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Seeds from Italy News
Vol 2, # 2. June 2002
We publish four times a year 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.
This newsletter is sent out to all people who purchased seeds from Seeds from Italy as well as anyone who requested a catalog and included their email address. If you want to unsubscribe, simply send me an email: send to
bmckay@growitalian.com In the subject line just put unsubscribe. Conversely, if someone you know wishes to subscribe, do the same but put subscribe in the subject line. There are some duplicates (typically if you requested a catalog, then ordered). I made some efforts at cleaning it up and should have got rid of most of the duplicates (and triplicates in some cases)
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.
Contents of Vol 2, l# 2
1. What is New
2. Growing Tips. Cima di Rapa, Remay cloth, an Italian teepee/trellis system
3. On Becoming a Franchi Agent
4. Summer Trials
5. Fall/Winter Crops
6. Recipe-Bean Salad, Fresh Shell Beans, on cooking zucchini
1. What is new. We have added another 20 or so vegetable varieties since March. New items include a really interesting lettuce
(radichetta) which looks like a chicory, but has the taste and feel of a lettuce. We also have a couple of new melons
(giallo da inverno and rampicante zuccherino (sweet climbing melon), valeriana (corn salad), two more cima di rape, a bush version of the lingua di fuoco borlotto bean, a red asti type pepper, a roman cutting chicory, and probably some more items that I have forgotten. All are on the web site with photos and descriptions.
Speaking of new items, I am thinking of next year. I will probably add another twenty or so items and am trying to decide what I should add to the line and I would welcome your suggestions. If there is something we do not carry that you would like to see, please drop me a note. I am still working on getting in garlic and fava beans, but USDA is not making it easy. I do hope to have them.
2. Growing Tips. Cima di Rape. This tip comes from this years trial of cima di rape quarantina (40 day). Rape is really easy to grow and thrives in the cool weather of spring and late summer. Forty day rape has the advantage of being very early, very tender and incredibly tasty. It is a fairly small plant (8" or so high when mature with a small head). However, it also goes to seed very quickly. When it flowers, the stalk shoots up five-six inches in a day or two. It becomes difficult to remove the leaves and the stalk becomes a bit tough. I discovered this the hard way. I grew the rape the way I normally grow other rapes like the 60 or 90 day. Direct seed, 1-2 seeds per inch in rows spaced 10 inches or so apart. Thin to 3-4 inches apart. I make succession plantings a week apart beginning at early spring and ending in mid-May. Things worked well, although one group bolted when I went away for a long weekend.
The growing tip comes from a mistake I made. When I was sowing one group of rape, I spilled some seeds. They covered maybe a square foot or so. I forgot all about it, but noticed them coming up a few days later. I left them alone and to my surprise, they thrived. They came up quite thickly; the first ones to germinate choked out the later ones (and also the weeds). They also shaded the ground and kept it cooler than those that were planted in traditional rows. The cooler ground gave them a higher degree of resistance to bolting. THey also were incredibly easy to pick. Grab a handful, pull them up, shake off the dirt, grab another handful, wash the roots, tear off the bottoms, rinse and put in the pot to cook. Simple, space efficient, and I will never grow the 40 day rape any other way.
Growing Tips. Protecting your vegetables from cabbage loopers (the little green worms) and other bugs. This is from Stephanie in Maine. Some people spray, others use floating row cover cloth, often called remay cloth. Remay cloth is incredibly effective, but it is difficult to buy in small quantities (it comes in 1000 foot rolls). While you can buy small quantities from some catalog outlets, the price is very expensive by the foot. She has found an interesting and reasonably priced source. "I now use wedding tulle (net) that I bought for my daughter's wedding in September 2000...buy it at Joanne's Fabric....rolls are 60" wide and 25 or 50 yards long..I wait until it is on sale at 3 yards for $1.00 and buy a whole roll..lasts many, many seasons...works perfectly & beats the cost of other coverings...just lay it over the plants"
Italian teepee/trellis system. You will see this technique all over Italy. Make a trellis out of some small saplings. (Go into the woods and cut some 1" saplings; they should be 7-8 feet tall. If you don't happen to have a wooded area in your neighborhood, you can use bamboo poles). Tie three or four of them together with twine about 12-18 inches from the top. Set them in the ground with each pole about 12-18 inches apart, depending on what you are growing. These are perfect for growing pole beans, pole peas, tomatoes and anything else that has a vining growth habit. For my pole beans this year, I planted eight or nine seeds around the base of each pole. Thin to five or six plants per pole. For tomatoes, put one plant at the base of each pole and prune to one stem. Tie with strips of cloth or string. In addition to being efficient, these look quite nice. Last year my spouse banned the use of concrete wire tomato cages in that section of the garden visible from the house-she contended that there is nothing more ugly than a rusty wire cage. This year, the wire cages went to the lower garden and I have the trellis/teepees in the area we can see from the deck. Right now (5 July) things are looking very good. The beans are
vining; I wish I had pulled out a few more and only left three plants at the base of each pole, but live and learn. The tomatoes (a cuor di
bue, Franchi red pear and two chris ukraine (my favorite heirloom tomato) are all 30 inches tall and have good sized fruit. I suspect these will be the earliest to ripen.
Feel free to send in your tips and techniques. I would especially be interested in information from growers in the south and west; it seems like most gardening books are written by folks who grow in zones five and six.
3. On becoming a Franchi Agent. Franchi Sementi sells its seeds to retail outlets through independent 'agents'. They are expanding to the United States and there are some good geographic areas available. You become an independent seller of Franchi seeds; you buy seeds from Franchi Sementi and resell them to retail outlets (garden centers, Italian Markets (the absolutely best retail outlet), flower & garden shows, Italian Festivals, or wherever works for you). In return, they agree to give you exclusive rights to sell Franchi seeds in a specific geographic area (provisional the first year, permanant thereafter). While certainly not for everyone and most assuredly not a get rich quick scheme, it can be a lot of fun and if you have the right area and right technique, you can do quite well in a few years. Something like this would work very well for someone who already distributes to retail outlets (especially to Italian markets) or for someone who has some time during the period December through May. If anyone is interested in more information, drop me a note and I will send along some details. If you are still interested after hearing the 'good news & bad news' of this, then I can put you in touch with the Franchi agent responsible for North American sales. Right now, there are only three Franchi agents in the US covering California, Pennsylvania, New England, New York and New Jersey (and maybe some states in the mid-West).
4. Summer Trials. I have planned some ambitious summer trials this year. I am fairly short on growing space, so I normally would not have room for a major trial using space intensive plants. However, this year I have two farmers who are growing six varieties of melons and five or six winter squash. The deal was I would give them the seeds and/or transplants, they would grow, we would both share in tasting the results. For melons I have
charentais, zuccherino, zatta, giallo da inverno, ortolani (netted melon) and the Japanese Asahi watermelon. I grew about sixty hills worth of transplants and brought them over to the farmers at the beginning of June. Since then the temperature has not been above 65F, it has rained ten of the past 15 days, and the melons are not very happy. If it does not get warm soon, I doubt there will be much of a crop.[5 July note; I got my wish. Mid 90's for the past five days and the melons are going along well] For the winter squash trials, the first planting was munched by cucumber beetles; I started a second group in 4" pots and hope to have them out @ 20 June; if we do not get an early frost, it should work out. Oh, the trials and tribulations of growing in New England.
Later on this summer I plan on doing a four variety fennel trial and an escarole/endive/green chicory trial and some lettuce trials. I am also growing Red Pear & Principe Borghese tomatoes. More on that in the fall or winter edition of the newsletter.
The brassica trials were a bust. Had calabrese broccoli, the purple sicilian cauliflower, and the big oxheart cabbage. All were doing incredibly well and I was ready to begin harvesting the broccoli. Unfortunately, a young woodchuck learned how to climb a fence. His first choice was the calabrese broccoli, then the sicilian cauli (two of my personal favorites by the way). By the time I caught him, he had devastated all of the brassicas but for a few cabbage. Will try again for a fall crop.
If you would like to send in results of any trials you did, please do so. I would be especially interested in folks who grow in the south or west since obviously all my experience is growing in Southern New England (zones 5 or 6, depending on the winter)
4. Fall/Winter Crops. All too often, we think that once there is a frost, the garden is finished. However, that is far from the case. Many vegetables survive quite well after a frost or two and some (like kale, for example) not only survive, but taste better. With a bit of planning and in some areas some additional protection, even gardeners in the north can enjoy frest vegetables well into the winter. Last year I was picking escarole, lettuce and some other things through the end of December and I want to encourage people to think about growing for fall and winter. In order to do this successfully, just follow a few basic rules:
a. Pick vegetables which can handle the cold. Brassicas, chicory, endive/escarole, lettuce, carrots, beets, parsley,
arugula, cima di rape, etc.
b. Decide when you want to harvest them. This will determine what and how you grow. You just decide when you want them, take the number of days to maturity and back up from there. Remember, however, that after a certain point, vegetables will just stop growing due either to lack of sunlight or low temperatures (or usually a combination). For example, say you are in zone 6 and you want lettuce from November through January. Well, you know lettuce will take a few good frosts, so for the lettuce you want in late October and November, plant it so that it will be mature by the first or second week in October; after that you know it will not grow much because of the cool weather. That lettuce you will plant in early August. You also know that lettuce will not survive heavy freezes/thaws. For anything much after the end of November, you are going to have to give it some additional protection and also be careful with varieties. Leaf lettuce does better under freezing conditions than does heading lettuce and young lettuce does better than fully mature lettuce. So pick some appropriate varieties, sow it sometime around the beginning of September. Once it is up and the weather has cooled down some, give the lettuce some protection-cover it with remay cloth or even better, build a simple plastic covered unheated greenhouse (instructions on the web site)
c. Experiment. What works in Massachusetts will not necessarily work in Mississippi.
5. Recipes. Again, the premise of all these recipes is use something that is tasty, is fresh, and cook it simply. No need for fancy ingredients. Let the vegetable itself speak.
Bean Salad. This is a favorite of Paolo Arrigo, the Franchi agent in London. Go pick some beans. If you have a green and a yellow variety, that is nice visually. Pole supermarconi and meraviglia venezia (flat roma types) or la victoire & rocquencourt (round bush types) are a couple of suggestions. Snip off the tips & cook them in water until done. How done is a matter of taste. Italians tend to cook vegetables until they are very done; if you prefer yours a bit less done, then do that. When done to your taste, run cold water over them until they are cool (and wont cook any more) and set them aside to dry. To serve, put them in a bowl, add some salt and pepper, really good balsamic vinegar and really good olive oil (here is where you can put that $30 bottle of estate bottled Tuscan Olive oil and the $45 bottle of balsamic vinegar to good use). Let set aside for a few minutes for the flavors to meld and serve as a salad or as a vegetable course.
Fresh shell beans. Grow some shell beans (Lamon or lingua di fuoco pole types, vigevano or lingua di fuoco bush type). Pick a bunch when they are not quite ready (the pods will be plump and have begun to fade in color some, but not completely dried out). Shell them (not real easy at this stage, but worth the effort). Cook until done in water with some fresh sage. They will be done in anywhere from 10 to 25 minutes, depending on the stage you picked them. Drain most of the remaining water, but leave a little. To serve, have them at room temperature. Add some salt and pepper. Add some good olive oil to taste. Enjoy.
Zucchini. In the past, when I cooked zucchini I always cut it the same way; in small rounds or in chunks. Last summer in Italy I noticed that no one did it this way. Instead, they made matchstick size pieces. They took a small zucchini (4-5 inches), cut it in two or three pieces, then sliced it in matchstick size pieces. They then cooked these in a bit of olive oil. It makes an amazing difference in taste and also was the base for using the zucchini for a variety of other recipes. You could just cook them this way, take them off the heat, add a bit of good grated cheese and serve as a side. You could put them on pizza or focaccio bread, again with a bit of cheese. Add a few cut up zucchini flowers for color. You could serve it with pasta. (do the usual. cook the pasta, when mostly done drain, reserve some water, add pasta to zucchini, a bit of reserved water, finish cooking pasta, take off heat, add grated cheese and parsley).
Good growing and good eating
Bill McKay
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