As promised… here is the list of the heirloom seeds that I will be ordering next week. I want to get my order in soon, as already 2 varieties I had picked are out of stock! They only have so many seeds, so I don’t want to wait toooo long and miss out on some neat and rare seeds!

Here is the list…. it took me a MONTH to go over the catalogs and ponder and circle and consider and all that. I know that I want to try a bunch of different sweet peppers and tomatos for sure! So they make up the bulk of my order. But I also got a couple other fun and unique plants to give a try! Why grow the same old same old things that everyone else grows! Live a little! Enjoy the ride!!!

Thai Suranaree Bush Long Bean
A great bush variety of long bean from Thailand, it is easier to grow in small gardens than the pole types. This variety produces 12″ long green pods that are perfect for stir-frying. Dark reddish-maroon seeds.

(Doesn’t that look kinda neat? 12 inch long beans! I will admit, I am not a huge pole type bean eater, but I love green beans, that sort of bean. Although I think it’s neat to harvest the dried bean pods and all. I think I’ll have to ease into the world of dried beans, perhaps in chilis and such…)

Little Finger Carrot

A superb baby-type carrot with deep orange color; developed in France for canning and pickling. Sweet 3″ carrots are great for snacks.

Parisienne Carrot
Small, round carrots that are so popular in France. Tender, orange globes are superb lightly steamed. Easy to grow even in heavy soils. This little carrot is great for home and market gardens, as this variety is fairly uniform.

(These look almost like carrot colored radish! Really cute looking… round little globe carrots…)

Strawberry Popcorn
The popular, cute, little ears look just like big strawberries, just 2”-3” long. The 4’ plants produce 2-4 ears each, great for fall decorations or making delicious popcorn.

(The idea of growing cute popcorn sounds like a lot of fun. I wonder if the stuff will work if you just pop a ear in the microwave! Hmmm….)

Chires Baby Corn
They have been looking for a good baby corn ever since they traveled to Southeast Asia and tasted the tiny ears almost daily, picked fresh and put into stir-fries and soups. This variety produces up to 20 tiny ears on its multi-stalked plants; pick just after the silk shows at the tips of ears, or let mature for popcorn!

(20 ears on a plant??? Wow… I love stirfrys and this sounds like a fun plant to grow.)

Parisian Pickling Cucumber
60 days. The old French gherkin or cornichon pickler. Listed in America in 1892 by Gregory. Great for making tiny sweet pickles. Rare.

(I love making pickles and these sound like the perfect variety to make little garlic dills. Can’t wait to see how they turn out…)

Far North Melon
One of the best melons to grow in short season areas, with melons maturing in as little as 65 days. One-pound fruit are filled with sweet, orange flesh. Said to be introduced by Ukrainian settlers in the southern prairies of Canada, it was improved at Morden Experiment Farm and Minnesota Horticulture Department. Introduced commercially in 1950.

(These are for Maggie. She loves cantalope and we just don’t seem to have good luck. I thought this sounded great, a shorter season, colder weather melon and they are only about a pound each in size, more like a softball! Perfect for just one person at a time!)

Chinese 5 Color Pepper
Screaming hot little peppers turn a rainbow of vibrant colors; from purple, cream, yellow, orange to red as they ripen. Need I say ornamental? The plants are great for containers inside. Just pick a few any time to liven up your salsa.

(I am not a hot pepper fan, but I know lots of friends that are. So I thought it would be fun to pick two varieties and see if I could make them cry!!! HAHAHA… we’ll see!)

Chocolate Habanero Pepper
So beautiful. The chocolate-brown, lantern shaped fruit are about 2″ long, and so ornamental! But don’t let the color fool you; these are not candy, but rather flaming-hot fruit that carry a massive 300,000 Scoville units of heat! Hot pepper enthusiasts love the heat and flavor that these chocolate fruit are packed with, but be careful and use in moderation.

Corbaci Pepper
A unique and wonderful sweet pepper. Very long, 10” fruit are curved and twisted, very slender, like a Turkish scimitar. This rare heirloom from Turkey has a very rich flavor, perfect for pickling or frying. One of the most productive of all peppers, out-yielding all others in tests by the U. of CA.

(Now sweet peppers… oh mamma… I love sweet peppers. I make a sweet pepper salsa that is quite beloved. And I love them in pasta and with chicken and with onions and all that. Oh my….these Corbaci peppers just look so cool. I could see them canned and ready for pasta or on hoagies with thin sliced beef and onions… mmmmm…. all the following peppers are just fun and different…)

Jimmy Nardello Italian Pepper
This fine Italian pepper was grown each year by Giuseppe and Angella Nardiello, at their garden in the village of Ruoti, in Southern Italy. In 1887 they set sail with their one-year-old daughter Anna for a new life in the USA. When they reached these shores, they settled and gardened in Naugatuck, Connecticut, and grew this same pepper that was named for their fourth son Jimmy. This long, thin-skinned frying pepper dries easily and has such a rich flavor that this variety has been placed in “The Ark of Taste” by the Slow Food organization. Ripens a deep red, is very prolific, and does well in most areas.

Sweet Yellow Stuffing Pepper
This amazing little pepper comes to us from Amish grower Ester Smucker of Indiana. The seed was passed down to her from her Grandmother, whom she fondly remembers growing these peppers in the 1950s in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. The very productive plants produce the cutest little mini bell-shaped peppers, only 1″-2″ across! Ester uses these to make wonderful stuffed and pickled peppers!

Red Cheese Pepper
80 days. Candy-sweet, round, flat, 3″, pimento-type peppers that have thick, red flesh, great for stuffing or fresh eating. So good, they are almost addictive. Very productive plants. Once used to color cheese.

(Oh oh oh… I want to learn to make soft cheese and this would be wonderful to flavor it with!!! )

Golden Marconi Pepper
80 days. A late, Italian pepper with beautiful, big, yellow, 7″, tapering fruit, very sweet, great for frying or fresh. This wonderful heirloom is delicious and mild. A great variety for market.

Red Marconi Pepper
80 days. A late Italian pepper that yields big 7″ long tapering fruit, very sweet, great for frying or fresh

(Oh Marconi peppers… oh how I love thee!!! I accidentally stumbled upon a six pack of Marconi peppers at a fancy greenhouse in town. I’ve never seen them before. So I got them and oh boy, were they wonderful. nice big long bull’s horn shaped peppers, and just very very tasty. Great grilled like a hot pablano pepper, but sweet and savory. Very good. I’m looking forward to these already. )

Barnes Mountain Yellow Tomato
85-90 days 1-2 lb beefsteak type fruit. Meaty orange fruit are produced in abundance on these very tall vines. Rich old-time tomato taste; grown at Barnes Mountain, Kentucky.

(Hmmm… tall vines, big fat old tomatoes… sounds good to me.)

Mortgage Lifter Tomato
85 days. Large, smooth, 1 lb. pink fruit have a delicious, rich, sweet taste. This variety has become very popular in recent years, and was developed by M.C. Byles of Logan, West Virginia. After crossing varieties for 6 years and selecting the best he introduced this beauty that he named Mortgage Lifter in the 1940’s after he sold plants for $1 each and paid off the $6,000 mortgage on his house. See the Article in the Spring 2003 issue of “The Heirloom Gardener” magazine!

(I have heard about these tomatoes through the years and just love the story and thought, I want to try these. I think it’s cool that he paid off his house!!! Wonderful!)

Royal Hillbilly Tomato
80-90 days. Introduced by our friend, Darrell Merrell, in 1997; at last we have this popular tomato back! Very large fruit are exquisitely flavored, being sweet with just enough tang to make them perfect; purplish-pink in color. Darrell selected this type from a patch of Hillbilly tomatoes in the 1990s, and it has become a favorite among seed collectors.

(Well, gosh. I don’t think I need to explain myself here. I mean…. banjos, bluegrass, mobile homes, farming on a 1/10th acre lot… hmmmmm all I need is a old car up on blocks and a couch out in the yard. This one was a given! The empress needs her Royal Hillbilly Tomatoes!)

Black Krim Tomato
80 days. Dark red-purple fruit, rich sweet flavor. One of the best. It always places high in tomato taste trials. It’s very juicy. An heirloom from Russia with very unique looking, large fruit. I really like the wonderful flavor. It’s popular at many markets on the West Coast; also a favorite of many fine chefs.

(I have heard a lot about these tomatoes… decided to give them a try. A Russian heirloom! How cool is that?)

Carbon Tomato
90 days. Winner of the 2005 “Heirloom Garden Show” best-tasting tomato award. This variety has won taste awards from coast to coast in the last few years, so we were proud to locate a small supply of the seed. The fruit are smooth, large, and beautiful, being one of the darkest and prettiest of the purple types we have ever seen. They also seem to have an extra dose of the complex flavor dark tomatoes are famous for.

(Okay, award winning… best tasting tomato… purple. Sounds good to me! )

Amish Paste Tomato
80 days. Many seeds savers believe this is the ultimate paste tomato. Giant, blocky Roma-type tomatoes have delicious red flesh that is perfect for paste and canning. World class flavor and comes from an Amish community in Wisconsin.

(Always heard these are awesome for making spaghetti sauce. Sounds good to me. After last year, I don’t want any grape and cherry tomatoes for the most part. I had SO many and just not enough people to eat them. This year I want utility tomatoes… for the most part, eating ones, stewing ones, salsa ones and saucing ones.)

Delicious Tomato
90 days. This tomato was developed many years ago by Burpee’s from “Beefsteak” tomato, after 13 years of selection for smoother fruit. This really big tomato produces huge 1-to 3-lb fruit that are fairly smooth for a giant tomato, and, as the name implies, these are delicious! In 1986 it set the world record for weight, with a giant 7 lb 12 oz fruit!

(World record? How cool is that!)

Gajo De Melon Tomato
Imagine melons, imagine sugar, mix in some tomato, and you describe the delicious taste of this lovely cherry tomato. They are pink and yellow, blended and marbled together, in lovely melon tones. Plants produce these gourmet fruit well.

(These are the only cherry tomatoes that I want to try this year. And probably only a few plants, like maybe two? We’ll see. These sound lovely in taste. Maybe I’ll even get my children to try them fresh and raw!)

Striped Roman Tomato
80-90 days. Stunning and unique. These long, pointed red fruit have wavy orange stripes! People were really excited about this one at our last Heirloom Garden Show. It’s a specialty grower’s dream; just what chefs and today’s buyers are looking for; a perfect midsized beauty with brilliant color, meaty flesh and excellent flavor. This variety was developed by John Swenson.

(Another paste type… and just so pretty! Can’t wait to see them growing!)

Well, its almost midnight and I need to hit the sack, but as you can see, I’ve whipped myself up into a gardening frenzy. Shesh… how will I be able to sleep! I can’t wait to place the order. And I can’t wait for all the little seed pots and all that to come in so I can get started on my 2010 garden. It’s going to be a whopper!!!

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