The Cellar and the Pantry Blog

The writers at the New York Times have been all about heirlooms in the last week or so, with:

• A magazine article about heirloom beans, specifically the ones sold by Rancho Gordo New World Specialty Food in Napa, California.
• An article in the local section about local companies, like Fort Hill Farm and White Flower Farms, that sell professionally started heirloom tomato seedlings.
• An article in the style section about planting heirloom gardens at Colonial Williamsburg.

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By now, everyone is talking about the White House vegetable garden. The White House has published the official garden plan, which is heavily slanted towards salad greens and peas. There are also small plantings of broccoli (no doubt for state visits by George H. W. Bush), onions, shallots, carrots, radishes, fennel, and rhubarb. This doesn't seem to be the entire layout, though, as the New York Times reports that the garden will include tomatilloes and a berry patch, neither of which appear on the plan. And it's a little surprising that the tomato, a staple of almost every American home garden, doesn't appear on this plan.

Most of the media coverage has been aimed at the casual reader. The Cellar and the Pantry wants to know more, and I'll bet other gardeners do, too.

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Spring is coming to the northern hemisphere, and the garden blogs are ready with your to-do lists:

• Poor Richard's Almanac has a list of his top ten seeds for new gardeners, all of which are edible (including marigolds, which he includes as an ornamental).
• Straight from the Farm is into lists as well, with 10 Steps to Gardening from Scratch.

Also in the news for spring: apparently the poor American economy is good news for heirloom seed companies, which are doing a bumper business of garden vegetables.

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