I recently placed my first order with New Gippsland Seeds, and was really pleased with the parcel that arrived!
This seed company has been in business for nearly ninety years, and their catalogue was full of plants that we’ve been trying to track down for ages. I don’t know if any of these will grow in our backyard, but it’s nice to be able to experiment.
The photos below are taken from Wikipedia and other sources (all credited), as we obviously haven’t grown these plants yet, but I wanted to show you what we’re hoping for. I’ve included pics of the seed packets too, so you can see the details of each plant.
. . . . .
Hamburg Turnip Rooted Parsley
(photo credit: Wikipedia)These seeds are actually for our neighbour June, who has been on a long search for the parsley grown as a root vegetable that she grew up eating in Hungary. I’ve never seen anything like it – apparently it’s quite different from the overgrown continental parsley roots that we occasionally pull out of the garden beds.
. . . . .
Burdock
(photo credit: newasiancuisine.com)
Another vegetable that I’ve never tried, and this time the seeds are for my mum and Maude, both of whom love this stick like root. It’s quite commonly used in Asian soup recipes (there’s more information here). Pete’s not sure where we can grow these in the backyard (as they need quite a while to grow, and that doesn’t fit into the chook rotation schedule), so I might be passing the seeds on to Maude.
. . . . .
Celeriac
Ever since I bought a magnificently fresh example of this root vegetable at Eveleigh Markets, I’ve been pestering Pete to add it to our garden. It was absolutely delicious mashed with potato!
. . . . .
Mini White Cauliflower
I’m the only one in the house who will eat cauliflower, so it made sense to try this mini variety. I love the notion that each head would be enough for a single meal, but this was quite expensive seed, as there were only 15 seeds in the packet (as opposed to 100 to 200 for standard cauliflower)…
. . . . .
Snake Beans
(photo credit: Wikipedia)My all-time favourite bean! I adore them fried simply with garlic and oyster sauce. We’ve never tried growing them before…
We also bought a packet of mixed dwarf beans to try…
. . . . .
Super Gem and Somerwood Peas
Super Gem was the variety I was trying to buy last year, when the lovely Lynn sent me Willow peas to plant instead. It’s surprisingly difficult to buy powdery mildew resistant pea seed, but both the Super Gem and Somerwood packaging clearly state that’s what they are. Pete was astonished at the quantity of seed we received – there were 350 peas in each $3.50 packet!
I would love garden beds filled with peas, perennial leeks and self-sown broccoli – we could happily fill our daily vegetable quota on just those three varieties alone! We’ll have to wait though, as it’s too late in the season now to plant peas…
. . . . .
I’m pretty excited to have new things to plant in the garden – hopefully they’ll all grow well!
If you’re a fan of seed catalogues (as we’ve become in recent years), you might enjoy reading this extensive one from New Gippsland Seeds. If you’re printing it out though, make sure you have your reading glasses, as the font is pretty small!
Fig Jam and Lime Cordial 