Garden planning time: What is your no fail favorite variety?

[3goodeggs]

What seed do you buy every year without fail? Yeah, we try other things, but we always get our no fail seed varieties too.
Which are yours?
I am a Rutgers and Roma tomato person.
Sparkler radish
and black beauty zucchini.

Let me know where you are from also. I would like to try some of your favorites, but I know my location won't allow certain things.

 

[ChickChickChicky]

I'm in the Kansas City, MO area (just re-classified to Zone 6). For tomatoes, I'd have to say Celebrity, it's always dependable & pretty good tasting. I've tried Brandywine, they taste good but just way too little payoff in the form of fruit so not worth the trouble. Mortgage Lifter & Bradley are great-tasting tomatoes (I like the flavor of the pinks the best, just so tomato-ey). And of course I'll have my volunteer Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes!

I love snow peas, any variety, but this year I'm trying Golden Sweet snow pea. Supposed to get 6 ft tall and the pods are lemon yellow so should be easy to pick, and flavor said to be outstanding.

This year I'm planting small quantities of wheat, alfalfa, BOSS, collard greens and swiss chard for the chickens. I'm also trying New Zealand spinach, an ornamental purple millet, and peanuts, all of these are things I've never grown before (except chard).

One thing I'm REALLY looking forward to planting this year is Yard Long Beans. My Filipina neighbor gave me some of hers last year and told me how to cook them.... OMG I could've eaten pounds of them they were so good! She said she would give me one or two seeds this spring but didn't sound happy about it (she got her seed in Thailand and apparently running low) so I bought a pkg online just in case. The Yard Long beans look like 2-3 foot long skinny green beans, but you don't prepare them like green beans, instead they are first stir-fried (with garlic and soy or teriyaki sauce) and then lightly steamed at the end. HEAVENLY!

 

[3goodeggs]

I have always wondered about yard long beans! I might give them a try if I find I have room. I also have a Filipino neighbor, maybe she would enjoy some If I grow them. I offer her lettuce all of the time but she doesn't eat salad greens.

I have never tried the pink tomatoes because they don't look ripe, but If you say they are a rich tomato flavor, I will give them a go too.

I have grown New Zealand spinach. I like it when I can get it to germinate. I like it in salad, and cooked, I also dry it to toss into soup and stews. When it grows it really takes off. Keep it cut back to a fourth or fifth node and your chickens and you will have mounds of greens.

My kitchen table is covered in seed packets today while I am trying to decide what more I should buy.
The garden is never big enough.
Then suddenly it is TOO big and I am exhausted. Each year I try harder to plan for that... but I sub-come to the enticement of seed packets. Hope in an envelope.
Thanks for replying!

 

[Darin115]

Straight neck squash, silver king corn, Black Beauty Zucc, mountaineer half runner beans, Big Boy, Brandywine, German Johnson, Pineapple, Carolina Gold, Cherokee tomatos. Burpless cukes, national pickling cukes, purple top turnips, assorted mixed greens, Clemson Spineless Okra.

That is all I can think of at the moment. I live in Central North Carolina.

Darin

 

[maizy'smom]

My standards are as many kinds of basil as I can find, and sweet 100's in a pot surrounded with hardware cloth, because of the resident groundhog population. I gave up on the zucchini, chard, sugar baby watermelons, and lettuces because of the "beast." I don't have enough wire mesh or deck space to set everything up off the ground, away from him. I've tried various other herbs, annuals(marigolds, impatiens, pansies, begonias). I am in SE Pa, which is zone 6. In the last few years I've been trying perennials like viburnum (died), lilacs, (great), blueberries (jury's still out), a Chinese red bud tree,(so far, so good), quince (great! I started it from a cutting), a hardy orange, (great), and a Carolina sweet shrub,(pretty good). The challenge this year.....just got our four hens last May.....is to rescue/salvage/resurrect the lawn. Boy, have they ever done a job on it! We have damp, deep shade to partial shade...the coop is tucked under the holly tree, and across from the ginkgo tree. If not for the trees, we have full southwest exposure. Any suggestions for a good grass variety?

mm

 

[3goodeggs]

I was going to suggest astro turf, then I remembered a vet friend of mine who told me of someones pet groundhogs that burrowed under the carpet in the house.
I think you're doomed to a sandy yard. Mulch can be pretty.

I envy you your quince. We are too warm for most things, and too cold for the rest.
But I keep TRYING! Either I am eternally optimistic or a really slow learner.

 

[dewey]

"Hope in an envelope"....love it!

AZ zone 9, sunset 13, subtropical desert...

It looks like my seed packets aren't gonna get opened til fall this year, but some that I love are broccoli, brussel sprouts, sunflowers, watermelon, melons, bush zucchini, bush beans, roma & cherry toms, bush cukes, eggplant, chives/herbs, some greens, and peppers. (I love prickly pear cactus fruit but don't want those around with the little ones, so I gather wild fruit in late summer or pick them from friends' patches.) I love growing pole beans and have never tried the yardlongs...I'll look into that!

 

[chicken-wish]

I guess I'll be the first Northwesterner for this one.

I'm not truly able to have a "no fail variety" since our seasons are so unprdictable and short for that matter. I'll usually go with all early varieties when possible and the rest end up being just for looks.

I really like the tango celery, early roma tomatoe and I'm trying the stupice this year too, Yaya carrots, hookers sweet corn (only takes 65 days!

), claremont lettuce, red iceburg lettuce, jalapeno peppers, nutri-bud broccoli, skywalker califlower, alvro-mono beet, charger spinich, miriam edible sunflower, cascadia bush snap pea, blue lake bush bean the candy onion, and a nice variety of red and white potatoes (maybe even the butter flavored ones if there's room). Plus, I like to buy a few cucumbers and zucchini and a few herbs.

Most of these are new for me to try, because they are supposibly better for northern short seasoned climates. I can't even start until mid June but, I always end up getting excited and starting to make my whole layout for the garden as early as March.

 

[Kassaundra]

Zone 7B, east central Oklahoma. I don't have any "never fail" ideas since this was my first year to seriously garden.

I haven't tried new zealand spinach, but did try the spinach mustard, it was wonderful, we had a massive drought and heat wave lasting months (over 100 and usually over or at 110) that stuff grew like mad and never bolted in the heat. We didn't like the taste we like very mild tasting greens, but it made wonderful chicken food, they are still eating it now it is still growing.

The most prolific of my tomatoes this year was probably black krim, but we didn't "love" the flavor, it was okay but always tasted like it was just slightly overripe (as best as I can describe it)

 

[Carols Clucks]

I am not sure about these new rezones.

My mom and I live 10 miles apart and are now in 2 different zones. Mine I think is more based on the coast line beyond my place and hers??? On the other side of the Mountains I think! She went from 9 to 10. Her place is always hotter and colder than mine. The hotter I can see, but she gets frost when we don't regularly. Go figure!


I am enjoying the seed ideas! Keep it coming