The anxiety over seeds not popping up is officially over and the enthusiastic stage of this gardening year is now here! Even the varieties that took their sweet time seem to have at least one tiny plant in the pot and are doing their best under the grow lights.
And as I’m standing here, taking another look at my garden plan for this year, I’m feeling the urge to share my favorite varieties and talk them up to you. So here it goes!
Of course this whole journey started with tomatoes, and the Adelaide and Confetti varieties will absolutely always have a place in my garden (and in my heart ❤️). Check out my “The most rewarding experiment so far” post for more information on these. The only indeterminate variety I’ve grown for 2 years now, is the Honey Drop cherry tomato, which is delicious and very much worth the effort of constant pruning and a 40L grow bag.
Besides those, I also have an deep appreciation for the flavor and crunch of fresh cucumbers, and luckily Sweden seems to have the perfect weather for them with cooler summers and lots of rain. I absolutely love pickling varieties, even if they are prickly and hurt your hands a bit. For me, they are the best of both worlds, either eaten fresh or to be used in ferments. Dealing with the pricklyness is just a matter of picking them with gardening gloves. Worth it!
As far as peppers go, I decided to invest in varieties that are eaten green, without requiring lengthy ripening. I’ve grown jalapeños before, as they are quite versatile and tasty. But for the last 2 years now, I’ve also grown padrones and those win the podium for me. They are a delicious treat and super prolific, growing all throughout the summer. Sometimes I even get a sneaky spicy pepper in there, when left to ripen for too long, or if the plant goes through some drought periods.
That is the interesting part of growing peppers, if you want super hot chillies, you’ll need to mistreat the plant. The motto is: the nicer you are to it, the nicer it will be to you! And in the case of chillies, that’s not a good thing.
Last year I got some seeds for a dwarf chilly variety whose peppers change color as they ripen. Initially purple, then white, yellow, orange and finally red. This one wins the most adorable award. It was truly such a delight watching it grow everyday and the rainbow of colors that it turned into at the end of summer. Because it was so compact and small, when the temperatures dropped in september, I brought it indoors and it continued bringing color to my life until late october when aphids took over…
Other things I always like to grow for the sake of convenience, are pak choi and salad greens. They are so easy to start indoors and are usually the first ones that can be transplanted outside to enjoy the flavor of home-grown vegetables ASAP.
Then there are the basils, of course, and you can head out to my other post “A love letter to basils” to hear all about that!
Another staple in my garden will always be mint. It’s such a survivor! I actually got it as cuttings from a neighbor. Sticked some branches into a pot and watched it grow. It has now been 2 years and it has survived the winter yet again. Mind you, this last winter was a particularly cold and long one, so I had given up hope of seeing anything pop through in that pot. But around late march it proved me wrong and came back to life!
I think the biggest lesson I learned while gardening is that it’s important to plant what you actually enjoy to eat the most. For the last few years, I’ve cut back on the amount of new varieties I try, and increased the number of plants of the varieties I know I love. This has allowed me to focus my energy and garden space into the ones I genuinely feel excited about, and that I know will do well. While, at the same time, leaving 1 or 2 pots for experiments that I won’t feel too heartbroken if they don’t work.
It’s all worth it for the joy and sense of accomplishment I get every time I pick my own fresh snacks, out on my green urban jungle, and truly get to taste the fruits of my hard labour!
Subscribe to my RSS Feed!
