Genovese basil, an Italian heirloom variety, is prized for its large, shiny, dark green leaves, a sweet, slightly spicy flavor, and strong aroma, making it a favorite for pesto and other culinary uses. 

Genovese basil is a traditional Italian basil variety, particularly famous for its use in making pesto, and is grown in the Genoa area of Italy. 

It features large, shiny, dark green leaves that are slightly crinkled and can grow up to 3 inches long. 

The leaves have a sweet, slightly spicy flavor with a strong, pleasant aroma, making it a versatile herb for various dishes. 

Genovese basil is widely used in pesto, caprese salads, and other dishes that require large, fresh basil leaves. 

Plant is a vigorous grower and the leaves are medium large, with light green. Plant is very aromatic.

Large Leaves: The leaves are notably larger than other basil varieties, sometimes reaching up to 5 inches long. 

Strong Flavor: It has a classic, intense basil flavor, making it a popular choice for pesto and other Italian dishes. 

Aromatic: Napoletano basil has a strong, aromatic scent. 

Versatile: The large leaves can be used in various ways, including as wraps for appetizers or ingredients in salads and sauces. 

Nutritious: It is a good source of vitamins K, A, and C, as well as calcium, magnesium, and iron. 

Unique Aroma: Some varieties of Napoletano basil have a mild anise or camphorous scent. 

Slow to Bolt: Napoletano basil is known for its resistance to bolting (going to seed early). 

Easy to Grow: It's a relatively easy herb to cultivate, thriving in full sun and well-drained soil. 

Great for Pesto: The large leaves make it ideal for making pesto

Cayenne Chili F1 Wildcat is a high-yielding, F1 hybrid cayenne pepper known for producing large, 8-inch long fruits with a mild heat (500-1500 Scoville units) and a smoky flavor. It is a versatile pepper that is easier to harvest and more uniform than traditional cayennes, making it good for a variety of culinary uses like fresh, dried, or ground. 

Characteristics

Fruit: Extra-large, 6-10 inches long, weighing 2-3 ounces. The fruits are straighter and have thicker walls than typical cayenne peppers.

Flavor: A mild heat rating of 500-1500 Scoville units, combined with a smoky and sweet flavor.

Plant: A vigorous, compact, and high-yielding plant with an even growth habit. It is suitable for containers.

Maturity: Matures in approximately 75 days after transplanting.

Diseases: Resistant to Potato Virus Y and Tomato Mosaic Virus. 

Uses

Fresh: Can be used fresh in dishes like pizzas and stir-fries.

Dried: Can be dried and ground for use as a spice or red pepper flakes. 

Gigante Di Napoli/ Italian Giant: Plant has an upright habit with medium cover. Plant will grow 22 – 24 cm (8-9in) long. Plant is uniformed and cylindrical with deep green and light green mottling 

Stronger taste than curly parsley. Superb flavour! A high yielding parsley producing flat, dark green leaves of excellent flavour.
Ideal for use in salads or cooking.

At first glimpse, Gigante resembles rangy, wild-looking celery! The deeply-indented leaves form an unexpectedly large, open plant growing to 3’ tall. Gigante is an obvious favorite of Italian cooks, since flat-leaved parsley is vital to their cuisine. These sweet, intensely-flavored leaves are most prized and central to almost every pasta sauce. Gigante is also perfect for gremolata, another savory Italian mixture used in Osso Buco, rice dishes or rubbed under the skin of fowl before roasting - try it! Combine the zest of three to four lemons, 1/3 to 1/2 cup chopped Gigante parsley, 1 minced garlic clove and 1 shallot. Using a sharp blade, chop everything together until finely minced and use immediately.

Cut leaves, just before use, in soups, carrots or garnish.

Thai Basil. A member of the mint family, thai basil is sweet in taste but also charming to the eye - making it a garden favourite. 

It has a liquorice flavor for stirfry, soups and salads. 

A favorite squash of Sicilians, cucuzza squash, meaning ‘super long squash,’ is gaining some popularity in North America. Never heard of cucuzza squash plants? 

Also known under a wide range of other names such as Zucchetta Cucuzzi, Serpent of Sicily, Italian Edible Gourd, Longissima, Bottle Gourd, Calabash, Suzza Melon, Zucca, Tasmania Bean, Guinea Bean, New Guinea Bean, White Flowered Gourd and Indian Squash, is a vine is an annual plant with hairy, shallow lobed leaves and white flowers (unlike squash which are always yellow flowered). The vines can run up to 25 feet in length.

Cucuzza is a summer squash in the botanical family of Lagenaria, which boasts a plethora of other varieties. This edible squash is related to the calabash, also known as water gourd or bird’s nest gourd. A vigorous squash, fruit is born from vines that can grow two feet (0.5 m.) a day. The fruits are straight, green gourds, occasionally with a minor curve to them. The skin is dark green and medium hard. The fruit itself can grow 10 inches (25 cm.) per day and will be 18 inches to 2 feet (45-60 cm.) long. The squash is usually peeled and the seeds removed from the larger fruit. The squash can be cooked just like any other summer squash – grilled, stewed, fried, stuffed, or roasted. Intrigued? I bet you’re wondering how to grow cucuzza squash now.

This "beauty heart" type Chinese radish is the most popular variety grown in the middle and northern parts of China. It is also call watermelon radish. This variety is globe-shape, green shoulder with dark pink flesh. Because of their color, they are the perfect radishes to carve into flower shapes as garnish. It has a crisp texture and is mild and sweet flavored. Try eating fresh. Just thinly slice, top with fresh squeezed lime and a little salt and pepper or with sugar. For fall season sowing only.

Round Zucchini have been popular in Europe for years. The Italians have their dark green Tondo di Piacenza, the French have the light green speckled Ronde de Nice, the Dutch have the "Roly Poly" (a loose translation from Burpee's marketers) and the British have their single serve striped marrow, Tender and True. There is even chinese produced seed of an almost white round zucchini. The common thread is that these zucchini are actually rather nice; solid, nutty, sweet, and as a bonus they are extremely early producers and are prolific if you keep harvesting the fruit. The compact plants are real workhorses of efficiency. They laughed at the limited nutrients and water of our sand lot trials!

These round zucchini from the above plants have matured to form a tough pumpkin-like or gourd-like rind. You must leave them on the plant until their colors have changed and they develop that hard skin. It takes several weeks beyond the immature stage that we usually consume summer squash at for the squash to mature. These are on the porch where they will "after ripen", for an additional month. The after ripening gives the seeds an extra amount of time to gain food reserves which will allow for healthier, more vigorous seedlings and better germination. Then they will be split with a sledge hammer (yes, the can be tough), seeds will be scooped out, washed in a mild soap solution and thoroughly dried to the "breaking" stage before storage. We used to spread out the seed on newspaper to dry but now we use drying screens which provide better air circulation.

Packet: 9-10 grams of seed