Gardening grew in popularity this past growing season, so did all things cooking. Have foodies finally realized that gardening is an economical solution to their culinary habit? Or are gardeners turning into foodies as they search for recipes to accompany their tasty, and often exotic, heirloom vegetable varieties. Either way, planning your garden around a meal or style of cooking can give you a season full of perfect and affordable ingredients. 
 
If you’re gardening with heirlooms this is easy to do—just pick a country to build your garden around. For example, Thailand, Poland, and Russia are known for enough vegetable varieties to fill your garden with the perfect basil for spring rolls, cabbage for cabbage rolls, or beet for borscht. So pick a favorite country to plan your garden around—we’re picking Italy. You can check it out below.

Taste of Italy
If you like eating, grow tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, kale, basil, parsley. Your landscape will look good as well, with space-saving leafy trellises of tomatoes, vibrant pepper and eggplant color combinations, eye-catching textures of kale and parsley, and basil’s heady aroma and natural pest deterring abilities.

Growing your own vegetables is good for your pocketbook, too
Consider this Italian-style garden for family of 4:

Recipe and meal ideas
Stuffed Tomatoes
Tomato Salad
Stuffed Peppers
Baba Ghanoush
Basil Pesto

A sampling of varieties offered by Seed Savers (click on the links below to learn more)

Tomatoes: Cherry Roma and Italian Heirloom
These two varieties are both indeterminate, which means they vine up trellises well and keep producing fruit all season instead of ripening all at once. Cherry Roma is an addictive, 1-inch tomato with a sweet-spicy flavor that is delicious fresh or dried. Italian Heirloom is a heavy producer of over one pound beautiful red tomatoes.

Pepper: Marconi Red
This large sweet pepper is known for its extremely sweet, large fruit.

Eggplant: Listada de Gandia
This is a beautiful purple stripe Italian eggplant. Some think this is the best strain available on the market. 

Kale: Lacinato
Kale is a long season vegetable that lasts well into the winter. Its excellent flavor is enhanced by frost. This is an old Italian heirloom with blue-green leaves and a heavily savoyed texture. 

Basil: Purple Dark Opal
The scent of basil confuses and repels pests such as aphids, asparagus beetles, mites, mosquitoes, and tomato hornworms. This is an Italian strain with beautiful lilac flowers and dark red stems. It is spectacular as a garnish, in salads, or for adding color to basil vinegars. 

Parsley: Giant from Italy
This variety produces a continuous supply of large flat leaves with strong parsley flavor. It is prized by Italian cooks. 

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Premium 16 Perennial Wildflower Seeds Mix - Special Garden Flower Seeds Blend designed for planting indoor & outdoors across North America. With over 16 varieties and 100,000 wildflower seeds, this mix is the best solution to attract pollinators - bees, butterflies & birds are essential for garden plants health. Our Special Perennial Wildflower Seeds Mix Includes White Yarrow, Columbine, New England Aster, Siberian Wallflower, Shasta Daisy, Lance-Leaf Coreopsis, Sweet William, Purple Coneflower, Blanketflower, Gayfeather, Blue Flax, Lupine, Dwarf Evening, Primrose, Mexican Hat, Prairie Coneflower, Black Eyed Susan. Easy & Fun Growing Experience with our online guides - Don’t plant disappointment - Add more colors to your wildflower garden! We send only super hearty heirloom flower seeds with the highest germination rate and fast sprout. Our detailed growing guide helps you grow seeds the garden of your dream like a PRO. Colorful Wildflower Garden from Seeds - Grow wildflowers everywhere - Indoor in window garden or Outdoors Flower garden Garden make a beautiful design for your garden borders, pathways, field or meadow and attract pollinators. Made in the USA by Small Family-Owned Business - Quality You Can Trust - Our wildflower bulk seeds variety pack are tested at the highest germination rates before being sealed to last for up to 3 years before you need to plant. Each packet of our flower seeds variety pack is resealable to make it easy to store and has its own label with a QR code for the growing instructions.

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