Come, on, now – confess! We know you’re thinking about your upcoming garden, probably poring over glossy, color seed and plant catalogs and websites, some of them looking so luscious and tempting that we call them ‘garden porn’. We’ve all indulged in this guilty pleasure. But when it comes to choosing the most appropriate and successful seeds and plants for your garden, the best place to shop is close to home, down a quiet gravel road, next to the Boulder Circus Center.
At Harlequin’s this year we are introducing some new partners, foremost among them being MASA Seed Foundation. Located in Boulder County and led by expert Rich Pecoraro, MASA’s mission is to grow > select > repeat the best locally-adapted seeds for the most rewarding, successful varieties and species for the Front Range and the interior west. We are not only offering a wider selection of MASA’s bio-regionally-adapted seeds for varieties of vegetables, herbs and flowers; MASA will also be producing most of our vegetable, annual herb and annual flower starts from their vitality-packed seeds. I myself, and many local gardening friends, have had our best successes from MASA’s seeds – superior germination rates, speed and vitality, sturdier, healthier, more climate-resilient plants, higher yields and superb flavor. We hope you will try them and have equally satisfying results!
Here are a few notable varieties from MASA:
Indian Woman Gold dry bean: A small, Central Mexican, golden brown dry bean, delicious, creamy-textured soup bean that you just can’t buy. So I’ve grown it from Rich’s adapted seeds for many years. It out-produces any other dry bean for me, and threshes easily. Northern adaptation began in Montana with early Swedish/American settlers.
Dragon carrot: Now grown and selected for seven years by MASA, Dragon is well-adapted to our clay-based soils and our climate. An early, vigorous, sweet, crisp, beautiful Chantenay-type, with smooth magenta-purple skin with slices revealing concentric rings of magenta, orange and yellow! Easy to harvest and holds well in the garden.
Front Range Globe onion: A real winner that Rich has been growing for decades, and is now fully adapted to our northern Front Range intermediate day-length. It rivals or surpasses the best F-1 hybrids in early maturation and uniformity, and stores well. The medium-sized, round, firm yellow onions with golden brown skins have time to cure fully for storage.
Chianti Rose tomato: One of my top favorite tomatoes, it’s a star performer for me every year. Vigorous, healthy, indeterminate, potato-leaf vines to 5’ are very productive of large, pink, full-
flavored Brandywine-type fruits that begin maturing in 75 days from transplant! So glad MASA has adapted this one!
.