Dakota Gardener: Best Vegetable Varieties for North Dakota
Tom Kalb, Horticulturist
What’s the best way to find a great variety for us in North Dakota?
Ask your neighbor. Or better yet, ask hundreds of gardeners in North Dakota who test varieties for North Dakota State University. Last year alone, 320 families tested promising varieties in their backyard gardens. We’ve been doing these tests every summer since 2008.
We’ve discovered lots of great varieties through the years. The following are a few of the finest.
The best pea is ‘Lincoln.’ This heirloom produces high yields of delicious peas and is great for freezing. ‘Sugar Ann’ is our champion snap pea. This variety ripens early and produces big crops of sweet, crisp pods.
Coming up with vegetables that please two important groups Wisconsin farmers and local chefs is the goal of the University of Wisconsin’s Seed to Kitchen Collaborative.
It’s all about creating delicious varieties of vegetables well-adapted to the Upper Midwest, explains UW-Madison associate professor of horticulture Julie Dawson, who leads the ongoing research project.
The hope, said Dawson, “is that farmers have better options for varieties that produce really good flavor in the Wisconsin climate. And that chefs have more access to those types of varieties. So, we’re trying to breed for flavor but also to breed for production traits.”