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Little Veggie, Big Taste
Baby Vegetable Varieties for Your Organic Garden
If you find 20 pound zucchinis and baseball bat-sized carrots
overwhelming and unpleasant to deal with, you're not alone. The trend in
vegetable gardening is moving towards cute, petite veggies that make
perfect single-portions and won't give you a hernia when you harvest
them.
Here are a few mini vegetable varieties that you might enjoy trying.
These little veggies grow on full-sized plants that would be at home in
just about any organic garden.
- Golden Baby Belle Pepper--This little yellow pepper is only 1
to 2'' long when it is ready to harvest. According to Burpee Seeds, the
peppers grow "in pretty bunches on extremely prolific plants".
- Minicor carrots--this variety is one of my personal favorites.
Only 55 days after seeding, it produces 3 ''-4'' carrots that are
slender, tender and ready for harvest. They are very sweet and tend to
be very straight and uniform in their growth habit. They are
proportioned just like their bigger cousins and are a treat to eat! I've
also found that they stay fairly sweet and tender if you don't get
around to harvesting them for a while but they won't be "baby carrots"
anymore--they'll be 7''-8'' long and all grown-up!
- Bonus Baby Corn--Aren't those little ears of corn that are
used in Chinese food cute? If baby corn makes you oooh and aaaah, you
can grow your own by planting "Bonus". The plants will grow tall (up to
5') but will start producing 3 1/2'' baby corn ears when they are only
about 18'' tall. These plants can be grown very close together (1'' or
so apart) and each plant will produce about 3 mini ears of corn.
- Twinkle Eggplant-- these eggplants are at their best if you
harvest them when they are only 2''-3'' long. Their beautiful purple and
white striped skin just adds to their cuteness. If you enjoy pickling
eggplant, this might be a good variety to try--it should make very
attractive and striking pickles. Otherwise, try them as mini-stuffed
eggplants or use them in stews.
- Red Currant Tomato-- Mercifully, these teeny tiny tomatoes
grow in clusters of up to 20 fruits. Otherwise, you'd spend all day
picking them! According to some "Red Currant" fans, they'd be worth
growing even then: their intensely sweet flavor would be well worth the
effort and their small size (about as big as currants or small
blueberries) is perfect for snacking.
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