With the mild winter we've had so far in central Illinois, it's easy to pick up my Johnny's seed catalog and think about what I'll be cultivating in my backyard garden.
I'll plant what now have become my usuals--green beans, different varieties of lettuce, spinach, shallots, potatoes, Anaheim peppers, and bell peppers--but I plan to try out some new crops this summer: Chinese cabbage, pickling cucumbers, and radishes.
This past summer I bought pickling cucumbers a couple of times at our local farmer's market. After the one season where I got so tired of cucumbers that they began to repulse me, I'm finally ready to grow them again. This time I'll be making pickles and eating the cucs raw because they are fairly mild. A couple of years ago, I pickled all kinds of okra over the summer, but I'm the only person in the Nasty household who will eat pickled okra, so I'm hoping the rest of them will help me out.
I've always liked cabbage, but growing those big heads of that veg is daunting. They take up a lot of room anyway. Chinese cabbage seems like a more versatile green vegetable. I might also be able to fool my son into thinking it's lettuce, which he likes.
Lately I've had a thing for radishes but have been consistently disappointed with the ones I get at the supermarket--all pithy and little heat. My dad used to grow them all the time in his garden, and they had some hotness to them. I never liked them much as a kid. Not now though.
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