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The Best varieties to grow in the SE for canning?

I've already started my garden this season here in SC, and I'm looking at next year already. Any experience/recommendations? Here's what I'm looking for, and what I chose for this year. Tomatoes: Celebrity Costoluto Genovese Viva Italia Heirloom blend (5 varieties including Brandywine) Golden Rave (a yellow grape variety) Supersweet 100 Roma (the dog whacked them) Green Peppers: California Sweet (I'm not happy with the germination on these and will be looking for another next year) Cucumber: County Fair Alibi Beans: Borlotto Solista (for dry beans) Festina (for canning) Peas: Maestro I also have some yellow onion sets, a squash (Rumbo, looks kind of like a pumpkin) and Cantaloupe (Ambrosia), eating cukes (Pearl) plus some okra pass a long seeds, strawberries, raspberries and blueberries and a couple of herbs. I make jams, sauce, salsa, pickles, pies, and can what we don't eat fresh, but this is only my second time growing for canning. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. I forgot to mention, except for Celebrity and Roma (may they rest, in pieces!), the berries and the squash herbs and onions (yellow storage is all I know about them), these are all new varieties for me. Pal, thank you so much for our answer. My youngest and I are out in the yard, watching the bumble bees. It's a really pretty day today, but all too soon it will be 100 deg in the shade and I won't want to poke a toe out while the sun is up. Clemson University (which is where our county extension office referred me) has excellent information on the technicalities of growing here in SC, but not so much information on which varieties hold up for canning/preserving nor do they factor in tastiness. As for lettuce and other greens, we ran through the packages of seeds that I had faster than expected (they grew like crazy in our yard, but the neighbors are just getting started, microclimates?) and we're kind of tired of salads at the moment. I'm using the space for onions now. I do have one tomato that the kids planted in the mint/oregano barrel, it's a German slicing tomato, and most of the heirlooms in the mix are also slicers. It sounds like you're really missing your garden!

Public Comments

1. OOOOh, I am so jealous. You have such a long growing season. I am not aware of the best varieties that are recommended for your area but see if your state university has an extension department or home gardeners program. They probably have handouts you can get on just about any plants you want. I would add a salad garden to my plantings, plant lettuces, spinach, herbs like basil, oregano, marjoram, sage should be perennial in your area and don't for get dill and chives but give them their own little plots as they tend to come up all over from self seeding. I would also plant some container tomatoes for eating out of hand. The yellow plums and pear shapes are yummy as are romas. You may be able to restart the ones the dogs wrecked using short season varieties intended for planting up north. I wish I were there with dirt under my fingernails.
2. It sounds like you have a wonderful garden. Gardening is my favorite past-time. I have a few suggestions for you. From Burpee try: Burpee's Stringless Green Pod - Good canner, flavor. Cucumber Lemon (Heirloom) - Lemon yellow cucumbers are tender and sweet, excellent for salads and pickling. These are fun as well as tasty. Cucumber Burpee Pickler (Pickling) - Early-maturing, black-spined pickles, on full-sized vines. Cucumber Picklebush (Bush, Pickling) - White-spined fruits have classic pickle look, deep green with paler stripes. Sweet Pepper Great Stuff Hybrid - A colossal stuffer at 7" long and 5" wide, ripens from green to dark red. Tomato Big Mama Hybrid - The new standard in home grown paste tomatoes. Enormous! From R.H.Shumway (www.RHShumway.com) try: Amish Paste Tomato - "Real tomato taste" in a turn-of-the-century Amish heirloom. The best for sauces and canning. Bright red fruits are large for canning types, about 8 oz., and not too acidic. Excellent for slicing fresh too! Jupiter Sweet Pepper - Produces big, heavy, blocky, 4 lobed peppers like mad. The 30 inch plants are strong, and set on a load of fruit that have very thick walls and great taste whether harvested as traditional green bells or as mature reds. TMV tolerant. I never tried to grow cantalope, but one year I did grow it . . . the very best tasting cantalope I ever ate came from my compost pile. It tasted much better than any store bought. So, is this because it was a hybrid that lost some flavor when they hybridized it to get longer shelf life? I know if you plant seed from hybrid fruit it goes back to it's original, non-hybrid form. So, maybe you should try saving seed from a store bought cantalope and see what you get when you plant it. Have you tried square foot gardening? It is a system devised/promoted by Mel Bartholomew. He wrote a book and did quite a nice series on PBS. He also has 3 videos showing his methods. My gardening is so much easier and more enjoyable since I started using his methods. It is also tremendous fun for children. I have purchased his book cheaply on ebay - several copies that I give away to fellow gardeners. It is packed with all sorts of gardening info along with describing his system. His web site is: www.squarefootgardening.com I hope some of this helps. Happy gardening!