Seeds from Italy News
Vol 9, #3 September 2009

THE NEWSLETTER IS BEST READ ON LINE. THE PHOTOGRAPHS MENTIONED BELOW ARE IN THE ONLINE VERSION. IF YOU WANT TO READ ON LINE, GO TO:

http://growitalian.com/newsletter

We publish four times a year (usually) and include information on all aspects of Italian vegetables, herbs and flowers: selecting, growing, harvesting and storing and cooking. We would be happy to receive and if space permits, publish your experiences in these areas.

If you have a friend who is interested in all things Italian (at least for vegetables, herbs & flowers, please feel free to forward this to them.

1. Privacy Policy
2. Garlic
3. New Varieties for 2010.
4. Tomato Disease
5. Resource for Growing Information
6. Jersey Tomato
7. Zucchini Comparison
8. Recipes to eat the zucchini in a zucchini comparison.
9. What is this thing: Erba Stella
10.Community Garden Plots
11. North Quabin Garlic and Arts Festival
12. 2010 Catalogs
13. Subscribe or Unsubscribe from the newsletter.

1. Privacy Policy. A number of people on their order forms asked me not to sell or divulge their personal information: address, telephone numbers, email addresses, etc. I want everyone to understand that I take privacy very seriously. I never disclose any customer information to anyone under any circumstances. I have been bothered by too many telemarketers, received too much junk email to do that to anyone else. I don't even keep credit card numbers: a number of customers who reordered and told me to use their credit card number on file were surprised when I told them I do not keep them on my computer, nor do I have access to them from the credit card authorizing service.

2. GARLIC FOR FALL PLANTING. Garlic for fall planting has arrived. You can order them now on line or by telephone at 781 721 5904. I have the following available:

Rosso di Sulmona. This is a red hardneck from Abruzzo. Excellent flavor. Will grow in zone 5 for sure, (I have grown it here in Massachusetts) so it is hardy. Cloves are small to medium size, 10-15 or so per bulb. Available in half pound or one pound sizes (prices are $9.45 and $18.45) plus shipping. This is some red sulmona grown in Winchester, MA, year before last:

Music. Large hardneck, six or so large cloves per bulb. Very cold hardy. White/red. Excellent taste. Large scapes. One of the most popular of the named varieties. Grown in Finger Lakes version of New York State. Available in half pound and one pound sizes. (Prices are: $8.95 and $ 16.95) This also is a photo of some winchester grown garlic.

White from Piacenza. Softneck garlic from Piacenza. Very large cloves, excellent flavor.Will work well from zone six on up. Perfect for California. Will grow in zone five with the right kind of winter (early & continuous snow cover, no freezing & thawing of the ground). (Available in half pound or one pound sizes (prices are $9.45 and $18.45) plus shipping. This is the Franchi photograph. I guess I never took a photo of the stuff I grew here. \

Viola Francese. Softneck garlic grown all over SW France and NW Italy. Large purple/white cloves, excellent flavor. Very limited quantity, so order this one early. Photo is courtesy of a customer in California. Best for warmer areas, but will work in the north through zone six. It is a crapshoot to grow it successfully in zone five. Available in half pound or one pound sizes (prices are $9.95 and $18.95) plus shipping.

Hardneck garlic mix. One half pound of music and rosso abruzzo. Price is $10.35

Softneck garlic mix. One half pound of bianco piacenza and viola francese. $10.45 You can either order online ( www.growitalian.com ) or call in an order: 781 721 5904.

Italian purple. This is grown in New York State and looks like it is the same as Red Sulmona; sorry for the price. It is only available in half pounds. Price is $10.65.

3. I am in the process of finalizing new varieties for 2010. So far it is looking pretty good. I have a source for garrafal oro pole beans & belmonte tomato, a really nice tomato from southern Italy. Also, I may have some wild cardoon. There will be a new lettuce that looks really interesting (passion brune (aka, bruna di germania), a custard white summer squash, a carrot mix and some other new introductions from Franchi. If any of you have run into interesting Italian varieties that you think it would be worth importing, let me know. I can see if they are available. Do it soon, however. I insist on having a new variety in my hand before I will put it in the catalog; I have learned the hard way that promises of seed availability often to not work out.

4. Tomatoes. What to do when you have tomato disease year after year. If you live in the northeast, the past two years have been pretty disheartening for tomato growers. Long periods of rain (here in Massachusetts this past June we had 27 days with rain and mostly very cool weather. Only difference from last year was that then the rain was in July so the disease began a bit later. This year, some tomato crops were wiped out by mid July. So what do you do. Fungal disease is in the soil and when you have heavy rain splashing the soil up on the plants, disease starts. Cool damp weather just makes things go along faster. [The fact is, for many of us, we have leaf spot diseases every year; however, they usually progress slowly and we get a good harvest and the plant is killed by frost, not disease.] So what do you do. Choices are:

1. Do nothing. Take your chances on the weather.

2. Build an unheated hoop house and grow your tomatoes in there. Rain does not splash up the soil, disease organisms have a harder time getting on the plants and you have pretty disease free plants. As a bonus, when they grow inside, they are less effected by bugs and the fruit look better. Here are a few photographs of my tomaoes inside. The photo on the left is just a general shot; the one on the right is my oxheart tomatoes (cuor di bue). I am so impressed. I love these but usually by this time of year they have gone down with leaf spot problems. Virtually none in the hoophouse and they are producing like crazy. The photo was taken around he end of August and had these been growing outside, there would have not been many green leaves; this year they would all have been gone. While a major investment, a hoophouse will give you earlier tomatoes (by at least two or three weeks (this year, even with the poor weather I had tomatoes in the first week of July) and you will probably escape the first frost or two. You can also use the structure to grow early lettuce, spinach, etc and keep your crops going until pretty late in the season.

3. Spray with a fungicide. This may be a choice many do not want to make, but it does work. This year my tomatoes outside in the community garden began to show signs of disease by the first week of July. I took one look at them and knew what things would look like in two or three weeks. My neighbor in the next garden asked if I wanted to use his fungicide spray (which he was applying). I never had done so in the past, but said what the heck. It is either that or live on what is in the hoophouse. So I sprayed and a week later made a second application. Lo an behold, the leaf disease stopped progressing; right now, end of August, they are still going strong although I should have kept spraying. It looks like things are going downhill again with the leafspot diseases. People in plots around me have completely lost their crop. The moral of the story is: if the weather is uncooperative, consider applying a fungicide as a preventative. The best way to do things is to apply it before the disease shows up; if you wait until things have progressed very far, it may be too late. Follow the manufacturer directions and wash your tomatoes well. I used an ortho product which contained daconil.

Here is a picture of my outside tomatoes at the end of August. While there is some foliar disease present, it is more or less the same as it was at the beginning of July. Meanwhile, my neighbors have no tomato plants at all.

4. Grow your tomatoes in pots. They seem less likely to develop disease if grown in pots. Not sure why.

5. A resource for local growing information. Check your state agriculture department; they offer an enormous amount of useful informaion. Most of them do crop reports, disease which is showing up in the fields, dealing with disease problems, growing information for farmers, etc. Usually they do these in the form of a monthly or weekly newsletter and they are really informative. Anyone can sign up and while they are directed toward farmers, the information applies equally to home gardeners. Just search with google for department of agriculture (add your state name) and perhaps 'newsletter or crop conditions' They are a great resource. I subscibe to the one from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture and it has provided a wealth of useful information. Just a few of the things covered in the past few weeks include how to harvest and cure onions for storage, tomato disease updates, corn ear worm sitings, etc.

6. The Jersey Tomato. While this has little to do with Italian seeds, I thought those of you from the New Jersey/metropolitan New York area would appreciate it. Way back when, I married a woman from Staten Island (New York City) and we lived there for a few years in the mid 1970's. One of my fond memories during the summer was seeing the trucks from New Jersey parked alongside the road selling tomatoes and other vegetables. All of them would have 'Jersey Tomatoes' painted on the side of the trucks. The tomato many of them grew and sold was the quintessential New Jersey Tomato, the Ramapo; this was a pretty good tasting high producing hybrid developed at Rutgers (among other things, the state agricultural university)in 1968. It fell out of favor in the 1980's, mostly because it was too soft to ship long distances. The Ramapo was reintroduced a few years ago by Rutgers and to bring some memories of the old days back to my wife, I grew some this year. (you can read all about the Ramapo tomato and also buy seeds from Rutgers here: http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/tomatoprograminfo.htm

I was looking at my Jersey tomatoes the other day and said to myself, boy, these really look like St Pierre (although I think the St Pierre are a better producer). Here are photos of the St Pierre and Ramapo. The St Pierre are on the left. Then I thought, I wonder how they compare in taste. So, I did a little informal taste test. Here are the results.

Hands down winner is St Pierre. It was definitely sweeter and had a smoother texture (what someone I know calls silkiness). The skin seemed a bit thinner (although the Ramapo is definitely thin skinned) and it appears to have a fuller tomato flavor.

FYI, this year the St Pierre seem to be larger than they usually are,[most of them have been in th 14 ounce range] although I suspect it was just that I did not grow them very well in previous years and this years size is what they normally are. This is the third year in a row I have grown St. Pierre. Usually I only grow tomatoes every year if there is something special about them [I need room to test new varieties]. These days, my regulars are Red Pear (the best tomato I have ever eaten or cooked), cour di bue (oxheart), San Marzano Redorta and now St Pierre.

7. Zucchini comparison. My wife will often ask me a question such as: "Bill. Why do you have 25 different zucchini varieties." (When it comes to seeds, she often exaggerates. I only have 17) I will try and explain to her that the different varieties are from specific places in Italy, look different, grow differently, taste different, etc. She just gives me the look. So this year, I decided to grow out a bunch of zucchini, most of which I had never grown before and show her the difference. She was not impressed, but I was.

The participants were: lungo bianco (from Sicily); costata romanesco (rome); verde d'italia (pretty much all over Italy); alberello of sarzana (liguria); tondo Piacenza (Piacenza); Zucchinio da fiore and San Pasquale (puglia) and Lunga Fiorintino (florence). All were started in 4" pots and set out 14 days or so after I started them. The weather was pretty miserable and there was a fair bit of powdery mildew that effected the plants by the end of July. Most of them had pretty much stopped producing by the beginning of September. That is actually pretty normal, however; I generally figure a zucchini will really produce for six or seven weeks, then slow down considerably. What I normally do with zucchini is start some in pots and plant about the same time I put out tomatoes. As soon as they begin to flower, I direct seed a second group. When the second group begin to produce, I just pull out the first plants which are running out of vigor about then.

It was amazing how different they were, although in general they all tasted pretty good. Here are the descriptions and some photographs. Take into consideration that it was a funny growing year (they all are but this year was more unusual than most) and next year results could be reversed. Any of these are a zucchini worth growing.

ALBERELLO DI SARZANA. Relatively compact plant. Fruit are light green with white speckling. Tender flesh. Reasonably good production of fruit. Nice taste.

ZUCCHINIO DA FIORE. This is a 'sport' of San Pasquale from southern Italy. Franchi tried to get the Italian government to register this as a separate variety, but the government said it was not sufficiently different from San Pasquale. I think it is, but what do I know. The fruit are ribbed, the rib itself is light green, the smooth part dark green. They are relatively compact. They produce a lot of flowers (both male and female) and consequently if you do not pick off the flowers, you get a lot a zucchini. This particular picture of da fiore shows four zucchini going and I think I had picked one or two before I took the picture. Classify them as heavy producers. Fruit is good tasting; it is fairly dense and dry. I like them.

San Pasquale. Fruit look pretty similar: light green rib, dark smooth part. Leaf shape is also similar. The San Pasquale is a pretty good producer, though not as good as da fiore. Plant is also compact. Note how it grows up rather than sending out runners. Not sure I have ever seen that before.

Costata Romanesco. Blocky fruit are fairly heavily ribbed. Plant does not seem to be a runner, although it had a run in with a woodchuck who ate it down pretty good so I am not absolutely sure. Good tasting fruit. Plant seems to be a moderate producer.

Lunga Fiorintino. My good friend Paolo in London (the Franchi agent there) swears by this variety and he is right. It is a pretty big plant (as in serious runner.) Lots of flowers, lots of fruit. I think this variety produced more than any othervariety. Fruit are almost square and very heavily ribbed. Very distinctive taste and texture.They hold up well to cooking. Excellent taste. These were one of my favorites.

Verde d'Italia. This was a really interesting plant. They are striped, dark green, light green, but they have no ribs; I have never seen a zucchini with stripes but no ribs. It is a big plant and a runner. Very heavy producer. It was probably the second heaviest producer after Lunga Fiorintino. I liked the taste a lot. It was another favorite.

Lungo Bianco (di sicilia). These are another big plant with lots and lots of flowers (and consequently lots of babies). The plant will run six or seven feet (it will climb a trellis also) and the lunga fiorintino is just as much a runner. Fruit are light green and very delicate. These are my favorite in zucchini salad and probably also the favorite to stuff (except for piacenza). This is the zucchini I usually grow, although next year I think I will have several other varieties. The sicilian is on the left, two of the lunga fiorintino are on the right. This photo on the left is of a sicilian on the left and a lunga fiorintino on the right.

Tondo Piacenza. Compact plant. Does not run. Moderate producer of perfectly round fruit which should be picked when they are baseball to softball size. They are best stuffed, although they are pretty good fried. Nice zucchini.

8. Eating the zucchini. So what do you do with the zucchini when you trial a number of zucchini varieties. One can only eat so many zucchini. I managed to give some away; some go too big to eat and went on the compost pile. Many were eaten and here are some of the favorite ways I do zucchini.

a. Stuffed zucchini. I prefer using lungo bianco for this, although the round ones were pretty good also. If possible, use small to moderate size zucchini for this. Do not use big ones. Boil the zucchini until more or less done. Soak in cool water until you can handle it; scoop out the pulp inside and chop it up. Mince an equal amount of onion and cut up a slice of really good bread in smallish 'crumbs' Cook the onion, pulp and breadcrumbs in some olive oil and set aside until cool. Grate in some really good parmesan or pecorino cheese (I use the big setting on one of those four sided metal graters for this). Fill the hollowed part of the zucchini. Put on the grill or in the toaster oven. Chop up a really ripe tomato (red pear if you have one) and add some basil. When the zucchini is mostly done and the crumbs are brown and the cheese melted, put a few tablespoons of tomato mix on them and cook for a few more minutes.

b. Zucchini Salad. Cook some small zucchini in water (3-4); remove from heat, dry and cool. Cut into bite sized pieces and put in a bowl. Add a half cup or so of sweet onion sliced. Cut up several largish tomatoes and add them. (If you have some yellow tomatoes, mix red and yellow tomatoes for a nice color contrast. [This year I grew golden boy and added them; very nice] Add some torn up basil to taste and a goodly amount of olive oil, red wine vinegar and salt and pepper if you use them. Let marinate and enjoy. I will often have this for lunch along with a slice of really good bread.

c. Fried zucchini. I tend to do these when my wife is not around since she is always on me about fried food, but these are really amazingly good. Use zucchini which are a bit larger (although not so large that the seeds are showing in the middle). Slice them about an 1/8th inch thick [slice on a diagonal so the slices are a bit larger]. Beat an egg in a bowl and put some flour on a plate. Put some olive oil (or just canola oil) in a heavy pan on medium heat. Dip the zucchini slices in the egg, then the flour, then drop them in the frying pan. Cook until nice and brown and well done. Drain on some paper towels. To get my wife really going, I like to eat mine with a really good slice of bread.

d. Vegetable stew. This is a staple during the summer and when I am not having zucchini salad for lunch, I will usually have this. Ingredients tend to depend on what is ready in the garden, but the usual suspects include supermarconi & wonder of venice beans; carrots; tomatoes; onion; red pepper; potato; zucchini chunks; sometimes I will use sweet peppers. Brown a diced onion in olive oil with some red pepper and a clove of chopped garlic. Add a cup or so each of beans, carrots & potato. Add five or six crushed tomatoes with juice (skin removed). Add some basil and cook until almost done. Add the zucchini and cook a few more minutes. Remove from heat and let cool. Serve warm or at room temperature. It is best with a tablespoon of good grated romano or parmesan cheese. If you use sweet peppers, cook them with the onions until both are soft and then add the other ingredients. If I use peppers, I usually do not use basil, but that is a taste thing.

e. Zucchini soup. This recipe came from a customer (actually a potential customer). Someone called for a catalog, we got to talking, she mentioned a zucchini soup recipe and I asked her to send it along. Not bad. Here it is. I would add a little bit of crushed red pepper (but then I put that in everything)

ZUKE SOUP

(6-8 Servings)

6 zucchini, cut into 1 inch cubes (don't peel)
2 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons butter
2 medium onions, chopped
1-2 cloves garlic minced
5 cups chicken stock or broth
2 tablespoons each of finely chopped fresh herbs: parsley, chives, oregano, basil
3 teaspoons lemon juice
ground white pepper & salt to taste
sour cream, chives or grated raw zucchini (optional)

Heat oil & butter in large saucepan. Add onion & garlic; cook over low heat 5 minutes, stirring until translucent.
Add saucepan & cook, stirring over low heat 10 minutes.
Add chicken stock; simmer 15 minutes.
Remove from heat, cool slightly.
Puree in blender until smooth.
Return mixture to saucepan; add herbs, lemon juice, salt & pepper.
Can be served warm or cold.
Optional: combine chives and sour cream & dollop over sour before serving or
Garnish with grated raw zucchini
Freezes well for future enjoyment.

9. What is this thing. Erba Stella. Also known as buckshorn, minutina. Italians love green slightly bitter things & sometimes I think the more it looks like grass, the better they like it. My buddy Paolo in London loves this stuff. It is actually pretty good. Erba stella is very easy to grow. You get baby plants in 30 days. If you grow it in warm weather, pick it before it gets too big since it can get tough. In cool & cold weather, it stays tender. It is very cold hardy and should survive winter weather with some protection. Seeds are very small (there are the usual two thousand seeds in the Franchi pack). Try and get your seeds sown about one per inch; space rows at six to ten inches. Begin thinning at 25 days or so. Use in salads, with omelets, etc.

10. What to do if you do not have enough space. In Italy, if you live in an apartment building, it comes with a garden plot. Not here. Most urban residents do not have garden plots and many others have so many trees that they can not grow in their yards. What to do. You can use pots to grow, but that gets expensive and you can only have so many pots. The solution. Look for a community garden plot. They are everywhere. Some are small neighborhood plots; others are twenty acre farms which are now garden plots. Size of plots varies considerably, but some of them are quite large and some allow multiple plots. There is usually a small fee and of course there are rules for use.

To find community gardens in your area, either check here: http://acga.localharvest.org/ This is the site of the American Community Garden Association and has a pretty good searchable database of community gardens all over the United States. The alternative is the old standby. Go to google.com and type in 'community garden" + the name of your town or neighborhood.

The best time to look for a community garden spot is right now. If you wait until spring, most of them are taken. So, get on the waiting list in the fall. If you do that, you will almost surely get a plot for the spring.

Growing in a community garden offers lots of benefits. I have a fair sized lot with my house, but it is surrounded by huge trees which my non-gardening partner is loath to cut down. [as for me, I have never seen a tree that I did not think would benefit by being cut down] We have lived there 25 years and during that period, the trees kept growing and every year I loose a bit more sun on my garden space. It is so bad now that I probably get only 6-7 hours of sunshine a day on the garden area. Some things just will not grow, others are weeks later than if in full sunshine. So, I got a garden plot at the community garden in Woburn, Massachusetts, the next town over from me. (actually I signed up for two plots; this was in the days when they had extra space. What a bargain. I have 1400 or so square feet for $40.00 per year. At home my water bill for the garden is three times that and no one plows my garden space at home.

Here are some other advantages of the garden in Woburn, most of which apply to all community gardens.

a. The community garden (four acres or so which used to be part of a farm) has really great soil. No rocks [not something you can usually say in New England) You can grow anything there.

b. This community garden is simply beautiful; it is in the middle of huge conservation area and there are miles of walking trails. The place is full of animals including quite a few red tailed hawks who take care of some of the four legged pests who eat vegetables and a fisher cat who takes care of the woodchucks and rabbits. [Fisher cats are kind of a weasel on steroids who spend a lot of time eating.]

c. Lots of information. Most community gardens have a core of really serious gardeners who have an enormous amount of information they are willing to share with new gardeners.

d. Here are a few pictures of the community garden in Woburn.

Single Plot, 800 SF the pond across the way The garden next to me; no weeds

11. North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival 2009

This is the only event I go to with my seeds and garlic. I do it because the festival is just a whole lot of fun. I encourage any of you folks who live within driving distance of Central Massachusetts to stop by. This year’s edition of the North Quabbin Garlic and Arts Festival will be held on October 3 and 4, in Orange Massachusetts, near the Quabbin Reservoir.

The festival is a celebration of local agriculture and small farms, with garlic as the main theme. There will be food workshops, wood-fired-oven demos, music, and much more. For a complete festival schedule, click on this link 2009 Garlic and Arts Festival

12. 2010 Catalogs. The 2010 catalogs will be mailed at the end of November and you should received them before the middle of December. Catalogs go out to anyone who has ordered seed in the past. However, if you have moved, catalogs will no be forwarded by the post office (they go bulk mail). You need to tell me that you moved and provide me with your current (and old address). So, if you have ordered but you have not been receiving a catalog, something is wrong. Drop me a note [bmckay@growialian.com] and let me know you have not been getting a catalog and give me your current mailing address.

13. Subscribe or Unsubscribe from the newsletter.

If someone forwarded this to you and you want to subscribe to the newsletter, you can do that here: http://growitalian.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi

If you received this newsletter and you do not want to be on the subscription list, just click on the unsubscribe link below. http://www.growitalian.com/cgi-bin/dada/mail.cgi?f=list&l=GrowItalian

Good growing. As always, may your garden be woodchuck and deer free. Also, for those of you who have squirrels get in your attic, may you have a couple of red tailed hawks patrol your yard.

Bill McKay