Fruit and vegetable varieties
grown in Ardtornish Kitchen Garden

This is not an exhaustive list, rather those varieties that we find taste good or perform well in our conditions of high rainfall (85in/2160mm per annum). We use mainly blood, fish and bone fertiliser and avoid using pesticides where possible, so pest and disease-resistance is important. Our fruit is grown entirely without pesticides and inorganic fertilisers.

We no longer sell vegetables direct to the public. All are grown under contract.

Vegetables

  1. Broad Beans. We have tried many broad bean varieties. Most of the standard types don’t set well here so you only get one or two beans in a pod. The 2 which have performed best are Express and the small-seeded Stereo. We cannot get large packets of Express so we grow only Stereo which has a fine taste though takes longer to pick.
  2. Runner Beans are not the easiest crop as we can get frosts up to mid-June and again from early September coupled with a cool, wet, growing season. Again, the modern varieties seem better here. We use Polestar which crops well, is early, stringless and tastes superb.
  3. Beetroot. I am not sure if there is much to choose between beetroot for flavour but a bolt-resistant variety is essential here. Pronto and Bikores are excellent. Golden beet does less well though tastes good.
  4. Brussels Sprouts. Open-pollinated varieties tend to form large, loose sprouts with us and some hybrids such as Peer Gynt can be brown in the centre.
  5. Calabrese. Volta and Corvet are the best we have tried. Open-pollinated varieties are a waste of time with loose heads which is a pity as the seed is very cheap.
  6. Cabbage. The early variety Golden Cross is our favourite for flavour and it stands quite well. Golden Acre does well also.
  7. Carrots. Rootfly is a major problem here. We use Environmesh, a fine nylon barrier which is only partly successful. The fly-resistant varieties Flyaway and Systan weren’t and they did not taste great either. Amsterdam Forcing types taste good as do Berjo and Karotan.
  8. Cucumber. We always grow Petita, a small variety with good flavour and disease-resistance.
  9. Lettuce. Slugs are a major problem here so leafy types are better than hearted. All lettuce are grown in polytunnels. Frillice, a crisp, leafy type grows well and tastes good. Butterhead Clarion and crisp Saladin are quite good but can harbour lots of protein. We also grow Lollo Rossa and Lollo Biondi.
  10. Marrow. We find Bambino the best for small courgette production but others are pretty good.
  11. Parsnip. Canker is a problem so we use the resistant Gladiator though Javelin is good too.
  12. Potatoes. In the past, we grew mainly old varieties with floury texture and good flavour. Duke of York, Sharpe’s Express, Kerr’s Pink. And a blighty lot they could be. Now, we grow for a different market and Duke of York is the only survivor (2005 is possibly it’s last year with us as a poor yield takes as long to lift as a good one and there is little weed suppression by the foliage). Charlotte, Record and Cara yield much better and have better resistance to blight and scab.
  13. Swede. We use Marian for its resistance to clubroot.
  14. Swiss Chard. White Silver has broad, white, fleshy stems. It is prone to bolting from an early sowing so we do another sowing in summer. We don`t bother with spinach beet.
  15. Tomato. We feel is is worthwhile persevering till you get a tomato you like. We have tried at least 20 in the 25y we have been here and a few more before then. One thing we have found is that old varieties don`t necessarily taste better than modern ones and growing conditions and climate affect flavour. Our favourites would be - Sonatine and Blizzard as standard types, Sungold and Nectar as cherry types. Some of those we have grown are - Ailsa Craig, Moneymaker, Curabel, Shirley, Herald, Brandywine, Green Grape, Black Russian, Sweet 100, Sun Baby, Merlot, Sungella, Ruby, Cossack, Lambada - though some were rejected because of poor growth or disease-resistance, not flavour.

Fruit

  1. Strawberries. Honeoye may not be the best for flavour, but it is early, very resistant to botrytis and has a long season. Mid-season Elsanta is quite good and late Florence crops poorly but is welcome nonetheless.
  2. Rasps. We now mainly grow Autumn Bliss, cropping in summer on the old canes and autumn on the new canes. Reasonable flavour with good pest and disease-resistence. The dozen or so other varieties we have grown have succumbed to pestilence and disease (probably why most commercial Scottish organic rasp growers use pesticides).
  3. Hybrid berries. Tayberries have a fine taste and grow quite well though the blackbirds are very fond of them. Loganberries also grow well but are greatly troubled by rasp beetle larvae (would you like them in your dessert?) so we are about to abandon them. As is often the case if you don’t spray, pests build up to an unacceptable level.