Osborne Seed Company Variety Trials

WESTSIDE Storage Onion Update January

2012-01-18T11:37:00.000-08:00

This last summer we trialed all the storage onions we could get our hands on that were quick enough maturity for western Washington.
For information about eastern Washington trials, email ronhull@osborneseed.com

We are no longer able to provide Redwing or Red Bull, and Copra has been discontinued for everyone. We knew there had to better varieties out there.
After taking lots of observations over the growth cycle of our onion trial, we harvested them all and let them cure in the sun for 1 week, when we had to bring them in due to rain. We put them in wooden/chicken wire bulb trays in the warehouse, with a door open and a fan pushing air through the stacks. This was a daily occurrence for 1 month, when we moved them into a room in the back of the warehouse. A little less humidity than some barns, but just as cold.

Every month or so we have been sorting through the varieties and noting which ones are continuing to store with continued high quality.
Here is our October statements based on previous trial results...
http://vegtrials.blogspot.com/2011/11/onion-trials-for-western-wa.html

Here is our January report, along with some current pictures...

Yellow keepers:
Trekker and Trailblazer are fantastic!
Trailblazer is a little larger and more uniform in size and color, but otherwise they are keeping equally well, with very few removed. Copra is not keeping as well, and tends to be a little more elongated of an onion, as well as small.
We were able to get Trekker seed this year, and we coated some of the untreated seed with an organic coating.
Trailblazer was not available, we will try again for next year.

Trekker F1

Trailblazer F1

Joliet is keeping quite well, and is a large clean onion.

Joliet F1

If you are wanting a large onion (jumbo size) that cures on the westside and keeps well, try Esteem. It is keeping very well for a large onion.

Esteem F1

Red Keepers:
Due to previous experience with Ruby Ring, we thought that it would hold longer than Cabernet. Much to our surprise, Cabernet is holding better and is very easy to clean up.
Our hypothesis is that since Cabernet cured down so much earlier than Ruby Ring, the onion necks cured down very well and is elongating the storage window. Ruby Ring needed to be crimped, but did cure down nicely afterwards, but did not have as much time curing outside.
Redwing has not held, and is no longer saleable.

Cabernet F1

Results from our Extensive 2011 Carrot Trials

2012-01-11T09:41:00.000-08:00

We found a big handful of new, tasty, high performance carrots this year, but to do so we had to trial many varieties.
Carrots have one of the most complex flavor indexes, a scientific test would need to have many tasters to get any numbers that are statistically accurate. When we taste them, we cut off the top and bottom parts, and slice up a few carrots so that people get to taste a few different carrots.
Everyone in the office participated in the carrot taste tests, and in general we come to consensus after eating a lot of slices.

Many growers have been using Mokum, Ya Ya and Nelson for years with good results. Since we are no longer able to carry these, we have been searching the world and found some good contenders. We always include these in our trials for comparison. For some of these varieties, we have found direct substitutes, and for others it depends on what the most important traits are for you.
Here is the lowdown on what we have to offer this year:

Damco F1 is a direct substitute Mokum F1, all season long. We have raw untreated, and untreated seed with an Organic pellet.

Merida F1 is a sub for Nelson and to some extent Yaya, especially if growers want the blunt long heavy shape…it is a good carrot for all season. It has good cold tolerance, though we preferred the taste in the summer and fall. Very uniform, and a quite a bit longer than Damco and Sweet Baby Jane. In the winter, this carrot sized up while Yaya stayed small. We have raw untreated, and untreated seed with an Organic pellet.

Jeannette F1 is a good sub for YaYa especially if you want to pull at baby or teenage stage, and has a smooth, slightly more pointy shape. All season. Ok for mechanical harvest. Organic seed, raw and coated. Jeannette comes from Vitalis, the company that has produced high performance hybrids such as Picolino cucumber, Scarlet Letter and Coastal Star lettuce (and many more), Temptation tomato and Traviata eggplant, among many others that we carry.

Hilmar (OP) is a cheap and good option for a heavy medium early nantes. We were impressed with this carrots uniformity, especially considering that it is not a hybrid. Taste was excellent as well. All season. Raw untreated seed only.

Flyaway F1 is specialty carrot- it claims to repel carrot rust fly. We did not have much pressure during our summer trials, so we did not get to test this. However, this was one of the best tasting carrots at maturity. All season. Raw untreated seed only.

Invicta F1 is good for people with clay soil...it is not a very long carrot, and had best performance in the summer and excellent taste in the fall. A blunt nantes type.

Tendersnax F1 is a nantes/imperator cross, so for growers who want good top connection, this is a great option. Exhibits a pointier shape than Jeannette, and all the other nantes we offer. All season.

Bolero, Nantindo, Maestro...these hybrids are best for later plantings. They all get heavy and sweet in the fall., with good field holding. They make nice storage carrots and hold well through the early winter weather.

Bolero is available raw, and with an organic coat. Nantindo is raw and coated. Maestro is only available treated with fungicide, raw and coated.

Bolero

Nantindo

Maestro

For those of you who got hooked on Sweet Baby Jane F1- bad news. They discontinued this variety due to the difficult of producing the seed. We do still have some in stock as of 1/11/12, raw untreated. The same company will be releasing new varieties based on some of the same genetic lines, and we are all looking forward to it.

More Comments from Colony Creek Farm

2011-12-16T10:30:00.000-08:00

Every year I seem to make new mistakes. I guess I'll have to keep farming until I die, in my continuing attempt to get it right. However, I did get a number of crops just right. They would be: carrots, lettuce, radishes and cucumbers.
Customer response to the Sweet Baby Jane carrots was very favorable.

Lovelock lettuce is astounding. Quick, big and crunchy. Six frosts and I'm still harvesting.

Cherriette radishes are eye-popping red. I will never again underestimate the public's demand for radishes. I have a very small farm and I once sold three cases of radishes as a Saturday market.

The Adam cucumber is snack-sized, think skinned, and everything a cucumber should be.I may flash out and buy Roxynantes for a longer versionI won't again plant Summer Dance cuke in the cucumber greenhouse. It only works for the first 2.5 weeks -then it is too hot!

Debbie owns Colony Creek Farm in Mount Vernon WA. 1 acre of flowers, herbs, mixed veg, garlic, pumpkins and winter squash. She sells through her CSA and Farmers Markets. Debbie works in the off-season at Osborne Seed Co.

Artichoke Opera F1- Product Focus

2011-12-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Opera F1 is a stunning purple hybrid artichoke similar to Concerto but with 1-2 weeks earlier harvest. It produces beautifully colored conical chokes with delicious chunky petals. This very robust plant bears multiple large fruits the first year. Produces even in a marginal landscaping situations. Excellent for eating, but also a great choke for decoration: try putting small chokes on stems in your flower bouquets, or wait until they flower for a real show-stopper.

New Types of Cabbages to Try in 2012

2011-12-05T09:40:00.000-08:00

There is no denying that small green cabbages are the most ubiquitous, and for many farmers, the most desired by their market.
However, if you are interested in providing your market with some new types of cabbage, we are offering a few new types.

We carry savoys, and now we are offering a semi-savoy. A cross between savoy and green cabbage, very mild, sweet, and possibly a gateway cabbage- for customers that are stuck on green cabbage, this variety might get them hooked on savoy just in time for winter crops.

Savoy Ace Improved F1 80 days
2-3 lbs, 7 x 6", resistant to Heat, Cold
good field holding ability
wide adaptability
early maturity
very successful in all our slotted trials this season
easy to harvest
great protection
medium savoyed leaves
creamy dense interior.
versatile, dense at a small to medium size.

We are also adding a pointed red cabbage. The color of this cabbage is intense. We thought that a red pointed would be easier to sell than a green pointed cabbage. A total novelty to get customers and kids excited in cabbage. Would be great for a diverse CSA box.

Kalibos (OP) 105-110 days
pointed cabbage
saturated beautiful purple red coloring
good interior density
sits high off the ground
has a great protective wrap
works best for fall harvest
has a high sugar content and good flavor.

New Cherry Tomatoes: The Sun Series

2011-12-02T17:45:00.000-08:00

Love Sungold cherry tomato? We trialed the rest of the Sun series (from the same breeder as Sungold) and will be carrying 4 new tomatoes that are very complementary. High yielding, early, crack resistant and delicious, these are high quality new hybrids.

Sunpeach F1 70 days
Indeterminate slightly elongated round, .5 oz, resistant to T₀MV, Leaf Mold
A beautiful pink cherry! Large clusters of very juicy fruit with excellent flavor and texture. Low acid and thin skins, and the fact that this heavy yielder resisted cracking makes it a winner.

L-R pink cherry tomato, red cherry tomato
A breeder in California told us the trick of pink cherry tomatoes. If you peal the skin off a red tomato, there is a yellow membrane layer, which brightens up the pink flesh. If you peal off the skin on a pink tomato, it will be clear, no yellow: letting the pink color through.

Sunlemon F1 70 days
Indeterminate, slightly elongated round shape, .5 oz, resistant to T₀MV
Sunlemon has heavy brooms of large yellow cherries bright gold in color. The flavor was excellent: crisp, clean and very sweet.

Sungold F1 65 days
Indeterminate Round, 1/2 oz., resistant to F J-1, T₀MV
No other tomato of its type surpasses the taste and sweetness of Sungold. This absolutely delicious and low in acid, orange yellow cherry weighs only about 1/2 ounce, and every bit of it is packed with flavor.

Sunchocola F1 75 days
Indeterminate Round, 1.3 oz
A very large cherry, Sunchocola is a beautiful and unusual tomato with an excellent juicy texture and low acid, very tangy, sweet taste. Perfectly round, very uniform sized fruit. Clusters of 8-12 fruits on short internodes off a vigorous dark green plant. Ripe when a red blush emerges on the chocolate brown, lightly striped fruit. Much bigger than the other "Sun" varieties.

Suncherry Pure F1 70 days
Indeterminate, round, .6 oz, resistant to T₀MV, F, Cladosporium, Stemphylim
A beautiful fire-engine red cherry that had consistent size throughout the season. Easy to harvest, held on long clusters on a vigorous vine. These shiny fruits go very well mixed with the rest of the "Sun" series. Super sweet and aromatic, this variety won our grower taste test poll hands down.

Here is Sungold, Sunpeach, Suncherry Pure and Sunlemon: a great small mix of similar sized and tasting tomatoes.

Cover Crops in Unused Spaces and Roadways

2011-11-30T09:42:00.000-08:00

We experimented this year with planting cover crops in unused spaces, mainly roadways. Our tractor is not on site, so keeping the field roads tilled is not super easy once we are done with major tractor field work and on to rototiller maintenance.
Also, space is at a premium. Equally important is soil building and pest management.
Sweet Allysum is a great beneficial insect attractant and cover crop for in-field rows, and for filling the end of a short row. However, it can be quite bushy, spreading out over a few feet in each direction. Solution? Plant a single row down the middle of your tilled roadway. We weeded with hoes once, it took about 10 minutes for a 200' length. For more information on the benefits of pest management with this plant, check out http://vegtrials.blogspot.com/2011/10/beneficial-insect-attractants.html

We also put in blocks of different cover crops for the summer, and extended them into our field road. Chickling Vetch and Oats got quite battered by the daily driving, but Hairy Vetch, Triticale and Rye did very well, holding up under the carriage of the truck, and staying alive and attractive. And best of all: suppressing weeds and making a management free space!

Lana Hairy Vetch, Hairy Vetch and Triticale

Triticale

Rye

Onion Trials for Western WA

2011-11-22T09:44:00.000-08:00

If you came to our Growers Invite field tour, you got to see our extensive onion trial in Skagit County. We trialed every Copra and Redwing replacement we thought likely, and had some very positive results. Copra is discontinued, and Redwing (and Red Bull) are not going to be available from Osborne Seed Co. Luckily, we found some really good replacements, and improved varieties.

For Copra, we found three substitutes that we are confident will store, and are similar shape and size. They had a much quicker dry down period, which is a huge improvement! We were happy to find three that worked well because small amounts of onion seed can be difficult to procure, so we will always have options.

Frontier F1 95-100 days

This early hybrid long-day onion has flattened-globe bulbs and is suitable for very long term storage. The skins are tight and smooth with a dark golden color and necks are small. Was the star of our Westside trials this year, a great choice to replace the discontinued Copra. Flattened globe, large – jumbo, DM, FBR, BSR disease resistance.

Trailblazer F1

Trailblazer has tight, firm, slightly flattened globe-shaped bulbs with thin necks. A reliable long-day storage type with dark skin and a nice gloss. This variety will store until June under optimal conditions. Slightly flattened globe, medium to large, resistant to Botrytis, Bolting

Trekker F1 95-100 days

This Trailblazer type is quick to go down, an early long day onion with a globe shape, dark skin and a nice shine. Trekker is an extra-firm long storage type, and will store until May with optimum conditions. Globe, medium to large, resistant to FBR, Neck rot.

Redwing was very susceptible to Downy Mildew this year, and the varieties that we liked better were much more tolerant. We suggest growing Red Emperor or Cabernet for early winter sales, and Red River or Ruby Ring for your long storage.

Red Emperor F1 ORGANIC SEED!

Red Emperor was the first red in our intermediate trials with 100% tops down. It has dark to very dark red scales. You can harvest this onion early and store it until Christmas. Red Emperor has a small, tight neck, a vigorous root system, and strong, upright plant habit. It has an attractive internal ring color with a good percentage of single centers. Slightly flattened globe, medium to large, dark red.

Red River F1 105 days

Red River is highly adaptable intermediate onion. This variety boasts a strong root system and a nice dark red color. High yield potential of firm, jumbo, globe-shaped bulbs that have good storage potential. Globe, small-large jumbo, dark red, resistant to PR, F, Bolting.

Cabernet F1 100-110 days

This intermediate storage onion was the star of our Westside trials, independently drying down from both 2/22 and 3/16 plant dates. Cabernet has intense red external color and internal ring development with a high percentage of single centers. We recommend this variety for early winter storage, to be paired with a longer keeper for continued sales. Globe, medium to large

Ruby Ring F1 111 days

This long-day storage type red onion has hard, tall globe shape, firm bulbs with an exceptional high percentage of single centers. Ruby has great uniformity, and did well in our west side trials, showing less susceptibility to downy mildew and better dry-down then Redwing. Tall globe, medium to large.

New Organic Lettuces with Organic Coating

2011-11-18T15:58:00.000-08:00

We are adding a few new specialty type lettuces this year. We are responding to popular demand, and getting Organic seed with Organic coating. So if you need coated seed and you are a certified Organic grower, these will work for you.

We thought these new varieties were so beautiful, and had good growing attributes...

Alkindus- a new red butter

Borromini- a mini red oak, stiff and upright

Pomegranate Crunch- a mini romaine/butter cross, great with Breen

L-R Pomegranate Crunch, Breen

We also carry these tried and true Organic varieties with Organic coating...

Lovelock

Red Cash

Roxy

Scarlet Letter

Spretnak

Starhawk

Bergam's Green Leaf

Starfighter

Dancine

Ruby Sky

L-R Ruby Sky, New Red Fire

Also, Darkland Cos.

Winter Trials for 2011/12

2011-11-12T09:45:00.000-08:00

Whew! The deep freeze warning that was posted for the Puget Sound area passed us by. Our winter trials still stand, getting more acclimatized to the new low temps and ground fog before they get pounded by our winter freezes and our wind-chill.
Yesterday we went and checked on our over-wintering cauliflower, sprouting broccoli, leeks, carrots, kale, cabbage and swiss chard.

We sustained some losses from root maggots on the OW Cauli, but we noted the losses so we don't chalk it up to cold damage in the spring.

Sprouting broccoli is standing there looking stoic, except for the Apollo, which is still producing nice long-stemmed florets.

The winter leeks look nice, they range from ready now (and holding) to ready late winter/early spring. If we leave them long enough we will get leek scapes-yum.

Carrots- we planted two late successions, one we harvested yesterday for a taste-test today. The other planting is close to mature, but we are going to hold it until mid December if we can.

The red kales are getting darker and darker. Scarlet F1 and Red Monarch F1 still look every bit as nice as Redbor, we are pretty excited about these new varieties.

The Swiss chard took a little beating from our low thirties temps, but the colors are getting more intense, especially the oranges.

We have a few savoy cabbages that have small heads, and some red cabbages with young but harvestable heads. We will leave them as long as we can.

Steve and Kevin thinned the OW onions, we have a considerable trial for next spring. Brussel Sprouts are hanging in there, everything has at least small buttons, and some are nearing maturity (this will be our second harvest, Capitola was excellent mid October).

We direct seeded a large block of collards, kales, and sprouting broccoli, they are a nice juvenile size for weathering the winter. We also put in a late crop of radicchio, though they may never head up, only giving us rosettes.
All the cover crops are up. We were tight for time with dry weather, and rather than drive the tractor home in the dark, rainy evening, we opted to not till in the seed, but let it germ on top of the soil. The pounding rain helped press it in a bit, and I think we did not have much loss in the rye or triticale, and about 20% loss of germination in the Austrian Winter Peas.

Debbie direct-seeded our tomato hoophouse to lettuce, corn salad, chinese greens, mustards, and our new mixes. She will direct seed the raised beds with more lettuce mid November.

For our storage crops, our onions have cured down (most varieties) and are sitting in trays in a cool warehouse. Squash was kept at 70 degrees F for 2 weeks, and have been moved inside for storage. You could really see the curing process with the butternut varieties that had green streaks.We will do a taste test on the pie pumpkins and winter squash next week, and post the results soon after.

We know our grower customers are pushing the cropping season later and later, and we are trying to keep up with new varieties and planting date suggestions. I am just grateful our land does not flood (knock on wood), and for rubber gloves.

Rust fungi and disease resistant leeks

2011-11-08T09:39:00.000-08:00

Oregon and Washington growers are struggling with the Rust fungus Puccinia allii. It has been hard hitting last summer and this summer as well, infecting garlic, onions and leeks for many growers. After seeing severe infections in a small leek observation plot last fall and winter, and serious damage to a garlic crop in the vicinity, we ramped up our trials of leeks and overwinter onions in 2011. Our fall leek trial has some rust infection, not as bad as last year.

Some varieties shown through the rust last fall and winter, and we are seeing the same results this year, but on a larger scale. Here are our fall results, and some suggestions we have heard for reducing the leek infections...

FROM EARLIEST TO LATEST:

We have seen all these varieties with rust, either in our trials or with growers, but the ones with good tolerances are marketable with very little damage, and usually only to dead tissue. We had 18 varieties in our early fall trial, and have 22varieties in our 2011 winter trials (look for another post soon).

Lancia OP: pretty susceptible to rust. (we are no longer carrying this variety)

Rami OP (organic): looks identical to Lancia, also susceptible to rust if over mature. Meant for summer/early fall harvest.

Megaton F1: excellent rust tolerance! For summer/early fall, but holds pretty well.

Easton F1: excellent rust tolerance and the longest shafts. Comes on late summer but is holding very well for us, into late October.

Volta F1: nice long clean shafts, good tolerance of rust in our trials. This is a variety we are considering carrying or keeping in mind as a backup.

There are a few varieties in our winter trial. We seeded these on 4/12/11, and transplanted 6/6/11.

Belton F1: No rust damage. Could be harvested but should also hold. Clean, large, uniform, and tall. With such a long shaft, I wonder if it will handle any sustained cold periods. We will keep harvesting it over the next 2 months.

Kenton F1: for winter harvest, there is no rust on these plants yet.

Systemic Downey Mildew in Broccoli

2011-11-02T08:00:00.000-07:00

Broccoli can be tricky to grow in the Pacific Northwest, Mother Nature's ups and downs can really make or break a crop of broccoli. Slotting is important, and trialing different varieties to find what works for you. Growing multiple varieties to cover if you lose a variety to vagaries of the weather is a good idea.

Just to make growing broccoli trickier, a fungal disease called systemic Downy mildew is becoming much more prevalent. Possibly due to breeding for super tight heads, and low temps with wet weather more growers are noticing crop damage and loss.(Downy mildew develops most rapidly when night temperatures are between 10 and 15°C. When night temperatures exceed 24°C, disease development is greatly restricted)

Here are some pictures of systemic DM to help you know what you are looking at:

For Systemic DM, there may be no indication that there is internal rot, but sometimes you will see a button of rot on the top of the head. When you cut into it, there will be dark rot running down the stem. If harvested and kept before shipping, the rot will move through the head and melt everything. Nasty.

There are varieties that are very prone, and we are no longer carrying those varieties. There are some varieties that are susceptible, and some more resistant. General and Green Magic are reported to be more resistant, we are looking into new varieties as well.
If you having problems with Systemic DM, talk with us for more info on what is available.

Beneficial Insect Attractants

2011-10-26T09:39:00.003-07:00

If you are growing using organic practices, or applying IPM, then beneficial insects are important to you. Unfortunately, many of them are so tiny you cannot see them just walking around (let alone from the tractor seat). I have often wished that they were neon color coded so I could do a quick inventory, or that they sent a text when they were around, --"just checking in"-- or --"need more pollen please"--.
The easiest method I find is to assume that if you build it, they will come. And if you build them a really amazing beach resort, they will stay. Your farm is already teaming with them, now you just need them to be in the right place with enough bug-power at the right time.
Enter: Beneficial Insect Attractants (aka certain plants)

A lot of the predatory bugs need a supply of pollen to reproduce and build their numbers. The easiest way to not let your population have a setback is to plant some pollen laden plants in the vicinity, and make it a constantly available pollen buffet.
Certain bugs will migrate far distances, some not so far, and you can help control where your bugs are by where you plant. Here are a few of the thousands of different ways you can incorporate beneficial insect attractants efficiently into your farm:

Phacelia and Sweet Allysum- the power hitters:
These plants are versatile- both pollinators and predators are big fans of their pollen.

Phacelia is a tall ferny plant with a succulent stem, and long-blooming purple flowers.
When: Plant in the spring and summer, 2 successions will give you all the blooms you need.
How: Plant a little lighter than salad mix, about 2-3 seeds per inch for a thick row. This 'hedge' will be about 3' tall and 2' wide, so think about shade and what access you will need when.
Where: Between brussels sprouts rows is a good start, maybe every 4 to 6 row gets a row of Phacelia? If you transplant your brussels sprouts in late May, go ahead and direct seed the Phacelia then or up to a month later. With the benefit of irrigation on the B. sprouts, they should still be pumping the flowers for the predatory wasps when those pesky aphids are being destructive.

Another suggested spot would be a broadcast after last cultivation in your winter squash and pumpkins, to bring in the pollinators (especially bumble bees) and increase your fruit set.
Something to think about- this plant will call in pollinators from all over your farm, especially the further traveling type, so make sure to plant phacelia or have equally enticing pollen vectors for those bees and wasps wherever/whenever you need some pollinating service. Try some against a back wall in your tomato greenhouse!

BONUS: Phacelia makes a great long lasting cut flower. Winter kills, and can re-seed but is not a bothersome weed.

Sweet Alyssum is a bushy plant with tons of small white flowers that will bloom all season.
When: Plant in the spring and summer.
How: Direct seed just like salad mix or baby leaf lettuce- a dense thin band is the easiest to keep clean. Broadcasting into a summer cover crop or as an understory works also.
Where: Rows among crops is a good idea whenever possible. However, alyssum is a tough plant that can take some abuse. This year we experimented with planting a line down the middle of a loose dirt field road, which was driven down by a pickup truck multiple times a day. It looked fine and it is a great way to not lose any valuable land to a non-harvestable planting. Letting the irrigation hit it once or twice in the season will keep it going.

Buckwheat is another great attractant, and a summer cover crop adjacent to some crop land is a good habitat. If you can let your fall sown Crimson Clover stand long enough to flower in May and June, that will be a big draw for pollinators. These are just some of the basic ones, there are lots of information sources online for specific insect draws.

A few other ideas to experiment with:
Cilantro understory for corn: broadcast and cultivate in once the corn is at least 1 foot high. For aphid control.
Letting herbs like Dill and Parsley stay as flowering plants after they have bolted.
Any of the above as space fillers where crops do not reach the end of the row.

Have fun experimenting and pool your knowledge!

If you missed our Growers Invite...

2011-09-21T15:53:00.000-07:00

Farmers and customers, if you were not able to attend our Growers Invite and field tours, and want to see the trials before the season is over, give Jules a call or email, and make an appointment. Please let me know what you are looking to see specifically so I can make sure that trial is still in the field and mature.

Talk with you soon!

Grower's Invite-thanks for coming!

2011-09-18T15:35:00.001-07:00

Thanks everyone who made out Grower's Invite so much fun! We had between 70-80 farmers and resource people (Master Gardeners, WSU staff and students, etc.) attend our lunch and the field tours. Thanks to everyone who participated in our taste tests, we are looking at the results now as we decide what to add to our catalog this year.

Thanks as well to the farmers who provided the corn that we grilled: Schuh Farms, and ACX 7501 from Gary Fiddler at Skagit River Produce, grown by the Boling Boys.

And to Steve Radich for the potatoes he grows, an heirloom variety called Nicola.

After lunch and socializing, we took a quick look at the screening and greens trials planted around the office, and then all caravaned out to Fir Island and the acre that Osborne Seed Co. rents for our field trials. Jules Riske led the main tour, Ada Crowl talked about spinach, and Chris Osborne and Ron Hull shared some of their considerable knowledge on onions.

Thanks everyone who attended for your interest and questions!

We think it is a great opportunity to see new and substitute varieties growing, ask questions, and generally prepare yourselves for the next growing season. Trying new varieties is always fun, but can be a little unnerving. Being able to see them before growing them yourself is a smart move, could save you money, and may help you get a jump on a new market opportunity. We look forward to seeing you again next year!

New Beans-Easy Harvest and Great Taste

2011-09-10T19:21:00.000-07:00

September. The month when you swear that next year you will not grow so many beans (especially if you are the one picking them). If I were in charge of the world, bean retail prices would be a lot higher than they are now, especially for bush beans. The running joke is that farmers are the biggest whiners (ever heard the one about the wine cellar?), and for me and the subject of picking bush beans, that would be true.

Even now, when I am not picking much at all, I still whine-when we are planting bean trials (they take so much room!), when thinning and weeding (so much time!) and when evaluating and picking (who put so many varieties in this trial?!? Oh, right, me...).
And a bean is a bean is a bean, right? Nope!

This year, even I got pretty excited about picking beans, because a few of the beans in trial were so easy to pick!

When you are looking at twenty varieties in a trial, and 3-4 trials in a summer, there are sure to be some really nasty tasting beans. They may have been bred for processing, mechanical harvesting, or another climate all together. So wading through the dross, the varieties that shine really do (and I am always so grateful after eating too many flat tasting beans to find one that has a excellent flavor). Every year we seem to find one or two beans that are better than the ones we have been selling, or are an unique specialty items.

This year, we found a few truly excellent tasting beans that also were also really easy to pick.

One we already carry: Venice, a larger take on the French Fillet type, it is long and slender with great taste and no bean development even as it gets big.

Another is Lewis, which had such good flavor everyone in the office was going for those bags at the end of the day. This is your typical green bean size and shape.

A new bean that we had in a grower strip trial in Oregon, and also in our own trials, was Crockett. The pickers in Oregon liked the ease of harvest (and so did I, you could clean the whole plant in a few swipes, and get big handfuls of beans), and the taste is sweet and delicious. A dark shiny French Filet type.

We are looking into availability on a vigorous and beautiful green pole bean, and are keeping yield data as we pick all our pole beans every week.

One that we added last year continues to please this year: Golden Gate pole bean. The yield is so terrific that it is well worth the pricier seed. Big yellow buttery Roma pods that stay tender for fresh eating even at 10" long never go to waste.

Now, after being exposed to more bean varieties than any farmer would ever experiment with, I know exactly how I would grow beans: if land was not tight, I would grow varieties like Crockett that have one to two really concentrated sets, I would plant every 10 to 14 days. I would pick hard and move on to the next succession. If land was tight, I would grow the most prolific pole beans, and I would put in 3 successions. I would avoid harvesting off the same block of bush beans very many times- floppy beans, weedy beans, damaged beans, not enough beans on each plant, searching for beans within a rats nest of a plant...I would no longer have to whine about any of this. I might even become a bean-picking convert.

Salad Mix Creation and Improvement

2011-09-03T18:44:00.000-07:00

Lettuce, Bixby and Untreated Gourmet Lettuce Mix

Osborne already offers three different salad mixes: two different Gourmet Lettuce Mixes and a Spicy Complement Mix. We created these to fulfill a demand for diverse baby salad leaves grown in one row, growing at complementary rates, and in a wide and balanced spectrum of colors and shapes. They satisfy the WSDA Green Book requirements for salad mixes, keeping growers from slipping over the vague line into 'processor'.

Every year we grow the mixes out in different seasons, cut them, watch them re-grow, and improve on the mixes. The components change over the years as we find better lettuces and baby leaves, and have to replace ones that are discontinued, unavailable, or have huge price increases.

This year we have been doing a re-vamp on our current mixes, and having lots of fun making new ones for you to try. You will find that the Organic and Untreated Gourmet Lettuce Mixes are improved- we made sure that all the lettuces in the mixes were competing equally in the mix, took out some that were being repressed, and added a few- the result are mixes that pop, are more uniform in height, and will look beautiful when cut. The Spicy Complement Mix has a few changes as well- increases and decreases of certain mustard, and some new additions-like Pink Orach.

New Brassica Mixes

We will be releasing a handful of new mixes this year to see what our growers like. These new mixes are in their final grow out test, and we are thinking up names and buying in the seed.

The process is a lot like scientific cooking...I spent lots of hours this summer at a table in the cool warehouse, surrounded by bags of seeds, weighing out and recording grams of this and that lettuce or green added to each mix. Every planting succession I created three to twenty renditions of the same mix, altering components or amounts. Then we would level the soil and plant a few feet of each mix. If something looked right, I would mix more with slight changes, and we would plant again, in longer rows.

I soon realized that knowing how quickly each green grew was going to speed up the whole process, so we planted all the possible components out and started taking notes.
And it still isn't a simple success. As anyone knows who has ever tossed a bunch of lettuce seed package remnants together and made an ad-hock mix, a uniform height and color balanced mix is not usually forthcoming. I have been bemused to see baby leaf lettuces growing vigorously in a little strip of a single variety, but when combined with other varieties act totally different. They either refuse to germinate, germinate a little slower than the other lettuces and are smothered, or shoot up and dominate the whole mix. Fresh seed is important, providing an equal footing in vigor. Amounts of each variety is important, so there is color balance. Price is important, I am being careful to not add anything too expensive unless it is so very unique, and I am looking for cheaper substitutes. And I think that texture is important, having grown, cut and sold the Osborne Mixes and other seed company's mixes before working at Osborne. Nice fluffy mixes, that is what I like. Hope you like them too!

New All Red Lettuce mix

New Slow and Frilly Mix

Are your jalapeños ripe?

2011-08-22T09:50:00.000-07:00

There is so much conflicting information about how to choose a ripe jalapeño pepper, I wanted to get a clear answer. Recently, while on a Field Day down in California, I got my chance to ask the pepper product manager, Corey Dombrowski, at Sakata. Here is what he said:

mature seed has a tan color, rather than white

fruit is very firm

fruit may start to check and scar

will turn to red when fully mature, but mostly jalapeños are harvested in the green ripe stage

What about when the fruit turns mottled black colors?

when the fruit turns black, it is due to cold or hot weather, not ripeness. The stress brings the anthocyanin pigments out, and it is no longer industry standard.

Thanks Corey! Happy harvesting of your (ripe) jalapeños, everyone!

Osborne's Growers Invite!

2011-08-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

Please come to our 2011 Growers Invite! Tour our expanded trial fields and get information on varieties. Vied a wide range of brassicas, greens, roots, alliums, cucurbits and legumes to name a few! Participate in our cherry tomato, carrot and melon tastings.
Your feedback helps us choose new varieties!

Early September, RSVP for date

SCHEDULE:
11-1pm BBQ Lunch and Taste testing
1-4pm Osborne Trial Tours

Can't make it to the Invite? Please contact Ada and set up an appointment. We'd love for you to see our trials.

Please RSVP with Ada
Phone: 360-424-7333
E-mail: ada@osborneseed.com

Two complementary romanesco cauliflowers

2011-08-08T12:45:00.000-07:00

Orbit Cauliflower (above)

We have found two good replacements for Veronica! I feel that both of these varieties are an improvement on Veronica. They both mature more uniformly, they tend to be heavier, they are certainly denser, and they both exhibited consistent high quality in our first trial.

Orbit romanesco cauliflower is earlier than Veronica by about 2 weeks. Heads have a medium dome, come on all at once, are a uniform size, are as dense or denser than Veronica, and have a great taste. Average head weight is 1 lb. The wrap is excellent, and there are no leaves in the head. The heads are a very uniform intense green color, and the interior was a creamy green color. The earliness of this variety is it's best characteristic.
26-701

Last year we trialed 26-701 and loved it, but it was not yet ready to go commercial. We are reasonably hopeful that this year we will have seed for sale, and that the breeders will choose a fantastic name.

26-701 is a high quality romanesco cauliflower. The structure is so much denser, and the head is so much heavier, it is worth waiting. Matures a week to two after Veronica. The wrapper leaves are large and tight to the base of the plant, and the bottom florets come down tight with the leaves, giving it more of the classic white cauli base shape when you cut the leaves short. No more strange elongated stalk before the wrap. The lower florets are more protected this way, so less damage will offer when packing for market or shipping. They heads are held moderately high in the plant, with really tall wrapper leaves protecting from sun scald or discoloration. The maturity, side, shape and color were all excellent and very uniform. The taste is good, and the heads are attractive and recognizable as cauliflower.

The kicker is the weight and density. These were an average of 1.5-1.75 lbs per head. You can harvest them smaller, and they hold OK if you want them larger than the 1.75 lb. Veronica averaged 1.3 lbs, but at that stage was a little loose.
The dome is really tall, and the interior is dense, with very few air pockets between florets. This one is a winner.

Left to Right: Veronica, 26-701

By having both varieties, growers can get two crops from one planting date, and get a jump on the market without sacrificing on weight.

Radicchio-available and in trial

2011-07-17T11:13:00.000-07:00

This last winter we offered a handful of new radicchio that we had not seen in trial, after Chris spent some time corresponding with the breeder. Since the quality and breeding were so superior, and we were not offering any more Leonardo, Fiero or Indigo, we offered the new radicchio for trial and purchase.
We have been planting our own trials, three successions so far, and our first trial was ready for evaluation at the end of June.
Here are some of the varieties that were ready:

TV1G

1102

206

Sirio

Mesola

Medio

Leonardo

Indigo

Foglia Lunga

Fiero, bolting

Colognia Precocissimo

Altair

4050

Overwintering Onions- a new red!

2011-07-13T13:50:00.000-07:00

Pretty soon it will be time to plant your overwintering onions. We planted last year at the end of August, and could have been harvesting from late May into July. We took a hard look at our trial at the end of June, and one new variety stood out to us- Desert Sunrise.

At least a 2 1/2 in diameter, Desert Sunrise's flat globe shape makes it look like a big chippolini type. Purplish red outside, good interior, mostly white.
No bolters. Shorter foliage. Nice root system!

Overwintering onions are typically the sweet or keeper types, are grown in Oregon or on the east side of WA, and are sold as fresh or dried down.
We think that the west side of WA could add another item to their market tables and fresh sheets- new overwintered onions.
The root systems tend to be a little more tenacious, you often have a certain amount of winter damage, but if you can have some beautiful fresh onions in late spring it could be worth the gamble.

Our trial was a weedy mess going in and coming out of the winter, but with a little timely cultivation we were able to have good air flow and growth. We thinned in the spring, so the stand went through the winter a little thick. This year we will plant (direct seed) into a well prepared seed bed, and cultivate as late as we can.

We also put in our Walla Walla types, which have had more of a tendency to bolt. But for a white to complement the red, the Walla Wallas are meant for the overwintering slot as well as a fast summer onion.

Organic options

2011-07-12T10:04:00.000-07:00

As Certified Organic growers are receiving more pressure from the WSDA (and NOSB) to purchase organic seed if available, we have been looking for substitutes for the most commonly planted Organic seeds. As always, for improvement, but also as backup, so those growers who feel for whatever reason(s) that they would like to purchase Organic, there is always an option.

For the last two years we have looked at Cultivated Roquette against Astro. They are very interchangeable, the price is similar, and when Astro seed was short this year due to the weather, many Organic growers tried Cultivated Roquette.

Arugula, Cultivated Roquette, Certified Organic

Arugula, Astro, Certified Organic

We are looking for Organic backup subs for the cilantro Santo, the Red Ace type of beet, organic cabbages and Romanesco cauliflower.

We have many Organic Nantes carrot varieties in our early and late carrot trials.

We are looking at a few new organic fennels, zucchini, tomatoes, peppers, radishes and Swiss chard in our trials...

We are re-vamping our Organic Gourmet Lettuce Mix, and trying to source seed for an Organic Aurora Formula Swiss Chard mix.

One of our main focuses this year is new spinach, both for baby leaf and bunching. We always do lots of spinach trials-a s many as we can cram into the growing season- but this year we are looking to fill holes left by two many discontinued varieties: Emilia and Organic Whale.

Violin, an Emilia replacement

Piano, an Emilia replacement

Emilia

Cello, an Emilia replacement

Silverwhale

Goldenwhale

Thunderbolt, Organic

E80.9452,Organic

Corvair, Organic

Trial garden- hard at work

2011-07-08T18:29:00.000-07:00

The trial garden acre on Fir Island, Steve rototilling on one of his tractors

Everything has exploded overnight with the sun, and we were lucky to get a (almost) soaking rainfall this last week, allowing us to mostly hold off on Operation Irrigation.

This year we are cultivating a dense acre on Fir Island, with additions of some smaller parcels and lots of grower trials (thanks everyone! looking forward to evaluating with you and hearing your feedback).

The acre is the heart of our trialing program, where we are able to see hundreds of new varieties every year, and test them against ones we already know to be quality for this area.

Everyone has been hard at work, and the mass of our evaluations and pictures are already making our computers strain. We will keep updating you on our results as we analyze them.

Jose tying up the pole bean trellis, hard at work.

This year, as always, we are trying to make our growing techniques as similar to yours as possible- more mechanical cultivation is in the works this year, and less long-term reemay covering (we are betting against the cabbage maggot here). We built another unheated hoophouse for tomato production. Most of our irrigation is overhead, the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants are all on drip.

This year we decided to keep all tomatoes under plastic (to avoid the blight), and all peppers and eggplants outside (to keep them from going too vegetative).

We did not get an application of compost on the main acre this year, but we did disk in a nice rye-vetch cover crop. We are fertilizing with a 9-3-4 NPK all-purpose granulated fertilizer called Nature's Intent. The ground we are farming on is not Certified Organic since we sometimes use treated seed, but we do everything according to the certification regs except for using only untreated seed. Some of this ground is new to us this year, opened up from pasture this spring. Some of it is the land we have been cropping on for three years. We are careful to keep trials on either side of the line, or note when we cannot.

If you are a farmer and want to know some specifics about a trial, or would like to see results through pictures or in person, please give us a call.

Steve and his John Deere, early cultivation.

Early green cabbages compared

2011-07-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

Early green cabbages were not so early this year. We should have planted them a little earlier, but we never would have got them in the ground any sooner than we did. Sigh.

We wanted to compare some of the earliest small green cabbages' performances with as much stress as we could provide (the cold, wet, wintry, low fertility kind of stress).

We planted them in 72's on 3/23/11 and transplanted them out on 5/4/11. We harvested on 6/27/11. Three months, which is normal for this time of year, they would be much faster if grown in the summer months, though this is their time to shine.

This type of fresh green tender cabbage is why people are buying cabbage again. Sweet, low sulphur, it can be subbed for lettuce if that is your preference. Small heads are ideal for smaller households. They can be planted closer together, getting more per foot at harvest time. They can be shipped, but are pretty tender, and can bruise. They also do not hold in the field; a huge rainfall can cause cracking, one way to prevent this is close deep cultivation as the heads are forming- cut off some of those water-sucking roots. The best response is to harvest them on time.

Jetma

Jetma (above) had a narrow, medium sized core. The heads were much bigger, weighing in at 2.75 lbs average. The outer leaf was slightly frilled. A nice dark green color, with a good yellow creamy interior. Really uniform appearance in the trial. The biggest and earliest. Pretty round, slightly oval shape. This one continues to be the fastest and biggest, but not the densest.

Fast Vantage

Fast Vantage

Fast Vantage (above) is smooth, uniform, with no splitting at all in the trial. It was the same shape and size as Surprise. The core was more tender, which made harvesting easier. There is some purpling on the outer wrap. Denser than Jetma, but not as large. Average 2 lbs. During the height of the summer, the shape becomes more elongated, as does Surprise.

Surprise (we will no longer be carrying this variety)

The densest heads, very round, medium green. Some splitting, some purpling. It easily bruised. Average 2-2.5 lbs.

We believe Jetma and Fast Vantage are both good substitutes for the early slots.

Brussel Sprouts- crop highlight

2011-07-01T17:10:00.000-07:00

It is a at the very tail end of when you could plant Brussels sprouts and get a crop, but we still wanted to do a variety highlight from our trial last year. These Brussels sprouts came through our deadly winter (that ate everything else without remorse) looking gorgeous and bug free. So think about it for next year, Red Ball Brussels sprouts would make a splash however and whenever you sell them.

We started them in 72 cell trays on 6/9/10, and transplanted them out on 7/12/10. We kept them covered for a month or so to try and thwart the cabbage maggot flies, though they were somewhat victorious in taking down some plants with their last flight of the summer. These pictures were taken on 3/18/11.

We say the days to maturity is 150 days, earlier planting would be needed to get these that quickly and in the fall. But if you need something for the early spring, you might want to gamble with Red Ball.

Overwintering Cauliflower Report

2011-05-26T13:01:00.000-07:00

We are not going to have Overwintering Cauliflower seed for sale this year. We hate to do this to our customers, but we are not able to provide you with the Bejo varieties that we have before, and we are not yet confident in the new varieties we are trialing to sell them to our grower customers.

Last fall we had a promising overwintering cauliflower block on our trial ground, and numerous other trials with growers in the area. We got hit with a hard freeze two days before Thanksgiving, and the February freeze just finished us off, killed all our grower trials, along with melting much of the cabbage seed crops in the Skagit Valley. So an unusually devastating winter for overwintering brassicas. None of our standards or new varieties made it through with enough of a stand to evaluate.

However, we are going to persevere, and this summer will put in another comprehensive trial in order to get the results we need to be able to say with confidence that these cauliflowers have the ability to be an economic plus.

What can you do in the meanwhile? We have a limited amount of sample seed, in you are interested in doing a trial, please give Jules a call and together we will figure out what slots you are looking for.

OW cauliflower seed is still available out there, and the sooner you jump on it the better.
Logan Zenner Seed Company carries some of the varieties we have carried, and there are other sources as well.

Stick with us, keep checking in, and we will be back online with over wintering cauliflower soon, hopefully for the 2012 planting season.

Radicchio observation trial

2011-05-20T17:14:00.000-07:00

T & T 1102, and Sirio

We are watching our radicchio trial with interest...we have more varieties than you can shake a stick at, and we are going to look at them in all the different slots throughout the season. Here are a few pictures of a few of our young radicchios:

Mesola and Fiero

Indigo and Colognia Precosimo

Medio and Altair

Baby Leaf Mustards

2011-05-18T17:33:00.000-07:00

Here are a few of the new mustards we are growing out. We are not sure which ones we are going to carry, so I am not attaching the names. We still have to consider seed cost and shipping costs so that our customers are getting a good deal. Just know that you will see these show up in our mixes and catalog next year. If there is something you are really interested in, give us a call. Here they are at the babyleaf stage:

Trial report May 2011

2011-05-16T07:46:00.000-07:00

We are leaping into another season of trialing whether the weather is with us or no. Although reality has pushed our planting dates back some, we try really hard to be planting as early and as late in the season as possible, to match our farmer customers' expanding planting window. Even though it is so cold and wet, I am always amazed at the plants' will to survive and thrive.

In the ground so far:

a new hoop house filled with tomatoes;
eggplants and peppers under short hoops, slitted plastic and floating row cover;
TONS of early and mid season brassicas;
a large red, yellow and cipollini storage onion trial, and a sweet onion trial;
overwintering onions that are pulling through;
radiches;
radicchios, fennel, endive, scallions;

too many lettuces, but who can resist?

lots of new fun salad mix combos;

new mustards, swiss chards, spinaches;
kale, sprouting broccoli, and parsley.

Yet to come up, but we are hopeful:
an early nantes carrot trial (we will do a storage carrot trial as well);
lots of new colored carrots;
red bunching beet trial;
some new promising shelling peas;
and much much more!

Soon to go in: pumpkins, squash, leeks, celery, celeriac, beans, corn, etc.

Green Lettuce trial watching for bottom rot

The beginning of an edible landscape

2011-04-28T11:15:00.000-07:00

Ready to try something different for your front yard? So are we! This year, instead of packing our planting beds with annual flowers, we're using that space as a home for the beautiful edible varieties that we never get tierd of seeing. So far, we've got a colorful display of lettuce--red romaine, green romaine, frilly red leaf and more.

More decorative edibles will be coming soon. We're planning to plant radicchio, winter squash, pole beans, kale and more! If you're in the neighborhood or stopping by to pick up a seed order, be sure to take a look. Otherwise, we'll keep you updated here on the blog and on our Facebook page with new pictures throughout the summer.

Brokali information

2011-04-05T10:28:00.000-07:00

This year we are offering two new Brokali varieties to supply the growing demand for sprouting broccoli.
Here is some information from the tech sheets from the breeders:

Species: BROKALI
Variety: 'APOLLO'
Family: Brassicaceae
Class: Broccoli cross
Sowing Time: March-May
Sowing Depth (Cms): 1
Sowing Distance (Cms): 45
Plant Height (Cms): 45
Plant Breadth (Cms): 45
Row Width (Cms): 60

Variety Description & Unique Selling Points:
Apollo is the product of a cross between European broccoli and Chinese broccoli normally called Kailan. Kailan and European broccoli was selected from similar wild plants and developed in different countries for different markets. Harvest the main head 70-80 days after planting and then side shoots follow. The stem is easy to eat, tender and tasty. Apollo has slightly longer stems than Atlantis. Side shoots develop after the main head has been taken.

Sowing and Germination:
Germ Temperature: 16 deg. C (60 deg. F)
Growing on Temperature: 16 deg. C (60 deg. F)
Sowing to harvesting (Days): 70-80 days from planting.

Nutrition/ Vitamin Content: Broccoli contains large amounts of vitamin C and beta carotene which are important antioxidants.

Pest & Disease Resistance(s): Tolerance to natural and to soil borne diseases.

Any Other Cultural & Technical Information:
To get a larger number of side shoots increase the plant size and cut the main head to encourage branching.

Species: BROKALI
Variety: ‘ATLANTIS’
Botanical Name: Brassica oleracea. Italica
Family: Brassicaceae
Class: broccoli cross
Sowing Time: March-May
Sowing Depth (Cms): 1
Sowing Distance (Cms): 45
Plant Height (Cms): 45
Plant Breadth (Cms): 45
Row Width (Cms): 60

Variety Description & Unique Selling Points:
Atlantis is the product of a cross between European broccoli and Chinese broccoli normally called Kailan. Kailan and European broccoli was selected from similar wild plants and developed in different countries for different markets. Harvest the main head is 60-70 days after planting and then side shoots follow as conditions allow. The stem is easy to eat, very tender and tasty. Atlantis is the earliest of the range and tends to give the biggest head with slightly thicker spears.

Sowing and Germination:
Germ Temperature: 16 deg. C (60 deg. F)
Growing on Temperature: 16 deg. C (60 deg. F)
Sowing to harvesting (Days): 60-70 days from planting.

Nutrition/ Vitamin Content: Broccoli contains large amounts of vitamin C and beta carotene which are important antioxidants.

Pest & Disease Resistance(s): Tolerance to natural and to soil borne diseases.

Any Other Cultural & Technical Information:
To get a larger number of side shoots grow to increase plant size and cut the main head to encourage branching.

The above recommendations are based mainly on the breeders experience in overseas growing conditions. No liability can be given for their application and use, which will depend on the adaptation to local conditions and phytosanitary regula tions.

Atlantis (left) vs. Apollo (right)

New celery that has an Organic coating

2011-03-24T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last year we grew out a few new celeries...and TZ 6200 was the nicest looking. Our growers were asking for a coated celery that is compliant with Organic Certification, so we ordered some of this in.

Here is the description:
TZ 6200: A very attractive hybrid, mid to dark green celery with uniform, long smooth petioles and a high knuckle height and a high yield potential 85 – 90 day maturity.

Price:
½ m 1 m 5 m 25 m 100 m 250 m
6.50 11.25 9.80 8.75 7.35 7.00

This is the only celery we have that is OK for Certified Organic growers.

Golden Gate Bean- all about the flavor

2011-03-24T11:59:00.000-07:00

Last summer we must have had over 40 varieties of beans in our trials, and we ate a lot of raw beans, cooked beans, young beans, not too many old beans...
Golden Gate was in the middle of a long line of pole beans, surrounded by a sea of bush beans, but I still found myself wading out there a few times a day just for half a dozen to eat.
This bean was all about the taste- nutty, sweet, good crunch, buttery texture.

A beautiful and prolific flat wax pole bean. Uniform Romano-type beans turn yellow at 5 inches and are still tender at 10 inches long. The open plant habit makes harvest easy. Delicious both raw and cooked. 60-65 days. Resistance to V1.

Stringless vs. Regular Sugar Snap Peas

2011-03-14T08:16:00.000-07:00

Sugar Snap Peas-which one to choose?

Sugar Snap peas (edible pod pea/snap pea) are one of the early spring staples for market (and a few wholesale) growers…but they are not always a snap to grow. Here is some further information that may help you make an educated choice on varieties that will fit your operation.

(Pisum sativum var. macrocarpon) is the Latin name, and they differ from snow peas (snaps have fatter rounder sweeter pods) and shelling English peas (snaps have edible pods, smaller tender peas, do not have membrane, and don’t open when ripe).

Varieties have various differences: length of vines; degree of clinging tendrils which help with trellising or self trellising; number of peas per pod (usually 3 to 5); curve of pod; disease resistance; ability to produce in the heat; number of pods per node and ease of release; texture; holding ability; and of course, flavor.

One of the biggest differences is whether peas are stringy or stringless. Stringy peas need to have the top snapped and the string pulled down similar to a string bean. I can attest that this can be done at good speed with one hand and your teeth while driving, or whenever you only have one hand available (like while harvesting).
Stringless peas range from ‘almost’ stringless to ‘virtually’ stringless to ‘truly’ stringless. These do not need to have the string pulled off to eat the whole pod.

The decision between stringy and stringless would seem clear cut, except here is where it gets complicated and growers need to choose based on their growing conditions, practices and end-product needs.

• You know how snow peas have round seeds, and snap peas tend to have wrinkled seeds? Well round seeds germinate faster and more reliably than wrinkled seed. So the degree of wrinkledness matters.
• Also, size of the seed matters. Sweet Ann, which is truly stringless, has much smaller seed than Super Sugar Snap, which I believe will often indicate a slower germ with a smaller sprout. Both are wrinkled seed.
• But here is the kicker: Stringless pea seeds are slower to germinate, and when they do germ the seed leeks a solute into the soil that attracts pathogens, which can take the pea seed down. Breeding seems to be all about compromises: the plants with the best disease resistance or vigor may not have that succulent tender fruit.
• Stringless peas also outcross more readily than stringy- so you are more likely to see off types in stringless varieties. This happened a few years ago in the Sweet Ann.
• Stringless peas are weaker in the heat, so plant stringless for your early and a stringy for your later spring succession.
• The shorter the plants, the earlier they tend to produce: Sugar Anne and Sugar Sprint are some of the shortest plants, with little interest in trellising, but they produce earlier.

How much does it matter to you and your customers whether there are strings on their peas? It can be easier to convince new customers to buy if they can eat the whole pod with no work, and there is certainly the ongoing trend pushing us towards more and more convenience in our food. Kids can get really excited about something that they can eat without tricky string pulling…but then some customers find the stringy peas to have better flavor and larger pods.

All our varieties are chosen based on taste and overall production quality.

STRINGY varieties we carry:

Sugar Flash- new this year! Really good flavor at end of spring harvest. The three of us who tasted thought it had a better flavor, by just a hair, than Sweet Ann. This could also be due to maturity timing.

Sugar Ann- Organic seed available, as well as conventional. One of the earliest, with a great flavor. Susceptible to PEMV- Pea enation mosaic virus (puckering leaf, window pane pattern of light through leaves, bumps and light spots on pods, irregular pod shapes). Plants are susceptible when the weather turns hot.

CMG 414E- a little later maturing, but a great disease package. Resistant to Fusarium Wilt race 1, Powdery Mildew, and PEMV. Similar to the much-missed Mega.

Super Sugar Snap- This one must be trellised. In fertile soil, it will take all the trellis height you give it, and grow back downward after it runs out of stake and string far above your head. An improvement on Sugar Snap, it matures a few days later, grows about a foot taller, but has a higher yield and more disease tolerance. Not resistant to PEMV, but the high and prolonged yields, ease and speed of harvesting, and long straight beautiful pods can be worth the wait and the work of trellising.

STRINGLESS varieties we carry:

Sweet Ann- mid season maturity, first blooms at the 14-15th node; medium green, shiny pods are uniformly set on a short plant that is well suited for mechanical harvest (with a bean harvester). Disease resistance include downy mildew, powdery mildew, Fusarium wilt (race 1), and bean yellow mosaic virus.

Sugar Sprint-Almost stringless (you still don’t need to remove them), and pretty early at 61 days. Dark green pods, and good Powdery Mildew resistance.

Sugar Prince-Stringless short vine, one of the later ones to mature, meant for mid season (early to mid summer). Medium sized pods, with good powdery mildew resistance which is essential as it gets dry and hot.

New Hybrid Leeks

2011-03-07T08:14:00.000-08:00

This last summer there was high rust pressure due to the unusual weather. All the wheat farmers struggled with it in the Skagit, it took down some garlic crops, and showed up on the leeks.
Our trial leeks were started on 4/19 and transplanted into marginal soil that was more like mud on June 10th. Most of the varieties in the observation plot were fall and winter leeks. The garlic a few rows down was hit pretty hard by the rust, and we pulled it for fresh rather than trying to store it.
A few of the leek varieties succumbed to the rust, to varying degrees (from gross to you-could-clean-that-one-up), which made the ones that were very resistant stand out.

The summer and early fall leaks were hit the hardest, which I would expect since some of them were already into their bolting/reproduction phase, and vulnerable. Many of the late fall and winter leeks were experimental varieties that are still in breeding, so there was some disparity throughout that section.

A few of the fall and winter leeks looked fantastic, and there was none to slight rust on the tips of their leaves. As you can tell, they are all from the same breeding program.

Early summer leek-plant February/March, harvest June through September
Megaton F1
This was in our plot, but I misjudged the slot for it, and viewed it as a fall/winter leek when it is really for the summer. It did not stand out as a variety that was succumbing to the rust, which I noted at the time, but beyond that I did not do a thorough evaluation of it in the right slot. Due to the superior genetics this breeding line is showing, we felt confident that this hybrid could fill the slot of Lancia, which we are no longer carrying.

Belton F1

Autumn leek-plant March/April, harvest September to December
Belton F1
Belton matured mid fall, and showed no rust spots at the time. Later, past its prime, it did get rust, but by then it was out of its harvest slot. Really dark green blue foliage, medium to long length white shanks, HEAVY. If you are looking for a leek that will size up earlier in the winter, go with Belton.

Kenton (left), Ashton (right); Kenton

Late winter/early spring leek-plant March/April, harvest December onwards depending on weather
Kenton F1
This is the replacement for Ashton, from the same breeder. We harvested these from our plot in January, and they were beautiful. They rode through that devastating Thanksgiving freeze which took down many cabbage seed crops and our overwintering cauliflower. Kenton never showed any rust damage, even though it was in the contaminated block throughout the whole season. Really straight foliage, dark green blue leaves, longer shank than Belton. Held much longer in the cold.

Experimental varieties, not yet commercial

Experimental varieties, not yet commercial

We are now planning (and starting) a large leek observation plot for this coming summer and next winter, so stay tuned for more information. This year all of the varieties are commercial, and are correctly allocated to their slots.
We also have some strip trials and observation plots with growers as well (thank you!), where we are looking at these hybrids, other hybrids, and quite a few open pollinated (and cheaper) leeks.

Babyleaf Lettuce trial plans

2011-02-24T16:19:00.000-08:00

This summer we are planning on doing a comprehensive babyleaf lettuce observation trial. We will be planting out every lettuce that we know that does well as a babyleaf, along with tons of new samples from different companies. We will be looking at speed of growth, how upright the leaf grows, bolting and disease tolerance, and how it grows after being cut about 2" off the ground.

Color, shape, durability, taste, structure of the leaf...all will play a part in our decision. Cost will also impact our decisions. We are going to offer more babyleaf varieties, a fuller line with more information. We hope that this helps you choose your lettuces with ease if you are creating your own mix. We are also going to revamp our Gourmet Mix, and probably create a few more mixes that will be unique!

Look for future information similar to what is posted below. Any other information you would find helpful? Give us a call or send us an email, and thanks!

Lettuce, Ruby Sky, babyleaf
Nice thick texture, frilled edges, clean rib. Red is on the outer ruffles, does not come down the stem. Glossy, durable, with a good crunch even as a baby leaf. Quick growth, very upright, slow to bolt in the heat or long days. A good standard in a mix, a nice, colorful backdrop for flashier leaves. UNTREATED SEED WITH A CERTIFIED ORGANIC PELLET. DM 1-17,21,23; Nr; LMV.

Lettuce, Ruby Sky, full head:
Batavian red leaf with glossy maroon leaf margins. The inner leaves are a very intense deep red. Ribs are clean. Ruby Sky is a vigorous grower with uniform shape and nicely blistered leaf surface. Pliable texture. Good shelf life. UNTREATED SEED WITH A CERTIFIED ORGANIC PELLET. DM 1-17,21,23; Nr; LMV. Medium Red, 60-65 days.

http://www.osborneseed.com/catalog_view.cfm?submitted=yes&selectcat=24&selecttype=Red Leaf

Corn Salad- when you are craving fresh in February

2011-02-22T13:04:00.000-08:00

By the time we get to the end of February, most of us are more than ready for some crisp fresh greens. Kales, collards leeks and some hardy brassicas are what is left locally now….but we really want something a bit more juicy and spring like. Enter: corn salad (also known as mache). Looking at the small dark green rosette you wonder how it survived our 15˚F cold spells when many of the sturdier “winterhardy” veggies did not. I do not know the answer but I know it is true. Planted early last September the corn salad in our office trial garden is ready to harvest.

What a treat! Just add a nice citrusy vinaigrette, some finely chopped onions and you have a garden fresh salad in February. Plant corn salad in late summer to early fall or in early spring. It does not like heat. Plants are ready to harvest in about 55 to 65 days from spring sowing. We carry several varieties – check our on line catalog.

-Chris Osborne

Also, check out our Scarlet Letter lettuce- grown in a cloche on the south side of the building! These were our thinnings on February 22nd.

Notes from The Growers School and Everyday Flowers

2011-02-15T16:51:00.001-08:00

Seeds…Insider Info

Where does seed come from?

How much seed do I need?

Seed Selection.

Seed storage and care.

Seed buyers’rights.

Seed is produced all over the world with the bulk of it produced in Europe and Asia. Very little flower seed is produced in the U.S. For many of the large seed producers, cut flower seed is just a fraction of their profits and therefore very little time and money is spent on the breeding and innovation of cut flowers. It is left up to us the flower growers to choose and trial varieties that might ultimately make good cut flowers.
When deciding how much seed to purchase you can be very general and just buy what’s available or be more precise and figure out the amount using a little math. Let’s say you want two 100 foot rows of zinnias. Here is the math, the length of the row divided by the number of plants you ultimately want in the row. So if you have 200 feet, with one plant every 12 inches you will need 200 plants, simple right? You should purchase approximately 20% more seed than you need to take into account problems that may arise. In this case you should purchase at least
220 seeds.

When selecting seed, choose a reputable seed company (such as Osborne Seed) whenever possible, get to know a representative or sales person that you can work with and feel comfortable asking questions. I would caution you to never buy rack seed packets. Not only is it expensive but the seed quality is sometimes suspect. If the packet is stamped “packed for the 2011 season”, that does not necessarily mean that the seed was grown for the 2011 season. When ever possible find out what the current germination rate is for the seed, this will help you to know what to expect from the seed when planted.

If you don’t use all of the seed that you have purchased for a season, save it for the next, if you have purchased good quality seed with a good germ it should certainly be good for a couple of years. You should know that heat and excessive light will kill your seed. Never leave your seed in a greenhouse or hot garage, or outside where it may become wet. The best way to store your seeds is in an air tight container, in a cool dry location. Freezing your seed is not necessary.

The last thing Iwould like to leave you with is your rights as a seed buyer. You have the right to expect good and reasonable germination from your seeds. If you experience a failure of the seeds that you feel was not caused by something you might have done, contact your seed supplier. In most cases they will work with you to make it right, possibly replacing the seed or maybe a refund of your money.

Buying the seeds is the easy part, now comes the work…

-by Vivian Larson, EveryDay Flowers

Chris waxes poetic on celeriac...seen in the Skagit and Holland

2011-02-15T16:39:00.000-08:00

Celeriac is relatively unknown and much undervalued in North America. In Europe, it is a delicious staple used in soups, stews and salads; similar to uses for stalk celery but with a more refined flavor. Best planted in plugs in February and March for transplanting in April and May. PRINZ is truly a prince among celeriac- smooth heavy roots, crisp savory flesh, excellent uniformity of size and shape. Bolt tolerant. Held well into late fall in Skagit trials.

More Certified Organic seed coming soon!

2011-01-31T20:37:00.000-08:00

We’ve been hearing from a lot of growers lately about the pressure they’re getting from their organic inspectors to purchase more certified organic seed. We know that in order for you to buy the organic seeds from Osborne Seed Company, we’ve got to have them available. I’m writing this blog update to let you know of the progress that we’re making in this regard. In the next few weeks and months, we’ll be adding quite a few new organic items to our line-up. Here are a few of the highlights:

Beans:
Concesa
Maxibel
Provider

Cucumbers:
Calypso
Lemon
Marketmore 76

Peas:
Oregon Sugar Pod II
Progress #9
Sugar Ann
Peppers:
Hungarian Hot Wax

Pumpkins:
Cushaw Green Striped
Jack Be Little
Jarrahdale

Radishes:
French Breakfast
Squash:
Buttercup Burgess
Swiss Chard:
Orange Ribbed
Ruby Red
Watermelon:
Sugar Baby

Also noteworthy is our selection of Certified Organic lettuces, herbs and cover crops.

We’ll be continuing this effort throughout the growing season and it is spurring us to explore new avenues in terms of organic seed suppliers. The challenge is to find a balance between offering as many certified organic options as possible while maintaining our high standards for seed quality and variety performance. Rest assured, we are working our hardest to source and stock the certified organic varieties that will keep you, your inspectors and your customers happy. Our organic transformation is clearly a work in progress and it is one that our growers influence greatly. We thank you for your loyalty and the part you play in making us a more organic seed dealer!

Organic varieties

2011-01-13T08:30:00.000-08:00

Our website is under construction, and the new one will have better services for Certified Organic growers. We hope to have useful lists/searches for organic varieties that will make finding Organic varieties available a breeze. For now, our Organic availability is posted under the Community header on our website, http://www.osborneseed.com/organic_growers.cfm and available if you want by email...just let me know and I will send it to you. jules@osborneseed.com
Farm on!

NEW VARIETIES we think you should try (Onions to Tomatoes)

2011-01-11T17:00:00.000-08:00

More info about the new varieties we are offering this year! Scroll down to find the first two installations in our informative alphabetic journey

Onion, Cyprus

ONIONS: The world of onions is a strange and wondrous place, so let's not go too far down that rabbit hole. We are very fortunate to have a wealth of knowledge in house- Ron Hull, working in Eastern Washington, and answering all our onion questions. Combining Ron's knowledge about onions that work well on both sides of the mountains, and the accumulated information available for growing West side onions, gets us where we need to go.

In 2011 two major onions important to western WA are not going to be available from Osborne Seed Co...Copra (which is being discontinued) and Redwing/Redbull (we are no longer going to be carrying Bejo varieties). There are a few replacements, but 2010 was a hard year to grow anything, and there were quite a few onion and carrot seed crops that were not as productive or did not produce at all. Bummer for everyone.

So onions and carrots may be hard to get, please put your orders in early whenever possible.
But...we do have some exciting substitutes!
Instead of Copra, we are suggesting Cyprus, Joliet, and Pontiac.

These varieties should grow and behave almost identical to what we have experienced with Copra. All are hard globes, similar maturity and storability, with as good or better size potential.

Cyprus should respond very similar to Copra with some potential for better size.

Joliet will definitely give a better size and still be in the same maturity class-100to 105-day, good for storage with brown skin with good retention.

Pontiac should also give a little better size.
It is a long day onion with glossy copper brown on an extremely firm bulb. High percentage of single centers. Pontiac has high/standard resistance to pink root and Fusarium.

Onion, Red Devil

As for red onions, those of you who grow Redwing or Red Bull, an earlier red called Cabernet would be a good choice. 100 days to maturity, deep red color, pretty good storability and an earlier harvest.
Red Devil would also be a good choice, 115-118 days (a little longer, but still earlier than Redwing) and you get jumbo, slightly flattened bulbs with a dark red interior and exterior. It claims a high percentage of single-centered onions that are uniform with long storage. It has a good tolerance to Pink Root and a high tolerance to bolting.

As for Red Emperor, the one highlighted in out catalog, there was a seed crop failure, and none is to be had...good thing there is Cabernet.

Snow Pea, Horizon

Snow Peas, L to R: OSP II and Sweet Horizon

PEAS: There are two new peas available through us this year, one sugar snap and one snow.

Sweet Horizon was a really nice surprise, and a find in a snow pea. We trialed this against Oregon Sugar Pod II, once really early and once mid spring. Both times Sweet Horizon was a few days to a week later than OSP II, but the yield was better and the quality was through the roof. Darker, straighter pods got us really excited.

Sugar Flash is really early, yet with a mid spring planting it yielded lots of heavy pods. Flavor was really the deal here, and strong root systems with well segmented node attachments at the top of the pea- they were easy to snap upward, and the whole plant did not pull out of the ground. These were compared to Sweet Anne.

PEPPERS:
New peppers this year are small, which although we have not seen them on the west side of the mountain, bodes well for getting them to ripen over here in our maritime climate.
HMX 6641 and 6642- large jalapeno shaped peppers that are sweet and bright...6641 is orange, 6642 is red, grow them together and your market customers won't ask you if they are jalapenos...and you can always surprise them by saying, "yeah, really hot" and eating one on the spot. No heat to these babies.

Radicchio Sirio, and Cologna

Radicchio T & T 4050 and Cologna Precossimo

RADICCHIO:
There are 6 new radicchio, here is the information we have for them:

TREVISO type
Mesola- Treviso 75 days
T & T 306 (also called Baldo) Treviso type. Excellent for cold storage. 110 days

ROUND
Sirio- 65 day round, early planting, spring (protected) and early fall. 300 grams. Compact head and brilliant color. Average weight 10 ounces.
T & T 4050 -95 day, round, very uniform. Early fall cultivation. Green outer leaves. 14 oz. Very uniform in color and size. Good bolt tolerance
Altair- 100 day round

CONICAL
Cologna Precossimo- 60-65 day conical (round/Treviso cross). Suitable for early spring production, harvest May through June.
Cologna Medio- 95-100 day conical (round/Treviso cross). Excellent bolt tolerance and brilliant head color.

They are coming out of Italy, we currently have them as pelleted untreated seed.

RADISH

Amethyst is our new purple radish, and what an improvement it is. Still not as uniform as the hybrid reds, it made nice bulbs and was fast to grow. Medium tops, lots of growth, but not overwhelming.

Red Velvet is our new red. We chose it out of a 15 variety trial, as the most uniform, prettiest, and best holder.

WINTER SQUASH

Every grown Speckled Hound? Some green striping/mottling on pink skin, shaped somewhere between a flat pumpkin and a buttercup. Color wins out over flavor on this one, but it is not bad and would make a good soup or pie. Well, Speckled Pup is its little cousin. Orange rather than pink, with a hard rind and lots of variety in coloring. Much more similar in shape to a buttercup (a little smaller than Sweet Mama), and very heavy.

Most of the fruit was held within a foot of the center of the bush, while vines without fruits spread out. It was not the most uniform in color and ripeness, but size and shape were uniform, and there is something beautiful about its diversity.

SWISS CHARD

Intense is a very beautiful red Swiss chard...at baby leaf stage the petioles were the longest, the color went down the stems the furthest, and the size and shape were the most uniform. As a bunching chard, it was exactly like Rhubarb- same degree of savoyed leaves, bright red stems and bolting tolerance.

TOMATO

Missing Early Cascade? Well, Zuchello is not a replacement, but it is somewhere between the size and flavor of Early Cascade and cherry tomato Sweethearts. Super productive, these little plums were always disappearing from the hoophouse. The harvest was a trickle, then a rush, and each week we got huge harvests, for many weeks in a row. Success!

Carrot comments from Colony Creek Farm

2011-01-11T11:08:00.000-08:00

As the new year begins, I'm checking the undercover outdoor plantings of lettuce and spinach here at Osborne and starting to plan my seed order. Carrots are at the top of my list because I will not be planting Mokum this year largely due to who the supplier is and my personal philosophy of not rewarding bad behavior (corporate or otherwise). It will make quite a change for me because I'm one of those growers who grew Mokum all season long. From the early sweet baby carrots right on through the summer, until mid to late September when colder nights enhanced its sweetness and told me it was time to start harvesting winter squash. I loved it for its taste and hated it for its weak tops and brittleness.

Sweet Baby Jane

Adios, Mokum, there are new carrots on my order list. They include: Sweet Baby Jane (which I grew this year and thought they were wonderful- from the smallest to the largest sizes), Invicta, and Maestro. Invicta looks like a nice main season carrot and Maestro tastes like wonderful late season carrots should.

-Debbie

Carrots, Maestro and Invicta

NEW VARIETIES we think you should try (Fennel to Melons)

2010-12-10T09:05:00.000-08:00

In our continued effort to pair the right variety with the right grower (kind of like a dating service), we will continue to expound on the new varieties we have to offer this year. Here are the details that would not fit in the catalog...straight from our trials to you.

FENNEL: Finale, Romy, Fedro, Estruco: these are all new varieties to us and we encourage you to trial them. We have not seen these in a field situation, but they are supposed to be heavy, round bulbing types. Check out the descriptions in the catalog!

Fennel, Finale

BASIL: Dolly and Nufar: Both of these varieties are Fusarium wilt resistant. Dolly is a Genovese type (long, slightly more slender leaves that tend to point downward), while Nufar is an Italian Large Leaf type (broad, perky leaves that stick out more than down). Both of these varieties were super prolific...with many more stems when compared to traditional Genovese and Italian Large Leaf. Nufar in particular was very outward spreading, and was one of the only in the trial with no sunburning on the top leaves. Neither were particullary cold tolerant.

Genovese, Nufar and Dolly

Dolly and Nufar (placed on red plastic, not grown in plastic...)

ARUGULA: Astro vs. Cultivated Roquette: There was a crop failure on the Organic Astro this year, but luckily we were doing arugula trial after arugula trial this summer. Cultivated Roquette is Organic, and it acted just the same as the Astro...but the leaves looked more uniform to me. We will still have untreated Astro, but the Cultivated Roquette is not too pricey and looked beautiful and tasted mild.

Cultivated Roquette, Organic

KOHLRABI: Aventino: a new Kohlrabi that is similar to Eder, but stood out in our trials as very upright, clean, and sporting a long lower stem...easiser to cut! Whether you snip, chop or just get frustrated and yank the whole think off, the hope with Aventino is that you won't have to dull your sharp implement of choice in the soil when you remove the roots. It had very flexible stems as well, ideal for bunching and packing more to a box.

Aventino

LETTUCE: One Cut's: Multigreen and Multired: There has been a lot of focus on mini lettuces lately, and they are certainly all aimed at the consumer...but they take less land to grow if you are going by count, and a premium price might be possible...For people that like a smaller head of lettuce that is really high quality, with the added benefit of one nifty cut giving you tons of little leaves. Chefs might get behind this.

Multired, Multigreen

LEEK: Rami Organic, Belton and Kenton:

Three new leeks that each have a different slot. Rami is an organic summer variety that would be a good sub if you are used to Lancia Organic. Belton and Kenton were very rust-resistant in our trial, which was plauged with rust. Belton is a substitute for Bandit, although it is not currently available as organic (we are eternally hopefull). Kenton is the next generation of Ashton, which is being discontinued. Kenton looks very good in our trial right now, when most of the varieties have succumbed to that early hard freeze we had.

Rami, Belton

Leek, Kenton

MELON: Tirreno: Seen in trials on the east side of the mountains, but tasted by everyone who could get thier hands on one. This Tuscan melon is bright, refined and delicious with high Brix. And it is Organic!

Tirreno

Cold weather, warm thoughts from Colony Creek Farm

2010-12-03T13:34:00.000-08:00

When outdoor conditions are mostly dark and rainy I start planning my warm weather crops (the budget won't stretch to Costa Rica or Cuba this winter!).

Supermarconi bean

Beans. I love beans. Since I only eat them in season (no canned or frozen, thank you) I need to eat a lot of them in the summer. My favorites are pole beans. Both for flavor and ease of picking. My back likes them too. Not that I'm old, just seasoned. My all time favorite is Super Marconi. I think I've grown it about seven seasons. I especially like it in October when I'm tired of bending and all the beans are up at the top! I'm a fan of Malibu also. They are like a good Blue Lake for flavor but have a more consistent quality. No, they're not slim, dark green, and chi chi. They're sturdy and taste really good. Speaking of taste...try Fortex. At first, they're a heavenly long and straight bean. Then they start to curl at the ends and look a little wonky (technical term). But, to die for taste. Unfortunately, they seem to get rust at my farm. Next year, I plan to add Golden Gate to my pole bean line up. It was super early and a very tender tasty bean. Even good raw.

Golden Gate and Malibu

My other favorite warm weather crops are melons and watermelons. I grow Goddess and Tiny Orchid. Surprisingly, this past summer the Goddess matured. My CSA and market customers were in a little bit of heaven for two weeks. In 2009, the Tiny Orchid actually matured before the Goddess. For about three and a half weeks I was one happy farmer.

Tiny Orchid and Goddess

Grower Showcase: Phat Jack pumpkin

2010-11-23T10:49:00.000-08:00

Steve Radich grows Giant Pumpkins, pumpkins and squash, and a little (or a lot) of everything else. He is part of the Osborne trial team, and plants some of Osborne's trials in his fields. Steve grows right outside Mount Vernon on the Skagit flats.

This year, he planted a Phat Jack pumpkin plant and grew it along with his Giant pumpkins. He gave it a load of manure, a mix of fertilizer, and provided protection over the transplant for the first month. After that, he left it alone.

The one Phat Jack plant gave 14 pumpkins on one vine. The largest are 50 to 80 lbs, the smallest around 20 lbs. They all have changed from green to orange, which is not something you are seeing all over the valley this year. There are a lot of green pumpkins out there.

Steve says that he did nothing special with them this year, but next year he plans to give them a little extra care to see what he can coax out of the plants.

He picked the Phat Jack for this experiment because he liked the good color and the large handle.

Giant Pumpkin, Josue with Phat Jack

Winter Squash trial and taste test results

2010-11-23T08:23:00.000-08:00

Our 2010 squash trials focused on 3 main types: buttercup, butternut and acorn. There were a few other miscellaneous varieties tossed in, with standards in their class to compare against.

Our butternut trial was not pretty...too slow, too late, with not much yield or maturity...but now we have a better idea of what to trial next year. One of these varieties is Butterfly...a medium sized variety that Ron trialed on the east side. It was early and consistent...so we will trial it on the west side next year. But it was a beaut on the east side.
Our buttercup trial featured 6 varieties against Sweet Mama. Sweet Mama still won hands down for yield, early maturity, and large fruit size. We planted late and later in the month of June after an earlier crop failure...and all the planting dates of Sweet Mama were high yielding and all matured. The plant grows as a large bush with prolific vines, with all the fruit tight around the bush. This variety tends to produce fewer large fruits rather than lots of smaller fruits...it is probably the largest buttercup we carry.

And Sweet Mama won in the taste test to...smoother, sweeter, no bitterness.

We set up our acorn trial so we could see Royal Ace against Mesa Queen (new to us) and Table Star ( an older variety that had fallen by the wayside).

Royal Ace was the darkest, most uniform, and the shiniest.

In our taste tests, Mesa Queen had the best tasting flesh versus Autumn Delight, Royal Ace, and Table Star. Mesa Queen was the least stringy, and had the highest dry matter. The taste test was a little skewed, since nobody was a fan of acorns, so the variety that was the least traditional was our favorite. In addition, Mesa Queen never looked ripe, inside or out...we assumed that it took a little longer to mature.

Royal Ace had a good traditional flavor and color, and was the most productive.

We also trialed our standard OP (Open Pollinated) Uchiki Kuri variety against a new hybrid Uchiki Kuri, called Orange Summer. The price of the seed was a bit of shock until we saw the yield...this baby pays for itself and again.

The OP was on the end of the row, so it could have had a little edge effect...but yields were what you would expect for this year...a few per plant, some medium, some small. The color was very saturated, but early taste tests proved that looks can be deceiving...not any sweetness early on.

Orange Summer produced large, uniform fruits...almost all the same size, shape, color. They were all a little larger than the average OP. Each plant produced 3 or more fruits, and the total yield weight was 3 times that of the OP. The color was a little lighter, and the side that laid on the ground had a larger light spot than the OP.
When taking all of this into consideration, and the seed cost as well...growing the hybrid Orange Summer just makes economical sense. It is the same planting, cultivation and watering costs...the same space and time, but a way higher yield.

A few other varieties that we grew...
Sweet Meat...a large grey/blue smooth light orange fleshed squash. This year we did not have great luck getting this large squash to mature.

Delicata Zeppelin was the winner overall of our taste test. We tasted Honeyboat and Bush Delicata from another grower, and neither of them had great sweet flavor...but they were possibly not as cured as ours...we have ours in the office, while theirs were in a apple bin in an open sided barn.

We like how large Zeppelin gets for a delicata type, and the small seed cavity.

Speckled Pup is a specialty squash that is the little brother to Speckled Hound. It is very ornamental, as well as edible. This variety would make a good soup or other processed dish...though it was not bad just roasted.

True...this is a pumpkin, not a squash...HSC 173 made a nice small pumpkin that was not very orange in the field, but ripened up within a few weeks curing in a cool space inside. We have not tried eating it yet, but the company it comes from tends to be all about edibility.

Smaller squash options

2010-11-18T13:23:00.000-08:00

Those of you who are farmers market growers, and spend your fall weekends picking up big heavy crates of squash, unloading and displaying mountains of squash, and then selling mostly the smallest (and lightest) of those squashes...your back and your bottom line might thank you for growing smaller squashes.

Often, smaller squash varieties produce more fruit per plant. They tend to mature earlier as well...My definition of small squashes can range from the trendy single-serving size, to something larger than a big acorn.

Osborne carries lots of smaller squashes (and pumpkins), and they could be divided into two categories: traditionally small varieties, and mini versions of larger varieties.

TRADITIONALLY SMALL VARIETIES

All the acorns, from smallest to largest: Table Star (older variety), Batwing Acorn, Table Ace, Royal Ace, Cream of the Crop (white) Taybelle, Mesa Queen (trial), Autumn Delight.

Butternuts, smaller (from smallest to largest):

Hunter, Butterfly (trial), Pacific Royale, Bush Delicata

Hunter

Delicata types:

Bush Delicata

Honeyboat

Zeppelin (a little larger)

Specialty types:

Gold Nugget

Carnival

Sweet Dumpling

Heart of Gold (acorn crossed with Sweet Dumpling)

MINI VERSIONS:

Speckled Pup, as smaller version of Speckled Hound.

Orange Cutie, a mini red Kabocha.

Hubba Hubba
Hubba Hubba, and Orange Magic, mini red hubbards.

Baby Delica: smaller version of Delica buttercup.

Small Wonder, a single serving spaghetti type.

Blue Magic: blue hubbard

Hubbard Baby Green, and Blue: baby hubbard types

NEW VARIETIES we think you should try...(Beans to Eggplant)

2010-11-17T16:06:00.001-08:00

If you have received our 2011 catalog and cracked the spine, you will notice that there are quite a few new varieties this year! There is so much more to say about each of these, and never enough room in the catalog (pictures help some). And if there is one thing we want, it is to pair the right grower with the right variety...so here are some of the new offering, and a little more info about what we observed...

BEANS: Golden Gate: a pole yellow romano, this one was super prolific, but what really won us over was the taste...deep yellow beans on vines that went up and over our poles, but did not smother the beans in leaves. The beans were pretty big, but held the tenderness even to 10 inches long. These were the ones that I kept eating as I moved around the field.

BEET: Akela: a nice red bunching beet. This was in a trial with Merlin, Boro, Red Ace and some experimentals. Akela had impressive and by far the best top attachments...and the tops looked pretty nice. They were uniform sized, and simply the most attractive.

CABBAGE: Margot: we saw this multiple times over the summer, and now it is going into the winter...brrr. It has a very tightly blistered savoy, and is very dense. I have high hopes for the winter durability of this one...

Sweet Baby Jane, Jeannette

CARROTS: Sweet Baby Jane stole the show in our main season carrot trial this year...great flavor, texture, and speed. Jeannette was really good as a baby carrot, and also as an adult. Invicta tended to get fat rather than long, so if your market likes smaller carrots, this is a good one. Bolero is always well worth the wait-heavy, tasty, dense, with good top connection.

Invicta, Bolero

CAULIFLOWER: Edith is our new Organic cauliflower...This variety had really uniform maturity, and when it was ready to go there was no waiting. I have found there is a two way compromise on head wraps...with a variety like Edith, you can partially see the head, and gauge the maturity visually. However, it might not hold as long in the field as Titan, which is so wrapped up I have to gauge the maturity by pulling leaves aside, or just giving the crown a quick squeeze. It is easier to harvest cauli you can see, but it is nice to have a little more leeway (and not have to snap leaves over young heads to block the sun).

CHINESE CABBAGE: Wa Wa Tsai is a mini version that can be grown out to a 2 lb head. I think that this could capture a direct market venue...single or double serving size...think up some recipes and these little guys might be a good sale. They are eye-catching, manageable, and elegant...and they were easy to grow! We started them in the greenhouse and transplanted them out (they had a rough life-too long in the cells, then out into too-wet ground, then smashed by reemay for a few weeks). The reemay came off the radishes next door, and consequentially off the cabbages as well...some varieties were very buggy within a few weeks, but Wa Wa Tsai was not seriously infected.

ACX 7501, ACX 5137

ACX 4016, ACX 4001

SWEET CORN: If you are not confused by all the different corn hybrid types, either you are a corn breeder or you deserve a pat on the back. We had a large ACX yellow corn trial (AUG-Augmented, and sometimes SE-Sugar Enhanced)...which was great, because they don't cross except across types (yellow, bicolor, white), and we were able to put in 8 different varieties in large blocks. We put them in with an Earthway Seeder, mechanically cultivated and later hilled, and then just left them alone. For such a crummy year, we had great germination. And some of these varieties grew like cow corn, with outstanding vigor (ACX 4106 in particular). The big benefit to the ACX corns is that they do not turn their sugar to starch as fast as your standard hybrid corns...so no need to run out into the patch with the pot of boiling water. They also tend to be quite sweet and tender...as were the ones we added to the catalog.

EGGPLANT: Traviata...this variety blew us away. For a cold short summer, with little protection, we had some impressive yields. We grew it in three places, and the starts that were planted last were not very happy...but they rallied and really produced. We did not baby these through the harvest period...I should have harvested every week, maybe 2 x a week, but really only every other week or every third week did I get around to it, and nothing had stopped with my neglect...the plants just kept making more fruits.

A little slimmer than your traditional big black eggplant, but nice and dense, and very shiny.

Still have questions? Give us a call or shoot an email to jules@osborneseed.com

Our New Catalog is Available!

2010-11-10T09:50:00.000-08:00

After a long trial season, tons of availability and fact checking, and meticulous editing, our 2011 Catalog is ready to hit the mailboxes and eventually your desk (or breakfast table, bedside stand, bathroom...).

There are lots of new varieties- look for the red NEW! tagging each variety description.

There are also a few changes- some varieties you are used to may not be in the catalog. Give us a call to see if we have any in stock (or check our online catalog), and to talk about substitutes or trialing. Seed breeders are always improving their lines, and often older varieties are discarded when their "offspring" are born and trialed.

In addition, look on the front page of our website and the inside page of out catalog for some info on what is changing with Osborne Seed...http://www.osborneseed.com/

We are already excited about next year's trials. We have been pouring over breeder's catalogs and requesting samples with abandon (a much-ignored internal voice wails "but where will we plant it all?"). We have given you a sneak peak on the back page of the catalog, and will continue to post info about this last summer's findings and next year's plans.

Want to receive a catalog? We have not sent them out yet, so wait a few weeks...you will certainly receive one if you purchased seed from us before.

New customer? Please, request a catalog by calling or clicking on the link on our website.

mini, midi and full sized lettuces

2010-11-01T10:14:00.000-07:00

Complementary lettuces: Breen and Starhawk

Complementary Lettuces: Little Gem and Rhazes

There are so many lettuces now that mature at a smaller size that the typical 24/case heads. They caught our eye not only because they are beautiful, unique and taste great, but because many of them are being produced as Certified Organic.
With many growers trying to fit their week's bounty into CSA boxes, a smaller head might be the ticket. And there is more and more of a focus on single and small family sized produce- for better or for worse for the grower.
These smaller lettuces can give you a higher count yield from the same space, and if you can get a price that covers the labor, etc. it could work for you.
We are currently carrying quite a few mini and midi (medium sized) lettuces of various types, and some of them work very well together, due to maturity, size, weight, and complementary appearance.
Any questions or need a specific type, size, disease package? Give us a call or email.

Red Romaine: Rhazes (smallest mini)

Red Romaine: Breen (midi) and Red Cash (midi)

Romaine: Little Gem (mini)

Romaine: Spretnak (mini) and Dragoon (mini)

Romaine: Starhawk (mini)

Romaine: Steiner (midi)

Romaine: Coastal Star (full size head)

Green Leaf: Muir (midi) and Emocion (full sized)

Green Leaf: Tropicana (full sized)

Oakleaf: Pagero (mini greenhouse variety) and Kireve (full sized)

Sweethearts and Solid Gold- True Love at Last

2010-10-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Cherry tomatoes- there are so many flavors. Super sweet, acidic, and in between. The textures are all over the place as well, from thin skinned juice sacks to thick skinned dense fruits.

We have found two very complementary cherries to be Sweethearts and Solid Gold. They have a medium skin, are slightly acidic and packed with sweetness and flavor, and they have amazing shelf life. Slow to split, slow to drop when ripe, they produce really long clusters of fruit.

Solid Gold is a tiny bit larger than Sweethearts, but they would make a great simple and elegant mix!

Enza Zaden/Vitalis Field Day

2010-10-29T08:22:00.000-07:00

Jules and Ron talking with pepper breeders; numbered pepper with a fantastic smell and yield

Since we cannot trial every variety under the sun, we often go to see other companies' variety trials. Many of the seed companies that we purchase seed from open up their breeding and trial fields for a tour or two during the summer.
We get to see varieties we already know and love, but in different conditions (and often different locales!), but we also get a sneak peak at brand new varieties, so new they don't have a name but a number, and may not make the cut.
If there is anything we think would be ideal for our area and growers, we encourage the breeders to keep on with a variety, and we also ask for samples so we can plant it out in the Skagit, as well as sometimes doing grower trials if it looks really promising.
Reading about varieties and relying on pictures is difficult; being able to see, harvest, taste and touch them gives you a much better sense of the plant, and it's consistent traits.

Since we cannot take all Osborne's staff (or our growers customers) along, we take as many revealing photos of the plants as we can. Below are some from our visit to Enza Zaden/Vitalis in California, October 2010.

Lolla Rossa, Fossey; Ron cutting lettuce at base

There are a lot of breeders working on lettuces that fall into nice, salad sized leaves with a low cut at the base. We have found that there are many smaller lettuces that do something similar- especially oakleaf and butter types. Ron tested each variety at the trial that was a mini or midi sized head.

Greenleaf, Muir

Romaine, Spretnak- a new variety in our catalog 2011

Lettuce, Cantrix- cut and heads. Due to colder nights in Washington, Cantrix turns a darker red than in Salinas, CA.

Oakleaf, Encino- single cut at base

Jules evaluating a Tango type; Red Tide and L-02 (the next generation)

Romaine, Tiburon

Lolla Rossa babyleaves: Antago and Bixby

Babyleaf: Blade

Babyleaf: Bolsachica- extra dark green

Babyleaf: Refugio

Babyleaf: Benito

Cover Crops- more information to help you choose

2010-10-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

Steve with Juan Triticale

It is still the time to plant cover crops! Protect your soil from erosion and nutrient loss over the winter and through the early spring, add green manure, nitrogen and carbon, and suppress weeds. See our home page http://www.osborneseed.com/index.cfm for more information.

We finally finished planting our overwintering cover crops on our trial ground. We put down Triticale, Common Rye grain, Rye Vetch mix, and Merced Rye. We also have a trial going between Nash's Field Pea and Austrian Winter Field Pea. When you come to pick up seed in the spring, check out our Crimson Clover patch.

The best information you can get about cover crop growing is from other growers in your area that have tried the crop you are interested in. But as a supplement to that, here is some other information that we have found to be true or heard from sources we trust. (Please see our disclaimer).

Why to grow cover crops:

http://attra.ncat.org/attra-pub/covercrop.html

Specific crop information

http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/ccrop/

Juan Triticale

A cross between wheat and a cereal. Very winter active, used for green chop and cover crop. Plant 100 - 125 lbs per acre.

Rye Grain

Locally grown! Vigorous winter cereal grain is a great choice for winter cover. It grows rapidly in cool weather forming a dense stand with an extensive root system. These roots do a super job of loosening heavy soils. Effective weed suppression, erosion control and adds substantial amounts of organic matter. Sow 110 lbs/acre.

Rye Vetch Mix

A 60/40 mixture of Rye and Vetch, grown locally here in Washington and it's Organic!

Merced Ryegrain

Grows rapidly in cool weather and forms a dense tall stand with a more extensive root system then other cereals. It suppresses weeds well when used as a cover crop. Plant 110 lbs per acre.

Nash's Field Pea- this will be available to growers for 2011. We trialed it in the summer, and were thrilled with the growth. Now we want to see it go through the winter.

Austrian Winter Pea; Austrian Winter Pea and Triticale mix

This winter cover crop can be planted in September. It can be mixed with winter rye or Triticale to help with weed suppression. It produces a great deal of organic matter that is easily plowed under in spring. 75 lbs/ acre or as you get later into the fall you would want to increase up to 150 lbs/ acre.

Crimson Clover

Offers good pasture and erosion control. Bright colored flower. Can be a good re-seeder when managed well. Plant 25 lbs per acre.