2022 Vegetables to Cut

Am I ready to cut varieties to make room for new relationships? This is a sort of follow up to my what I missed most post, and should not surprise you that I enjoy mixing things up each year but also we are at the point where a lot of what we grow are tried and true varieties that produce variably year to year, keeping the garden novel and us gardeners humble. We have spent the last six years explosively experimenting with new crops and varieties and I’m honestly ready to settle down with most of the same varieties we grew this year.

The biggest change I’ll make is planting more Redbor and less Scarlet kale. They are similar in color and texture, but Redbor sits stouter while Scarlet reaches for the sky and ends up as a leaning tower by September. So to tidier and bushier kale plants come fall I dream.

I also won’t grow the Japonica striped maize next summer. It is a fun and beautiful corn variety grown strictly as an accent plant for the smaller triangle bed. We will grind it and blend with our primary cornmeal for cornbread though it’s texture isn’t as light and fluffy. This was the second time I’ve grown it.

I probably won’t grow Hungarian Wax, Fish, or Rooster Spur peppers next summer, though any number of varieties will quickly fill those gaps — likely a medium heat hatch or pasilla bajio, some type of culinary pepper for sauces.

I will talk more about tomatoes specifically in January, but we are definitely dropping Green Giant from our grow list, and I will also drop one of the Berkeley Tie Dyes. Since one is partly green, I may keep the original and drop the Pink one. I also think Blush is finally getting the axe it’s earned, as the skin is just so tough for more and they take forever to ripen given their size. I’m also dropping Paisano as well, in favor of bringing my Plum Perfect back into the rotation (thank you everyone who notified me it’s back in stock at High Mowing).

For potatoes, we won’t grow Charlotte potatoes again, a variety beloved by Eliot Coleman that was disease prone for us. And as much as we love yukon type/yellow fleshed potatoes, our Huckleberry Gold didn’t produce as well this year as it did last. I’ll give it one more year but it’s also up on the chopping block. We grew 8 varieties so we have plenty of other potatoes to enjoy.

It is plausible we will drop a dry bean variety too, but time will tell. We are weighing them all and will compare productivity by linear footage. They are all excellent cooking beans with different textures and qualities, so that is a difficult measurement to use.