The Royal Horticultural Society has designed a new Logo for the Award of Garden Merit. I find this award very useful when choosing a particular variety of vegetable. Plants are grown as part of a trial at one of the RHS sites and are judged by a panel of experts. I remember a couple of years ago there was an RHS trial of Runner Beans. Dozens of different runner bean varieties were grown side by side, in identical conditions. The judges attend and look at the whole plant, decides how prolific it is, how resistant to disease it is, how easy it is to grow, how tender and tasty the finished product is. The official criteria for awarding an RHS AGM are:
* It must be of outstanding excellence for ordinary garden decoration or use
* It must be commercially available
* It must be of good constitution
* It must not require highly specialist growing conditions or care
* It must not be particularly susceptible to any pest or disease*
* It must not be subject to an unreasonable degree of reversion in its vegetative or floral characteristics.
So next time you are going through a seed catalogue trying to choose a new variety, I have found the RHS AGM to be a good recommendation.