No. 164: Who plants sweetly gets tomatoes red and round, who is naughty harvests a plant that barely emerges from the ground.

We've received a delivery of corn with some very interesting varieties to brighten up your vegetable garden and your plate this summer.

195080 - INDIAN CORN 'Painted Mountain'

This beautiful flour corn ripens early, making it excellent for our climate. The ornamental cobs (15–17 cm) are also very nutritious and suitable for cornmeal, roasting, or making grits. The plants remain compact, reaching a height of 120–150 cm.

Around 1975, corn breeder Dave Christensen from Montana developed this variety from twelve Mandan varieties, supplemented with corn from Native American families and hobby breeders. Through years of selection, a remarkably cold-hardy and early-ripening corn emerged: biodiversity within a single variety. 'Painted Mountain' grows up to 1500 meters in altitude but also yields an excellent harvest in warm regions.

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195050 - INDIAN CORN 'Jerry Peterson Blue'

This original Native American corn is probably centuries old. The fast-growing plants are primarily used as flour corn—perfect for making real blue tortillas! The deep blue color also makes the cobs beautiful to look at.

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190880 - FLOUR AND ORNAMENTAL CORN 'Oaxacan Green'

What a uniquely colored, emerald green corn! As an ornamental corn, it's certainly a beauty, but this variety originally comes from Southern Mexico, where the indigenous people (Zapotec, Mixtec, and Mazatec) have cultivated it for centuries as flour corn. The cobs are 15–25 cm long and grow on sturdy plants that reach over 2 meters in height.

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195405 - SWEET CORN 'Double Standard'

An early-ripening variety with yellow and white kernels. This variety originated from a cross between the (old) early yellow variety 'Burnell' and an early white variety from New York's St. Lawrence Valley. The result is a vigorous grower, well-suited for Northern Europe, with sweet cobs!

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190875 - FLOUR AND ORNAMENTAL CORN 'Nothstine Dent'

A much-loved and ancient flour corn from which beautiful yellow cornmeal can be ground! Fortunately, since the 1970s, many Americans have been active in preserving and propagating the old 'Native American' varieties. Nothstine Dent is one of them, a variety from Northern Michigan. The cobs can grow up to 20 cm long and ripen early, which can make a difference in our climate. The harvest is not enormous, but the sweet taste is reason enough to continue cultivating it, and it is still (qualitatively) one of the best varieties we offer for cornmeal and flour.

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In recent years, sweet potatoes have become increasingly well-known and popular. Many people use them in the kitchen to make fries, grilled vegetables, mash, or of course baked potatoes. The choices are truly abundant, and in my opinion, they are delicious to cook with. Our Belgian grower has been working for years to cultivate the best and tastiest varieties for our outdoor or greenhouse climate.

From May onwards, you can plant sweet potato cuttings outdoors. During that period, we sell a lot of plants, but growing them yourself is also a lot of fun to try, and you do that at home from a tuber. You can get many cuttings from one tuber, and we explain how on our website.

Grow oyster mushrooms on your own coffee grounds!
The basics:

1. Clear instructions
2. Grey or Winter Oyster mushroom spawn
3. A black bucket made from recycled plastic

Add your coffee grounds (or spent coffee) in stages, following the instructions, and behold: delicious, fresh oyster mushrooms!

Bucket dimensions: 20 cm (top diameter), 17 cm (bottom diameter) and 14 cm high.

Important: upon receipt of the spawn, store it immediately in the refrigerator to maintain its freshness!

The Yacón is a special, versatile tuber with a fresh, crisp bite and a slightly sweet taste that sometimes resembles watermelon. The 1 to 1.5 meter tall plants form from August up to 10–20 tubers per plant, good for a yield of approximately 10 kilos!

Thanks to its high moisture content and firm structure, the Yacón is perfect for baking, boiling, stir-frying or deep-frying. The natural sweetener oligofructose also makes this tuber suitable for diabetics and people who are watching their weight, while also stimulating the growth of good intestinal bacteria. Even the leaves have a supportive effect on insulin balance.

Alleged ornamental plants sometimes have surprising edible qualities! At a garden centre, you'll buy this plant as "Flowering Quince", but that's nonsense, of course. Our variety's first great quality is that it's thornless; secondly, the bushes remain nice and compact (at most 150 cm, but easy to prune); and then there's that beautiful, deep-red bloom very early in spring!

But that's not the end of the story: after flowering, small, yellow, apple-shaped fruits appear, the quince apples. They smell wonderful, you can eat them raw, but you'll have to bite through the sourness; it's much more delicious to make a very healthy compote from them.

THE IDEAL NECTAR SOURCE FOR BEES!

This is the fine-leaved variant of the wild species, with thin lanceolate leaves and a columnar, compact growth – truly an ornamental foliage plant for the garden! Bees absolutely love it...

The following is a description of the wild species; most applications also apply to our 'Fine Line' variety. Alder Buckthorn, Buckthorn, Black Alder, Arrowwood, Dogberry, Spindle Tree, Sprokkel, Pegwood, Duvelskeersj, Houtjeshout, Gunpowder Wood, Stinktree: all different names for the same shrub, different names that are usually related to its (former) uses. For the beekeeper, it is particularly important that Alder Buckthorn provides nectar almost throughout the entire bee season. While the berries from a previous bloom are still hanging on, the Alder Buckthorn flowers again and again.

The plant is resistant to various fungi and also to severe frost. The shrub grows on both sand and clay, making it an easy-to-grow plant... Flowering period: April - September, followed by attractive berries. The red berries are readily eaten by birds.