Giant Bolivian Achocha - is it daylight sensitive?

[earlypea]

I grew Fat Baby achocha a couple of times before and loved its late summer vigour.   This year I'm going to give the Giant a go. 

Has anyone grown it?  What I really want to know is - does it rise up and splurge in September like Fat Baby?

[earlypea]

[Jayb]

I'm going to give it a whirl this year too 
Sorry not much help as I don't know for sure, but yes I think it is likely to have similar growth habit to Fat baby or the Slipper type.

[squeezyjohn]

In short - yes!

It started cropping for me in August and kept going until well in to October - talk about a glut!  I had 5 plants and the fact that these ones are substantially larger than the others meant that they really overwhelm you!

Unfortunately they're not exactly delicious, with a taste like an unripe green-pepper crossed with a bland french bean - they're not unpleasant, but it's just a bland green vegetable taste. The taste is just the same as the fat baby ones I grew in previous years, but they're just about 4 times the size.  If I was using achocha as a subsistence crop I wouldn't think twice about growing them as they are super-productive and pest free, but given I have higher hopes for my home grown stuff flavour-wise I don't think I'll grow them again.

[earlypea]

Thanks Squeezy.  That just about answers it.  Really, I would grow Fat Baby more for fun than profit and seems this is the same, but the splurge does cheer me up just as the other tender crops are quietening down. 

I quite liked the texture of Fat Baby - a bit like sweet peppers, but too fiddly by half.  Stuffing something is always fun so these might be more useable.

JayB - Snap again! We seem to have the same plot.

[goodlife]

I do hope some seeds from your giants will end up into seed circle's parcel... 'cough'

I wasn't going to grow 'ordinary' achocha this year....but now that they've been mentioned and I've been reminded...I might as well...put one or two to scramble on the fence between me and my neighbours. You never know, my neighbours being newbies, might find them interesting and palatable to eat too

[sparrow]

I do hope some seeds from your giants will end up into seed circle's parcel... 'cough'

I wasn't going to grow 'ordinary' achocha this year....but now that they've been mentioned and I've been reminded...I might as well...put one or two to scramble on the fence between me and my neighbours. You never know, my neighbours being newbies, might find them interesting and palatable to eat too

Ahem yes, 'cough' here too 

[Jayb]

JayB - Snap again! We seem to have the same plot.

We do seem to go for quite a few of the same things!

Seeds for the Circle, sounds like a plan 

[Jayb]

5 seeds in the packet from Real Seeds, I sowed two last week and they are both germinating Yayyy! Looking forward to seeing how well they grow and taste (having tasted both Fat Baby and the Slipper ones I can only be hopeful!)

Do the different varieties cross pollinate?

[galina]

5 seeds in the packet from Real Seeds, I sowed two last week and they are both germinating Yayyy! Looking forward to seeing how well they grow and taste (having tasted both Fat Baby and the Slipper ones I can only be hopeful!)

Do the different varieties cross pollinate?

Not sure whether they do? 

Daylength sensitive?  - they all are to a degree.  Remember the old advice when they were first grown by HSL?  That they need to be in a greenhouse to get enough warmth when they finally do something in late autumn.  My seeds from HSL were very late too, but in a swap I got seeds a few years later that produced a couple of months earlier and outdoors which is better suited to the rampant vining of achocha.  It seems some seeds are already considerably adapted to our growing climate.  I expect if you can grow the big ones successfully to seed, future generations from those seeds will be much better adapted than seeds that are only a couple of generations away from climate with much shorter days. 

'Coughing' slightly here too   

[goodlife]

'Coughing' slightly here too   

Oh dear...did you catch that too..it can turn into quite 'tickle'..

[galina]

Oh dear...did you catch that too..it can turn into quite 'tickle'..

'fraid so     

[galina]

A very old thread, but thanks to Jayb and the seed circle we received Giant Bolivian Achocha seeds and were able to make our own experiences this year.  Yes they are very late at least outdoors.  I am sure they will adapt if they are grown a few more times.  The fruits are of an impressive size, see photo, but I did not get many of that size. I am keeping the largest on the windowsill to allow for the seeds inside to ripen further.  The smaller ones, of which there were several pounds, went into salads and pickles for accompaniments to cheeseboards over winter. 

They were not as easy to grow as Lady's Slipper Achocha and especially the very easy Fat Baby Achocha, but at least here they were well worth their spot in the garden.  As usual with Achocha they are trying to take over the world!  Once they are established plants, they are rampant growers.  Last year my Fat Babies just about covered the hedge and these Giant Bolivian have the same rampant growth, but their fruits took much longer to get to size.

Fingers crossed the fruits maturing on the windowsill will yield black seeds.  Clumsy who had an even bigger plant has already opened a fruit and found a good number of black, mature seeds.   

[clumsy]

Hi galina

They were not as easy to grow as Lady's Slipper Achocha and especially the very easy Fat Baby Achocha

I've never grown those 2 but I hope you don't mind i'm intrigued in the starting of that quote (they are not as easy to grow). I do hear people say something like that about growing but I never fully understand what it means.

Yes the plant did get big it just took over, I'm glad it was not in the greenhouse I don't think I would be able get in the greenhouse or it would have not let anything else grow. Looking back at that picture and actually seeing that size was remarkable. I've winter squash take over my plots before but this was something different. It was great to see the final produce was getting nervous with the weather reports. Thank you Jayb and also the seed circle.

[galina]

Sorry Clumsy,  just a bad way of expressing that I was far more anxious about these.  The other two will just thrive and yield well.  They  fruit with mature seeds well before frost.  These went to the wire and it was not clear whether they would make it right to the end. 

I guess with growing from our own seeds they will adapt and become 'easy to grow' as well - given time. 

Like your pictures, thank you.   

[penedesenca]

Did the seeds originally come from Realseeds? Mine did and look nothing like the ones in Clumsy's pic.
I find the giant achocha grows and produces better than lady slipper so it might be a strain thing. I have grown both 2 years now in diff. gh.

[clumsy]

Yes galina this plant also made me anxious. Was starting to get nervous at the beginning of october thinking it is very late in the season to produce anything viable. But quickly came into life and hidden under that foliage was some real treats.

Hi penedesenca Looking at realseeds website theirs looks different. The one they produce seems slim and has spikes. While mine was smooth and more fat.

[galina]

Penedesenca, that is very interesting.  Does your 'version' look similar to Ben's in ReaL Seeds?  http://www.realseeds.co.uk/cucumbers.html
The photo is nearly at the bottom of the page. 

We had our seeds from Jayb, who originally had them from Real Seeds.  However, she shared round seeds with us, rather than the squarish 'dead fly' look alike seeds that we are more used to from achocha.  She had one round seed in the original packet and if I understand correctly, that was the origin for our type.  Did you grow from square seeds?  Maybe these are not a single strain, but more of a type with differences between plants.

I would never grow Lady's Slipper in the greenhouse again.  I have done in the past and it just doesn't do as well as outside and takes up far too much space.  Both Clumsy and I grew these Giant ones outside (after a bit of a mollycoddled start in the greenhouse).   

[sparrow]

I grew Jayb's seeds outdoors and they took a hell of a long time to get going. They grew pretty big (not as big as FatBabies) but I only had 3 fruit from 3 plants. Which is measly by any comparison!

i've saved seed from those, but I'm probably not going to grow them again because of their poor performance. I've got some of the same seeds as penedesenca - they are very different - bigger, spiky and also thicker (much) than the seeds we had. Possibly a different variety?

[galina]

That's very poor performance, Sparrow.   I can't complain about quantity - enough to eat and pickle - but daren't yet open the largest fruit as I want the seeds to ripen.  None of the ones cut up for pickling had ripe seeds in them.  Both Lady's Slipper and Fat Baby develop so much quicker from flower to seed maturity. 

Mine actually started flowering quite early, long before equinox, but then stalled for at least a months.  More and more fruit developed but none grew more than an inch.  Only during October things started happening.

Did you start off with round seeds or with square seeds, Sparrow? 

[sparrow]

Same here galina - they flowered really early and then did nothing.

I had the round seeds, just looked back through my photos to check.

This is a bit cheeky, but I don't suppose anyone has any chufa this year? I think that I left mine too long and they didn't germinate.

Am really keen to try again, but if the fishing tackle shops sell ones that are fresh enough I can always try there.