David W.E. Roberts wrote:

wrote in message
...
Hi, I would like to grow some old traditional varieties of veg this
year. I want them to be based on taste and suitability to my
geographical and physical conditions, rather than mass produced stuff.
I would like your suggestions as to what varieties I should grow.
First, my garden is in SE Scotland, around 400 feet above sea level
and is walled (an old farmhouse garden) so it is well sheltered. The
last frost can be late May. The soil is good.
I am looking for suggestions for the following and any others you
think I may enjoy:
tomatoes (for greenhouse)
lettuce
squashes
beans
beetroot
spinach/leaf beet/chard etc
potatoes
spring onions

I look forward to your ideas.
Regards
Jonny

One word of warning - some of the modern varieties are popular because they
outperform the traditional varieties.

I tried a '4 traditional varieties' pack of tomatoes last year, and three
out of the four were a disaster grown outside on my patio.

There was very low resistance to rot and I lost more than I picked, although
the ones I picked were generally good in flavour.

So I would go for 'best flavour/location' and try and ignore the age of the
variety.
Go for the traditional ones but beware of any weaknesses.
Sometimes the reason that they have fallen out of favour is because they are
difficult to grow.

Cheers
Dave R

I'm convinced that if you are growing relatively small quantities for
personal consumption and factors such as taste and minmimal cossetting
are important, then old varieties are best.

We moved into our present house ~5 years ago and have been experimenting
with potato varities - we're only interested in early potatoes and we
don't want 50 kg.

Last year, we went to the HDRA 'Potato Days' weekend at Ryton - were you
can buy by the tuber and got 6 tubers each of 6 varieties.

Scoring by taste, yield, resistance to pests & disease, and ease of
preparation, "Belle de Fontenay", a French variety, first described in
1870 was clearly the winner - in our garden. Tomorrow (Saturday) we're
off to this years 'potato days' and we'll get 20 or so Belle de
Fontenay plus another 3 or 4 differnt varieties.
--
Larry Stoter