Brave new world in vegetable gardens

Are you a gardening traditionalist who grows the best known and most reliable crops, or do you begin an adventure every summer to discover something different and new?

We sometimes forget the rich heritage of gardening that has been brought here by the mix of heritages. Most of us know carrots only as bright orange, long and cylindrical. But the orange skin was created by Dutch scientists, who bred carrots in the colour of their national flag. Purple dragon and red kuroda carrots are now available and reflect the original colours of carrots. Paris market is a little round carrot.

Cucumbers, too, come not only in the familiar dark green. Last spring I went looking for quality thin-skinned cucumbers. Muncher is a Lebanese-style thin-skinned cucumber, dark green with an excellent flavour. But the one that has caught the fancy of my cuisine-skilled wife, Noreen, is the Armenian cucumber. It is ribbed and the skin is creamy, pale green. The skin is thin and there are few seeds. The thick flesh is mild and delicious.

The French have specialised in growing bush beans - to the extent that we will often just refer to these stringless beans as ''French beans''. Royal burgundy is a beautiful, tender stringless bean which is violet-purple, and turns green when cooked. The plant is very disease resistant. Roc d'or is a heritage, golden-yellow bean with black seeds and purple flowers. It produces bumper crops and will germinate in cool soil so is a very good option for early springtime sowing. Both of these varieties will produce a crop in seven to eight weeks, so if you are quick to plant you might still get a late crop this autumn.

In searching for different vegetables I also read about a zucchini from Naples, cocozella Napoli. It is an amazing zucchini, ribbed and striped, light and dark green in colour. We have also grown the smaller, cylindrical golden zucchinis.

Zucchini flowers are popular on restaurant menus The production of zucchinis themselves relies on the appearance of the female flower. So you can harvest most of the male flowers and not affect your production. The male flowers can be identified by their thin, narrow stems. Wait until mid morning to pick the flowers to ensure that they have fully opened. You might see bees at work. Just leave a small number of the male flowers to act as pollinators for the female flowers.

This week:

■ Plant out the last seeds of broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower to get the crops well established before the cold days and nights.

■ Plant out silver beet and English spinach seedlings or sow seeds directly into your garden bed. Plant some rows of the fast growing little finger and paris market carrots.

■ Keep supporting your vegetables growing with a fortnightly foliar spray of seaweed extract or fish emulsion.

■ Check your vegetables every morning for the ripe fruits to enjoy their freshness and avoid producing giant exhibits.

■ When growing basil, pinch out the central growing tips to create a bushier plant. Take stem cuttings of rosemary, remove the lower leaves and plant into a propagation tray filled with quality potting mix. Keep the soil moist and place in a shady, cool location.

■ Check your pear and apple trees for overladen branches.

Owen Pidgeon runs the Loriendale Organic Orchard near Hall.