Italian seeds for the garden

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This year’s garden find: Seeds From Italy, an American company started by Bill McKay, a passionate gardener who had trouble finding the Italian seeds he wanted to grow on his own plot of land. In 2000, he became the U.S. agent for Franchi Sementi (Seeds) in Bergamo, Italy — a company that dates from 1783 — and has been selling Italian seeds ever since.

I can’t remember what I was searching for when I found his site, maybe speckled borlotti beans (lingua di fuoco). But what a glorious bonanza for Italophile gardeners. Seeds From Italy does have lingua di fuoco, also thick-fleshed peppers from Piedmont and cardi gobbi, the hunchbacked cardoons that are essential to bagna cauda. He’s got the wild green called agretti, several varieties of radicchio I’ve only seen in the Veneto region, and on and on.

I kind of went crazy ordering stuff. The radicchio I think I’ll plant later when the weather cools down. Right now, though, I’m growing an escarole mix for salads, a couple of different eggplants, violetta and romanesco artichokes, a yellow bush bean from Piedmont streaked with red, another that grows in a curlicue, cultivated dandelion and zucchini da fiore — zucchini bred to produce lots of very large flowers for cooking. In addition to the Franchi seeds, he has seeds from small purveyors in the south of Italy.

And four times a year McKay publishes his useful newsletter (which is archived on the website) with advice on growing the various vegetables, along with tips from customers who have written in to tell him how they like to cook their Italian produce.

— S. Irene Virbila