The New in Review

"Farm Girl", said Uncle Mac, "Do you remember back at the end of March we let the readers know about the new varieties of veggies we were going to try out for 2013? Did we ever update them with the outcome?"

"Yes, I remember, and no, I don't believe we did. Wasn't really a lot to tell them, if you think about it."

FARM GIRL





"I don't recall seeing those round red turnips we were looking forward to. What happened there?"

"Hard to say", Farm Girl said. "They sprouted perfectly in spring, the greens grew nicely - if you remember we had a mess of them one night, but the turnips just never developed, not even to the size of small marbles. We tried again in fall in this time the leaves wilted away half grown."

"I don't know what happened."

"Bugs?" queried Uncle M.

"Nope."

"Bunnies?"

"Uh uh."

"Bugs Bunny?"

"You really are an old fool." Observed Farm Girl, not without reason. "It has been 10 years since we did a soil test. I'm thinking it can't hurt."

"Which is exactly what I said when I wanted to try..."

"Let's not go into that!"

"Which is exactly what you said!"

"Arrggh!" said Farm Girl.

After a pause, Uncle Mac continued.

"Well then. How about the ingegnoli gigante tomatoes? I remember a cucumber-tomato-onion-black olive salad that was downright edible!"

"Edible. Nice of you to say. Yes, the iggies were fat, round, red and delicious and we saved seeds. But the crop was off. All greens and no tomatoes."

"Termaters!"  said Aunt Agnes.

"Pipe down!" said everyone present.

"Collards?" asked Mac.

"No" replied FG, " we seeded them 3 times, and none made it to over 6 inches, and as you know, six inches simply does not satisfy. We have always planted "Champion Collards" in the past and that is what we will do in the future. These "Georgia Southern" collards can stay in Georgia, for all of me."

"Agreed", said Uncle M, "Now, we also tried golden chard, and I remember having lots of that, and it was very good. I expect that's a keeper?"

"Absolutely", said Farm Girl, "not only tasty but a vigorous grower and extra healthful, even for chard. We have seed stock overwintering."

"Er", said Mac, "I don't recall seeing parsnips?"

Which is as good a place to end this post as any, before things get ugly.