Beefy Resilient Beans. Because I don’t actually like the taste of beans, and these don’t taste like beans. They taste like beef. They also don’t cause gas like other beans! And they live up to the “resilient” part, too. They produce more per row-foot than any other bean I’ve ever grown.
Dragon’s Egg cucumbers are the variety I keep gravitating back to. They stay sweet at any stage, even when they’re so over-ripe they look more like a melon. In fact, you can treat them like a melon if you want to. It’s that sweet. The white color makes them easy to find, too.
I try to grow one of each of the 4 main branches of the squash family. Last year I discovered a 5th branch, so “Great Lakes Shark Fin” is on my list of musts. The others I’m a little more flexible with, but this year I’ll be repeating what I grew last year, which is Bigger Better Butternut, Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead, Calabasa de las Aguas, and my ongoing pumpkin-breeding project.
For potatoes, my Mom has already requested more Elfe’s. They did outstandingly well last year, and Mom says they made the best hash-browns she’s ever tasted!
For tomatoes, Punta Banda is my main go-to. I try to plant at least 5 different varieties, but that’s the one that makes it to the list every time. It’s a compact indeterminate, which means it gives you an ongoing harvest without sprawling like most indeterminates do. And the stem pulls free of the fruit, so there’s no need to core them before processing.
(I don’t actually like the taste of raw tomatoes, so I don’t know how they do in a salad. All my tomatoes get cooked.)
There’s a grape-tomato that tends to plant itself every year, so I’ll be growing that whether I intend to or not. That’s ok, because they’re also my chickens’ favorite treat. I’d been calling it “Baby Paste” because it had the meatiness of a paste tomato, in a tiny bite-sized package. But I’ve been outvoted, so now it’s called “Mini Paste”. One unique thing I’ve noticed is that the vines tend to creep along the ground so low, that I didn’t realize how many I had until after a few frosts. The creeping charlie died back enough to show an Entire. Freaking. Carpet of little ripe tomatoes lining the ground underneath! This tomato actually used creeping charlie as a frost blanket! How weird is that?
You are the Bean Queen, for sure, LOL!
Could your little tomato have originally been a ‘Valentine?’ Sounds like it to me, but who knows.
I love ‘Sweet Meat’ squash. :)