Click below to listen to my 2 min. Garden Bite radio show: More 2020 vegetables to try
Hybridizers are always workin’. As we continue to shelter in place, getting our hands in the dirt, or at least being outdoors and pondering what we’ll plant can lift our spirits. (currently it’s snowing like crazy in southeast Minnesota but yesterday was fabulous!) Welcome to the Upper Midwest where the weather changes on a whim!
How about a new summer squash? It’s called ‘Lemon Drop’.
According to Burpee, Lemon Drop makes for scrumptious fresh eating and downright sublime when sautéed, baked or grilled. For perfect quality, pick the small, lemon-shaped, adorable fruits at a very young stage when they’re about 2½ x 3″ fruits.
How about a mini cucumber? ‘Honey Plus’ has smooth pale-green to white skin and crispy-crunchy, sweet-as-honey, golden-fleshed fruit.
The plants grow to about 2 feet and yield in just 40 days! Wow. The fruits weigh about 6 or 7 ounces. Great for fresh snacking, salads and pickling.
Kale is a powerful plant packed with good stuff. I use it a lot in soups as well as fresh eating. This year Burpee introduces ‘Dazzling Blue’.
This is a dinosaur kale. A cold hardy ‘Lacinato’ type is a vigorous producer of gorgeous large blue-green leaves with distinct purple-pink veins in the middle. Classic Lacinato flavor and tenderness make it ideal for fresh kale salads and for smoothies.
And I must mention a new pea called ‘Shebang’! Eat this baby whole! Both tender peas and delicious pods are purely sweet.
Growing on 12–14″ plants, 3″ early spring-season pods are ready for harvest just 45 days after planting, making it ideal for two to three successive sowings. These would do well in containers too! It’s “The whole shebang!”
