(Trigonella caerulea) Long a fan of fenugreek as a pizza topping, our friend Sarah Minnick of Portland pizza staple Lovely's Fifty/Fifty had been sourcing the more common species (Trigonella foenum-graecum) from local farms around the city. Since that species requires too long a season to reliably produce seed in the northwest, growers have been dependent on ill-adapted varieties, mostly from hot arid climates like Egypt, and India. During a visit to the north of Italy, she met a baker who grew, in addition to his own grains, a species of fenugreek adapted to the shorter alpine growing season there, for use in the traditional Tyrolean bread Pustrer Breatln. Connecting us at Uprising Seeds with Italian friend Myrtha, an exchange of seeds was facilitated and the great PNW blue fenugreek project was begun. In addition to bread, the herb is also used to flavor alpine cheeses in neighboring Switzerland and is used extensively in Georgian cuisine as an ingredient in the spice mix khmeli suneli. It has an amazing fragrance of maple syrup, and a complex, mildly bitter flavor. The first season of growing it in the PNW was a complete success both for fresh herb production as well as seed. 50 -60 days. UO
Packet: 200 seeds
*Our seed came back from the lab with a very high germination rate, but also a high rate of "hard seed" (a primitive form of seed dormancy) which may cause the seed to germinate over a somewhat erratic timeframe.
