'BLACK Cherry' tomatoes -- dark juicy morsels with a tart-sweet essence and glistening maroon color that stands out in a salad or frittata. 'Anellino' beans -- curled like green and gold pigs' tails with buttery Romano-like flavor and texture. 'Papaya Pear' zucchini -- sunshine-yellow summer squash that glow like tiny papayas.
If you assume such mouth-watering crops are exclusively farmers market delicacies, think again. Every one of these beautiful vegetables can be grown in your own backyard.
This year, seed catalogs, nurseries and plant sales offer a remarkable array of new vegetables for spring planting, including more heirloom varieties than ever before, hybrids that promise superior taste, and imports for ethnic cuisines and adventurous palates.
There's no reason to settle for generically labeled nursery plants that leave you wondering, "Which 'cantaloupe' is this?" It pays to dig deeper for specific varieties. But with so many choices, where does the kitchen gardener begin? Here are this spring's top picks from growers who love to cook as well as chefs who love to garden.
Cucumbers and melons are closely related and with the craze for petite melons, getting harder to tell apart. Personal or mini melons, promoted as perfect for singles or small families, were introduced three years ago. They are seedless, crisp and sweet with thin rinds. At 2 to 4 pounds each, rosy-fleshed 'Little Baby Flower' watermelons from Maine-based Johnny's Selected Seeds are so popular that seeds are back-ordered. Johnny's new 'Mini Yellow' has firm canary-hued flesh. But the ultimate personal melon may be brownish-yellow 'Plum Granny,' also called pomegranate melon and Queen Anne's pocket melon, from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds based in Mansfield, Mo. This apple-sized, white-fleshed heirloom familiar to Southern gardeners has a fruity scent strong enough to fill a room and is reputed to have been carried by Queen Anne as a sachet.
Seeds from Italy now has downy little cucumbers called 'Cetriolo (Carosello) Barese Scopatizzo,' from Bari in southern Italy. "They're actually melons eaten like cukes," says proprietor Bill McKay. "Mild-tasting, best when young. The fuzz rubs off easily."
