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This year’s new (to me) things to grow:

A melon that’s a cucumber (Carosello)
A cucumber tasting of melon (Tortarello)
Heirloom beans (Madeira Maroon, Bonne Bouche, Greasy, Yin Yang, Jacob’s cattle)
Heirloom melon (Cantalun)
A samphire-like from Japan (Okahijiki)
Vegetable spaghetti
Chinese celery (kintsai)
Chinese kale (kailaan)
Chopsuey greens (shungiku)
Garlic bulbs/bulbils with chive like leaves (Rocambole)

Will you be growing anything that’s new to you?

@Broadfork I'll be sort of joining you with the okahijiki, though in the form of "agretti" - but apparently they're both names for the same thing - salsola komarovii.

We won't have many totally new to us things this year as we have a backlog of seeds after a couple of difficult growing years in terms of time/etc... but will also be having a go at growing caraway for the first time.

Well, we probably do have a few new varieties of familiar plants in the backlog... I bought stuff for last year that we never had a chance to plant... hm, it's about time I went through the seed case and had a think about it actually.

@yvan Noted, I’ll be picking your brains on salsola later this year.

I’m moving fully over to open pollinated varieties for seed saving but I’ve accumulated a few more new things to try than I thought I had.

@Broadfork first time for the salsola / agretti / okahijiki / saltwort for me too... shall be interesting to compare what we grow to see if they are the same or divergent types... there is varied information online about the provenance. There is apparently "Salsola soda" versus "Salsola komarovii", but they seem to be somewhat interchangeable in cultivation. I may have the "S. soda" and you may have the "S. komarovii".

I don't usually buy F1 seeds, but have a few at the moment as they were on sale from DT Brown and filled some holes in my range.

The Tough Ball F1 seeds are the only ones I bought specifically as they have a lot of recommendations. But I also have the other two onion varieties from Real Seeds. (Realistically I am unlikely to be gathering my own onion seed though as the requirements for growing for seed reliably are a bit much for me at the moment.)

Broadfork

@yvan It’d be good to compare the two.

It’s really quite difficult to avoid F1 seed, especially on a budget. It’s much more plentiful and it’s often much cheaper per packet than the open pollinated varieties.

For now there are just enough heirlooms in the main catalogues to do that.

I try to use smaller, more local seed producers where I can and bulk the quantity out with the autumn bargains.

@Broadfork I presume the seed companies also like F1 seeds because us allotment commies cannot just go make our own seed 😂

I'm getting about half my seed from Real Seeds these days for this reason, and whilst I cannot be organised enough or have the space to harvest many of my own seeds, I'm happy to support those companies that do such a great job keeping these varieties going. (And hopefully in time also get better at saving my own seeds.)

I get all my chilli seeds from small indie specialist growers too.