bloom Purple People
There are so many varieties of vegetables available at Al’s Garden Center this spring. Whether your style is “contemporary” or “classic”, you’ll find a great selection to fill your garden and your dinner table. Al’s Head Annuals Grower Jill West, has a contemporary taste in vegetables, while Al’s Owner Jack Bigej loves the classics. Here’s a look at some of their favorites.
CONTEMPORARY Cucumber “Mexican Sour Gherkin’
These are cute 1” cucumbers that look like miniature watermelons, but taste like cucumbers with a tangy, citrusy flavor. I like them fresh tossed in a salad – no slicing or prep work required. Like any cucumber, these are pretty easy to grow. They are a little slow to start, but once they kick in they’ll definitely need to be trellised. Don’t let the fruit get any bigger than 1.5-2” or they can become bitter. My grandparents were of German heritage, so if you can pickle it, they would have eaten it. If I brought these to a dinner party, people would think that I must have an eclectic garden – eclectic being a polite word for full of weird and unusual varieties.
Squash Kabocha ‘Cha-Cha’
‘Cha-Cha’ is a winter squash with dark green skin and bright orange flesh, similar to a Butternut squash but with a nuttier, slight less sweet taste and starchier texture. Winter squash is my favorite, so I’ll eat it any day. If I had to choose my favorite way to prepare it, it would be cubed and roasted along with other vegetables like Brussel sprouts and cauliflower. This variety has more compact vines so it can be grown in smaller spaces. People wonder what my obsession with squash is (I even like roasting the seeds and eating them just like pumpkin seeds).
Tomato ‘Japanese Black Trifele’ Despite its name, this variety actually originates from Russia. This is an heirloom tomato that produces pear shaped fruit that ripens to a dark red, or almost black at the base. It’s got a rich, complex flavor. If there is one thing Jack and I can agree on, it’s that nothing beats a fresh slice of homegrown tomato. Despite being an heirloom, this variety is surprisingly high yielding, so be sure to stake the plant to support the weight of the fruit. As for my grandparents, the dark purple color may have made them skeptical, but the taste would have won them over. If I brought these beauties to a dinner party, everyone would want to be my friend because I’ve got homegrown tomatoes and I might be willing to share.
Jack / Jill
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CLASSICS Tomato ‘Dorothy’s Delight’
There are only two things money can’t buy, the first is true love and the second is a homegrown tomato. Dorothy’s Delight is a nice meaty tomato that doesn’t run all over your plate when you slice it. The only way to eat it is fresh, but then again, everything is better with bacon. I could eat BLTs all summer long, throw a slice of Walla Walla sweet onion in there, and that’s the way to live. They are named after my neighbor Dorothy, her family had been handing the seeds down for 90 years. If I brought them to a dinner party they would close their doors, because they know I’ve got Dorothy’s Delight tomatoes and I’m going to leave a bushel.
Asparagus ‘Jersey Knight’ When you get it in early spring along with a filet of Chinook salmon, and the asparagus has just been cut, that’s a meal! I like it microwaved for about 3 ½ minutes, with just salt and butter. The trick to growing tender asparagus is to raise it in a hoop house. In the spring when it gets warm, it’s about 75 degrees inside and the asparagus will literally grow a foot a day. When it grows fast, it is tender and sweet. The faster it grows, the better it is. My parents had an asparagus farm when I was really young. We grew asparagus above the Molalla River in Canby, where we had 7 acres of good sandy soil. Make sure you cut the stalks underground, that way it will keep sending up new shoots. Cantaloupe ‘Sarah’s Choice’
This cantaloupe tastes so good you’ll never want to buy another one from the grocery store. I plant cantaloupe in rows, and put down black polyurethane between the rows because it keeps the soil warm and the weeds down. Mix your fertilizer into the soil, plant a row, lay a soaker hose or drip line, cover it with black poly and walk away. Most people don’t believe that you can grow cantaloupe in Oregon, but we are lucky to be in the Willamette Valley. I like mine with just a little salt.
Jack / Jill
Spring 2015 |
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