How To Choose Vegetable Varieties That Really Perform

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HEAT AND COLD TOLERANCE

Many vegetables—especially the leaf types (such as lettuce and cabbage)—go to seed quickly at the first hint of sultry weather. Certain varieties of these crops (notably Oak Leaf lettuce and Melody spinach) have, however, been bred to tolerate heat better than their peers (which also means that they crop over a longer season).

No true spinach will last throughout the summer . . . but a number of highly satisfactory "spinach substitutes" have been introduced lately, the best of which (in my opinion) is New Zealand Spinach. This novel plant grows as a ground-hugging vine and produces rich, green foliage all summer long (while staying within its bounds) . . . no matter how hot the days become.

Cold tolerance, alas, seems to be much more difficult to breed into vegetables than heat tolerance . . . although this quality has been incorporated successfully into certain watermelons and cantaloupes. Burpee's Early Hybrid Crenshaw is one example. It used to be that Crenshaws (which generally require 90 days to ripen) could only be grown in the South and in California . . . but the Burpee Early Hybrid, which can be grown successfully wherever cantaloupes fare well, has now changed all that.

NOVEL COLOR AND OTHER CHARACTERISTICS

In recent years, gardeners have seen the introduction of a number of highly unusual vegetables (yellow beets, for instance, and purple-podded beans) . . . crops that—because they never fail to draw expressions of astonishment from children, friends, and neighbors—make gardening a good deal more rewarding than it otherwise might be.

Few people realize, however, that "freak" vegetables rarely—if ever—become (and remain) popular for their novelty value alone. Quite the contrary: An unusual new vegetable-a yellow beet, say-is generally treated with suspicion by experienced growers. Thus, to command a following and stay in the catalogs a novel edible must have other desirable qualities in addition to its unique appearance. (Yellow beets-to follow our example a bit further—are popular among many gardeners because [1] they don't "bleed" as red beets do, and [2] they produce tastier greens than standard varieties.)

A few of the "novelty crops" now in vogue are:

Vegetable spaghetti. This age-old native of mainland China gets its name from the fact that the creamy yellow flesh inside its white, oval fruit pulls apart in spaghettilike strands after cooking. I first tasted this unique vegetable in Japan, at the home of Mr. Takeo Sakata (who introduced the crop to the Western world), and took an instant liking to it.

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