Broad Beans
Broad Beans or Fava beans are a frost-hardy annual used for soil improvement as they create a symbiotic relationship with nitrogen-fixing bacteria. Dwarf varieties are the only types we supply, due to our highland wind, other varieties grow heavy and blown over.
Pick the first beans at the base to encourage the plant to keep flowering.
Broad Beans love the cool and will stop producing seeds when their roots feel the warmth of spring.
SOW: Winter
CROP ROTATION: Second-year bed
HARVEST: Broad beans are ready in 80 days eat when you can see the shape of the bean inside, eat the young beans raw, you can also eat the leaf tips like spinach.
Eggplant Little Finger
Little Finger Eggplant’s ae the perfect variety for our highlands, short seasons. They are long and cylindrical, as implied by the name, making them very easy to hold and slice for use in the kitchen.
SOW: Summer
CROP ROTATION: First year bed
HARVEST: 80 days pick regularly to produce more flowers
Cucumber Mini Green
“Keep those seeds!” my nana exclaimed “They produce just the right amount of cucumber, one a week” – so yes, they have been kept. Producing a small 12cm long, thin skin, sweet tasting cucumber. Perfect for a salad, eaten raw out of the garden or sliced elegantly into water for two. And the best part is it only grows around two meters long, so it won’t take over the garden. It can climb a fence or trail along the ground.
SOW: Summer
CROP ROTATION: First-year bed preferred
HARVEST: 60 days pick regularly to produce more flowers
Corn Sweet Bantam
This Bantam Sweet Corn grows to a height of about 1m and can produce up to three ears per plant. If you are serious about growing Corn, we supply our corn in a 33cm x 14cm tray. Plant your corn 20cm apart in a block, this should give you 1.3m by 1.5 m of corn plants. Planting corn in a block is essential, if you plant them in a row you will open the husk and find there aren’t many kernels, this is because Corn is wind-pollinated, we want the pollen of the outside corn plants to blow onto the Corn silks inside the block.
SOW: Summer
CROP ROTATION: First or Second year bed, requires watering daily.
HARVEST: Produces yellow cobs in 80 days check harvest is ready by pulling the husk away from the top half and poking it with our fingernail, if the juice is cloudy, it is ready to pick, if it’s clear leave it a little longer.
Pumpkin, Bush
Our Bush Pumpkin is a personal favourite, it is a small Pumpkin bush 40cm by 40 cm, perfect for summer when space is at a premium. The little plant will be laden with the most pumpkin-tasting Pumpkins, up to 10 per vine, 1kg in weight. They are storing pumpkins, when picked, using a knife when the bush dies down in Autumn.
SOW: Spring/ Summer
CROP ROTATION: First year bed
HARVEST: 80 days
Pumpkin, Butternut
Grown on a vine this pumpkin can provide 6kg of fruit per plant. The skin is thin and easy to slice like butter and its flavour is sweet and nutty. Pick when the stalk goes woody, slice it cleanly and the pumpkin will store. If the woody end breaks off it will need to be used within a couple of days.
SOW: Spring/ Summer
CROP ROTATION: First year bed
HARVEST: 80 days
Spaghetti Squash
This has been one of our favourite new discoveries, Spaghetti squash turns into sweet, nutty spaghetti once roasted. The vine grows about five gourds over summer and like some pumpkins, it can be stored and used over winter.
When fully grown they produce a large yellow football-like fruit, about 30cm long.
SOW: Spring/ Summer
CROP ROTATION: First or Second year bed
HARVEST: Produces fruit in 80 days but wait until the vine dies off in the frost to harvest.
Watermelon Bombaby
We have been growing this watermelon here in the highlands for over a decade, it is a small watermelon perfect for eating alone or with a friend. The vine will grow up to 1.5m long. The question we always get is “How do you know when it is ready?’ follow your eye along the stalk of your watermelon, and when you come to the T junction where the first leaves are there will be a curly tendril. When the tendril starts to die off that can be your first hint at a ripe watermelon.
SOW: Spring/ Summer
CROP ROTATION: First year bed
HARVEST: 80days
Zucchini Black Beauty
This Zucchini is a hidden Gem, producing fruit in 60 days on a tiny little bush. Unlike other varieties you will find, these beauties won’t produce monster fruit, over night, if you forget to pick them, but that doesn’t mean you can forget to pick them, by picking your zucchinis your plant will keep producing.
SOW: Spring/ Summer
CROP ROTATION: First or Second year bed
HARVEST: 60days