January is designed for curling up with a stack of seed catalogues. A rest from the holiday frenzy is welcome, the couch a cozy alternative to the bleak outdoors.
The seed companies have been busy, and many new, improved varieties will find a place on my list. But heirloom varieties, whose seed can be saved from year to year, also get my attention when they are new to a catalogue. These old gems do not always perform perfectly, but there is usually a good reason someone has saved the seeds and brought them into commerce again. Usually it's flavor. Sometimes it's their colors or the stories that link them to farming's rich past.
The Baker Creek catalogue ( http://www.rareseeds.com), straight from the Ozarks, is a fine place to start a vegetable treasure hunt. Its cache of old melons includes the yummy-sounding Sweet Passion from Ohio, Missouri Gold -- described as a "real old-time hillbilly variety" preserved by a family in southern Missouri -- and Cochiti Pueblo, from Native Americans near Santa Fe. I also have my eye on the climbing bean heirloom, Potato Bean, whose huge, fat white seeds were saved by a family in Oregon, and on the corn variety Baby Rice Popcorn, with its small, white, hulless kernels.
The Seed Savers Exchange catalogue ( http://www.seedsavers.org) now has Painted Pony beans, whose seeds hold on to their handsome pinto pony markings after cooking, and has also reintroduced the Bull Nose sweet pepper grown by Thomas Jefferson at Monticello. John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds ( http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com) offers a rainbow of "new" old varieties: a little sun-colored radish called Helios, a huge golden pumpkin called Jaune Gros de Paris and the gorgeous-sounding Blauschokker Blue podded pea, with red and violet flowers.
The black tomato renaissance continues. Gardeners have learned that muddy-colored flesh often signals rich, full taste. Both Seed Savers and Johnny's Selected Seeds ( http://www.johnnyseeds.com) are featuring Japanese Black Trifele, developed in Russia, not in Japan. It is very dark, crack-resistant and the size and shape of a pear. Baker Creek lists Sarah Black, a variety I've always wanted to try, passed along to the catalogue from Germany. That country has also given us the tomato simply called Old German, from Territorial Seed Co. ( http://www.territorialseed.com). It's described in the catalogue as huge -- "routinely weighing in at a pound and a half." And I am sorely tempted by a variety from Underwood Gardens ( http://www.underwoodgardens.com) called Sara's Wild Galapagos, a rare wild tomato from the Galapagos Islands. With no expectations of great productivity from this trailing plant, I would order it simply to see whether its tiny fruits have a more intense, complex, primordial taste. There is only one way to find out.
Resize
