on how to save seeds of all kinds of vegetables.
1. Save seed from open-pollinated (nonhybrid) plants only. Saving vegetable seeds from hybrids is wasted energy, as they will not come true—in other words, there’s no telling what you will get. Hybrids are created by crossing two vegetable variety parents; a gardener needs to know which two parents are crossed to create an identical variety. For proprietary reasons, seed companies keep that information to themselves. They do however, label hybrids and Fl hybrids (first-generation hybrids) on their seed packages, so you know which are hybrids and which are open-pollinated.
2. When you are saving seeds to perpetuate a variety, you need to take steps to prevent cross-pollination. With some plants, such as beans, which are primarily self-pollinated, cross-pollination problems are few. For others, more protection is needed. Get to know the vegetable families, as members of the same family often cross-pollinate. A list of vegetable families is included in Appendix A with the information on crop rotation; see page 94.
3. Do not save seeds of diseased plants. Save only the finest fruits from the best plants of your favorite varieties. You need to learn to recognize diseases because some (particularly viruses) are transmitted in seeds.
4. Label your seed rows and seed containers; your memory will play tricks on you.
5. Never plant all your seeds at once, lest the elements wipe them out.
6. To maintain a strong gene pool, select seeds from a number of plants, not just one or two. (This does not apply to self-pollinating varieties.)
7. Only mature, ripe seeds are viable. Learn what such seeds look like for all your vegetables.
To get you started with your own Mexican garden, in the next section I rhapsodize about my own Mexican gardens, both full size and in containers, and Kit Anderson shares her Vermont Mexican garden as well. For specific information on each vegetable, see the “Encyclopedia of Mexican Vegetables.”
Chayote, white onions, tomatoes, and chilis are the basis for many a great Mexican meal.
creasy mexican gardens
For three decades, I have been an active vegetable gardener, much of it professionally. In the first decade, I mastered the basics like sweet corn, tomatoes, snap beans and was ready for something more exotic. Inspired by my travels, I decided to try growing ethnic vegetables of all types; from Mexican amaranths and Italian radicchios to Asian pac chois, tucking them in among their more prosaic cousins. Eventually, armed with all my new knowledge. I started a large garden cookbook and decided to grow a number of ethnic theme gardens for the book, including a Mexican one. I needed to grow out many unusual vegetables and herbs to develop my recipes. Also, I wanted to see how prototypical ethnic gardens went together and how well they fit into a standard American garden.
My first Mexican garden was planted in the corner of my backyard nearly fifteen years ago. It included all sorts of vegetables and herbs I had never seen before, much less grown, including epazote, huauzontlí, grain amaranths, and wild chiles, plus numerous unusual varieties of familiar vegetables, including grinding corns, tomatoes, peppers, lima beans, and sunflowers and pumpkins, for their seeds.
I not only wanted the vegetables to be Mexican but, as a landscape designer and photographer, I wanted the garden to give the feel of Mexican home gardens I knew. The ones I was familiar with were filled with exuberance, joy, and colorful flowers—and, in most of Mexico, planted in layers, with vegetables, herbs, and flowers among and under fruiting and flowering trees.
With these design goals in mind, I added a number of flowers I associate with Mexico, namely, tithonia (also called Mexican sunflower), Mexican sage (Salvia leucantha) and two south-of-the-border favorites, marigolds and nasturtiums. Because Mexican peppers, tomatoes, and tomatillos need a long growing season, I seeded them in the house under lights, starting with the peppers in February. A month later, I started the tomatoes, and a few weeks after that, the tomatillos. Once they became mature enough, I moved them outside to my cold frame.
I must say, I mastered the exuberance component! The garden spilled out of its boundaries, thanks in part to my great organic soil, which caused the corn to grow to 14 feet, the amaranths to tower over the tomatoes, and the tomatillos to sprawl over everything. The joy was evident, too; it was so much fun to explore a whole new garden culture and cuisine. Tacos, refried beans, and hominy from red dent corn was great fun. The bright colors, though, were definitely missing. Even with the addition of impatiens and gloriosa daisies at midsummer, I thought the garden still a bit too pale.
A few years later, I set out to grow another Mexican garden, this time with lots of color! And I really went for it this time. I filled up the whole front yard. Bougainvilleas, dahlias, cannas, morning glories, marigolds, nasturtiums, and zinnias were sprinkled among the vegetable beds and along the front path. For a little more oomph, I had a trellis painted with primary colors and topped with a sun face created by my artist friend, Marcy Hawthorne.
North American gardeners need to start a number of Mexican specialties from seeds in order to get a jump on the season. Appendix A gives specific information for starting seeds inside. I use a cold frame as intermediate housing for my tomatillos, jícama, chilis, tomatoes, and Mexican herbs I’ve started inside.
As the weather warms, I gradually leave the lid open longer. About fifteen years ago, I planted my first Mexican garden and filled it with corn, pumpkins, tomatillos, lima beans, and sunflowers It was a greatly productive garden—but didn’t have enough color for my taste.
Well, let me tell you, it worked. This garden stopped joggers in their tracks. Here among the suburban lawns and polite evergreens was an in-your-face-garden so filled with color and flowers you could hardly see all the veggies. I’d found the formula!
Since that time, I’ve created numerous Mexican gardens, including two minigardens I filled with Mexican herbs and chiles in colorful containers and a large front garden of big running squash and bush beans with a front border filled with sunflowers, scarlet runner beans, amaranths, and giant Mexican corn. This garden featured all plants from the New World and it was sensational.
A few years after my first Mexican garden, I planned one for the front yard. This time I put in a bright-colored arbor and added lots of bright flowers like dahlias, sunflowers, marigolds, nasturtiums, and cannas. The large beds were filled with chilis, corn, pumpkins, squash, and tomatoes as well as epazote, Mexican tarragon, and Mexican oregano. This iteration was so splashy it stopped traffic!
My last Mexican garden was enclosed by a stucco wall and included a small patio of random paving stones interlaced with broken blue tiles. It was planted early, as soon as the weather warmed up in early April, with the tomatillo ‘Toma Verde,’ some Mexican chiles—poblano, jalapeño, serrano, ‘Habañero,’ ‘Mulato,’ and ‘Chili de Arbol’—and ‘Beefsteak’ and ‘Costoluco Genovese’ tomatoes, all of which we had started from seeds and hardened off in the cold frame. We filled some of the room between the plants with ‘Iceberg’ lettuce and cilantro, knowing these would be long gone before the other plants filled out. Unfortunately, the weather got unusually
