Guatemalan Blue squashes are large, elongated fruits, averaging 35 to 40 centimeters in length and 6 to 10 pounds, and have an oblong to oval shape with slight tapering towards the curved ends. The rind is firm, hard, and smooth, ranging in color from dark green, green-blue, to a dusty, gray-green. There may also be some faint light green, vertical striping extending the length of the squash. Underneath the surface, the flesh is dense, thick, and dark orange, encasing a central, oval cavity filled with stringy fibers and many cream-colored seeds. Guatemalan Blue squashes have a smooth, tender texture when cooked and develop a sweet, nutty, and subtly fruity flavor.

Seasons/Availability

Guatemalan Blue squashes are available in the fall through winter.

A very popular addition to gourmet salad mixes. Serrated green leaves offer interesting texture to blend with other varieties of lettuce. The younger the growth, the more mild the flavour. As a baby green 17 to 21 days to harvest. Full grown, 40 Days to harvest!

Spicy mustard flavor adds zing to salads and is a frequent addition to spring mix. Narrow leaves are dark green and serrated. Excellent for baby vegetable and salad mixes. 

Burgundy coloured lettuce with frilled leaves. Excellent for gourmet salad mixes.

55 Days to harvest!

Italian looseleaf loved for its deep red, tightly curled leaves surrounding a bright green heart.

An ideal baby leaf variety providing mild flavor and excellent loft, heft and color to salad mixes. Open heads are compact, slower growing and slower to bolt than other lettuces. Displayed field resistance to mildew in our trials.

Ideal baby leaf variety

Slow to bolt

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.

Slender fruit is bright sweet golden-yellow. They are as delicious as they are attractive; bush plants.

Summer Squash - a broad term used to describe soft squash varieties such as zucchini and patty pan squash—is a warm-season crop that can be grown almost anywhere in full sun. Wait until any threat of frost has passed and the soil has warmed to about 70 F before planting, as these tender squash varieties are extremely sensitive to frost and light freezes. Perfect for containers, most summer squash grow on short, compact vines that don’t require trellising or staking, unlike the sprawling vines of most winter squash and pumpkins. Rather than growing baseball bat-sized zucchini—which can be bland, full of seeds, and woody—harvest squash when fruit is small and tender and your plants will keep producing right up to frost.

Cubanelle - An heirloom sweet Italian frying pepper with a sweet mild flavor. The cubanelle is growing in popularity and these bright green thin-walled peppers add a pretty color for frying and cooking. Chefs and home cooks often prefer them to bell peppers because of their excellent flavor and their low moisture content, which makes them perfect for quick cooking in lots of recipes.

Peppers can grow to 5" long on productive 30” plants. It is best to cut them from the stem when they are yellowish-green, but they can also be left on the plant to mature to bright red. Capsicum annuum (75 days) Heirloom - Open-pollinated

Heat Level: None - Sweet Pepper

In early spring, start seeds indoors 8 weeks prior to warm nightly temperatures. Place the seeds in sterile media and cover 1/4” deep. Provide 85°F bottom heat, bright light, and keep moist at all times. Seeds will germinate in 7 - 21 days. Transplant seedlings into pots and grow until there are 6 true leaves on the plant. Plant them directly into rich soil, 30” apart, or into large 5-gallon containers. Easy to grow in containers.

Cantaloupe sprouts, stems, leaves, flowers, fruit, and seeds are edible.

Muskmelon Hale's Best Jumbo Cantaloupe matures early and has an excellent sweet flavor. This hardy variety will grow in all regions and is more drought tolerant than other melons. The beautiful oval melons have a ribbed, tan skin, and a sweet, musky flavor and aroma.

Muskmelon  Cantaloupes are a variety of the muskmelon, and the name “cantaloupe” refers specifically to the North American variety.

Cantaloupe seeds can be planted directly into the garden.

Sow seed directly into the garden soil a few weeks after the last frost date. Seeds can be planted again in late summer for a fall harvest. 

Create a hill of well-drained soil about 10" high and 2' across. Plant 3 seeds 1" deep on top. Later thin to one plant per hill. Grow in full sun and water often.

They should come up in 7-14 days depending on the soil temperature. They grow quickly in warm weather. Keep their roots cooler with a few inches of mulch and it will conserve moisture and reduce weed growth. If you are in a cooler climate try to keep plants as warm as possible. One suggestion is to plant them next to a warm south-facing wall and to cover the vines during cooler nights. 

Cantaloupe vines spread quickly across the garden and can reach 3-6' long. If space is limited they can be trained up a trellis, but be sure to provide support for the hanging melons. When the fruits on the trellis are the size of a baseball place them in a stretchy net or sling. For larger melons, keep only 2-3 fruits per vine and remove the others. Harvest when the melons they are yellowish-orange and slightly soft near the stem. They can gently be pulled from the vines when mature.

Muskmelon Hale's Best Jumbo Cantaloupe seeds. Cucumis melo Annual. Open-pollinated, heirloom, non-GMO. Harvest after 80 days  

This packet plants 10 mounds for growing 10 plants. 

Corn salad lettuce, also known as lamb's lettuce or mâche, is a leafy green vegetable with a nutty flavor and dark green color. It's a popular ingredient in salads and is high in nutrients. 

Corn salad has dark green, spoon-shaped leaves that form low-growing rosettes 

The leaves are soft and tender, similar to butterhead lettuce 

Corn salad has a mild, nutty flavor

The taste is improved by a light frost

A pumpkin seed, also known in North America as a pepita, is the edible seed of a pumpkin or certain other cultivars of squash. The seeds are typically flat and asymmetrically oval, have a white outer husk, and are light green in color after the husk is removed.

Pumpkins are actually a type of winter squash. Many varieties can send out vines that are 10 to 20 feet long, which can be challenging for a raised-bed garden. One option is to grow them on a trellis, such as the Cucumber Trellis. Use a mesh bag or fabric to help support especially heavy fruit. Another technique is to plant them on an outside corner of your raised bed and let the vines ramble onto the grass.

Like summer squash, winter squash need rich soil that's been amended with compost. They need warm weather and warm soil to grow and produce well. In most cases, it takes 90 to 100 days from planting seeds until the squash are ripe. Cold-climate gardeners may want to get an early start by planting seeds indoors about three weeks before the last spring frost. Plant two seeds per 3" pot, and cut off one if both grow.

Transplant into the garden a week or two after the last spring frost. You can warm the soil by covering it with clear plastic, which works better than the traditional black plastic, as long as you seal the edges with soil to contain the heat.

Some winter squash and pumpkins — the bigger ones, generally — will only produce a couple of fruit per plant. The seed catalog or seed packet should tell you what to expect. Pumpkins are always fun for kids, but not always good for pie. If you want jack-o-lanterns, you can grow any variety; for pies and soups, look for "pie pumpkins" or "sugar pumpkins," which have sweeter, more flavorful flesh.