SPRING PLANTING : Old-World Harvest

In the spring, a gardener’s fancy turns to thoughts of what to plant. For the flower garden, one can take advantage of the many perennials that are debuting at nurseries this year, and for the vegetable garden, one can discover the European varieties that are available for the first time in seed catalogues.

EUROPEAN VEGETABLES ARE the hot news at the edible end of the garden. Virtually unknown just a few years ago, they are now available through a number of small seed companies, mostly doing business by mail order. The European vegetable-gardening movement originated in Northern California, where Vicki Sebastiani and Renee Shepherd, both instrumental in introducing these vegetable varieties to this country, are two of its most prominent practitioners.

Vicki Sebastiani first discovered the European varieties when she was in charge of the Sebastiani Vineyard’s Wine and Food Department, where she specialized in creating Old World recipes to match the vineyard’s wines. She now works in a similar capacity and also serves as co-proprietor with her husband, Sam, of their new Sonoma Winery, Vianea Vineyards. On a trip to Sam Sebastiani’s ancestral home town in Italy, it occurred to Vicki Sebastiani that if they were going to cook and entertain in the Old World tradition, why not make it authentic? They would plant an Italian kitchen garden.

She grows a number of Italian lettuces, several radicchios , curly endives and arugula. Italian squashes are also favored items; they are utilized in a multitude of dishes, and their blossoms are stuffed with a number of ingredients. One zucchini in particular, ‘Zucchetta Rampicante,’ is most unusual: The long, curled, slender, pale-green squash has a bulge in the blossom end where the seeds are contained. It has a very sweet, subtle zucchini flavor and can be eaten raw like an apple. For eggplant parmigiana and other eggplant dishes, Sebastiani prefers the milder white and violet Italian types. ‘Violette Lungs,’ a long-shaped, violet-colored eggplant, is her favorite.

Renee Shepherd’s interest in European vegetables began when a friend, the manager of a large Dutch wholesale seed company, bet that he grew vegetable varieties that tasted better than hers. Renee took him up on his challenge, grew some of his vegetables and discovered that he was right. Convinced others would feel the same, she founded Shepherd’s Garden Seeds, in Felton, a company devoted to bringing American gardeners the best vegetable varieties Europe has to offer. Shepherd’s recently published cookbook, “Recipes From a Kitchen Garden,” is the result of many recipe-tasting sessions utilizing the fresh bounty of her garden.

A visit to Shepherd’s garden last summer unveiled a number of exciting and tasty vegetables, including cornichons , the tiny French pickling cucumbers. ‘Chioggia’ beets display beautiful red-and-white striped rings when cut, and ‘Giello’ is a huge, quarter-moon-shaped pepper from Italy. From England there is ‘Ronninson’s Telegraph’ cucumber, a long slender, “burpless” variety. From Holland comes ‘Broadleaf Dutch’ cress, which tastes like watercress but is easy to grow in ordinary soil.

The Shepherd’s Garden Seeds catalogue costs $1 and is available from 7389 W. Zayante Road, Felton, Calif. 95018. Shepherd’s carries seeds for ‘Zucchetta Rampicante,’ but it is so new it is not yet listed in the catalogue. La Marche Seeds International, P.O. Box 190, Dixon, Calif. 95620 (catalogue $2), has a fine selection of European vegetable seeds. This year you will even find European varieties in the catalogues of W. Atlee Burpee Co. (Warminster, Pa. 18974) and Park Seed Co. (Cokesbury Road, Greenwood, S.C. 29647-0001), two old-time American seed companies.