3-foot-long cucumber is one of farm network’s marvels

A “pumpkin” that looks like a bloated orange zucchini. A 3-foot-long cucumber. A radish seed pod that resembles an impossibly long purple bean. These unusual vegetables are just a few of the intriguing offerings at the Experimental Farm Network, whose catalog serves as an excellent reminder that there is a whole world of vegetables that are far more interesting that what the grocery store offers.

EFN, a cooperative of growers focused on collaborative plant breeding and sustainable agriculture research, is a treasure trove of seeds for the adventurous gardener who can’t abide growing the same varieties year after year.

It’s the kind of source you go to not with something specific in mind, but to pore through the catalog, rich with lengthy descriptions of taste and growing habit, of course, but also the people behind them, both those who discovered them and those who grew them.

‘Rattail’ radish, for example, which hails from southeast Asia and is grown for its edible seed pods rather than its roots, was grown by Jim Ternier at Prairie Garden Seeds in Canada and closely resembles a variety found in an 1885 catalog. Growing to a foot long on 3-foot-tall plants, they are described as being a surprising addition to crudite, fabulous in a stir-fry and excellent for snacking.

‘Long Pie’ pumpkin seeds were supplied to the network’s catalog by Cody Egan and Dylan Bruce of Wisconsin’s own Driftless Seed Supply with a promise that “once you try a pie made from ‘Long Pie,’ you’ll never buy canned pumpkin again.”

There’s a Wisconsin connection with that lengthy cucumber as well. ‘Kyoto Three Feet’ cucumber was grown by Jason Mills in Oshkosh, who started with a small sample from the USDA National Plant Germplasm System and then grew larger quantities the following year.

A true slicing cucumber, unlike some other long varieties such as Armenian “cucumber,” which are actually melons that are treated like cucumbers, it has smooth skin, few seeds and reportedly does, indeed, reach 3 feet long if grown on a trellis to fully ripe. According to the description, it appears to have been sitting in the government seed vault for 50 years unavailable to gardeners until now.

More than 50 tomato varieties are also available, some as a grex — several varieties chosen to grow together so they cross pollinate freely and create a group of offspring. The description closes with an assignment you’re unlikely to find from other seed purveyors: “Let us know what sort of wondrous tomatoes you grow from this mix.”

That’s the other things about these plant varieties: It’s not just about growing these mostly open pollinated varieties you’ll never find at the grocery store. That is just the beginning of the story, as the gardeners become growers, sometimes breeders, in this experimental network.

Seeds from the Experimental Farm Network are available at https://store.experimentalfarmnetwork.org.