Our Favorite Garden Veggie Varieties

These are the varieties we grow year after year in our own home garden because they’re just that good…

Mexico Midget Cherry Tomato

Our go-to cherry tomato for the past 9 years. This tart little cherry tomato germinates beautifully, yields prolifically, and tastes incredible. We grow it every year. It’s a vining (indeterminate) tomato and can grow up to 12 feet tall- we give it something to climb and let it take over. It’s fruit is great fresh, roasted (try them in that greek feta pasta dish or this preserving recipe), frozen whole to use all winter in cooking, added to canned sauces, and dehydrated (this is our top pick for a dehydrated or sun-dried tomato- just slice them in half before drying). It grows fabulously in the ground, raised beds, or 25 gallon fabric pots.

Begins yielding 60-70 days from transplant (which in Northeastern PA is around Late July) and keeps going till our first frost. The tomatoes will grow to ½-¾ inch and are ripe when red.

We’ve loved this plant as much in zone 5b as we did living in 9b.

Aurora Peppers

These 1-2inch hot peppers start off vibrant purple and turn yellow and orange before ripening to a bright fiery red. They can be eaten as soon as they’re no longer purple, and have maximum heat and flavor when fully ripened to red. The plant itself is a stunning ornamental with purplish leaves and only grows up to12 inches tall. It thrives in containers or in the ground. The peppers are medium hot and make the best homemade red pepper flake we’ve ever had.

Because they’re thin walled, they dry great when left whole just sitting on a baking rack on the kitchen counter. If you’re putting them in a dehydrator, remove the stem and cut them in half. We like to store the dried fruits either whole or halved in pint jars and then crush them right before use, which creates a really fresh pepper flavor.

Yields are prolific throughout the season with first fruits ripening approximately 60-75 days from transplant. We’ve loved this plant as much in zone 5b as we did living in 9b.

Virginia 116 Tobacco

We grow this stunning tobacco plant as a trap crop for aphids. What’s really neat about Tobacco in the garden is that aphids stick to the flowers and stems, becoming trapped and killing them with its sticky leaves and nicotine. We haven’t seen any other pests be effected by the Tobacco and it does wonders at keeping our aphid population in check, letting our peppers thrive. Bees enjoy the flowers and are unharmed by the plant.

Federle Tomato

This is another indeterminate (vining) tomato and, after significant trials and experimenting, this is now our go-to sauce tomato. We love its flavor, it has very few seeds, and it’s a large meaty sauce tomato that doesn’t seem to get mealy. Excellent yeilds. Because it has a low water content, we don’t have to simmer our sauces as long- which we love. And, the peels come right off when baked in the oven on a cookie sheet- we then dehydrate these and use them as a tomato peel powder all winter long. The flavor of the Federle peels is icing on the cake. 10/10 recommend.

Giant Marigolds

Think of these as a tall, rotund, marigold bush. They make a stunning upright bounty of flowers that attract pollinators, are edible, and make a vibrant cut flower bouquet. They come in yellow and orange.

Sunchokes

A quintessential homesteader crop. Also known as Jerusalem Artichokes, fartichokes, or toot-roots, are a true fall garden treasure. They’re a nutty tuber rich in iron, potassium, and inulin- a pre-biotic fiber thats an incredible way to give your gut health a boost coming into fall and winter. Ours often grow 9 - 12 feet tall and are a fall planted crop much like garlic- here’s our guide to planting and cooking sunchokes. We sell them each year at the Tunkhannock Farmers Market at Creekside Gardens. You’ll also find them available for sale online, though you’ll want to buy them in fall and plant them right away.

Ron’s Legacy Garlic: This variety was gifted to us a while back from a seasoned farmer’s prized garlic collection and it’s the variety that completely ruined us for grocery store Alliums. We suspect it’s a German Hardy White Garlic, but we’re really not sure- so we’ve named it after the kinsfolk who grew it and introduced it to us. This is a hardneck variety that stores well and boasts large, easy to peel cloves. Moderately spicy, great for roasting, absolutely outstanding flavor. Averages 6-8 cloves per head. We’ll have have limited supplies of seed garlic available in mid-summer at the Tunkhannock Farmers Market at Creekside Gardens.