I received an heirloom seed catalog in the mail this year that I hadn’t seen before. Perusing it was eye-opening!
Heirloom seeds are those that have been saved and passed down through the generations, sometimes for hundreds of years. They are from open-pollinated rather than hybrid plants and come true to their parent plants, something seeds from hybrids do not do.
The catalog had nearly a thousand kinds of seeds, some for plants I had never heard of and others that were just strange. Here is a sampling.
The Chinese Python Snake Bean grows to 60” long and 1 ½” thick. When harvested under 30” it is used like green beans, and when larger, like a summer squash. It is most often stir-fried, or the flesh of the larger beans is scraped out and used like tomato paste.
Instead of producing a big head of broccoli, Early Purple Sprouting Broccoli produces many smaller dark purple sprouts. The heads are so dark in color as to look black almost as if they had been hit by frost and turned rotten.
In the same vein is a carrot I am certain I won’t be growing. Black Nebula, while high in the same anthocyanins you find in blueberries and grapes, looks just like the carrots I grew last year that rotted in the ground after the heavy fall rains. However, Black Nebula is reputed to be delicious raw or cooked. Unlike many dark-colored vegetables, it retains its dark color when cooked.
Celtuce was introduced in China in the 1840s and is an unusual lettuce grown not for its leaves but for its giant, crunchy, foot-tall ribbed stems. Very high in Vitamin C, the stems are eaten raw or stir-fried.
Bitter melon looks like a warty green cucumber and grows on vines just like cucumbers. Various kinds are native to India, China or Japan and maturity dates vary from 65 to 120 days. Bitter melon is rich in iron, beta-carotene, calcium and potassium and is used in stir-fries, soups and herbal teas.
Winning the ugliest pepper award is Apocalypse Scorpion Hot Pepper. Possibly the world’s hottest pepper, the fruit looks like a warty red mess.
Another messy looking offering is Reisetomate, which looks like a big bunch of cherry tomatoes all stuck together. “Reise” is German for “travel” or “journey” and it is also called “Travel Tomatoz’ because it can be torn apart a piece at a time without need for a knife. The taste has been described as sour, strong and acidic. Maybe taste isn’t its best feature, but it’s a garden novelty nonetheless.
Job’s Tears might be an herb, a grain, a vegetable or an ornamental plant. The large bead-like seeds of the plant are used to make necklaces and rosary beads. After the seeds’ husks have been removed, the grains inside are used in brothy dishes and to make porridge. Some cookbook authors have called Job’s Tears “the next cult gluten-free grain” and an “ususual, versatile and beneficial little weirdo.”
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