18 New Vegetables For Easy Growing And Healthy Eating
Consumers crave unique, flavorful vegetables that are locally grown, whether their vegetables come from a container, a garden plot or a farmers’ market. More than anything, they want their growing experience to be a positive one, which translates to easy maintenance and a plentiful harvest.
-
-
1 of 18
Basil 'Dolce Fresca' (PanAmerican Seed)
‘Dolce Fresca’ is a 2015 All-America Selections National Winner. This mid-sized basil plant has a unique, bushy habit and shorter internodes to keep it from getting tall and leggy, while maintaining a traditional Genovese basil flavor and leaf size.
-
2 of 18
Cucumber 'Fresh Pickles' (Burpee Home Gardens)
This cucumber is planter-perfect. It produces loads of crunchy, flavorful picklers on compact, controllable vines. Sell in large containers in bloom, or with small fruit developing. Fruit grows to 5 inches long and makes exceptional pickles.
-
3 of 18
Eggplant 'Jaylo' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
A glossy black, Italian-type eggplant, ‘Jaylo’ has high yields and a very high vigor to keep it productive over a long season. A more vining than branched plant habit makes it easy to trellis. It firms up early, so it can be picked as a half-pound baby or quarter-pound mini size.
-
4 of 18
Eggplant 'Shikou' (Sakata Vegetables)
‘Shikou’ is a long Asian-type eggplant with dark, glossy fruit that measures 6- to 8-inches long by 1- to 1 ½ -inches wide. Plants are semi-spineless and have a purple calyx (stem). Fruit quality is high, and the fruits have few seeds, a white interior and thin, tender skin.
-
5 of 18
Pea 'Masterpiece' (Burpee Home Gardens)
A triple-treat sensation — parsley-like tendrils, peas and pods are all edible. Gardeners can enjoy the delicate pea tendrils in a few weeks, and the peas and pods offer sweet, fresh flavor and aroma. ‘Masterpiece’ is ideal for small-space gardens.
-
6 of 18
Pepper 'Admiral' (Syngenta Vegetables)
‘Admiral’ produces bright-yellow sweet bell peppers that add a pop of color to a variety of dishes. Strong, sturdy plants with vigorous foliage cover produce an abundance of fruit all season long. ‘Admiral’ can be harvested green or yellow and is adaptable to patio containers. Multiple disease resistances ensure garden success.
-
7 of 18
Pepper 'Felicitas' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
A big, blocky red bell pepper, ‘Felicitas’ was bred with a generative-type plant habit that will keep it productive when growing fast under heated greenhouse conditions. High yields of shiny peppers are attractive and flavorful. ‘Felicitas’ makes a nice mix with yellow ‘Bentley’ and orange ‘Orangela’ greenhouse peppers.
-
8 of 18
Pepper 'Garfield' (Harris Seeds)
‘Garfield’ is an impressive hybrid, blocky bell pepper with a rich orange color at full maturity. Medium-size plants produce good yields of medium, dark-green fruit that ripens to a vivid orange color. Its thick-walled flesh is sweet at full maturity. It is ready 75 days from transplant.
-
9 of 18
Pumpkin 'Kandy Korn Plus' (Sakata Vegetables)
‘Kandy Korn Plus’ is a compact, bush-type plant that is best known for its resistance to powdery mildew. Plants are early (85 days) and productive, with a high number of fruits per plant in a small amount of space. It produces deep-orange, one-pound fruit with dark-green handles.
-
10 of 18
SimplySalad KaleStorm (PanAmerican Seed)
A healthy, in-demand “superfood” is now available in SimplySalad. Kale Storm is the first all-kale SimplySalad multi-species multi-pellet. It delivers an attractive assortment of textures and colors that last longer in the garden and won’t bolt.
-
11 of 18
Tomato 'Apricot Dream' (Floranova)
‘Apricot Dream’ is an F1 hybrid with a mass of sweet fruit in a delightful apricot/orange color. It will produce 20 to 30 fruits per truss with a very high Brix rating of 11.5, giving a candy-like sweetness. Its indeterminate, but controlled habit, makes it a useable variety for patio containers.
-
12 of 18
Tomato 'Chef's Choice' (Harris Seeds)
Ready 75 days from transplant, ‘Chef’s Choice’ was developed from the heirloom ‘Amana Orange.’ The fruit has an orange exterior color and an internal color that is almost neon-orange. It is produced on a vigorous, indeterminate plant.
-
13 of 18
Tomato Heirloom Marriage Series (PanAmerican Seed)
This collection crosses two heirloom parents to create an F1 variety that maintains the distinctive appearance and flavor while delivering earlier and higher yields. These “marriages” overcome the shortcomings of the parents for better performance for home gardeners. Introduced in 2015 are: Big Brandy (cross of ‘Big Dwarf’ and ‘Brandywine’); Perfect Flame (cross of ‘Perone’ and ‘Flamme’); and Genuwine (cross of ‘Costoluto Genovese’ and ‘Brandywine’). New for 2016 is a beefsteak variety called Cherokee Carbon (cross of 'Cherokee Purple' and 'Carbon') and paste tomato Marzinera (cross of ‘San Marzano’ and ‘Cream Sausage’).
-
14 of 18
Tomato 'Margold' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
A greenhouse hybrid that doesn't look or taste like one. ‘Margold’ is a 7- to 10-ounce bicolor tomato with red-streaked yellow flesh, soft texture and an excellent sweet flavor. It has the look and taste of an heirloom variety, with higher yield and disease resistance, including leaf mold and tomato mosaic virus.
-
15 of 18
Tomato 'Pink Charmer' (Floranova)
‘Pink Charmer’ is a new indeterminate variety with high-yielding trusses and deep, rosy-pink fruit weighing 0.75 ounces (20 to 25 grams). It has good flavor, with a 10 percent Brix rating and is high yielding with up to 40 fruits per truss.
-
16 of 18
Tomato 'Rapunzel' (Floranova)
'Rapunzel' is an indeterminate high yielding tomato with extra-long trusses of bright scarlet cherry fruits. The fruit is extremely sweet with Brix levels of 12 percent. The trusses (hence the name) are impressively long, up to a yard in length, and containing up to 60 fruits per truss. The plants work well trained up a trellis and the fruit is perfect for salads, salsas and sweet enough to eat right off the vine.
-
17 of 18
Tomato 'Think Pink' (Sakata Vegetables)
‘Think Pink’ is a globe-shaped salad tomato with large 8 ounce fruits and a beautiful raspberry-pink color. Its outstanding smooth taste is well balanced between acidity and sweetness. It is indeterminate, disease resistant and very productive, yielding firm and flavorful fruit.
-
18 of 18
Zucchini 'Brice' (Syngenta Vegetables)
‘Brice’ produces three- to four-inch circular zucchini that can be stuffed or sliced. Its compact plant habit, small footprint and silvery leaves make it attractive in patio containers or in-ground. Healthy, productive plants are easy to grow due to multiple resistances to powdery mildew and viruses.
View all
Basil 'Dolce Fresca' (PanAmerican Seed)
Cucumber 'Fresh Pickles' (Burpee Home Gardens)
Eggplant 'Jaylo' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
Eggplant 'Shikou' (Sakata Vegetables)
Pea 'Masterpiece' (Burpee Home Gardens)
Pepper 'Admiral' (Syngenta Vegetables)
Pepper 'Felicitas' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
Pepper 'Garfield' (Harris Seeds)
Pumpkin 'Kandy Korn Plus' (Sakata Vegetables)
SimplySalad KaleStorm (PanAmerican Seed)
Tomato 'Apricot Dream' (Floranova)
Tomato 'Chef's Choice' (Harris Seeds)
Tomato Heirloom Marriage Series (PanAmerican Seed)
Tomato 'Margold' (Johnny's Selected Seeds)
Tomato 'Pink Charmer' (Floranova)
Tomato 'Rapunzel' (Floranova)
Tomato 'Think Pink' (Sakata Vegetables)
Zucchini 'Brice' (Syngenta Vegetables)
Current breeding efforts have focused on vegetable varieties that cater to small space and urban gardening trends and offer consumers good performance with minimal efforts. As a result, new, easy care vegetable introductions packed with flavor and loaded with fruits have swept onto the market.
For growers looking to secure repeat customers, these new varieties help them broaden and customize their vegetable selections, making sure they have something for everyone, from the restaurant owner and foodie enthusiast down to the deck gardener and health-conscious mom. Here are 18 new vegetable varieties to think about to help differentiate your product line-up from the competition.
[blackoutgallery id=”68011″]
Subscribe to eNewsletter
Janeen Wright is former Editor for Greenhouse Grower. See all author stories here.