsley. 13-9 Basil, Napoletano Bolloso 30 days from transplant I was not too impressed by this variety.
It has impressively large leaves that have a nice, anise-like flavor.
However, the leaves are very perishable, often already turning brown on
the plant, making them unappetizing. It
is also a very low-growing plant, making the leaves that much more slug-prone,
and plastering them with dirt after a rain.
Might do well to grow it on black plastic?
This is the most difficult-to-grow variety of the three.
In the spring, it was the first to bolt, bolting before reaching edible
size from the April planting. From
my late May planting it was riddled with flea-beetle holes more than the other
varieties. It did a little better, but was first to bolt.
From a July 25 planting, it reached perfection by 9/21, but by the first
week in October it had bolted. The
best way to grow this variety is to plant it in late July or August, and make
sure to thin it out to at least 12” apart, as it is a very large plant,
sending up many shoots all at once from the central stalk.
If kept well-harvested, it will continue to yield for a while, but if let
go it will just bolt. [I do not think Tim has Italian Genes; all
cima di rapes have to be harvested as soon as the head forms. Harvest the
entire plant. You can not cut parts of it & expect it to regrow.
The trick is to grow small patches; succession plant every week or so.] This was the best overall performer. Fast germination and growth, huge quantities of leaves, and intense pungent flavor that is simply not there in the stuff you get at the supermarket. Performed well in both the early and late summer plantings. The 7/25 planting was at perfection 9/17, produced heads by 9/24, and was still producing heads and large leaves 10/8. Sticking your head into a bowl of freshly chopped leaves is sort of like inhaling gasoline fumes. This stuff is potent. It must be blanched before being sautéed or the flavor is too powerful.
Although this variety was the last to bolt from the 5/25 planting, I didn’t really like it. It is more like an Asian mustard green than a cime di rapa. It produces a massive quantity of serrated foliage that has white stems, like mizuna, although the flavor is much stronger. Stringy when cooked. Seeded 6/3 in trays. Transplanted 7/4. Formed large central heads 9/8-9/12, followed by large quantities of side shoots. Vigorous growth, good germination. Good flavor. Early. A good variety all around. This stuff is tricky to grow. It takes about 3 weeks to germinate, and makes slow growth at first. If left to bolt, it will seed your whole garden, though. It becomes a large bush. The best way to harvest it is to pull up the whole plant by the root, leaving more space for the adjacent plants to grow. Thinning this way it has a harvest period of a month or more. Tasty stuff, good on bruschetta with tomatoes before the basil comes in.
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