Vegetable Gardening (11 page)

Appearance:
You can choose from a rainbow of fruit and leaf colors, such as purple peppers, yellow chard, and orange tomatoes. Leaf textures and shapes range from frilly to smooth to puckered. The flowers of some vege-tables, such as okra and eggplant, are attractive in their own right. You get the idea. The more beautiful the vegetables, the more beautiful the vegetable garden — and the more stunning the food.

Cooking and storage characteristics:
Certain varieties of beans and peas, for example, freeze better than others. Some winter squash varieties may be stored for months, but others need to be eaten immediately.

Days to maturity (or days to harvest):
Days to maturity
refers to the number of days it takes (under normal conditions) for a vegetable planted from seed (or from transplants) to mature and produce a crop. This number is especially important for vegetable gardeners who live in short-summer climates. Average days to maturity are listed for each type of vegetable in the appendix. You can find specific variety information on individual vegetables in Part II.

Extended harvest season:
A certain variety of corn, for example, may ripen early or late in the season. By planting varieties that ripen at different times, you can start harvesting as early as 60 days after seeding and continue for 5 or 6 weeks. Seed catalogs and packages often describe varieties as early season, midseason, or late season in relationship to other varieties of the same vegetable.

Pest resistance:
Many vegetable varieties are resistant to specific diseases or pests — a very important trait in many areas. Some tomato varieties, in particular, have outstanding disease resistance. See Chapter 17 for more on pest control. You also can read about specific pest-resistant varieties of individual vegetables in Part II.

Plant size:
The trend in vegetable breeding is to go small. Tomato, cucumber, and even winter squash varieties are available in dwarf sizes. These varieties are perfect for container growing or small-space gardens.

Taste:
Pick a flavor and you can find a vegetable that stars in it. You can grow fruity tomatoes, super-sweet varieties of corn, bitter melons, and spicy peppers. You'll discover flavors for every taste bud.

To realize the scope of your vegetable variety possibilities, see the individual vegetable descriptions in Part II. It's also important to note that you can categorize a variety as a hybrid, an open-pollinated, or an heirloom variety. Here's what these terms mean:

Hybrid:
Hybrid seeds
(also known as
F-1 hybrids
) are the result of a cross of selected groups of plants of the same kind, called
inbred lines.
(A
cross
is when pollen from one flower fertilizes a flower from another similar plant, resulting in seed.) Hybrid seeds generally are more expensive than open-pollinated seeds, and they can't be saved and planted the next year because the offspring won't have the same characteristics as the parents. If you did plant them next year, you'd get a mix of characteristics — some desirable and some not. The plants are uniform, but they often lack a diversity of shapes, colors, sizes, and flavors. However, hybrid plants are more vigorous, productive, and widely adapted than other varieties.

Open-pollinated:
Open-pollinated
varieties basically are inbred lines allowed to pollinate each other in open fields. They produce offspring that are similar to their parents. Before the arrival of hybrids, all vegetable varieties were open-pollinated. Some gardeners like these varieties for their flavor, their diversity, and the fact that they can save the seeds each year to replant. The resulting offspring are pretty predictable, but they don't provide the consistency of hybrids.

Heirloom:
Any open-pollinated variety that's at least 50 years old is generallyconsidered an heirloom. Heirlooms are enjoying quite a revival because of the variety of colors, tastes, and forms that are available. They're worth trying, but keep in mind that some varieties may not have the disease resistance and wide adaptability that hybrids generally have.