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Gardening Tips - Vegetable Varieties
With the impending changeover to all organic seeds by 2002 a lot of growers are worried about the consequences of such a move. Old tried and trusted cultivars grown over the years will have to be scrapped if they are not available as organic seed.
Despite the claims made by seed companies, the varieties on offer and their benefits and suitability for growing in Irish conditions remain to be seen. The extra cost that will be incurred by growers will also be significant. In some cases such as naked lettuce seeds they may cost up to £10 for one thousand seeds which is up to ten times the price of conventional seed.
I am going to give a quick account of the organic varieties I grew this year and how they performed. One season is not a lot to go by but it's a start and the merits (yield, flavour, disease resistance) of various cultivars need to be assessed as soon as possible. The growing season here in Kerry was long, sunny and dry for the most part (doesn't come too often) and as I write in early October it is still quite mild with crops still growing reasonably well.
First up is the greenhouse cucumber Styx F1. This is an all female variety that I will grow again and that I would have no hesitation in recommending. Germination was good and no plants were lost at the seedling stage despite being grown on in a polytunnel with no additional heat. Once transplanted, growth was rapid and a good crop of straight cucumbers was produced. Resistance to powdery mildew also seems reasonable. Next we grew the French bean Cantare. This is a fine bean or filet type much sought after by gourmet chefs. Again we were well pleased with this one and its our second season growing it. This variety produces a heavy crop of tasty beans over a long period. This year we grew it as a transplanted crop as we found the small seeds tricky to germinate outside. They need a much finer seedbed than standard French bean types and birds can be a real nuisance. It is also important to earth up the plants early on and firm them in as they all too easily blow over. Over the two seasons no real problems were encountered apart from sore backs at harvesting.
For a beetroot crop we grew Boltardy which is one of the older open pollinated types. The crop and eating quality were good. The roots are not quite as uniform as some of the F1 hybrid varieties we have grown in the past, but that is not always a bad thing.
We grew four varieties of lettuce from the organic range. Two were red oakleaf types: Red Salad Bowl and Cerise. The former produces a compact full short leaved head - a favourite in restaurants. Cerise has a more open habit but has an intense dark red colouring that also looks well. We are also growing Green Salad Bowl - compact like the red, and with a heavy head. It is the fastest growing of the three but is prone to mildew late in the season or during cold wet spells. Last up is a butterhead called Crufia which produces a good solid head. It lies somewhere between the real buttery soft types such as Suzan and the thick leaved types favoured by conventional growers.
We grew two types of organic rocket - one called Rucola, and both were excellent all season as protected crops and outside. As for herbs we grew a variety of dill called Sari that proved a good leafy strain direct seeded outside. We also grew basil Sweet Genovese - an excellent large leaf type for tunnel production, proving to be every bit a vigorous as its conventional colleagues.
For leeks we grew Carentan and Natan for early and late production and both are looking well at the moment. There is some bulbing at the base on the earlier cultivar but so far the crop is rust free which is a big plus.
So it all looks rosy - well not quite. We tried organic pea seed Progress and germination was extremely poor. I did three sowings with the seeder at different times and ended up tilling them back in as so few came up. I ended up using small Suttons that did fine.I also tried Stella F1 an organic carrot strain but lost the lot to rootfly in early September - not the seeds' fault - back to the fleece next year. All of the seed mentioned came from Kings Crown in England.
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