Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Second rate reporter says what?

When they say they are pro-life, they do not mean yours.

Those who are easily outraged are easily manipulated.

America is going up in flames. The NYTimes fawns over MAGA celebrities. No longer a real newspaper.

Celebrate the fucking wins.

“Until such time as the world ends, we will act as though it intends to spin on.”

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Good lord, these people are nuts.

🎶 Those boots were made for mockin’ 🎵

He seems like a smart guy, but JFC, what a dick!

If you cannot answer whether trump lost the 2020 election, you are unfit for office.

Trumpflation is an intolerable hardship for every American, and it’s Trump’s fault.

Everything is totally normal and fine!!!

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The republican caucus is covering themselves with something, and it is not glory.

Do we throw up our hands or do we roll up our sleeves? (hint, door #2)

I’ve spoken to my cat about this, but it doesn’t seem to do any good.

Trump’s cabinet: like a magic 8 ball that only gives wrong answers.

Every one of the “Roberts Six” lied to get on the court.

Come on, media. you have one job. start doing it.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

You are here: Home / Garden Chats / What Should I Plant This Summer?

Reader Interactions

149Comments

  3. 3.

    AM in NC

    If you have permanent space for them and like to eat them, I say blueberries. They bushes last for years, can produce abundantly (and blueberries are expensive!), plus they have nice fall color.

  10. 10.

    sukabi

    I would think it would depend on what you like to eat .  You seem to like to put up jam….how about a raspberry patch?

  12. 12.

    JPL

    The birds eat the blueberries before you have time to pick them.  Plant enough so that you can share.

  15. 15.

    Pete Downunder

    Plant stuff that is so much better fresh and ripe that you can’t get at the market. Dont waste space on things like onions, but rather things like corn and tomatoes. I’d also look for exotic things that you like but are not available in stores. Go for the weird and wonderful.

  16. 16.

    NotMax

    Of course if you’re looking for DIY stuff involving plants you could harvest some willow bark and make homemade aspirin.

    ;)

  17. 17.

    Leto

    What would you like to can this year? What did you say, “Man, I wish I had some more of X”. Think about that when planning what to plant.

  18. 18.

    Marigold

    Have you ever grown tomatillos?  Seems like salsa verde might fit in nicely with your tomato canning activities, and I like the papery lanterns that the fruits form inside.  They are prolific, but they say you need two for optimal pollination.

  21. 21.

    hitless

    @Omnes Omnibus:  …and watch bamboo take over the yard…and the yard next that…

    I vote for potatoes – home grown are surprisingly noticeably better than store bought I think

  22. 22.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    Loofah. As in the “sponge”.  Not edible but a useful gourd.

    But if you’re focused strictly on food: Noodle beans, aka asparagus beans.

    My favorite seed source (and good for your zone I think): Southern Exposure: https://www.southernexposure.com/

  24. 24.

    trollhattan

    O/T Bad kitty is Bad!

    A mountain lion attacked a 6-year-old girl Sunday while she was walking in a California park, wildlife officials say.

    The girl was walking on a trail at the Rancho San Antonio County Park and Open Space Preserve in Cupertino, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a news release.

    She was about 2 miles from the main parking lot when a mountain lion attacked, Fish and Wildlife said. Rangers were treating the girl for minor injuries.

    An adult punched the mountain lion, estimated to weigh 160 pounds, in the ribs, KGO reported.

    “Right about when it grabbed ahold of the girl, there was an adult there that pushed the lion away into the bushes, and it ran off,” Brad Pennington, a ranger with Midpeninsula Regional Open Space District, told KGO. “She has minor injuries, a couple puncture wounds on her calf, and she was treated for minor first aid. Then, her parents took her to the hospital.”

    The park is closed until officials can determine it is safe. Rangers are trying to find and identify the mountain lion, Fish and Wildlife said in the news release.

    This is the second mountain lion attack that the California Department of Fish and Wildlife has on record this year. It is the 17th attack since 1986, according to data the department keeps.

    Cupertino? Insert Apple joke here. Also, 160 pounds is a bigass kitty even for a cougar. Punching man gets all the kudos.

  26. 26.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @hitless: It will keep the willow honest.  Also, why in the name of all that’s good and right in the world would anyone expect people to always offer good advice in situations like this?

  27. 27.

    HalfAssedHomesteader

    Also, plant a couple chickens if you haven’t already (but keep them out of the garden; they’ll rip it up).  They’ll give you eggs for a couple years, help you build good soil from their poop and if you’re up to it, decent sausage when they’re a bit older.

  28. 28.

    marv

    I’ve taken to planting cilantro and basil close to entrance to my garden and grabbing a little each time I go out there – enjoy the smell as much or more than the taste

  33. 33.

    Another Scott

    A former office mate planted a redwood when his boy was a toddler.  He jumped over it a while later and bent the top of the main trunk.  But it kept growing, and growing, retaining the bend at the top.

    A few years after he retired, he had to have it cut down because it was causing issues with the house foundation.  :-(  But he got decades of enjoyment out of it.

    A neighbor down the street has one in their front yard, too.  It’s still a baby (still has lots of branches near the ground), but they’ve already had to replace the sidewalks once and it’s lifting them again…

    Plant something you enjoy; blueberries do great at Dolly Sods but with your willow I guess you don’t have too much excess water any more.  But think about what it will be like 5-10+ years from now.  ;-)

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  35. 35.

    Betty Cracker

    The mister just planted a ton of peppers and tomatoes, from seedlings he’s been propagating for a few weeks now. There’s nothing like the first homegrown tomato sandwich of the year. White bread, mayo, salt and pepper (don’t judge!).

  36. 36.

    Don Beal

    Artichokes. So easy in western Oregon (rain) and asparagus. Go for the Delmonte variety. Very hardy and produces well.

  37. 37.

    geg6

    Blueberries.  And a few raspberry bushes (but keep them under control!).  And if you have the patience to wait a few years, homegrown asparagus is the most delicious vegetable in the world.  The stuff you buy, even from a farmer’s market, can’t hold a candle to asparagus you just cut.

  40. 40.

    J R in WV

    Eggplant — fresh Japanese eggplant, long and skinny, as well as standard big fat eggplant.

    If you love ratatouille they’re great, if you don’t yet, you will after home grown eggplant added to a good recipe with local squash, tomatoes, etc.

  41. 41.

    MattF

    @Omnes Omnibus: I knew someone who stayed for a while in a friend’s ground-floor living room— until the creaking sound of the bamboo growing overnight in the backyard creeped her out, and she had to leave.

  42. 42.

    CarolPW

    @geg6: I agree, but I had to give up on my asparagus bed. Lots of commercial asparagus crops around here so asparagus aphids and asparagus beetles trashed my crop, and I wasn’t successful with the biological controls I tried and am unwilling to use the necessary pesticides. We do have a farm stand where I can get asparagus cut the same morning, and if you cut the ends off and put it in water it is very close to the stuff you pick right before you cook it.

    If you have no nearby commercial crops they are otherwise pretty trouble-free.

    Also for okra, the purple variety is tasty and fun, and the flowers are gorgeous!

  46. 46.

    Bill Arnold

    @Mart:

    Marijuana, in case Tramp wins.

    In general, foods that can’t be bought in the grocery story. That includes tomatoes, and the weirdest looking things one can find in a seed or plant catalog. Oh, giant sunflowers, just because.

  47. 47.

    jl

    @Omnes Omnibus:  Not serious, unless you will welcome a constant stream of Cole blegs about the latest bamboo Colesaster.

    @hitless: I agree, Bamboo is high maintenance, unless your yard is a small courtyard hemmed in on all sides by concrete.

    @MattF: I remember a couple of patches of bamboo growing up on the farm. One miniature, one full size. I like the sound it makes. But while sitting in the yard when a a late afternoon breeze came up, heralding the evening.

  49. 49.

    NotMax

    OT (because don’t know if there will be a general interest thread within the next few hours). Short notice TCM note.

    Tuesday at 6 a.m. Eastern, The Green Goddess. Dated as hell along with being almost painfully paced, with a plot that was creaky when Methuselah was in diapers. The reason to watch is George Arliss plying his trade in his inaugural movie. The theatricality he projects as The Raja offsets the stilted and wooden delivery of his fellow actors and he steals every bit of every scene he’s in through sheer force of will and ebullience of style. Plus later on in the film he gets to strut about wearing one the coolest looking set of robes ever. Also it’s a prime example of the floundering which beset Hollywood in transitioning from silents and incorporating sound.

  50. 50.

    jl

    Cole said he was going to plant pawpaws. I’ve seen no evidence of that.

    I think all suggestions are good except the bamboo. Look out, John Cole, it’s a tarp!

    But if Cole goes for bamboo, he might as well plant bougainvillea too. Why settle for half a gardening hell when you can have a whole one? And cardoon, especially if there is a city ordinance against. it

  55. 55.

    snoey

    Peas are on the must eat now list.  The sugars turn to starch immediately after picking. No farm stand can get them on the shelf fresh enough.

  56. 56.

    jl

    @snoey: And turnips.  The right variety of fresh turnip same day it’s picked is great. Another item cannot get in store. White turnips are hard to grow are best for eating raw, IMHO. Seeds need just right sequence of damp and cold then drier and warmer to produce, but worth it.

  57. 57.

    Czanne

    Aleppo peppers. They’re not too hot, have an amazing flavor both fresh and dried. And in memoriam.

    You might like hardy kiwi. You’ve got sufficient space and the right climate; you’ll need a male and female plant (but most places sell three plants as a polygyny). You’ll need some patience; they usually start bearing the 3rd year. They will *happily* cover your pergola or anything else you want covered in vines.

  60. 60.

    jl

    Clearly settled by now that Cole should plant everything. It’s a full service blog, the math demands it, and the BJ comenters, who make this blog pay for itself, are always right.

    I for one look forward to our blogmaster’s daily garden reports. I miss the ‘This Fucking House’ posts, and same thing for a demon yard sounds good to me.

  62. 62.

    hilts

    OT

    Update on Trump’s Big Beautiful Wall

     

    Perhaps the quickest way around a billion-dollar wall is over it.

    Smugglers in Juárez have engineered camouflage hook-and-ladders made of rebar that blend in so well with the border wall that it can be hard to detect, according to U.S. Border Patrol. The ladders are the same rust brown color as the mesh panels or steel beams of the fence.

    El Paso’s urban stretch of border is littered with the rusted rebar ladders at the base on both sides — ladders lying in wait on the Mexican side, ladders pulled down by border agents or abandoned by smugglers on the U.S. side. One of the rebar ladders was poking out of a dumpster in a lot near the Chihuahuita neighborhood on Thursday.

    The ladders appear to be made with two poles of 3/8-inch rebar and four thinner poles, outfitted with steps and bent over at the end in a U, to hook on the top of the wall. It’s the sort of cubed rebar support structure used in construction in Mexico, called castillo.

    Six meters of castillo costs 99 pesos, or about $5.30, at the Hágalo — or Do It Yourself — True Value hardware store in Juárez.

    “We’re starting to see a lot of evading activity,” said Agent Ramiro Cordero, the sector’s spokesman. “We’re starting to see the criminal organizations working hand-to-hand on either side to avoid detection.

    h/t https://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2020/02/14/smugglers-in-mexico-use-camouflage-ladder-to-cross-border-wall/4760798002/

  64. 64.

    Ohio Mom

    Pat@53: Okra has its moments. Fried is especially good. But I will admit that as someone born in the Bronx, it took me a while to learn to appreciate it.

    My only gardening suggestion for Cole is flowers you can eat, like nasturtiums. They’re fun in salads.

  65. 65.

    Argiope

    @HalfAssedHomesteader:

    Yeah, and if I can grow it on the southern shores of Lake Erie, Cole can definitely grow it a few hours south.  Did I mention how completely easy it is?  I’m talking myself into another big pot of it this summer.

  67. 67.

    J R in WV

    @Another Scott:

    “Wasn’t he going to plant ramps, also too?”

    Ramps are great, ready in early spring, good for at least a month, I’ve been buying bundles of wild-grown ramps, they’re sold on the road side every spring, and planting 2/3s of the bundles we buy, cooking the rest.

    They take right off, and after just a year or two start spreading via runners. After 3 or 4 years the older beds will start putting up flowers in late summer to fall, which put out seeds. I understand the seeds have a very low germination rate, which is why we went with planting the live recently dug plants. But for a crop that comes up every spring it’s hard to beat ramps! Might work in a bed with asparagus, which are deeper than ramps, which are about 3 or 4 inches down…

    Nothing better than ramps fried with crispy grated potatoes (latkes?!) and bacon, although they’re also great with anything that calls for lots of onions and/or garlic! Omelets OMG!!

  68. 68.

    germy

    What should I plant this summer?

    The only proper answer is plenty of willow trees.  They provide excellent shade, if planted as close to the house as possible.

  69. 69.

    HRA

    Zucchini, eggplant, green beans, pumpkins,garlic and herbs you use are my recommendations. Happy planting, John!

  70. 70.

    jl

    @hilts:  They need to document this approach to evading Wall fast. It is clearly a transitional technology that will only useful until the rest of dumb and vicious Wall falls over in the desert wind.

    I guess it’s cheap enough and easy enough to make, even if they only need that system for a few years

    Edit: I hope Warren gives an illustrated lecture on what a failure Trump Wall is soon.

  72. 72.

    Roger Moore

    @trollhattan:

    Cupertino? Insert Apple joke here.

    Laugh all you want, but mountain lions have made it all the way into San Francisco recently, and they’ve been found in quite urban neighborhoods.  They’re recovering their old range, and that puts them into conflict with the people living there.

  75. 75.

    brettvk

    Potatoes are fun to grow, and if you like new potatoes can be one of your early harvests. I grew Yukon Golds in straw bales last year and had an excellent crop, very tasty. Conditioning the bales is the fussiest part of the procedure and well worth the effort.

    Blueberries are a good home crop here in SW MO. Very few pests or diseases and pretty prolific. I’ve never had problems with birds but then I have many cats.

  76. 76.

    Peter

    Jerusalem artichokes are aggressive spreaders. They are also full of inulin, a potent prebiotic, which can cause some people to have gastric distress and many other people to fart like you cannot imagine*. But they’re tall and have pretty yellow flowers, so there’s that.

    I’m a big fan of sesame. It tolerates drought, doesn’t mind wet, has nice purple flowers, and the yield is pretty good. You’re also far enough south that you should be able to grow ginger and turmeric, which will change your Asian food game forever. They should go in the ground soon, as soon as you’re frost-free, since they need a long growing season.

    Blueberries need acidic soil and plenty of moisture. How about currants? Gooseberries are in the same family. I love mine—white, red, pink, and black—and use them for all sorts of things. You may want to check if WV has legal restrictions, though; some states with lots of pine plantations have laws against them because they can carry a pine blight.

    *Maybe you can imagine it. If so, imagine someone farting incessantly for hours after eating Jerusalem artichokes.

  79. 79.

    Ohio Mom

    Hilts@62: You gotta give those fence-jumpers credit for inventiveness, resourcefulness, craftsmanship, thriftiness, physical fitness, and all-around gumption. Really, there’s a lot to admire there.

    Almost as if they might be the klnd of people you’d want to welcome as citizens…

  80. 80.

    Roger Moore

    @Peter:

    I’m a big fan of sesame.

    If you’re going to plant sesame, you should also plant some garbanzo beans so you can make homemade hummus.  Grinding your own tahini really puts it over the top.

  81. 81.

    jl

    If Cole is going to plant everything, that has to include native WV fruits and vegetables. Here is a link to a Univ of WV bulletin with a list.

    Native West Virginia Foods for Backyard Gardeners

    https://www.slideshare.net/Fulvia52x/y1r499

    The list includes quite a few fruit trees and tree nuts Cole can plant too close or too far away from something or other.

  86. 86.

    Jay Noble

    Beets for pickled beets

    Cucumbers for pickles dill and sweet

    Dill for the dill pickles

    onions, tomatoes, peppers, oregeno and garlic for salsa and tomato sauces

    Some sort of navy/white beans for ham & beans

  88. 88.

    scav

    These are amazing squash for eating in terms of flavor and texture. Tetsukabuto

    The squash of choice for the apocalypse.

    An innovative kabocha/butternut cross which produces high yields even under stress.

  89. 89.

    Bill Arnold

    @germy:

    The only proper answer is plenty of willow trees.

    And don’t be shy about watering and fertilizing them. They can provide excellent shade surprisingly quickly if pampered with an abundance of food and water.

  90. 90.

    Mai naem mobile

    Red or black currants. Red currants look like really pretty bushes. Also gourds but I don’t know if you are in the right zone for gourds. Interesting colored carrots and cauliflower. Beets, Parsnips and raspberries.

  92. 92.

    Mary G

    I love sugar snap peas and eat them off the vine whole; I hope it doesn’t get too hot too soon for the ones I planted this fall. We picked our first large beefsteak-style tomato of the season yesterday. They’ve never come this early or even this month before.

  95. 95.

    jl

    Cole will need more land. Much more. I can’t wait for the ‘Buying out the Neighbors and Tearing Down the Fucking Houses’ series.

  99. 99.

    Mel

    Tomatillos for salsa verde. Cranberry beans to dry for tasty bean soup over the winter. Ginger root for stir-fries and for candied ginger.

    In the fall, Creole Red garlic for next year. (Filaree Farm usually carries it.)

    You can use the salsa verde made with your tomatillos to make delicious enchiladas!

  100. 100.

    Origuy

    I’m very familiar with Rancho San Antonio. The north and east side are right next to housing, while the south and west get very steep and thickly vegetated; it’s mountains all the way to the coast from there. There’s a small farm at one end for children to get exposed to the animals. A mountain lion would be right at home in the upper area.

  101. 101.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    Fava beans. Might already be too late* this year – make a note for next year, if so. The plants are cool-looking and high-yielding, and there is simply no substitute for fresh favas. Peas are a really good idea, too.

    ETA: also scarlet runner beans – lovely plants, tasty beans.

    *I have no idea what season it is in WV.

  107. 107.

    middlelee

    Thai double blue Butterfly Peas.  They are stunningly beautiful and edible.  The flowers, leaves, young shoots and tender pods are all edible.  They don’t attract butterflies but resemble them.

  110. 110.

    currants

    @JPL: Oh me too! Asparagus are such a great payoff.  Sources for buying (at least for me) are Johnny’s Seeds, FedCo, and Nourse Farms.

  113. 113.

    TomatoQueen

    Haricots verts from the Burpee catalogue, lovely plant, lovely flowers, tasty beans

    Red currants: Pro: fabulous jelly for toast and for glazing fruit pies Agin: won’t bear for a while, then it’s a shrub and the little goobers are harvested with scissors;

    Black currants: Pro: nice jam Agin: carries disease that spreads to other plants, if I remember a vague rumor correctly

    Billberry: never grown to harvest successfully in the US, fruit superior to blueberries, according to some UK fruit snobs, so worth a try

    Frankliniana: elegant tree very rare needs to be re-established

    Sweet peas against a fence, cost the earth if you can even find them in a store, but a fabulous early spring old fashioned flower for small vases, easy to grow

    Nasturtiums thrive on neglect and can be eaten, and of course you want your back garden to resemble Giverny if at all possible, to hide the willow

  115. 115.

    currants

    @CarolPW:

    Yes, you’re right about the pests.  I have a small farm market a couple miles away that grows asapargus just up the road from me, and for the first couple of years I had no problems.  But then the asparagus beetles found me.  I’ve found a couple of good controls, but if I go away in the summer, they get ahead of me and I lose a plant or two.

  116. 116.

    zhena gogolia

    @pat:

    Haha, yeah, I couldn’t get past that. Why in the hell?

    The best differential between storebought and homegrown is just plain old peas. But they don’t last long.

  119. 119.

    CarolPW

    @currants: I have multiple square miles of asparagus fields around me and the pest pressure is astonishing. I mostly wanted to grow my own for variety selection. Like commercial vs. home-grown tomatoes it’s not just ripeness but variety, and typical commercial asparagus varieties are inferior to many varieties available to home growers. For my poor plants, the aphids caused even worse damage than the beetles and having both afflict them made growing it impossible.

  122. 122.

    Anne Laurie

    @Betty Cracker: Home-grown ‘sparrow grass’ really *is* that good, but IIRC it needs a cold-dormancy period to produce well (since it’s the new spring shoots that get eaten).  Also, it requires really fertile soil — I was told, when I briefly considered the idea, to fill my raised bed with aged (bagged) manure, and let it sit for a year unplanted.

    (P.S.  The poor sad little bed is still returning to tilth at the edge of my ‘vegetable garden’ driveway strip, but I’ve never gotten around to replacing the on-sale-at-the-end-of-the season crowns that didn’t take off, so take my advice with the requisite shaker of salt… )

  125. 125.

    Jerzy Russian

    @MomSense:

    My friends have plum trees and they are so tasty

    I never heard of anyone eating the trees before.

    All kidding aside, my boyhood home had a plum tree and the plums were awesome. Not sure the variety, but they were pretty dark blue/purple.

  126. 126.

    Anne Laurie

    @Peter: Jerusalem artichokes are aggressive spreaders. They are also full of inulin, a potent prebiotic, which can cause some people to have gastric distress…

    Inulin is the ‘active ingredient’ in Activia, incidentally.  So if Cole was curious, he could pre-test his personal digestive tract.

    Cole, potato plants in rootpouches are really pretty when they grow — strangers passing my driveway ‘garden’ admired the flowers & assumed they were meant to be ornamental.  (I gave them up because of space constraints — chose more tomatoes over the potatoes, which were perfectly fine, but I can get perfectly fine potatoes at the store.)

    If you like cranberries at all… lingonberries taste like cranberries *ought* to taste, and you don’t have to add a ton of sugar.  Only problem for you might be that they like acid soil, but you could dedicate one bed for lingonberries and/or blueberries.

  127. 127.

    zhena gogolia

    I don’t know what you should plant, but Uncle Joe tore it up in this interview with Nicolle Wallace:

    Former VP Joe Biden on the calls for Attorney General Barr to resign:"This has been the greatest abuse of power I have ever seen at the hands of this president, who has no sense of decency or understanding of the Constitution." @JoeBiden @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/ufRkEwG5RY— Deadline White House (@DeadlineWH) February 17, 2020

  130. 130.

    Peter

    @Anne Laurie: i never had any luck with lingonberries, but evidently they can be planted around high bush blueberries to maximize yield from a given area. I add some pine needles and oak leaves to the compost for my blueberries, but it can be a challenge for me to keep them as wet as they like to be.

  131. 131.

    Another Scott

    In other news, Wonkette:

    Mind you, people who study poverty tend to suggest that virtually nobody becomes poor because they went out for too many nice meals. It might just be a little more complex than that!

    Unpossible!!11ONE

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  132. 132.

    zhena gogolia

    Donald Ayer, deputy attorney general under President George H.W. Bush, says Attorney General William Barr is "un-American" and should resign."Bill Barr's vision is that there is one man, one person who needs to be above the law and that is the President." pic.twitter.com/hnCJER81EC— The Situation Room (@CNNSitRoom) February 18, 2020

  133. 133.

    Jay

    @Morzer:

    tomatoes taste as great as they always have.

    industrial tomatoes have always tasted like crap.

    Fun fact, in BC, Commercial Greenhouses grow heritage strains, which are available year round. Yes, like most things that have been “re-engineered” down to a price point, they cost more.

  134. 134.

    Dan B

    @Anne Laurie: Cole’s soil should be acid because WV is rainy.  That is if he’s not on limestone.

    Advice on plums: You need to harvest them or they create a nuisance, as with many fruits you get a big crop at once and the ones that fall attract hornets and rats (Steve may like the latter.)

    Potatoes in ground are somewhat invasive so bags are the best way to go.  Years ago I grew Early Ohio which made the best mashed potatoes, fluffy, silky, and delicious.  I haven’t seen them for sale since but somebody should be keeping them just for the name.

    Birds and Japanese Beetles got most of the blueberries my father grew in the Akron area but he netted and trapped (the beetles).  He regularly found birds trapped inside the netting – plump but squawking.

  135. 135.

    MoCA Ace

    Jerusalem artichokes are aggressive spreaders.

    @Peter: second on the Jerusalem artichokes.  your yard isn’t big enough.  You need a containment area around them… kinda like a DMZ where you can nuke them if necessary, and it will eventually be necessary!

    I vote peppers and tomatoes because they have so many varieties that you will never get to experience if you just stick with nursery stock.  And asparagus… first green vegetable of the year and done about the time you get sick of eating it.

  136. 136.

    Jay

    @Dan B:

    My trick for mashed is Pontiacs, Kennebecs and Yukon Gold in equal portions. One potato (Kennebec’s) is mealy, one potato is a “boiler”, (Pontiac’s) and the last one is “gooey”.

  137. 137.

    Comrade Colette Collaboratrice

    @laura:

    maybe a meyer lemon tree

    Meyer lemons are the best! Sadly, the tree won’t survive regular hard frosts, let alone the snow in John’s neck of the woods. Although with climate change, who the hell knows …

  138. 138.

    MoCA Ace

    Add Garlic.  try heirloom garlic and you will never eat the crap from the supermarket again.  and there are plenty of ways to store the bounty… dried, pickled, chopped and frozen in oil, homemade garlic salt.

  139. 139.

    smintheus

    If you want delicious greens, you can hardly go wrong with old Italian stand-bys like Black Kale (Cavolo Nero) and one of the Italian escaroles. Both are more tender, much less bitter and more flavorful than most varietals typically grown in the US. Cavolo Nero is essential for one of the great Italian peasant dishes, Ribollita. Italian escarole is much tastier and more mild than spinach.

    Since you have a long growing season, I’d suggest you consider growing the Spanish melon called piel de sapo. It’s delicious like a honeydew, though smaller, and it holds up for a long time after harvest…lasting until about Christmas. Can ripen melons from July through September.

  140. 140.

    smintheus

    @Peter: Toss coffee grounds on the surface for a radius of about a foot around your blueberries. Keep doing it until you’re sick to death of tossing coffee grounds. They will love it and start growing like mad.

  142. 142.

    Auntie Beak

    @AM in NC: Gonna have to protect them from the birds, at least after the first year. But yeah, blueberries are a great plant. Know what’s even better? Thornless blackberries. I grew them in southern CT, zone 7a. Absolutely hugely prolific and delicious. And the birds pretty much let them be. Put them someplace where they can make their own thicket. You will have SO MANY BERRIES!

  143. 143.

    mario

    fig tree

    don’t even think about it.

    fig tree

    If my dad could grow them in pre-global warming NY, you can do it in W VA

  147. 147.

    Anne Laurie

    @TomatoQueen: Sweet peas against a fence, cost the earth if you can even find them in a store, but a fabulous early spring old fashioned flower for small vases, easy to grow

    Found mine, last year, at SelectSeeds.com.  Absolutely worth the premium price for plants, for me, but Cole could probably start them from seed.  Plant them where you can smell them, often, because the scent doesn’t carry (at least for me) but it’s delicious.

  148. 148.

    Anne Laurie

    @Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Meyer lemons are the best! Sadly, the tree won’t survive regular hard frosts, let alone the snow in John’s neck of the woods. Although with climate change, who the hell knows …

    Logee’s (pricey, but again: You get what you pay for) claims Meyer lemons do well in big pots.  Cole is meticulous enough to overwinter one under a spare grow light, and haul it out to enjoy the (ever-longer, due to climate change) warmer months.

  149. 149.

    Mary Ellen Sandahl

    I’ve never grown it myself, but always wanted to try celeriac, aka celery root. Assuming you like the freshness of celery flavor! Supposed to be very good in soups and stews, doesn’t take up swathes of space, much easier to start from seed and grow on than celery . It’s a cool seaon root veg, so for you it would be something to time for maturation either before or after the hottest part of the summer.
    Now I’ve talked myself into trying it.

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