There are plenty of things that are inconvenient about the gypsy apprentice life. Living without heat, indoor plumbing, or mold-free upholstery. Picking up stakes and moving every six months or so. For all that I’ve learned from it, for all that I’ve loved parts of it, when I say that I’m ready for it to end, I mean it.

But one thing that I’ll truly miss is the people. I’ve met some phenomenal people on the different crews I’ve worked with. Sarah is one of them. We spent the fall together at Garden of Eve in 2008, harvesting beets and making pizza on Sunday nights in the little beach shack on Sound Shore Drive.

Sarah is now living and farming in France, which she records on her blog, and occasionally we’ll catch one another on gchat. It’s kind of funny and kind of great, to be living in a barn where i sleep with hot water bottles on cold nights and hang my clothes from the rafters, and yet be able to just shoot the breeze in real time with a friend a world away. The wonders of wireless internet.

So she asked me the other day to name my five favorite seed varieties I’ll be growing. Here they are, in no particular order:

Matts Wild Cherry: A tiny red currant tomato, pictured above, both in my shirt hem and on the vine. Margie is growing them here, they do well in South Florida. In fact, they seem to do well just about everywhere. The farmer who turned me onto them, Phil Barbato of Biophilia Farm in Greenport NY, said that for him they are always the first to bear in the spring and the last to die in the fall. They’re also pretty darn cute. I had a tough time getting them to germinate at Mermaid last spring, and then didn’t trellis the plants, so it was a little bit of a shit show, but I think I can get it right this year.

Karma Dahlia: Everyone at the ASCFG conference this fall was in love with this series. The karma dahlia is vegetatively propagated and copyrighted. So you buy plugs (for the non-growers out there, plugs are baby plants in plastic trays) in the spring, plant them in the field, and enjoy a long and super-productive harvest. The traditional way to do dahlias is to plant these giant tubers in the spring and then dig them out again in the fall, which is a ton of work, and you need somewhere to store the tubers for the winter. So I’m going to try these instead, probably in the hoophouse to max out the yield.

Hulk Aster: Pictured above. How excellent is that? I love green flowers. This one’s really weird – it has no petals. I guess you either love it or you hate it. But if you can’t see the appeal of a cut flower named HULK, well, I’m not sure I can help you.

Fairytale Eggplant: An old favorite of mine. Small. Striped. Cute. There’s not much more I want in an eggplant. The plants are somewhat dwarf too – I think I’m going to put a few in three gallon pots and try selling those as well.

Purple Haze Carrot: A hybrid carrot, also a 2006 AAS winner. Sometimes with the non-orange carrots you have to lose both the traditional color and the traditional taste, and the carrots are runty to boot. Not so with Purple Haze. Interesting to look at, sizes up pretty well. Expensive seed, but if I can get them to germinate it’ll be more than worth it.