Ark of Taste + Container Friendly Plants = One Handy List!

Recently I discovered Slow Food USA’s “Ark of Taste” list. Like many wonderful things on the internet, I got there through a rather circuitous route. Adriana tweeted a Sunset Magazine article about a chef growing his produce in old bourbon barrels. Always on the lookout for interesting container gardening stories, I had to read that. That article mentioned that the chef Mark Williams prefers to grow vegetables on Slow Food USA’s list. Something I’ve never heard before called The Ark of Taste. Intrigued, I clicked over and found a list of the creme de la creme of heirloom products. Everything from wines to fruits and vegetables.

I immediately started culling through the list of fruits and vegetables for things that are easy to grow in containers, and thus, this list was born. I’ve linked each variety to a source selling their seed and quoted from the entry in The Ark of Taste. When they listed more than one variety of the same plant, I picked my favorite among their selections, so it’s definitely worth clicking over to see the full Ark of Taste list. Please leave your own tasting or growing notes in the comments!

Without further ado, here is a list for fine-food-loving container gardeners everywhere:

• Early Blood Turnip Beet – “The dark red flesh remains flavorful, tender and juicy even when the beets attain large size. It has a slight clove-like aroma and a wonderful sweetness, light like a carrot but without the intense sweetness of a carrot.”
• Speckled Lettuce – “The lettuce is a loose-leaf variety that has juicy, thick, light green leaves that are speckled with maroon quarter-inch dots.  The speckled leaves have a pleasant, muddy flavor, which is similar to watercress.”
• Inchelium Red Garlic – “The flavor of the Inchelium Red is softly robust but not so strong as to be overwhelming; the flavor often sharpens in storage.”
• Fish Pepper – “This pepper is an African-American heirloom that predates the 1870s; the Fish Pepper is bright in color and crunchy, with a hot and bold flavor.”
• Aunt Ruby’s German Green Tomato – “The Aunt’s Ruby’s German Green is a sweet juicy tomato with a piquant bite.  The heirloom is a large beefsteak type tomato that is a pale green color with a hint of yellow striping.”
• Christmas Lima Bean - The bean…is a large—quarter sized—white, flat seed with maroon spots and swirls.  These intricate burgundy designs remain on the bean once it is cooked. The Christmas Lima has a full-bodied, nutty, chestnut taste and the texture of baked potatoes.
• Aunt Molly’s Ground Cherry - “This outstanding Polish variety is prized for its clean flavor.  This tomato has pineapple and vanilla flavor.”
• Meyer Lemon – “The lemon is a medium sized, round fruit that has a beautiful golden yellow color.  The edible skin is shiny, and smooth with small pores.  The rind of the Meyer is thin, and the fruit very juicy, and less acidic than that of true lemons.”
• Washington Navel Orange – “The Washington Navel orange is small in size and bright orange in color, both rind and flesh, with a thin, fine-textured skin. It has a sweet, citrus and blossomy fragrance and is close to a standard navel orange in aroma. With a fine and firm texture, the orange is dense and juicy, not watery, and has few seeds.”
• Baby Crawford Peach – “The Baby Crawford peach has an intensely rich, classically peach flavor that is reminiscent to the heirloom variety, the Crawford Peach.”
• Pixie Tangerines – “Small, firm, seedless fruits grow on vigorous trees. The rind is thick and pale orange to yellowish orange and it is very easy to peel.  The fruit’s juicy flesh has a floral aroma and its flavor is pleasantly sweet and full.”

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