Planning the Buckhorn Inn Vegetable Garden 2022

As I write this, I am engaged in one of

Careful planning helps to ensure a successful vegetable harvest.

my favorite activities—planning next season’s vegetable garden!  The brightly colored seed catalogs have begun arriving, tempting me to order old favorites and experiment with new varieties.

My first step in deciding what to grow is to consult with the Buckhorn Inn chefs.  Chef Frank provides key input on herbs that compliment his dishes and on vegetables he can showcase in soups and side dishes.  Chef Bob is a gardener himself, and so we coordinate our efforts.  Bob is well-known for the luscious heirloom tomato varieties he grows—in fact my mouth is watering just thinking about his lovely summer omelets!  We try to grow herbs and veggies that have the biggest impact in the Buckhorn kitchen.  We don’t want to repeat the mistake I made when Jack and I married and planted our first vegetable garden together.  I was perusing the seed catalog and asked Jack if he thought we should grow parsnips.  Thinking I must like them, Jack replied in the affirmative.  Thinking he must like them, I ordered the seeds.  We have never to this day grown anything that produced as well as those parsnips.  We harvested a bushel basket from our small garden.  As it turned out, neither of us cared for parsnips!  Our friends and neighbors were the recipients of our garden’s parsnips bounty.

Potential New Finds for the Vegetable Garden

As I leaf through the new Burpee catalog, here are some finds that are most intriguing.  http://Www.burpee.com. `
Mocha Swirl Hybrid Sweet Pepper—they ripen from green and white to a rich chocolate-red.  The compact plants would be perfect for our raised bed garden.  The Golden Egg Hybrid Summer Squash promises succulent flavor from the golden-yellow zucchini.  `Everleaf Thai Towers basil is container-friendly and grows up to 3 feet tall.  Kentucky Blue Pole Beans always do well for us.  Last year we also grew asparagus beans.  The 18” long pods have a delicious nutty flavor.  Kale is popular at the Inn for garden greens omelets, soups, and vegetable sautées.  We likely will grow a variety again this year.  Perhaps Dazzling Blue, Red Russian, and Tuscan kale.  We are saving space for some lettuce, so you can pick a few leaves as you go by to feed Bubble and Squeak!  Of course we will grow okra.  It is an ornamental plant, and we love Chef Frank’s fried okra as an accompaniment to a southern fish with remoulade sauce dish!  We had best success with Go Big, which produces flavorful dark-green 7” long pods.

In our veranda her pots we typically grow basil, chives, cilantro, mint, parsley, rosemary, and sage.  This year we may also grow borage for their edible flowers and lemon verbena to flavor fish dishes.

Decisions, decisions!  When you visit, please let us know what you are planning to grow in your garden!