Endive Frisée is a type of chicory that has exploded onto gourmet plates. The exotic plant resembles a lettuce that has gone horribly awry. With a pale green explosion of frizzy leaves it adds a frisky note to green salads.

Frisée or chicorée frisée is French for curly chicory. It also is sometimes called Italian curly chicory or French curly chicory. Now, frisée is not exactly the same vegetable that comes to market as chicory, curly chicory, and curly endive, although it is exactly the same plant, Cichorium endivia.

Grown in, and named after a municipality in northern Italy near Turin. Suitable for both summer and autumn cultivation, it has curly and strongly lobed leaves and a creamy-white self-blanching heart.

With a very large head, long mid-green leaves and a self-bleaching, creamy-white interior, the fullness of the head facilitates tying up for more intense blanching.

Popularised in the 1990s, Frisée often appears in mesclun and other salad mixes, because the green is extremely laborious and expensive to produce as a sole salad ingredient. It is generally served in loose chunks in salad to highlight its exotic feathered appearance and a small amount can go a long way.

While it can have a slightly bitter flavour, frisée is much milder than other varieties of endive such as radicchio or Belgian endive. Tie up for a week before harvesting to blanch.

Incredible yields of richly flavored tomatoes that are very meaty with few seeds and not much juice. Resists most diseases.

Roma VF Tomato Seeds: 76 days. Vigorous vines. Excellent yields of bright red, medium-small, pear shaped fruits. Popular for cooking, canning, and paste.

History: A highly desirable heirloom tomato that has been available since the 1960s. Its primarily used for cooking because it is meaty with few seeds and not juicy. It is great for tomato puree, soup or ketchup. This plant fruits heavily, so get ready for a big harvest.

Highly recommended if you want to can or make your own BBQ sauce, or spicy ketchup.   

Plant Habit: Semi-determinate  Plant Size: 3’. Fruit Color: Red. Shape: Plum Size: 2-3 oz.

Jimmy Nardello peppers are a variety of Sweet Italian frying pepper that originated in southern Italy. They are known for their rippled skin, sweet flavor, and high yields. 

Shape: Long, slender, and tapered, with a conical shape and blunt or pointed tip 

Skin: Shiny, smooth, taut, waxy, and glossy, with a rippled texture 

Color: Ripen from green to a deep red color 

Flavor: Sweet, fruity, and mild, with a complex flavor of apple and sweet pepper 

Texture: Crisp, aqueous, and succulent when raw, becoming soft and buttery when cooked 

Uses 

Can be eaten raw or cooked

Great for frying in olive oil and using as a topping for pizza, pasta, and eggs

Can be added to sandwiches or crusty bread

Can be served with antipasti plates

Super Red forms a loose head with a spectacular magenta red colour. The open style heads are medium to larger in size with deeply lobed leaves. This makes a great baby leaf variety and makes any salad come alive! Slow to bolt in summer heat and keeps its mild, non-bitter flavour. Colour is best in cooler weather but stands up well in summer. Upright growth habit. CULTURE: Lettuce is a sun-loving cool weather crop that grows best in organic, well drained soil. Sow as soon as the soil can be worked in the spring, then every two weeks thereafter to ensure a continuous supply. Sow about 3 mm (1/8″) deep in rows 45 cm (18″) apart. An even supply of moisture during the entire growth period is imperative for success. Harvest leaf lettuce by either pulling the entire plant or by cutting leaves from the main stem at least 2.5 cm (1″) above the base – this will allow the plant to sprout new leaves. Harvest head lettuce by cutting the head off at the base just below the lower leaves. Once lettuce bolts (starts to produce a rapidly growing flower stem) leaves become bitter.

Full Sun to Partial Sun

Height: Low to Medium (7.5 to 30 cm)(3" to 12")

Open Pollinated variety

Maroon-red, deeply cut and finely divided leaves

leaves are crisp and delicious and make an eye-catching addition mixed with green lettuc

Lollo Bionda lettuce forms a beautiful round mound of pale green, crisp frilled edged leaves. Appreciated for its unique shape and refreshing taste, it holds well in summer heat and in the cold. It makes an attractive complement to Lollo Rossa.

Lollo Bionda, for which you pay premium prices for in the supermarket, is one of the easiest, trouble free lettuces you can grow. It's a cut-and-come-again, that is, if you pick the outer leaves, the plant will continue to grow. Given the right conditions, this type of lettuce will produce leaves for three months or more.

Lettuce is by far the most popular of the leaf salad vegetables, and belongs to the same family as chicory and endive. It has a long history in the kitchen with images on ancient Egyptian tombstones dating from 4500 BC. Definitely a "Heritage Variety" ! The Romans also ate a lot of lettuce and by the 1st century AD, nine varieties were described, perhaps one was Lollo Bionda

Germination: 4-10 days This Italian sister lettuce of Lollo Rossa is refreshingly crisp with a perfect round head of frilly leaves. Harvest the singular leaves as you need them or the entire mounded, fluffy sphere. Holds well in the heat and the cold.

PLANTING: Indoors - 3-4 weeks before planting outside. Sow 1/4" deep in cells with soil temps 55-70 degrees. Transplant out 8-12" apart.

PLANTING: Outdoors - Sow 1/4" deep, 1" apart. Thin to 6-12", depending on the size of lettuce you want from baby to full heads. Keep moist during germination.

Harvest - Cut whole head at base or individual leaves before lettuce starts to bolts and becomes bitter in the heat and long days of summer.

Tips - Plant into fertile soil with lots of organic matter and adequate water for optimum growth. Sow heavy seeded rows every 10-14 days for baby greens using the 1 oz. Pinetree Lettuce Mix for a season long supply of lettuce.

Italiko Rosso Dandelion (Cichorium intybus).

ITALIAN HEIRLOOM

This chicory variety has red stems which add a brilliant colour to salads and other dishes. Leaves are deeply lobed with classic bitter dandelion-like flavour.

A traditional Italian heirloom particularly good for freezing and ideal for stir-fries and steaming. Once the 3-4” main head has been cut, this will be followed by a bumper crop of side-shoot spears thoughout the summer.

The Principe Borghese tomato is an Italian heirloom famous for sun drying.

They have a thin skin and a thick, very meaty flesh that houses few seeds and little juice, with a rich classic tomato flavor.

Small 1-to 2-oz, grape-shaped fruit is very dry and has few seeds. It has a rich tomato taste that is wonderful for sauces.

An old Italian variety, very suitable for drying and storing over winter. Very productive and healthy plants, that do not need support for growing. Produces intensely red tomatoes that weigh between 30 to 60 g each.