New cultural crops coming in

The Bhutanese Vegetables Farmers of West Springfield were proud to show off some new cultural crops they have coming in. Their millet (pictured above) is beautiful and heading up quickly.

They also had a new variety of pole beans that look similar to tongue of fire beans, but longer, fatter beans, and on a pole plant. And two new varieties of cucurbits--one is a different variety of bittergourd (करेला ), the other may be a Nepali version of snake gourd (it's too early for staff to tell).

Millet is available in stores, but the farmers say they can't afford it. As far as staff know, none of the other vegetable varieties are in stores. We hope these new trials are successful and they become staples of the vegetables the farmers can offer their customers!