Vegetable Report Card – 2025
Find out how well each vegetable variety performed for us this year. 2025 was another challenging growing year for us as it was very hot and very dry. Yet we still got some great harvests!
| Crop | Variety | Grade | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|
| Arugula | Esmee | C | Started these with winter sowing method, didn't like being transplanted |
| Basil | Lettuce Leaf | A | Fabulous aroma and taste, plentiful |
| Basil | Cardinal (red-stemmed thai basil) | A | Good germination, compact plant with lots of leaves |
| Basil | Everleaf Emerald Towers | A | Lush, flavorful leaves |
| Beans, bush | Red Swan | B | Beautiful red pods (which turn green when cooked), pods a bit small, not as plentiful as I'd like |
| Beans, bush | Top Crop | B | (for food bank donations) wasn't as productive as usual |
| Beans, fava | Broad Windsor | A | Good germination, easy to grow, large harvest |
| Beans, pole | Fortex | A+ | Wonderful harvest |
| Beans, pole | Monte Gusto Yellow | A+ | Very impressed with this new-to-me variety |
| Beet | Cylindra/Cylindrical | A | Always consistently produces nice roots |
| Beet | Golden Detroit | A | Large roots, nice color |
| Broccoli | Belstar | A+ | Excellent harvest throughout summer |
| Carrot | Dolciva | A | Excellent variety, huge roots |
| Carrot | Narvik | A | Incredible producer! |
| Carrot | Purple Sun | B+ | Cool-looking carrots but not crazy about purple roots that bleed color onto your hands, etc. |
| Carrot | Tendersweet | A | Wonderful variety, big roots |
| Cauliflower | Purple Crush | - | Big mistake on my part, plants didn't have enough room or sunlight, so this was a bust. |
| Celery | Utah Improved | B+ | Grew in GreenStalk planter, did fairly well |
| Chard | Rainbow Blend | A | Pretty and reliable |
| Cucumber | Bush Slicer | B | Grew in GreenStalk, fairly productive |
| Cucumber | Lunchbox | B- | Grew in GreenStalk, not very productive |
| Cucumber | MiniMe | A+ | One of the most abundant harvests ever! Incredible! |
| Goldenberry (aka Cape Gooseberry) | B | Large plants, not overly heavy with fruits, berries are large and very tasty | |
| Kale | Red Russian | - | (will be in fall garden) |
| Lettuce | Bauer | A+ | Longer harvest than usual, more heat-tolerant than I expected |
| Lettuce | Buttercrunch | B | Only grew a few but not as good as Bauer |
| Melon | Tuscan Napoli | A | Ended up with 8 melons, so delicious! |
| Onion | Ailsa Craig | B | Didn't perform as well as last year due to water issues in planting bed |
| Onion | Barolo | A | Vigorous, medium-sized red onion, nice flavor in salads |
| Pak choi | Bopak | A | Always a great producer |
| Parsley | Italian Flat Leaf | A | Super lush plants, used for a lot of cooking projects |
| Pea | Green Arrow | B | Average harvest this year |
| Pepper, sweet | Marconi Rosso | A | Planted out in the garden (rather than in hoop house) and they performed great. Several peppers per plant. |
| Pepper, sweet | Red Impact | A | Giant bell peppers, ripened to red |
| Pepper, hot | Buffy | A | Compact plants produced a lot of fruit for making chili powder |
| Pepper, hot | Early Jalapeno | A | Grew in large pots, heavy fruit-set on all plants |
| Pepper, hot | Megatron Jalapeno | B | Really giant, slow to ripen to red. Very, very hot! |
| Pepper, hot | Scotch Bonnet | B | Compact plants, a lot of fruit, slow to ripen to red, excellent in dried chili powder |
| Pumpkin | Batwing Mini Pumpkin | A | Cute little pumpkins, produced well for us |
| Pumpkin | Jack Be Little | B | Another cute little pumpkin for decorations, grew in GreenStalk vertical planter, wasn't quite as productive probably due to hot/dry season |
| Pumpkin | New England Pie | B | Vines didn't grow or produce well so minimal harvest due to planting in southernmost beds where there's less sunlight plus tree roots |
| Radish | Petit Dejeuner | A | Grew well |
| Radish | Purple Plum | A | Also grew well |
| Shallot | Creme Brulee | A | Good germination, nice medium-sized white shallot |
| Shallot | Zebrune | A | Good germination, medium- to large reddish shallot |
| Spinach | Giant Winter | - | (will grow this fall) |
| Squash, summer | Cocozelle | A+ | Always excellent and productive |
| Squash, summer | Grey (zucchini) | A+ | Donated all of the squash to our food bank. Very productive, really nice-size fruits |
| Squash, summer | Zephyr | A+ | So happy with this new-to-me variety. Beautiful squash, wonderful flavor! |
| Squash, winter | Autumn Frost | A | Very productive this year |
| Squash, winter | Burpee's Butterbush Butternut | A | More productive than usual! |
| Squash, winter | Potimarron | - | (older seeds didn't germinate) |
| Tomato, grape | Pandorino | A | So plentiful, great for making fresh salsa! |
| Tomato, paste | Blue Beech | B | Not very happy with this one, not as productive as usual |
| Tomato, paste | Saucy Lady | - | (didn't have room in garden for them, so didn't plant them) |
| Tomato, paste | Supremo | A+ | Still just as reliable, plants grow great, amazing harvests, need little room to grow |
| Tomato, slicing | Chef's Choice Orange | A+ | Still my favorite slicer, great harvest |
| Turnip | Mikado | A | Short season, good producer of tasty turnips |
| Turnip | Silky Sweet | A | Short season, another good producer of tasty turnips |