Sorrel is a leafy green vegetable grown for its pleasantly tart, lemony flavor. It sometimes gets classified as an herb and sometimes as a vegetable. Either way, gardeners in the U.S. don't grow enough of it. Sorrel plants prefer the cool seasons of spring and fall, quickly bolting to seed as the weather heats up. The two most commonly grown species are garden sorrel (Rumex acestosa) and French sorrel (Rumex scutatus).

Sorrel plants have smooth, arrow-shaped leaves that grow from a center rosette. The plant will send up a tall flower stalk as the temperature warms, but it's best to remove this to promote leaf growth for a better harvest. The red flowers are rather insignificant whorled spikes, like rhubarb.

Sorrel only gets about 12 to 18 inches tall, although the flower stalks (if left on the plant) will get taller. It does spread out though, easily taking up 2 feet in width. Sorrel is typically planted in spring and has a moderate growth rate; young leaves are ready to harvest in a little over a month.

Daikon Summer F1 (like Minowase Summer Cross F1) refers to heat-tolerant, fast-growing, Japanese hybrid daikon radishes ideal for summer planting, producing long, white, mild, sweet, juicy roots with firm flesh, good for salads, pickling, and stir-fries, often maturing quickly (around 50-60 days) with strong disease resistance. They need deep, light soil and consistent water to prevent bitterness, offering a crisp texture and a milder, less spicy flavor than smaller radishes, making them versatile for summer-to-fall harvests. 

Type: F1 Hybrid Daikon (Japanese radish).

Appearance: Long, conical, pure white roots, sometimes with a pale green shoulder.

Flavor/Texture: Mild, sweet, juicy, crisp, firm flesh, less pungent than red radishes.

Maturity: Fast-growing, around 50-65 days.

Uses: Excellent for salads, stir-fries, cooking, and pickling (especially kimchi).

Heat/Disease: Tolerant to heat and resistant to common diseases like Fusarium. 

Soil: Requires deep, loose, well-drained soil to allow roots to grow long.

Water: Consistent moisture is key for mild flavor; avoid drying out.

Planting: Best sown in summer for late summer/fall harvest. 

Minowase Summer Cross F1: A classic for summer crops, known for its mildness and vigor.

Japana F1: Another summer-sowing option with fine, dense flesh. 

Iceberg lettuce grows in small, dense heads. Commonly used in salads and sandwiches, they are prized more for their texture and crispiness than for the flavor of the leaves themselves. Iceberg was first cultivated in the Salinas Valley of California, then packed in ice and distributed across the US on trains, earning its namesake. Space plants 12" apart with 18" between rows.

These are the family favourite lettuce variety for salads and sandwiches. Make sure to give steady watering throughout the year to allow for these to properly shape into round, firm heads.  Your kids will thank you!

78 Days to Harvest!

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.

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.

Tetragon cabbage, also known as New Zealand spinach, is a leafy plant with triangular leaves, yellow flowers, and small, hard capsules that contain seeds. It's a trailing plant that can form a thick carpet on the ground or climb through other plants.Tetragon is usually grown for its leaves, which can be added in salads or cooked. Thanks to its ability to withstand difficult climates, this plant grows readily in the wild in China, Reunion Island, and New Zealand. It is also fairly easy to grow in Quebec, but it will behave as an annual since it cannot tolerate frost.

Held up by a round stem, tetragon has a really unique look with its thick leaves and quadrangular fruits. Good source of vitamin B1, B2 and C; the spinach is both delicious and nutritious!

Physical characteristics

Leaves: Thick, bright green, triangular leaves that are 3–15 cm long 

Flowers: Yellow or pale yellow-green flowers with four or five petals that grow at the leaf joints 

Fruit: Small, hard capsules with 4–10 horned seeds 

Stems: Long, trailing stems that are usually green or red 

Seed pods: Tough, four-cornered green seed pods that grow along the stems at the leaf joints 

Other names 

Botany Bay spinach

Cook's cabbage

Kōkihi (in Māori)

Sea spinach

Warrigal greens

Warrigal cabbage

Uses

The leaves can be eaten in salads or cooked 

It's a heat and drought-tolerant species that can be grown in home gardens 

Origin 

Native to Argentina, Australia, Chile, Japan, and New Zealand