Hello fellow vegetable gardeners! If you are serious about growing some great tasting vegetables, then you know as well as I know, that planting the right varieties can often be the main factor in reaping a successful yield or not. With this in mind, I have compiled a list of my favorite and best varieties of vegetable seeds that Johnny’s Seeds offers.
If you have any varieties that you consider to be the best, feel free to post them in the comments section below this article. The more we share, the better food we can grow! I will also be updating this list as I try new varieties.
BEANS
Jade – (bush bean) — this is a standard type of bush bean, so no trellis is required to grow them. Jade beans are beautiful in appearance, as they possess a wonderful dark green color. They also stay tender for a good length of time, and are slightly longer than a standard bush bean as they typically mature at 6-7″. I would recommend the Jade bean as an ideal canning bean, and they are also an excellent choice for making dilly beans.
Benefits: Canning
Fortex – (pole bean) — these are excellent tasting beans that grow vertical on a trellis. This saves a lot of space in garden, and also makes harvesting a lot easier. Fortex beans are string-less and grow to an exceptionally long length of 7-11″.
Benefits: Space Saving, Easy Harvesting
Butterbeans – (edamame) — if you have never tried edamame beans before, then this Butterbean variety is the first kind that you will want to try. The plant grows to a nice height which makes harvesting easy, and it also produces an abundance of pods. Add in an excellent flavor, and this Butterbeans variety is easily the best edamame bean that Johnny’s Seeds offers.
Benefits: Heavy Yielding
BEETS
Merlin – (red beet) — this is a standard red beet variety. I like this beet because it offers an excellent flavor, and has also shown to be fairly disease resistant to both cercospora and downy mildew, both of which typically ruin the tops of the beet greens.
Benefits: Disease Resistance
Touchstone Gold – (gold beet) — offering a sweeter flavor than the typical red beets, gold colored beets can easily be considered the best tasting beet in any vegetable garden. Johnny’s Seeds offers two gold colored beet varieties, Touchstone Gold and Golden Beet. I prefer the Touchstone Gold variety for two main reasons; in my experience the Touchstone Gold has a higher germination rate, and it also produces a heavier more solid stem base attaching to the beet.
Benefits: High Germination Rate
BROCCOLI
Blue Wind — overall I have not had great success with the broccoli varieties that Johnny’s Seeds offers. However one variety that I have found to be a fairly consistent yield, is the Blue Wind variety. The major benefit of this variety is that it has a quick maturity, only 49 days as compared to other standard broccoli varieties that are in the 60 plus day range. Most importantly however, is that if you want to make this a successful broccoli crop, I would recommend only planting Blue Wind as a fall harvest broccoli crop. If you try to plant it in early spring and harvest in early summer, it simply does not hold very long and will start to bolt quickly.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Fall Harvesting
CABBAGE
Tendersweet – (green) — I tried this variety for the first time during the 2011 growing season, and it immediately became my favorite green cabbage variety. Unfortunately Johnny’s Seeds has it listed as a crop failure for the 2012 season. Hopefully they bring it back for 2013!
Benefits: Firm Heading, Juicy Texture
CAULIFLOWER
Cheddar – (orange) — in all honesty, one vegetable crop that just does not like growing well for me is cauliflower. Standard white cauliflower varieties never seem to turn out as white and with as firm of a curd as they should. However the Cheddar variety of cauliflower has been a wonderful producer for me. They are fairly low maintenance as there is no need to wrap the leaves of this variety, and they are also early maturing as they take around just 60 days to mature instead of the standard 70 plus for other cauliflower varieties. So if you have had problems growing cauliflower in your garden, I definitely recommend giving this Cheddar variety a chance.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Low Maintenance
CUCUMBERS
Harmonie – (pickling) — if you are looking for a great tasting and reliable pickling variety of cucumber, then Harmonie is easily my top choice at Johnny’s Seeds. These pickles can be eaten fresh just as you would a standard cucumber, or if you pick them small they make excellent whole baby dill pickles. Ideally harvested at a size between 3-5″, Harmonie pickles are exceptionally firm, crunchy, and nearly seedless.
Benefits: Heavy Yielding, Firm Crunchy Texture
EGGPLANT
Hansel – (mini) — if you are looking for a small sized, early maturing, and abundant producing eggplant, then Hansel is easily my top choice. In my experience, this dark purple variety looks beautiful and has been the most reliable and abundant producing eggplant variety that I have ever grown.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Heavy Yielding
KOHLRABI
Kossak – (green) — if you like kohlrabi, then the Kossak variety is the one that you will absolutely want to grow. These are giant growing kohlrabi that can grow up to 8″ in diameter. However you can eat these at any smaller size as well, and most importantly, they hold extremely well in the garden for weeks and rarely get stringy or woody. So while these seeds are bit more expensive than the standard green small kohlrabi, they are definitely worth the investment if you enjoy eating exceptional tasting kohlrabi.
Benefits: Long Holding Ability, Juicy Texture
Kolibri – (purple) — if you are looking for a little color and want a purple kohlrabi, then the Kolibri variety has easily been the most successful purple kohlrabi variety that I have grown. These are a nice small single serving kohlrabi, and they also have solid holding ability in the garden if you do not harvest them right away.
Benefits: Single Serving, Juicy Texture
PEAS
Sugar Ann – (snap pea) — by far my favorite snap pea variety, the Sugar Ann is sweet flavored and juicy. As one of the earliest maturing snap pea varieties, Sugar Ann is a very easy growing and prolific producer. I highly recommend growing the Sugar Ann snap pea variety, as it should be a staple in all vegetables gardens if you like eating peas.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Heavy Yielding
Oregon Giant – (snow pea) — a huge sized snow pea, I believe that Oregon Giant is one of the longest holding peas that you can grow. You can harvest them as small thin snow peas, or you can harvest them when the peas have filled out and use them as a shelling pea. Either way, the Oregon Giant snow pea offers excellent holding ability if you do not have a lot of time to harvest on a daily basis.
Benefits: Long Holding Ability, Multiple Use
PEPPERS
Carmen – (sweet) — this sweet pepper has become a must grow in my garden over the years. If you have ever had problems with pepper plants pollinating and producing peppers, then the Carmen variety could be the cure to your problems. Every year that I have grown the Carmen pepper, it has matured early and produced a heavy yield. As a reminder, this is a long bull’s horn shaped pepper, and not a square block bell pepper. Carmen peppers start dark green and turn red when fully ripe.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Heavy Yielding
Flavorburst – (sweet) — a sweet block shaped bell pepper, Flavorburst has produced a successful and abundant yield every time I have planted it. Flavorburst also matures fairly early at around 65 days if you harvest it green. Flavorburst peppers start light green and turn yellow when fully ripe.
Benefits: Heavy Yielding
WINTER SQUASH
Honey Bear – (acorn) — offering early maturity and single serving size, Honey Bear is an excellent choice in home gardens. As an acorn type winter squash, the Honey Bear variety has a much sweeter flesh, and it also offers powdery mildew resistance, so the yield tends to be higher than most standard acorn winter squash varieties. So if taste and flavor is high on your priority list for acorn squash, the Honey Bear variety needs to be planted in your garden.
Benefits: Early Maturing, Disease Resistance
