[HesterF]

I realise this is very situations dependent but having ordered some 'seed selections' from T&M this year, I've now got a clear favourite for early potatoes (Lady Christl), mangetout (Shiraz - purple, pretty and tasty) and normal peas (Twinkle - so good I was eating them whole pod and all) which have all been way better than any of the other varieties I tried. So what are your top favourites for various veges - the ones you now order year after year without really thinking about it?  I'd love a couple of suggestions for low maintenance tomatoes too - I always start out with such good training plans but before I know it, they're all sprawling all over the place so I need something that has normal sized fruit but without needing training.

H

[Connor]

I find king edward spuds are great but i did find they were a bit small this year but they were sown late because of the bad weather in Feb!

[Bert]

I will let you know at the end of the season   ( trying lots of new things)
I always grow pumpkin small sugar, peas kelvedon wonder, runner beans stream line.
I'm trying lots of new varieties of tomato this year. At the moment the variety I would suggest you try for the very small amount of training it needs is Roma, but its a plum variety so you may not want that one. The rest I'm trying are all like triffids  .

[Fleecewife]

Varieties I grow every year include:
 
Climbing French Bean - Cobra
 
Tomato - Sakura (in tunnel, tall, cherry, delicious, copes with blight, forms large crowded plants which go on producing fruit until Christmas with fleece for frost protection, just needs side shoots supported with more canes) - obviously not the one you want HesterF but I love it 
 
Sugar Snap Pea - I think it's called Quartz
 
Potatoes - Cara (blight resistant and a good looking, tasty tattie), Mayan varieties (tasty), Lady Balfour (a bit blight resistant and tasty) - (I love King Edward but it's very susceptible to blight here).  I always grow several new varieties each year in addition to the favourites.
 
Brassicas - Purple Sprouting Broccoli (usually mixed from DTBrown plus one of the summer croppers, Claret this year), various kales such as Pentland Brig (old variety), Dwarf Green Curled, a curly red one, Westland Winter (tall, curly), Brukale Petit Posy (like a leafy blown Brussels sprout, much nicer taste).  I usually try new varieties as well, this year I have Shetland Cabbage (not a cabbage !) and Sutherland Kale, sometimes I like Russian Red.
I no longer grow cabbages, cauliflowers or Brussel Sprouts.
 
For carrots and beetroot, and especially lettuce, I grow a wide variety every year, old ones and trying new ones.   For other things such as squashes I try different varieties each year, although there's usually a couple of Courgette Defender in there for its CMV resistance.
 
I tried Pea Blauwschokker one year and it grew to an enormous height, but the peas were horrible so I won't be trying that one again.
 
Modified to add:  I've just had an email from someone explaining that Blauwschokker is a Dutch pea meant for drying     What an eegit    I am     No wonder it tasted dry and floury as a green pea  .
As a drying pea it would be great - very heavy cropper with plenty of peas in the pod and it's a lovely bluey purple.   I must look through the catalogues (I think it's in Chase Organics and Real Seeds) and see if they said it's for drying and I'm just unobservant 

[Connor]

Its good to change to different varieties because some grow better than others (depends on where you live)!

[ddangus]

Further to the additional information from Fleecewife find a few links to the Dutch drying peas below:

http://bifurcatedcarrots.eu/2006/07/capucijners/
http://carletongarden.blogspot.co.uk/2007/06/capucijner-peas.html

Thinking about it makes me home sick !
 

DD

[Connor]

Have never seen purple peas lol??

[benkt]

We love desiree for our spuds - and not only because being red they are easy to find in the clay as we dig them up! For peas I can second "kelvedon wonder" and we also have a lot of success with "early onward" for an early crop. Beetroot-wise we do a mix of "bolthardy" and "detroit" but I prefer the former as they seem to do better in our soil/clay. I always try a good selectionof tomatos each year,but its hard to beat the old favourite of "money maker" for yield.

[Connor]

How do you keep the clay soil workable?

[HesterF]

Thanks all - will be coming back to this when I order my seeds in the winter.

My brassicas are all going really well at the moment so my list is not yet complete - even the cauliflowers are great  - butterfly proof netting is clearly key.

Oh, and the purple peas had lovely pink & purple flowers. They do lose their colour a bit on cooking though - and steamed over potatoes this led to blue potatoes, not the best look!

H

[Padge]

We tried what I think were Casablanca first early potatoes this year and they were delicious  followed by Anya  and I can't remember the maincrop 
We have Moonlight runner beans which give a fantastic crop and taste divine   and Eskimo carrots
Ball courgettes which I stuff and are lovely   the others are defender which I shall pickle.......radish we've done mini cherry bell which are absolutely delicious...the tomatoes are a right mixture...were very late and although have fruits setting don't look as though will give a good yield   have done loads of other stuff with differing degrees of success and am hoping to eradicate the blinkin green munchers  and have greens for winter but not overly confident at the minute 

[Simon O]

Another vote for Casa Blanca potatoes - I harvested 5 plants last night and got 15kg of smooth almost blemish free well shaped potatoes, hardly a slug bite on them. Cheryl is selling these through the local community initiative and these look like a great potato for selling. They taste good too - boiled up the small ones (of which there were few) and had a supper of a bowl of potatoes with mint and some of the hand-churned butter that we got from Lamlash show last Wednesday. Not bad at all.