Purple carrots. Tell me that's not awesome. I completely love varieties of fruits and vegetables that defy convention. Like these carrots, or purple string beans. Or orange and yellow watermelon! It's just a testament to how amazing and vivid the plant world can be. And it's also a sad reminder of how many varieties of plants fall by the wayside in the wake of commercial agriculture. Most people I know, when I mention purple carrots, are amazed that they even exist. And I admit I was one of those people until I took up an interest in gardening a couple years ago (not that I've done much actual gardening!). I thought for sure my kids would love the idea of purple carrots, too. But they were NOT enthusiastic about it. And since these Dragon Carrots are described as having an "almost spicy" flavor, I was a little nervous about actually enjoying eating them. So, I wimped out and got seeds for regular, orange carrots. But sometime in the future I'll try out the purple ones.Going through the seed catalogs, there were tons of different vegetables I was interested in trying to grow myself but I felt like I should limit myself since this will basically be my very first garden. I managed to keep 3 cherry tomato plants alive last year, but that's the extent of my gardening thus far. I don't want to take on too much and then end up overwhelmed and failing! So I thought about the items I really wanted. I wanted some Brandywine tomatoes, for sure. My friend Cassie grows them in her garden, and they are DIVINE! I don't even like tomatoes, really. I usually request them off sandwiches and things because I don't like them. But there's something so delicious and downright magical about a homegrown, fresh tomato. Last summer we had a BBQ at my house and Cassie brought her tomatoes. I normally have no tomatoes, but at that BBQ I had two thick slices. There was more tomato on my burger than anything else - bread and meat included! And it was scrumptious. I want that from my garden, too. So I plan to grow some of those. And I got the carrot seeds I mentioned in the last paragraph. I also plan to grown a zucchini or two, but I didn't buy seeds for those. What I did buy seeds for were these:
These are called Boothby's Blonde cucumbers. They on the small side, and supposedly have a thin skin and great flavor. I adore cucumbers. They are by far my favorite vegetable. I don't know what drew me to this particular type. They just looked interesting. I hope they're as delicious and crunchy as I picture them being! This year I'm also hoping to try my hand at pickle making for the first time. The catalog said these cucumbers are good for Bread & Butter Pickles. I usually only like dill pickles. I wonder if these would be okay as dills as well. Guess we'll see! But even if they're just cucumbers for munching on as-is, I look forward to it!
I bought this variety of cucumber especially for pickling. These are called Snow's Fancy Pickling cucumbers. The name says it all! They only get about five or six inches long, and are about an inch across. They're short and chubby, but are supposed to be really good as pickles. Here's hoping that's true! I'm quite excited to try making pickles at home. When I was a kid Grandma Effie used to make pickles at home all the time. She had a big crock that she kept in her pantry. I think she only made sweet pickles. You'd think with all those homemade sweet pickles around that I would have learned to like them, but I certainly did not. Sweet pickles are just wrong. Why have a sweet pickle when you can have a dill? DILL PICKLES 4EVAH!!
This last item isn't a vegetable, but it was still listed along with the vegetables in the seed catalog. So why not? This is a Blacktail Mountain watermelon. I chose this particular heirloom, organic variety of watermelon because it's described as having a reliable crop of melons with seedless, crunchy flesh. Watermelon is pretty much my favorite food, but it needs to be good watermelon. It's a tragedy when you cut into a watermelon and it's mushy or mealy. I like crisp melon. I also don't like fussing with seeds so much when I'm eating them. So this Blacktail watermelon sounded perfect. Cassie tried growing watermelon a couple years ago and said that it was too difficult and she didn't want to do it again. She said it was too hard to know when they're ripe. Too often she'd pick one, only to find it was green inside. Or it would be overripe and moldy. She never knew how to find the perfectly ripe ones. Despite her warnings, I really want to try to grow these. They were raised by a farmer in Idaho, where temps get down into the 40's even in the summer. Supposedly these still do well in hot climates, too. Here's hoping!So, the seeds are on their way. Now to get the garden into shape so I can plant stuff there! We've been having some crazy wet weather, so the weeds are growing happily! At least with all the rain the ground will be nice and soft so we can pull out the last few stumps of things. I'll post some pictures of the progress!
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