Talkin' vegetable varieties for spring planting

These are not my eggplants, that's for sure -- they were growing at the Fair Oaks Horticulture Center in 2019. Pretty sure they are the Fairy Tale variety, which is an All America Selection winner. (Photo: Kathy Morrison)

The advice for beginning vegetable gardeners always is to grow what you like to eat. Makes sense -- you can test varieties of tomatoes or beans and eventually find your favorites.

Conversely, don't grow what you don't like to eat. That has always kept me from even thinking about growing eggplant. I. Just. Don't. Like. It. Though some are so pretty! The Fairy Tale variety always catches my eye, with its purple and white stripes.

And then I remind myself that the vegetables would go to waste, not to mention taking up valuable space in my plot. And food banks prefer mainstream vegetables (no green and purple tomatoes, for example).

About half of the gardeners at my community garden grow cucumbers in summer. And about half of those complain every year that the cukes came in too bitter. (I think that's a weather issue, but anyone with more experience please fill me in.) In any case, that's another problem I avoid. My household consumes maybe two cucumbers a year, and I can usually trade something for those, so I don't have to grow them.

But I do grow peppers, both sweet bells and somewhat hot ones. I've had excellent luck with shishitos, Emerald Fire jalapeños, Count Dracula peppers (so pretty!) and serrano peppers. My bell pepper plants all got mixed up last year, but generally Orange Blaze and any variety with Wonder in the name do well.

I gave up growing watermelons during the last drought; I also don't grow corn anymore because it's a water hog and you need a lot of plants to get a decent yield. (I did learn that Sloughhouse corn is the Bodacious variety -- or at least it was back when I was researching varieties.)

Ah, but melons and squash! For years I grew wonderfully fragrant little muskmelons with the uninspired name of French Orange. I haven't been able to find seeds lately, and I used up the last of the seeds I'd saved on my own. I has success with Papaya Dew, a hybrid variety that's shaped like a football. My garden buddy Dan touts Ambrosia and he gave me two of the plants last year. Delicious! More of a typical muskmelon size than the little French Orange, they are back on my list for this year.

Zucchini and other summer squash grow so well here it almost doesn't matter which variety you try. But I do like the Raven and Black Beauty dark green zucchinis, and the various straightneck yellow ones. Over the years I've also grown Sunny Delight yellow pattypans and light green 8-Ball and Ronde de Nice round zukes, too. I'm less of a fan of the bumpy yellow crookneck squash, but they certainly thrive.

I love to talk vegetables, so tell us what you grow, especially your can't-fail varieties.

We already heard from one reader about tomato plans for this year.

Patricia Carpenter is trying out Unicorn, Polish Giant, Champion II, Momotaro and Sunny Boy. (I've grown that last one and it's on my list to try again.) Her tried-and-true are Big Beef, Nova, Sungold, Celebrity, Roma II, Mortgage Lifter and Lemon Boy.

She has grown but is still testing Purple Boy, Damsel, Sakura, Chocolate Sprinkles, Goliath Sunny and Moonglow.

Moonglow is fascinating: It's a yellow-orange variety that was tested in New Zealand against a red variety,  Rosalita, for absorption of lycopene into the bloodstream. Both were consumed raw. The tests showed significantly higher levels of lycopene in people who ate the yellow-gold tomato.