Topic: new seeds

[manicscousers]

a lovely friend of mine has sent me some seeds, has anyone ever grown them and are they worth it  ;D
yellow straightneck squash
broadleaf sage
collard greens
black turtle beans
thanks for any comments  ;D

[greenstar]

Hi manics

The only one of these that I have any experience of are the yellow straight necked squash.  Apparently they're pretty much the same as crook necked squash, although I've never tried those so I wouldn't know.  Haven't grown the straight neckeds but have eaten them and they were delish!  Better than butter nut squash - tastier and sweeter.  Real Seeds sells them I think, so try looking on their site for more info.

All the rest sound interesting -  aren't collard greens what they eat in the southern states with their fried green tomatoes, biscuits and gravy?  If you've ever read Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe there are recipes for that sort of nosh in the back.

[Rob08]

Broad leaf sage is essentially the same as Italian sage and has a lovely flavour.  It can also be breaded and fried like you would veg such as zucchini.  You can even place a slice of cheese between the leaves before frying.

Collard greens I gather are a bit like chard and used in much the same way. 

[Jeannine]

I know the squash ,collards  and the turtle beans, but in hurryright now, I will get back to you if no ine else gives you specs and fill you in needs etc XX Jeannine

[redimp]

Collards are a hardy loose leafed cabbage.  Less tasty than normal cabbage but available when others aren't :)

[manicscousers]

thanks for the replies, so, the squash and sage look worth growing, he only sent 6 bean seeds so they can fit in with the others..collard greens , don't know about them :)
thing is, do the beans climb, we have a slug problem..my friend hasn't sent instructions with them , if they're bush beans, they'll get devastated  :-\

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

I grew the turtle beans last year. They were dwarf  - there's maybe a climbing variety tho. Pretty little bush FB. They were planted lateish and the beans never fully ripened. Not very many either and quite small bean seeds. I won't grow them again. Maybe if you're a Mexican and get homesick.........

[Jeannine]

Collards, good greens sort of like open cabbages, good to use in winter , like a cross between a kale and  a cabbage, they arevery hardy, pick them as cut and come again like kale, sow about early June for a late harvets,, they won't take  freeze like kale though, so maybe about 10-15 F is as much as you can hope for. I like them, with smpoked ham hocks, the southern way, I can give you real Soul food recipes if you wish. They do come curly and smooth , well savoyed I suppose it is called.

Squash, crookneck and straight neck are both summer squash, but they do have a  bit denser flesh and both yellow, there is also a winter squash called straight neck but it is rare and is called Pennslvania  Dutch crookneck, it is a buff colour, I have all three  and I like the the summers better than courgettes which I grow vewry few of, The Dutch one is a huge squash, noy easy to mature here without a good summer, it is a buff colour , so you would see the diddernce as they grow. Oh and the crook neck summer is warty.

Black bean, this is  not so easy as there are many things called black beans which actually havenames of there own, can you tell me the size of them?? I can probably help you then.

Do you want me to post pictures for you?

 XX Jeannine

[Lauren S]

I grew my bush beans in those large trugs last year...No slug problems at all  :)

[Rhubarb Thrasher]

the black turtle beans I grew last year looked the same as the dried beans from Tesco - small and black

[manicscousers]

that sounds like ours, rt..about half an inch long, just says black turtle on the pack, I'll grow them as you say, Lauren..in the fold down bins we do the early spuds in, maybe I can protect them in there  ;D
don't worry, Jeannine, I'll just keep them away from the climbers  :)

[Jeannine]

Oops, I misread, I thought it just said black beans. Black turtle makes it easy.

Small about pea size, chubby beans not skinny or long,sorry they are bush beans , but the plants are fairly tall as bush beans go.

They do have a lot of names , the packet I have here calls them Black Turtle /Black Mexican Beans also lnown as Frijoles Negra.

I sent some out is seed swaps last year,they need a long growing season.

That is much as I can tell you. XX Jeannine

[manicscousers]

thanks, Jeannine, do I start them off inside in April or is that too late? I can plant them under cover in the poly if necessary or put them in buckets, maybe 3 in each  :)

[bcday]

We eat collards in the northern states too. :) They are loaded with calcium, good for the bones.

We start them off the same as cabbage. We start picking the older leaves as cut-and-come-again about two months after setting out transplants, but they do taste better after a frost in the fall. The plants get quite large. If you plant them close together, you can harvest some of them as whole plants when they get crowded.

The center leaves may get cupped but the plants don't form heads. You can tie up the outer leaves to blanch the centers if you like. I never tried that. Collards are closely related to cabbage and suffer from the same pests. They are tolerant of heat and don't bolt easily.

Besides using them for soul food, you can substitute collards for kale in cooking. The leaves are thicker and tougher than chard.

I see that some new members from the UK just registered at Tomatoville. If any are from here, welcome! A4A is my favorite UK forum, I do enjoy all the friendly banter here.  :)

[Lauren S]

bcday, hello and welcome from me  :)

[Jeannine]

Hi I presume you mean the beans, the packet I have is from the US and doesn't have any seeding info on it. The ones I grew before I  bought these I just treated as any other tender bean, presuming it didn't like the cold etc, I usually start mine in inividual Jiffy7s in the greenhouse and when big enough I pop on to 3 inch pots, then plant out when the weather is safe. In a good year I can grow all kinds of odd beans but if it is wet and cold some of them are iffy,(we won't mention last year), They are not very big so you might want to just start the seeds and keep them for another year.

I have ordereda big selection of beans this year, I am getting as bad with them as my toms and squash etc I think, among them there are a couple of other black beans,,Black Calypso, Black Gabanzo , Black Pearl and here already which are blackare Trail of tearsand Black Valentine, if you want to have a play, I can send you a couple  more types and we can play together, but some of them are a first for me so no knowledge. Just noticed in my seed file I have Taiwain  Black Long too, some are climbing and some are bush.

XX Jeannine

[manicscousers]

thanks, Jeannine, I daren't  we're already up to capacity, started growing things in buckets now on the paved areas..when the communal poly up, we will have an extra 16 feet of undercover space to grow things in, trouble is, we've even got the seeds  for there  ;D
oh, and yes, I did mean the beans  ;D

[Hector]

Hi all, did you find Black Turtle beans easy/worthwhile in UK?

[galina]

Hi all, did you find Black Turtle beans easy/worthwhile in UK?

Yes, with the proviso that (at least for me) growing climbing beans is a lot easier than growing rows of Dwarfs.  This may be very different in gardens without a big vole population.  Here the voles just bite through bean stems which kills the plants and this even happens with mature plants.  Climbing French Beans I can protect by pushing a cut off plastic bottle into the soil around the plant and let it grow out of the top of the bottle, but dwarf French Beans like Black Turtle are too short to grow through the neck of the bottle.  You need to plan for growing tens of plants.

More drying beans per plant come from Runner Beans or Borlotti (there was a recent thread about drying beans on this forum), but these black beans have a flavour and texture all of their own.  I wish I could reliably grow enough plants for a big harvest.   

[Hector]

Thanks Galine,
I'll go look out the dried beans thread. That's what I'm after, reliable dried bean supply that's tasty.
I hadn't even thought of that re voles. We see voles but haven't experienced damage but I'll compromise and just do a modest trial run.
I love black beans in cooking...in fact I'll put up a pattern link we love as a family :)