Italian garden

After flipping through Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Catalogue, I have decided to try growing a veggie garden using Italian veggies! Thus far I am going to try: Cour di Bue(cabbage), Corno di Toro Rosso(pepper), Tondo Scuro di Piacenza(zucchini), Costata Romanesco(zucchini), Cuor di Bue(tomato) and Fine Verde Basil! My husband's grandparents came from Italy so I thought it would be fun for everyone to see what types of vegetables they may have grown. Unfortunetly, his grandmother passed last year and his grandfather is not well-wished we had the opportunity to show them.
Does anyone have any other suggestions on these plants or any others?

sandy, I have the seeds, cuor di bue, from a source recommended by Farmerdill, (don't remember the name). They are an early cabbage, with a somewhat pointed shape, tender and delicious. Be sure to protect from cabbage worms, of course. Good luck.

Thanks! We have had problems in the past with the cabbage loopers. Thinking about using row covers this year.

Baker Creek also has a number of Italian tomato seeds. I can personally recommend Principe Borghese.

saanansandy..... check out this website: www.seedsofitaly.com

LD

You can also try the US Seeds from Italy site:
http://www.growitalian.com/

I ordered quite a few seeds from them last year. We especially like the Verda di Taglio Italian chard, which is sweeter than swiss chard:
http://tinyurl.com/yz7wth

And the leaf broccolo Spigariello foglia riccia:
http://tinyurl.com/2g7h9l

And the Barese escarole:
http://tinyurl.com/ywe4j2

And the mache:
http://tinyurl.com/24o6s8

and Sculpit:
http://tinyurl.com/26gled

and the Zuchetta Tromba d'Albenga:
http://tinyurl.com/ysxbxx

We also grew Romanesco zucchinni and Nardello sweet frying peppers last year.

If you like basil there is a nice red Italian basil Violetto. It made great burgundy-ish pesto!

I ordered some seeds from growitalian.com a couple of weeks ago and I swear I think they got here before the stamp was licked on my order. I've never ordered anything that was shipped so fast. Much better deal than other seed places because there's a very large amount of seeds in each pack.

Also, their prices per pack were slightly higher than seedsofitaly.com but their far lower shipping charge more than made up for it.

Italians eat a lot of vegetables, so the seed packs need to be larger. LOL!

Saanansandy -

I always grow Costata Romanesco zucchini; the taste is so much better than regular zucchini. Also very resistant to powdery mildew. But if you grow the open pollinated kind, give it a LOT of room - it is huge. One year I tried to get it to grow up on a trellis - a disaster. I had given it too much nitrogenous stuff and it was so heavy it pulled down the trellis. This year I'm going to try the hybrid bush version.

kabocha

Oh Boy lol- there goes my budget for seeds!! I absolutely LOVE zucchini so I am very excited about the Costata Romanesco! I have never grown Swiss Chard-is it an early crop? I think I'm going to have to get hubby to expand the garden lol!

Thanks for the tip about Seeds from Italy. Their website is just packed with information! And yes, I have ordered more seeds! lol Guess I'm going to need a bigger greenhouse to start everything....hee hee!Sorry getting an hankering for spring weather and getting down and dirty!! lol

Chard is really, really easy. The mixes that have all the different colors are so pretty too. You can harvest the outer leaves and have chard just about all summer. And, yes, plant it early.

We grow all our squash vertically, both summer and winter squash. It just takes too much space in our garden otherwise. My husband has constructed a very sturdy and flexible hoop/trellis support out of pvc pipe and rebar. We use it in hoop mode to support the row cover when the plants are small, then switch it to trellis mode when summer kicks in and the plants are large.

I'll have to try growing vertically-always thought that the stems would break! Seems like it would save alot of time(back-saving time!) if the garden's square footage is smaller. I mentioned the bigger garden to my hubby- I got a grin and"good luck with that!" lol
Where the swiss chard is colorful do you think it would look ok placed in a flowerbed?

A lot of folks use swiss chard and flowering kale in their ornamental beds. There are a lot of beautifully flowering beans that work well in the landscaping too.
Vining squash, like buttercups and pumpkins are a breeze to grow vertically, although if grow one that produces very heavy fruit, you'll need to support the fruits with a sling as they develop.
I use a tomato cage for the zucchinni type squash as they take a little more coaxing to grow upwards.