Last year in the garden, a new variety climbed up to take the gold medal place for summer squash in my heart: ‘Friulana Rugosa.’ This summer squash is an Italian heirloom – the fruits are yellow or light green, long, and bumpy. Ok, actually they’re warty. And I’d forgive you for thinking it’s just another…
Category: Seed Varieties
We Grew it From Seed – Will Rogers Zinnias
One of the delights of my gardening life is trying new seed varieties – a pleasure that my husband Chad and I share. Lately though, I’ve been dealing with gut dysbiosis related food chemical intolerance, so choosing seed varieties of tomatoes or winter squash is no longer the easy breezy, fun process it used to…
We Grew It From Seed – Costata Romanesco Zucchini
In addition to ‘Cube of Butter,’ another of our favorite zucchini varieties in the Hearthwilde garden is this Italian heirloom, ‘Costata Romanesca.’ What initially appealed to me about this summer squash, after its long history, was its ridges. Texture is a big thing for me, just as important as how things look. The ridges on…
Winter Squash and Pumpkin Varieties – 2021
This year, 2021, we grew at least 11 different cultivars of winter squash and pumpkins. ( I say “at least” because we can’t peg an ID on some of them.) While our 2020 winter squash haul gave us some behemoths, this year all of our winter squash and pumpkins were medium sized or smaller. But…
We Grew It From Seed – Plains Coreopsis
Coreopsis is a plant I’ve been fond of back since my high school days when I had an afternoon job working at a family owned garden center. There’s something reassuring and cheery about this plant’s bright, bobbing flowers. So when I noticed some seeds for plains coreopsis (Coreopsis tinctoria), a native of the Great Plains,…
We Grew It From Seed – California Poppies
While we still grow some exotic garden flowers in our polyculture garden, such as cosmos and zinnias, this year I decided to add more native annuals to the mix. One of the native wildflowers I planted was California poppies. Our sunken garden rows are on a slight slope, so when I planted the seeds, they…
We Grew It from Seed – Lauren’s Grape Poppy
I’m not sure why, exactly, but I decided to grow several different types of poppies from seed this year. Lauren’s Grape poppy was one of my favorite varieties. With deep purple flowers, this poppy variety was pleasing to the eye – but also to our local pollinators, affording me many pleasurable moments snapping up photos…
2020 Winter Squash Harvest
What do you call a big veggie with attitude? Sassquash. Now that I’ve gotten that terrible joke out of my system, it’s time to share some gardening news. As a welcome balance to a very difficult year, part of our 2020 garden was exceptionally productive. This included our winter squash plantings. Winter squash is an…
We Grew it from Seed – Cube of Butter Yellow Zucchini
Chad and I usually prefer open-pollinated varieties as opposed to hybrids, so that we have the option of saving seeds if we want to. However, early this year when we were choosing our seeds, I was tempted by ‘Cube of Butter,’ a yellow zucchini hybrid that promised to be very productive, have a great texture,…
Hearthwilde 