75 Exciting Vegetables for Your Garden

by Jack Staub

Overview

Written in elegant prose and filled with beautiful, original art, this keepsake volume examines seventy-five unusual and eminently beautiful vegetables that are both attractive while growing and yield delightfully edible fruits. 75 exciting Vegetables for Your Garden offers recipes, resources, tidbits of unexpected lore, and a touch of nostalgia - it is an heirloom volume that is sure to be passed from generation to generation.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781423608790
Publisher:	Smith, Gibbs Publisher
Publication date:	10/29/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Jack Staub is one of the country's leading experts on fruit and vegetable gardening. He frequently lectures on the subject, and his articles have appeared in numerous magazines and print publications, including Country Living, Fine Gardening, and The New York Times. He is also a featured guest on NPR. You can learn more about Jack and Hortulus Farms at http://hortulusfarmdiary.blogspot.com.

Each of these illustrations was drawn in pen and ink and colored with watercolor paints on cotton museum board. Her work has been exhibited in Canada and the United States.

Read an Excerpt

I concede immediately that, while I have attempted to make this volume unique in content and tone, I have, in truth, had a singularly superb model for it. In fact, I have been sorely tempted to entitle this work Eminent Vegetables, so highly do I esteem Lytton Strachy's brilliant Eminent Victorians, that early twentieth-century paragon of biographical brevity and wit. In it, Mr. Strachy serves up four brief, laserlike portraits of the Victorian luminaries Florence Nightingale, Cardinal Newman, General Gordon, and Dr. Manning. Each profile is as notable for its succinct and wry appraising tone as it is for its erudition, psychological insight, and historical elucidation. In a single stroke, Strachy managed to blow the academic dust off the art of biography, noting rather accurately that " . . . it is perhaps as difficult to write a good life as to live one."

In this volume my intention is to present you, the reader, with portraits not of famous personalities of our time, but of vegetables whose time I feel has come. Eminent vegetables. Entrancing vegetables. Heirloom and hybrid. Native and transplant. Seventy-five really superb vegetables in current culture that are as exciting for their physical beauty as they are for their taste. Today, the entire world is our horticultural oyster and, originating in every corner of the globe, each of these vegetables is possessed of both a savor and an aesthetic charm that would make the loveliest blossom hang its head. As well, each is entirely suited to American cultivation, yet most of these varieties are perhaps totally unknown to the laissez-faire gardener. In short, I feel that these are vegetables with which every serious American vegetable gardener should be acquainted.

Table of Contents

1. Amaranth "Joseph's Coat"

2. Artichoke "Violetto de Romagna"

3. Asparagus Bean

4. Asparagus Pea

5. Australian Yellowleaf Lettuce

6. Broccoli "Romanesco"

7. Brussels Sprout "Rubine"

8. Bull's Blood Beet

9. Cabbage "Ruby Perfection"

10. Cabbage "Savoy Express"

11. Cardoon "Gigante"

12. Carrot "Thumbelina"

13. Cauliflower "Violetta di Sicilia"

14. Cayenne Pepper

15. Celeriac

16. Chard "Bright Lights"

17. Chinese Rat Tail Radish

18. Chiogga Beet

19. Crimson Forest Onion

20. D'Algers Melon

21. Dragon Tongue Bush Bean

22. Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch Kale

23. Early Purple Vienna Kohlrabi

24. Eggplant "Neon"

25. Egyptian Walking Onion

26. Elberta Peach Tomato

27. Fish Pepper

28. Tomato "German Red Strawberry"

29. Giant Chinese Red Mustard

30. Giant Red Celery

31. Golden Sweet Edible-Podded Pea

32. Green Zebra Tomato

33. Habanero Pepper

34. Hillbilly Tomato

35. Imperial Star Artichoke

36. Jarrahdale Pumpkin

37. Kale "Nero di Toscana"

38. Leek "Blue Solaize"

39. Lemon Drop Pepper

40. Lettuce "Forellenschluss"

41. Lollo Rossa Lettuce

42. Malabar Spinach

43. Melon "Queen Anne's Pocket"

44. Merlot Lettuce

45. Mizuna

46. Nutri-Red Carrot

47. Okra "Red Burgundy"

48. Orach "Crimson Plume"

49. Osterei Eggplant

50. Painted Serpent Cucumber

51. Prescott Fond Blanc Melon

52. Pumpkin "Baby Boo"

53. Purple Calabash Tomato

54. Purple Sprouting Broccoli

55. Radish "Misato Rose"

56. Redbor Kale

57. Rhubarb Chard

58. Royal Oakleaf Lettuce

59. Runner Bean "Painted Lady"

60. Runner Bean "Sun Bright"

61. Sea Kale

62. Squash "Ronde de Nice"

63. Sorrel "Silver Shield"

64. Sunburst Squash

65. Sweet Million Tomato

66. Tiger Tom Tomato

67. Trifetti Pepper

68. True Lemon Cucumber

69. Turkish Orange Eggplant

70. Watermelon "Moon & Stars"

71. West Indian Burr Gherkin

72. Windsor Broad Bean

73. Wood's Prolific Bush Scallop

74. Yellowstone Carrot

75. Zebra Hybrid Eggplant