This week, Elspeth talks with an avid gardener about ordering seeds for the upcoming season.
Around this time for the past several years, Elspeth has talked with a local farmer or gardener about what seed varieties they’re ordering for the upcoming growing season. This year, she talks with an avid gardener in Orleans whose seed order reveals an unusual passion.
Helene Simon grew up in Bolsta, a small town outside of Stockholm in Sweden. Her mother and grandmother had gardens when she was a kid, and when Helene married an American and moved to Orleans, she started a plot of her own. Today one garden has turned into seven. And this year, she plans to fill most of them with root vegetables.
Helene: I grow a lot of potatoes I think maybe that has to do with me being from Sweden a little bit. I probably grow I don’t know maybe 200-250 pounds of potatoes every year that we store I like the Kennebec, and I like the Finn. They’re a white potato, good for just boiling. And then I usually do a Yukon Gold also.
Potatoes are different from most vegetables in that you don’t order seed packets—instead, you buy seed potatoes. These are just like the potatoes you’d grow or buy at grocery stores or farmers’ market, but most gardeners like to order theirs from a certified seed company so they don’t carry any diseases. In addition to the varieties she’s mentioned, Helene is also planning to order a red potato from the Netherlands.
Helene: I did grow a new one last year, which was really kind of fun it was called Desiree. And we actually grew it in the school garden at the elementary school in Orleans and it was these big, big potatoes, kind of a blush color but the flesh is white, but they store really well, and so I’m planning on doing some extra of those this year. I try to plant like an early, mid and a late so they’re not all at one time.
Helene recommends doing the same seasonal spacing with carrots.
Helene: I grow a lot of carrots, which I love and I’ve found two carrot seeds that do really well here on the Cape. The first one is Nectar, which I love. And then there’s the Napoli, which stores really well. So the Nectar we kind of eat all summer long and then the Napoli we harvest in the fall and then put it in the root cellar.
Elspeth: So is the Nectar particularly sweet?
Helene: It is sweet, it’s really crunchy, it grows really nice and straight. Yeah, nice and thick you know some of them can get really thin and straggly but I always have good luck with them.
Both Nectar and Napoli are standard orange carrots—Helene says she has ordered purple and red varieties in the past, but they’ve never done well. She also grows beets —she likes a classic heirloom called Detroit Red, and this year, she’s growing two varieties of parsnips.
Helene: Let’s see I grow the Lance um and I was trying to I try to come up with some new ones every year and so this year I was going to try the Javelin which I have never tried before but you actually you plant it in the fall, it overwinters, and then you harvest in the spring. So I thought that would be kind of fun because the garden is always empty then.
Both the Lancer and the Javelin are long, thin, smooth parsnips, and they’re grown just like carrots.
Helene’s last seed recommendation comes from the cabbage family, and it grows differently from your typical root vegetable.
Helene: Kohlrabi is a small root, but it kind of grows over the ground and sends down this long root. It’s kind of like a beet, you know a beet really grows over the ground, too, although you keep piling. On a kohlrabi you don’t have to worry about covering the dirt, it just grows above.
Elspeth: And there’s different varieties, right, a green and a purple?
Helene: Yeah, there’s a green and a purple, and I get the Quick Star, which is a really early one that’s a green one. It’s got a, I would say cabbage taste to it, but it’s hard, and it’s great to just slice and dice and mix into salads.
I like kohlrabi cooked down with Swiss chard, coconut milk, and red curry paste, and it also makes a nice creamy soup with potatoes. The good thing about kohlrabi is that you can get it in the ground as early as March, and the same goes for potatoes. The other root vegetable varieties Helene Simon mentioned are fairly hardy too—depending on the weather, beets, parsnips, and carrots can go in the ground in April or early May. Until then, Helene will be stocking up on seeds.
Helene: It’s very easy to become a seed hoarder I think, because you place your big order but then I can’t seem to walk past a seed rack without buying more of them, so it can just get insane sometimes.
The time to order is now.
This episode first aired on February 26, 2015.
To learn more about Kennebec Potatoes
https://fedcoseeds.com/moose/kennebec-organic-white-potato-7041?srsltid=AfmBOooEmUpaBxYWr2-AfbQl68nW-nFn-Od8QNi2JfuIWyRWYWArygJm
Finn Potatoes
https://vegvariety.cce.cornell.edu/main/detail.php?variety_id=1478&filterBy=0
Desiree potatoes
https://fedcoseeds.com/moose/desiree-red-potato-7140?srsltid=AfmBOopdmQNRrB2dhl6foKGWEX9bkUGV9weW8qXGuOY4jhCOtc--xvqg
Nectar carrots
https://www.demeter-garden.com/cultivar/nectar%20carrots
COCONUT CURRIED KOHLRABI AND SWISS CHARD
You can find kohlrabi at most farmers' markets. When selecting kohlrabi, keep in mind that the purple stems are sweeter and a bit more mild spice-wise than the green versions. Look for small, tender pieces, as the bigger they get the woodier they tend to be inside.
1 tablespoon butter
2 large cloves garlic, minced
6 scallions, chopped fine
1 tennis ball-size kohlrabi, peeled and diced
8-10 cups Swiss chard, chopped and packed
1/2 can coconut milk plus 1/4 cup water
1 tablespoon red curry paste
1 and 1/2 tablespoons peanut butter
salt
Get out a big, heavy-bottomed soup pot and put it over medium heat. Melt the butter, and throw in the scallions and the garlic. Stir briskly so that the garlic doesn't burn, cooking for only a minute.
Now add the kohlrabi and sauté a bit more before adding the Swiss chard. Once the greens are in the pot, put the lid tightly on top and let them steam down for about five minutes, stirring everything from time to time.
Remove the lid and add the coconut milk and the red curry paste. Turn up the heat to medium-high and keep stirring until the paste dissolves in the milk. When the liquid starts to boil throw in the peanut butter and stir until this dissolves too.
Turn the heat down to a simmer, season the pot with salt, and let the flavors cook together for a minute or two. Serve the vegetables and broth in a wide, shallow bowl over a scoop of brown rice. Sriracha hot sauce or another hot chili sauce makes a nice topping.
