Did you try any new (or new to your garden) variety of vegetables that produced extremely well for you? I try at least one or two new things each year and usually am not very impressed, but this year I planted "Jade" greenbeans and was thrilled. Also planted Burpee "Roma VF" tomato, and will definitely do it again next year. I'm in NY,can't remember what zone that is.

-- Cathy Horn (hrnofplnty@webtv.net), September 24, 2000

Answers

Great northern beans from Vermont Bean Seed Co. would have done extrememly well if they hadn't been washed away. A definite for next year. Megaton a Chinese veggie from Stokes did very well.

-- Cindy (atilrthehony_1@yahoo.com), September 24, 2000.

Our garden this year consisted of four of those Tiny Tom tomatoe plants -- I put them in the flower bed right outside the front door, and they have kept us in salad and eating tomatoes all summer and are still covered with fruit. Really impressive production for such small plants. We had them once before, but kept them in pots and they didn't do nearly as well.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 24, 2000.

We tried a new bush bean, they produced 5 times what the ones did last year and the jalepenos and sweet bells Lynn planted this year were "trees" not plants. We have never seen jalepeno plants with 4 in diam stalks before this years.

-- Jay Blair (jayblair678@yahoo.com), September 24, 2000.

I lost it all to hoppers this year, but I tried a very interesting cucumber variety last year that was great! It's an heirloom variety and it's called Armenian or Yardlong cucumbers. They produce insane amounts and the cukes are on average 18-24 inches and they have a smooth skin and are extremely mild. you can also cook with them and they taste somewhat like a mild cabbage when cooked. I have seeds so if someone wants some e-mail me.

-- Doreen (animalwaitress@yahoo.com), September 24, 2000.

Golden Self Blanching Celery from Bountiful Gardens Seeds, Willits, CA. Stalks were thin, but plentiful.

-- R. (thor610@yahoo.com), September 24, 2000.

Tried some of the "Bright Lights" chard- it was about the only thing in the garden that survived the draught, and is still going strong, even after a couple frosts and a freeze last night. Really colorful stocks. Chard is not a big favorite in our family, and wouldn't you know it did the best of everything? I'm drying it, and sneaking it into soups and casseroles, but there is still tons of it out there. Jan

-- Jan in Colorado (Janice12@aol.com), September 24, 2000.

'Cool Breeze' pickling cucumbers. Not good for tiny pickles, too hairy, but for big dills, they were great, very meaty, very little seeds, very firm, and extremely prolific!! I forget the ratio,but it's something like 95% female blossoms, doesn't need a cross pollinator. Vines were strong and vigorous, climbed well with little training, produced 'hands' of fruit (3 or 4 in a cluster). Hummingbirds and bees ADORED them in preferance to almost anything else and pollinated them like mad. I'll plant more next year.

-- Julie Froelich (firefly1@nnex.net), September 25, 2000.

I have found that it's a good idea to give a variety a second chance before dismissing it. Sometimes the conditions may not be right, or something goes wrong. For example, Kootenai tomato has always been the best early tomato in our northern garden. The plants are so loaded they fall over! (plants are determinate, only about two feet tall at most) In our climate it is often hard to get any tomatoes at all, so Kootenai is a good standby, and then I try various other varieties for fun. If they don't pan out, we still have tomatoes. But a friend told me that she tried Kootenai one year and it didn't do well for her, so she hasn't bothered with it since. She admitted that none of her tomatoes did well that year, but the point is that she has missed out on a great variety by not giving it another chance. The other tomatoes that have done well here include angora and silvery fir tree. Angora has fur on it's leaves, the other one has beautiful, finely cutleaves with a silvery gray cast. I thought they would be just fun novelties, but both produced early and well. This year I tried Boothby's Blond cucumbers from Pinetree seeds, along with several standard varieties. The blond ones produced moderately well, but what I really liked was the ease of picking, the excellent,mild flavor, and the uniform shape. They make the most beauiful pickles I've ever seen! And we all know that if you leave a pickle on the vine and it gets overripe, the vine will quit producing. The is not a problem with this variety, the white/blond color pops right out! They have a nice, chunky, oblong shape too, never misshapen or curly, and not round like the lemon cukes. They pack really nicely into a jar. This will be the only cucumber in our garden next year!

-- Rebekah (daniel1@itss.net), September 26, 2000.

Good points Rebekah.

We had a volunteer SUNGOLD cherry tom. grow in the lettuce patch. Don't know how it got there, but it is now 7 feet wide and 8 feet tall. I love those sweet orange tom. and couldn't find the plants this year, so feel really lucky to have the volunteer. We haven't planted sungold for 2 years. I will be sure to save some seeds though!

-- Anne (HT@HM.com), September 26, 2000.