Vegetable Report Card – 2024
This is finally complete! You’ll see how each crop performed for us. Please note that because we experienced very challenging weather conditions this year, there are some crops that I won’t assign a grade. Or I’ll at least put an asterisk behind the grade to indicate that weather may have been a factor.
| Crop | Variety | Grade | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arugula | Esmee | A | Very reliable. |
| Basil | Lettuce-leaf | A | The aroma from the leaves is to die for! |
| Bean, pole | Fortex | A | Plants struggled at first due to weather conditions, but prolifically produced beans for us. |
| Beet | Cylindra/Cylindrical | A | Super reliable variety, good root growth. |
| Beet | Golden Detroit | A | Another great variety with flavorful roots. |
| Broccoli | Belstar | A- | Very prolific but didn’t produce as many massive heads like last year – could be due to weather conditions. |
| Cantaloupe | Tuscan Napoli | A | Despite our cool start to the growing season, 3 plants produced about 9 delicious melons. |
| Carrot | Scarlet Nantes | A | Most reliable and prolific of the 3 varieties I grew this year. |
| Carrot | Short Stuff Chantenay | B | This is a great variety but it didn’t perform as well as it usually does. |
| Carrot | Rainbow Blend | C | Bolted to seed quite early in the season, for some reason. |
| Celery | Utah Improved | B* | Struggled with the weather but tasty and tender stalks. |
| Chard | Garden Rainbow | A | Very productive plants, multiple pickings from each plant. |
| Corn | Sweetness Bicolor | A | Great reliable first and second plantings. |
| Cucumber | Mini-Me | B* | Only had 3 seeds left but planted the seedlings in my GreenStalk planter. They struggled, probably due to the weather. But still love this variety so will plant again in 2025. |
| Cucumber | Spacemaster 80 | C | Also planted in GreenStalk, the cukes were very prickly and misshapen. Probably won’t grow in 2025. |
| Edamame (soybeans) | F | Not a single seed germinated in an entire bed! | |
| Eggplant | Epic hybrid | A | Very prolific. |
| Ground cherry | New Hanover | B | Neat little plants, lots of small fruits. |
| Kale | Red Russian | A | Super reliable variety, very prolific! |
| Lettuce | Bauer | A | Crazy about this variety, plants were so productive. |
| Lettuce | Buttercrunch | B | Fair germination rate but plants grew fairly well. |
| Lettuce | Red Romaine | B- | Also fair germination, not very vigorous. |
| Onion | Ailsa Craig | A+ | Onion bulbs were HUGE, grew really well. |
| Onion | Akatama | C | Didn’t realize it’s not a long-day onion, matured quickly, small onions. |
| Onion | Red of Florence | A | Grew well, large elongated bulbs. |
| Pak choi | Green Jewel | B | Nice, grows quickly, small heads, not as good as Bopak. |
| Parsnip | Harris Model | A* | Just planted about a dozen but they all grew well after a slow start, possibly due to the strange weather. |
| Pea | Green Arrow | A | Very reliable shelling pea, multiple pickings. |
| Pepper | Pretty ‘n Sweet | B | Compact pepper produced small, thick-walled sweet peppers. (GreenStalk) |
| Pepper | Pizza My Heart | C | Compact, slow to ripen, very small thin-walled sweet peppers. (GreenStalk) |
| Pepper | Chili Pie | C | Bad planting location, normally reliable but not this year. |
| Pepper | Early Jalapeno | A | First red jalapenos. |
| Pepper | Traveler Jalapeno | C | Grew large jalapenos but they were slow to ripen to red. |
| Pepper | Biquinho Red | A | Compact plant loaded with little peppers that are great for pickling. |
| Pepper | Marconi Rosso | A | Reliable heavy producer of red, ripe sweet peppers. |
| Pepper | Pot-a-peno | A | Produced a lot of peppers in a small space (GreenStalk) |
| Pepper | Red Impact | A+ | Giant bell peppers, several per plant, ripened to red and very sweet. |
| Radish | Purple Plum | A | Good germination, quick to develop. |
| Potato | Yukon Gem | B | Grew well in cloth grow bags, not quite as productive as I’d like. |
| Pumpkin | Big Max | * | Weather definitely a factor, little developing pumpkins kept falling off. Need to grow in main part of garden next year. |
| Pumpkin | New England Pie | * | Also impacted by weather and more challenging area of garden for this crop. |
| Shallot | Zebrune | A | Grew from seed, developed into full-sized shallots by end of season. |
| Spinach | Giant Winter | A+ | Absolutely lives up to its name with huge leaves. Great spinach flavor. |
| Squash, summer | Cocozelle | * | Plants struggled due to weather and growing in an area that didn’t get enough sunlight & water. But still an excellent variety, just need to grow in main part of garden from now on. |
| Squash, winter | Autumn Frost | A+ | Excellent production of this wonderful squash. |
| Squash, winter | Sweet Jade (kabocha) | D* | Very little production, not sure if weather was issue or ?? |
| Tomato, paste | Supremo | A* | Excellent variety. Did struggle with early weather but made up for it with wonderful production. |
| Tomato, paste | Blue Beech | A* | Also struggled with cool weather but produced well and minimal blossom-end rot which was why I tried this new-to-me variety. |
| Tomato, slicing | Chef’s Choice Orange | A* | Struggled early in season but very productive later and still my favorite slicer. |
| Tomato, grape | Fantastico | B | Plant grew larger than we expected for the GreenStalk planter. Produced a fair amount of nice grape tomatoes. |
| Tomato, grape | Valentine | B | Produced a good crop of grape tomatoes, but prone to splitting late in the season. |
| Tomato, grape | Pandorino | A | Reliable, slightly-large grape tomato, excellent for salsa. |
| Turnip | Silky Sweet | A | Very reliable, quick grower. |
| Watermelon | Ali Baba | D- | Plants didn’t care for cool spring/early summer. The 3 plants only produced a single melon which ended up getting blossom-end rot. Giving up on this variety. |