Click Here to Buy Seeds and See All Our Listings! Our shopping cart is hosted by Seedwise, which is a platform for farmers to direct market seeds. If you have questions the best way to contact us is by email at commonwealthseeds@gmail.com. For a printable, text-only version of our variety descriptions click here.
Following are profiles for our original introductions! Clicking on the variety name takes you to the seedwise shopping cart listing for that variety.
Xiye Butternut Cucurbita moschata Newly developed by Care of the Earth Community Farm in Corryton, Tennessee! Xiye Butternut comes from a cross between San Jose Mountain Club Squash (from Costa Rica) and Waltham Butternut. This variety was bred, with the help of two SARE grants, specifically for resistance to downy mildew and to tolerate variable and unpredictable climatic conditions. Plants are fully vining and very productive, and the fruits have good flavor and sweetness. Squash is nutty and has a caramel or butterscotch flavor when roasted. Exterior color is an especially deep tan. Selection is ongoing for butternut shape, size (selecting for 4 lb. size), smaller seed cavity, dry matter content, flavor, and ability to store at least 3 months. Currently in the F6 generation. Expect slight variability still for all characteristics. Named in honor of climate activist Xiye Bastida. 115 days.
South Anna Butternut Cucurbita moschata High quality downy mildew resistant butternut squash bred for the South. Edmund Frost developed South Anna from a cross between Seminole Pumpkin and Waltham Butternut, and has been selecting for ten years for downy mildew resistance, productivity, flavor, brix, dry matter content, keeping quality, and general butternut shape. Exterior color is a deeper tan than most butternuts. The majority of fruits are 3-4 pounds, though they range from 1.5-5.5 pounds.
South Anna will avoid the crop failure that can occur in years when downy mildew comes early, and provide a better quality harvest in years with average DM pressure. The healthier foliage leads to sweeter, riper fruits of a rich tan color. Brix, dry matter and flavor ratings of South Anna have been consistently higher than other butternuts in our trials at Twin Oaks Seed Farm. When used as a late planting, South Anna grows strong until frost, allowing for later harvests that will keep better into the winter. Because this variety is somewhat indeterminate, we often make two harvest passes, separated by a few weeks. This also helps extend the storage window, because the later-ripening fruits will keep longer and you can sell the earlier-ripening ones first. Strong, vigorous, fully vining plants. 120 days.
South Wind Slicer Cucumis sativus Developed by Edmund Frost for Common Wealth Seed Growers. Our new downy mildew resistant slicing cucumber! Named after the wind that blows downy mildew spores here from the South every summer. Bred especially for late summer when downy mildew pressure is high, South Wind also grows well and produces over a long season when planted early. Edmund focused a lot on bacterial wilt tolerance as well as downy resistance in the selections. These are strong, vigorous and productive plants that rarely produce misshapen fruits, even under stress. Straight, medium green, 7-8 inch cucumbers with aromatic flavor. Stem ends are never bitter. We are still refining this variety – please send us your feedback! 56 days.
From our friends at Broadfork Farm in Chesterfield, VA:
“(The Common Wealth Slicer Lines) all tremendously outperformed other varieties in terms of late season Downy Mildew pressure… All three were spectacularly better than all other varieties we have tried as far as marketability, eating quality, and productivity… These cukes are stunning with their color, and super forgiving with their size. They are still very good when harvested too late. We love, love, love them. They meet all of our needs and wants for late season cukes.”
Common Wealth Pickler Cucumis sativus Developed by Edmund Frost for Common Wealth Seed Growers. Our new downy mildew resistant pickling cucumber! Sweet, aromatic, crisp and thin-skinned, these are great for fresh eating as well as pickling – even when picked on the large side. Bred to grow well in the late season when downy mildew pressure is high, they also thrive when planted early. The vigorous, strong and forgiving plants tolerate bacterial wilt, and there is a low incidence of misshapen fruits when plants are stressed. Abundantly productive over a long window. Stem ends are never bitter. Edmund is continuing to refine this variety, and would love to hear your feedback. 52 days.
About the development of Common Wealth Pickler and South Wind Slicer (by Edmund Frost):
I’ve been working on these cucumbers at Twin Oaks Seed Farm / Common Wealth Seed Growers since 2015. Since 2013 if you count variety trials. We started with an initial cross – between two cucumbers that stood out in our 2014 downy mildew trial – one from China and one from the Philippines. I made a selection from this population in 2016 under heavy downy mildew and bacterial wilt pressure, and managed to cross that plant to an American pickling cucumber called ‘Homemade Pickles.’ Selection from the three-way cross started in late 2017 (we can grow two generations of cucumbers to seed here in a growing season).
The resulting population had a lot of diversity, and is the foundation for both South Wind Slicer and Common Wealth Pickler. We’ve done intensive breeding trials each year since then, selecting for downy mildew resistance, bacterial wilt tolerance, flavor, sweetness, crispness, shape, and productivity. We will be continuing to refine both varieties, and additional varieties are set to come out of the project in the future. We received grants from Organic Farming Research Foundation in 2018 and 2019 for the cucumber research and breeding work. The 2014 trial happened with SARE funding. Read more about all this on our research page: Commonwealthseeds.com/research.
Thanks and Acknowledgement to:
-Peasant and indigenous farmers and communities in China, the Philippines and many other places whose brilliant work over so many generations created the parent cucumber varieties used in this project. The breeding work here is one small part of this whole story.
-Kathy Reitsma and others at North Central Regional Plant Introduction Station in Ames, Iowa (they maintain the cucumber collection for the USDA germplasm bank).
-Adam Call and Todd Wehner from NC State for their work in “Studies on Resistance to Downy Mildew in Cucumber” (2010). Results of this study largely informed the choices in our 2014 downy mildew trial where we identified what parents to use in this project.
-Michael Mazourek, organic plant breeder from Cornell, for support, guidance and encouragement throughout this project.
-Micaela Colley and Jared Zystro from Organic Seed Alliance.
-Bill Holdsworth for making the initial cross in the winter of 2015.
-Organic Farming Research Foundation (OFRF) and Southern Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SSARE).
-Jay Bost, Katie Ziemann, and Gabe Sachter-Smith for doing seed increases and re-combinations in Hawaii over the winters of 2019, 2020 and 2021.
Resilient Fire Pumpkin Cucurbita pepo Developed by Edmund Frost. An Orange Halloween pumpkin bred to resist downy mildew – so that they grow well into October. They also have good vine borer resistance, an uncommon trait for Cucurbita pepo varieties. Average size is 11 inches in diameter. For Virginia and similar climates we recommend planting in mid to late June for harvest in mid to late October. Some percentage of plants (23% in 2022) will make pumpkins with skin that is too hard to carve. This is a trait Edmund has been selecting against (though in the future he may release a separate variety with the hard shell). Shapes vary from round to somewhat oblong, and they ripen to a deep orange color. They trended towards more oblong in 2022.
Resilient Fire Pumpkin comes from a cross between Magic Lantern, an orange carving pumpkin resistant to powdery mildew (which may also confer some downy mildew resistance); and an orange squash from Tamaulipas, Mexico called Tutume. Edmund got Tutume (PI 532389) and about a dozen other tropical Cucurbita pepo seedstocks from the USDA germplasm bank for a late-planted downy mildew trial in 2018. Tutume was the only squash that handled the downy mildew and produced well in the trial.
Its possible this variety has higher than average susceptibility to squash bugs – it has always done well at Twin Oaks Seed Farm in late plantings but struggled with squash bugs one of the times we planted them early. Consider using row cover on young plants if you have high squash bug pressure. We’d love your feedback on this ongoing project! 105 days.
Greta Oblong Selection Melon (F5) This melon seedstock is part of Care of the Earth Community Farm’s project to dehybridize Magnificenza F1, a well-known organic Italian orange muskmelon. Megan and Lalo began selecting for two different melons in 2022. “Greta Oblong” is a medium-size oval Italian muskmelon much like Magnificenza. It shows field resistance to Fusarium Wilt and intermediate resistance to both Bacterial Wilt and Downy Mildew. Greta Oblong is productive, has high brix and really good flavor, medium consistency, and medium storage abilities. CSA members at Care of the Earth, who helped in the selection process of this melon, consistently gave it really high marks for flavor. It along with its sister, Greta Round Melon, is one of the few muskmelons Megan really enjoys to eat. Megan: “It has good depth of flavor, without being too musky, and is perfectly sweet.” Melons are 3-4 pounds and ripen uniformly in 74-78 days. Pick at full-slip, when sutures begin to turn yellow. These seeds were saved from a planting that produced 100% oblong melons – but still expect some variability. Named in honor of climate activist Greta Thunberg.
Greta Round Selection Melon (F5) This melon seedstock is part of Care of the Earth Community Farm’s project to dehybridize Magnificenza F1, a well-known organic Italian orange muskmelon. Megan and Lalo began selecting for two different melons in 2022. “Greta Round” is a smaller, well-netted, round melon with medium-high brix, very good flavor, and good storage. Its texture and flavor are reminiscent of a Charentais melon. It shows field resistance to Fusarium Wilt and intermediate resistance to both Bacterial Wilt and Downy Mildew. Melons average 1.5-2 pounds, with an occasional larger melon and ripen in 78-80 days. Pick at full-slip, when external color begins to turn from green to yellow. These seeds were saved from a planting that produced 100% round, netted melons – but still expect some variability. Named in honor of climate activist Greta Thunberg.
.
Other Introductions We didn’t breed the following varieties, but identified them as standouts through trials, and were the first to introduce them (in North America anyway). We’ve done a lot of selection work with some of these.
DMR 401 Cucumber Cucumis sativus DMR 401 is the next generation Downy Mildew resistant cucumber from Michael Mazourek’s breeding program at Cornell. Like DMR 264, DMR 401 has foliage that will resist Downy Mildew pressure at levels that kill any other standard slicing cucumber plant. DMR 401 is earlier and more productive than DMR 264. Fruits average 8 inches. Our 2015 trials of eight DMR cucumber lines from Cornell pointed to DMR 401 as the winner. We contacted Michael Mazourek with the results, and he confirmed that DMR 401 also did the best in the Cornell trials. This variety is sensitive to drought stress.
DMR 264 Cucumber Cucumis sativus Excellent Downy Mildew resistance, surpassing any other green slicing cucumber that we know of. A new release from Cornell University. Bred by Michael Mazourek, whose breeding program at Cornell focuses on breeding for organic conditons. DMR-264 has been a top performer in Twin Oaks’ Downy Mildew trials, yielding three times more than Marketmore 76 under conditions of heavy DM pressure. 10-15 days later than Marketmore 76. This variety makes cucumber production possible in August, September and October when other varieties die from Downy Mildew. These are smaller than a standard slicer and should be picked at 5 inches.
Chinese Tropical Pumpkin Cucurbita moschata Chinese Tropical Pumpkin is sweet and amazingly rich, with high dry matter and brix readings, bright orange interior and a nutty flavor. At harvest, fruits are a mottled mix of pink, green and blue, with a white bloom (like the white outer layer on some blueberries). During storage they ripen to a deep tan color. The ribbed pumpkins average 4.5 pounds. This seedstock originates from a Taiwanese hybrid called Crowning. We got seeds from Glen Teves of Hawaii. We’ve been selecting for flavor, eating quality, productivity and downy mildew resistance (which is very good). Not a long keeper. Plan on using the squash in the fall, before the end of the year.
Chou Cheh Red Watermelon Citrullus lanatus This is an exceptionally sweet variety. Chou Cheh Red comes from Shaanxi Province, China, via the USDA seed bank (PI 435990). Small, oblong fruits average five pounds. Very productive and early, and forgiving of sub-optimal growing conditions (still sweet). Downy mildew resistant foliage, so grow any time in the season, early or late. Showed gummy stem blight resistance in a 2005 NC State trial.
Guatemalan Green Ayote Cucurbita moschata Really good tasting squash with very unusual color. About half are GREEN ON THE INSIDE. The rest are orange or brown. Very good sweetness and dry matter, and usually smooth texture. Interesting and pleasant aromatic flavor – the greener ones have almost a hint of spinach flavor. The green color deepens in storage, and comes out even more in cooking – some fruits that look orange-brown if cut open at harvest time would be green later. Matures well in Central Virginia, but it takes the whole season. We selected for flavor, earlier maturity, color and productivity in 2020, then trialed and re-combined the selections in 2021. Next growing season we’ll be ready to do a larger seed growout. We got this variety from Jay Bost of Hawaii – it originally comes from the Lago Atitlan region of Guatemala. We highly recommend this squash. Its also a very good keeper and has excellent downy mildew resistance.
Annie Oakley OP Okra Abelmoschus esculentus Very productive compact plants with spineless, uniform and tender green pods. At the urging of Edward Lenoir, a Louisiana farmer who specializes in okra production, we set out to dehybridize “Annie Oakley II Hybrid” okra in 2017 because it had been discontinued. However, we haven’t seen any of the variability you would expect when saving and replanting seed from a hybrid variety. Edward has relied on Annie Oakley for years because it is so productive and uniform, and is happy to be able to grow it again! OP stands for Open Pollinated.