Beyond Tomatoes and Peppers: Other Vegetables to Grow in 2022
Award winning varieties of squash, melons, greens, and okra over the years that are worth a try.
Have you decided what you’ll be planting in your garden this spring?
For the indecisive, All-America Selections winners are a good starting point, like the award-winning varieties of greens, squash, okra, and melons mentioned below. Last week’s newsletter featured award-winning tomatoes. The week before that, it was award-winning pepper varieties. Next week? It’s award-winning flower varieties. Prefer to get the info in your ears? Give a listen to Episodes 168 and 169 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast to hear about all of these All-America Selections winners, too.
In Episode 168 of the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, we chatted with Sacramento County Master Gardener and vegetable expert Gail Pothour. She and the other Master Gardeners there have been growing an array of All-America Selections winners for several years at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center’s AAS Display Garden.
In Episode 169, Diane Blazek, the Executive Director of the All-America Selections organization, lengthens this list considerably. In all, between the two episodes, we chatted about 45 different varieties of vegetables worth trying…and, my condolences to you if you were trying to jot them all down while driving. Another good reason to subscribe to this newsletter!
All of the AAS winners mentioned can be found at all-americaselections.org. AAS winners have been grown in trial gardens throughout North America, have won praise, and are available to home gardeners.
==============================
Bright Lights Swiss Chard 1998 AAS Vegetable Winner
Improved colors. The stems can be yellow, gold, orange, pink, violet or striped in addition to red or white. Easy to grow from seed or bedding plants. Harvest in 4-5 weeks. For use as a garnish, in salads and in many tasty recipes, Bright Lights has great taste.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/swiss-chard-bright-lights/
================================
Fairy Tale eggplant: 2005 AAS Vegetable Winner
Fairy Tale is a petite plant with decorative miniature eggplants. Fairy Tale eggplants are white with violet/purple stripes. The fruit is sweet, non-bitter, with a tender skin and few seeds. Another superior quality is the window for harvest. The elongated oval eggplants can be picked when quite small at 1 to 2 ounces or they can be left on the plant until double the weight, and the flavor and tenderness remain.
Fairy Tale eggplants are recommended for marinating and grilling whole. The harvest can begin in just 49 to 51 days from transplanting. The petite plant reaches only 2½ feet tall and wide, perfect for container gardening.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/eggplant-fairy-tale/
================================
Prizm F1 Kale 2016 AAS Vegetable Award Winner
Dreaming of growing the popular superfood kale but think you don’t have room? Look no further than our newest 2016 AAS Winner Kale Prizm F1. When grown, Prizm produces attractive short, tight ruffle-edged leaves that are content to be grown in containers as well as in-ground beds. Their easy-to-maintain, almost stemless stalks are quick to re-leaf so harvest early and often for a continual supply throughout the season. The excellent tasting, almost nutty-flavored leaves are tender enough to enjoy in fresh salads but also hold up well when cooked.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/kale-prizm/
======================
Buttercrunch Lettuce 1963 AAS Vegetable Winner
Developed by Cornell University, this is a heat-tolerant, Bibb-type lettuce. Its rich green leaves, sometimes tinged with red, form a beautiful rosette in the garden that holds well under stress and has good bolt resistance.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/lettuce-buttercrunch/
======================================
Bronze Beauty Lettuce 1947 AAS Vegetable Winner
40-50 days. Leaf-type also known as Bronze Arrowhead. Super-sweet leaves are blushed with medium bronze, mainly around the wavy leaf margins. Heat tolerant and slow to bolt. Spectacular and flavorful!
===============================
Lettuce Bauer 2022 AAS Vegetable Winner
This oakleaf-style lettuce is a delicious and versatile edible that is super easy (and fast) to grow in the garden. Harvest at the baby leaf stage or grow into the rosette-shaped full-sized head. Bauer will please with its darker green color and nicely uniform compact size that can be grown almost anywhere…in-ground, containers, or window boxes.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/lettuce-bauer/
=================
Melon Orange SilverWave F1 2019 AAS Winner
Orange SilverWave is an exotic melon bred in South Korea with an extremely sweet, orange flesh and unique rind color. The attractive 5” oval melons grow on vigorous vines, producing up to six fruits per vine. Whether grown in a large container or in-ground, it’s best to grow the vines on a trellis (bracing the melons) for better disease control. This AAS Winner is great eaten alone, in a fruit salad, wrapped with prosciutto or mixed into a smoothie or margarita.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/melon-orange-silverwave/
========================
Mini Love F1 Watermelon 2017 AAS Vegetable Winner
This personal-sized Asian watermelon is perfect for smaller families and smaller gardens. Shorter vines (3-4 feet) still produce up to six fruits per plant and can be grown in smaller spaces. Several judges commented on the crack and split resistant rinds, important for reducing crop loss. For culinary purposes, this deep red-fleshed watermelon has a thin but strong rind that can be carved into attractive shapes for fruit salad presentations. Mini Love has a high sugar content resulting in sweet and crisp, juicy flesh that will be a true summer delight for watermelon lovers.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/watermelon-mini-love/
===================================
Gold in Gold F1 Watermelon 2017 AAS Vegetable Winner
“Eye-catching and fun” was one judge’s comment about “Gold in Gold” Watermelon. The fruit’s outer color is yellow with golden stripes while the inner flesh is a lovely orange/gold. Crisp texture with high sugar contents is also an advantage. This winner is an early producing, high yielding, and improved disease-resistant melon with a strong rind that resists cracking or bursting. The unique oblong shape of the 11-16 pound fruit makes it a perfect “icebox” watermelon and the tasty fruit is superior.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/watermelon-gold-in-gold/
===================================
Clemson Spineless Okra 1939 AAS Vegetable Winner
60 days. Plant is spineless; tasty green pods, best picked small. Still a standard in many home gardens. Growing Tips: Soak seeds for 24 hours. Direct seed after last spring frost. Pick pods while young and tender. Loves heat and humid or dry conditions.
https://www.rareseeds.com/store/vegetables/bulk-vegetables/okra/clemson-spineless-okra
==========================
Burgundy Okra 1988 AAS Vegetable Winner
Judges scored Okra Burgundy for its higher yield, plant uniformity, unique color and improved quality. The pods should be harvested at 3 to 4 inches when they are young and tender. Burgundy presents a pretty contrast between the plant’s green leaves against the burgundy stems, branches, leaf ribs and fruits—and a pretty display of yellow-cream flowers.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/okra-burgundy/
==========================
Candle Fire F1 Okra 2017 Vegetable Winner
A unique red okra with pods that are round, not ribbed, and a brighter red color. This AAS Winner received high marks for productivity, taste, texture and tenderness as well as the ornamental value of red pods on red stems. One judge noted that Candle Fire okra was quite maintenance free to grow, except for the frequent harvesting, which is a great thing! Candle Fire thrives in the heat and is disease resistant even in hot humid climates like the south where it’s perfect for traditional fried okra. Suitable for both fruit producing and ornamental usage. Aged fruit can be used in flower arrangements.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/okra-candle-fire/
====================================
Bossa Nova Summer Squash Zucchini 2015 AAS Vegetable Award Winner
The beautiful dark and light green mottled exterior of this zucchini is more pronounced than other varieties on the market, which sets it apart and makes the fruits easier to see during a long and prolific harvest. Compact plants produce fruits earlier in the season and continue producing for three weeks longer than comparison varieties. During taste tests, the AAS Judges deemed the smooth flesh texture and sweet, mild taste much improved over other summer squash.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/squash-bossa-nova/
==================
Gold Rush zucchini squash 1980 AAS Vegetable Winner
Gold Rush hybrid squash is a bright waxy golden-yellow squash with the shape and taste of zucchini. Gold Rush grows tender and crisp for use as raw “finger food” or cooked in your favorite dishes. Each plant will occupy only about four square feet but will yield as many fruits as an ordinary summer squash with larger plants.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/squash-gold-rush/
====================
Sunburst Squash 1985 AAS Vegetable Winner
Sunburst is a yellow scalloped squash known for its earliness and for producing a large number of fruit per plant. The immature 2-3 inch squash can be picked and cooked whole or grown larger and cooked with other tasty vegetables. Sunburst is a buttery-flavored squash making it perfect for a stir fry dinner.
https://all-americaselections.org/product/squash-sunburst/
================================
Thanks for Subscribing and Spreading the Word About the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred newsletter, I appreciate your support.
And thank you for listening to the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast! It’s available wherever you get your podcasts. Please share it with your garden friends.
Fred Hoffman is also a University of California Cooperative Extension Master Gardener in Sacramento County.