The New Gurney’s catalog is arriving in mailboxes everywhere—and we have lots of new fruits and veggies for this season. While it’s hard to pick a favorite, I’ll share a few that really stand out.
Note: If you didn’t receive a catalog, just click here to request yours!
AsparaBest® Asparagus—I love all asparagus in any shape, form or variety, so AsparaBest has perhaps an unfair advantage. But with 2 to 3 times the production of the common Jersey asparagus varieties, AsparaBest is a shoe-in for my home garden. I garden in Zone 6, so cold hardiness in asparagus is not a huge issue for me. Gardeners who struggle with hardiness will love AsparaBest! It was developed in Ontario and bred to be late emerging and extremely cold hardy. It’s perfectly sweet, tender and tasty, all while offering outstanding health benefits including high levels of Vitamins K, B, C and E, folic acid, copper and selenium.
Chocolate Sprinkles Hybrid Tomato—We’ve been trialing striped tomatoes for the last 5 years in hopes of finding one worth the effort of growing. Most of our efforts ended with flavorless, unexciting fruit that cracked and rotted. This past summer we trialed Chocolate Sprinkles and for the first time were rewarded with beautiful brick red and green striped fruit that resisted cracking and disease. With delightful flavor, it quickly became my favorite variety for snacking and salads. The yields on this one are phenomenal, so be prepared for a lot of tomato enjoyment!
Honeygold Hybrid Corn—With so many great corn varieties on the market, it’s sometimes hard to choose. While Gotta Have It remains my perennial favorite, I fell in love with Honeygold at last years’ sweet corn variety trials. With big, striking golden ears, Honeygold packs a flavorful punch. I find that some modern hybrids are almost too sugary sweet for my tastes and lack any real depth of flavor. But Honeygold combines the right level of sweetness with a rich, robust corn flavor for a truly fantastic eating experience. The large ears have very deep kernels—so you really feel like you’re sinking your teeth into something when you eat it. These nice deep kernels make Honeygold a great variety for freezing as well. I typically cut all my corn off the cob before freezing and ended up with a very high volume of cut kernels with Honeygold.
Casper Hybrid Eggplant– I was struck by this variety when I first tried it in California field trials. The breeder cut off a hunk of the raw eggplant and handed it to me. I wasn’t exactly looking forward to eating raw eggplant, but I was pleasantly surprised. It was mellow, silky and even a bit sweet. The next year we planted it in our trials in Ohio. These lovely creamy white eggplants converted even eggplant haters with their pleasing texture and superb flavor. Casper was excellent sautéed and is my favorite variety for placing on skewers and grilling with onions, squash and tomatoes.
Purple Queen Improved Bush Bean—You could grow these beautiful, glossy, deep purple beans just for aesthetic appeal. The plants are lovely, with rich green foliage tinged with deep purple, and the lavender blooms herald the way for deep violet beans. This variety would make a lovely addition to a mixed edible/ornamental bed or patio containers. But Purple Queen Improved is not just a pretty face, it was a real workhorse in our trials. Yields were far better than older purple varieties we compared it to, and plants remained healthy when others began to falter.
Chiffon Hybrid Summer Squash—Sometimes it’s hard to get excited about summer squash and zucchini. You plant it; it grows; you end up with so many squash that you’re leaving them on your neighbor’s porch in the middle of the night to try to get rid of them (or maybe that’s just me). They all pretty much taste the same. So when everyone that tried Chiffon in our 2014 trials remarked on what a nice variety it was, I took notice. The pretty creamy yellow fruit (almost the same color as the light, fluffy chiffon cake) caught my eye. Then I noticed how healthy and attractive the deep green, compact plants appeared compared to others in our trials. But the clincher came after tasting the squash. With tender, delicate texture and thin skin I thought Chiffon would just turn to mush when I cooked it. But it cooked up delightfully, and the flavor was superb. Sautéed with a bit of olive oil and sea salt, Chiffon simply cannot be beat. By the way, yields are so high, you still might resort to leaving squash on your neighbors’ doorsteps, so be forewarned.
Full Moon Hybrid Honeydew—Let me start out with the statement that, as of a year ago, I would have sworn, “I HATE honeydew melons.” One of the few things I will not eat, I’ve been guilty of picking them out of fruit salads, even going so far as to completely avoid them in those self-serve breakfast buffets. I’d take all the grapes and pineapple instead and leave some poor soul with a bowl full of hard, tasteless green chunks. Full Moon changed all that for me. Tender, sweet, juicy and downright addictive, I was caught red-handed in our melon trials eating Full Moon melons with my bare hands. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this melon is that we actually got melons. The past 3-4 years have been really tough on our melon trials. Between disease, poor weather conditions and insects, we’ve barely gotten a crop off the many varieties that we’ve trialed. But Full Moon came through with shining performance. Laughing at weather, pests and disease, the full, vigorous vines gave us a beautiful melon harvest in the midst of a lot of other varieties’ dead vines and rotting, immature fruit. To say I was impressed would be an understatement!
Mara Des Boise Strawberry—Sweet, delicious little bursts of heaven… and only 6 or so more months to wait for fresh strawberries! Mara may be slightly smaller in size, but she makes up for it in flavor. Some call this the perfect strawberry, with its rich floral sweetness and intense aroma reminiscent of wild strawberries. No need to add sugar, as Mara is one of, if not THE sweetest berry out there. I’m sure it would make a delicious jam, but I’ve never been able to stop all the berries from getting eaten up fresh, right out of the garden. With a soft, juicy texture, don’t look for Mara to show up in grocery stores. It does not ship well, but it makes a perfect variety for the home garden where it can be enjoyed freshly picked.
Juliet Dwarf Cherry—A cherry by any other name would not taste as sweet! Juliet truly is the tastiest of the dwarf cherry bunch. She’s a superb cherry for fresh eating, but don’t expect the same experience as popping a Bing cherry in your mouth. While Juliet’s sugar levels are actually higher than a sweet cherry like Stella or Bing, the difference is in the acid. Juliet has much higher acid levels, so you get a more complex, sweet-tart, taste sensation! Juliet’s virtues are too many to extol here, so please stay tuned for my next post focusing on Juliet – “How do I love thee, let me count the ways”!
