Topic: soya beans

[ACE]

Did anybody watch Country File last night. I was interested to see soya being grown. I might give it a small trial next year. I eat a lot of soya products but it is mostly over produced and no taste. I thought using it like I use my usual beans cooked, mashed and reformed into whatever we are making might make it tastier and more interesting. Has anybody ever tried growing them. It did not look like a big producing plant, so I was also wandering if a small crop was viable.

[squeezyjohn]

I tried this a few years ago with one of the varieties supposedly good for the british climate.  The plants were very slow growing and never really made it over a foot.  I got about 2 beans off each plant!

Needless to say - I haven't tried it again!  But maybe it was just a poor season or I did something wrong.

[GRACELAND]

is it really worth the waste of space on a small scale ??

[Digeroo]

Personally I would recommend climbing French Beans, in particular Bridgwater or O'Driscoll from HSL both produce lots of nice fat tasty pods and podded fresh like broad beans are delicious.   ChrissCross who has not been on board for some time, tried a large selection of beans and I remember him saying that Bridgwater was also one of his favourites.  And Major cook is very good dried, makes fantastic baked beans.
Tried Elena once.

[hartshay]

Soy is not a good yielding crop in most of the Uk...low yield on allotment plots for area... and the taste...well don't bother ...there is a reason they are fed to animals or used as a raw material for such as protein in other foods....

[squeezyjohn]

I don't agree that the taste of soya beans aren't worth the hassle ... edamame beans are amazing ... and plenty of crops we eat (fava beans, maize) are fed to animals routinely.

However I do agree that they are disappointing in terms of yield in the UK and not worth the hassle for that reason.

[ACE]

Not worth the space then. Reading other posts about non traditional allotment crops, sweet potatoes etc. I think I will go back to spuds, carrots, beans and brassicas. At least you can get a decent dinner from them. My Oca  takes up too much room for the size of the crop and I can't say I am struck on the taste. I have a very good crop of sedge in a bucket but no chufa underneath. I know we do not 'dig for victory' anymore but wasting space, effort and time on dream crops would have been frowned upon back in the day.  Yep, back to basics for me, but I do have a new strain of strawberries to plant for a trial 

[squeezyjohn]

If you want something exotic, ACE, try Achocha ... they're a weird crop that are super-abundant and grow like a weed!  They taste a bit like cucumber when picked immature and eaten raw, or wait until they're a bit bigger to cut in half and strip the seeds out to use like green pepper or green beans (they taste somewhere halfway between the two cooked).  The plant is a scrambler/climber and will get to the top of a shed in a growing season easily.  They are ready from late summer until the first frost so quite a useful vegetable for the pot.  I have the larger Bolivian Giant Achocha on my plot and I didn't even sow any this year ... they just self-seeded.  I'm going to try pickling them too as the glut is just too much!

[ACE]

I'm a sucker for anything different and as they will not be taking up room, just the trellis on the shed, they are already on the list. Did you pickle any?

[squeezyjohn]

I haven't done yet ... I will give it a go though ... if you're still at the same address, I'll send you some seeds of the giant ones

[ACE]

Yes please, are the giants suitable for outdoors or do they need a greenhouse?  Only I read up on them and it seems not all varieties  grow outdoors.

[squeezyjohn]

The giant ones have had absolutely no problems outside here in Oxfordshire.  I'd start them off in pots in the greenhouse and put them out after the last frost like you would courgettes, as I said ... they self-seeded this year so you could try direct sowing too.

[Vinlander]

I tried achocha fruits but they are tasteless at every stage - more tasteless than the most tasteless supermarket green pepper (or even cucumber)  known to man. They can get close to the texture of green pepper but at that stage they have even less flavour.

I even tried pickling some of the immature fruits in sweet vinegar but they were just rubbish.

I know plotholders who use them to hide their eyesores (ha ha - SWMBO won't stay still long enough).  Some of them apparently have relatives who actually enjoy the produce - cue raised eyebrows and head shakes all round...

Cheers.

PS. I'm going to start a thread  called "Best picked straight into into the compost bin" to highlight  this and other "novelties" (such as asparagus peas).

[squeezyjohn]

I do agree that they have a rather unremarkable "green vegetable" taste ... but then again that's also my opinion of runner beans!  The giant bolivian ones have much more flavour than the variety Fat Baby which are much smaller and taste of precisely nothing.

[Vinlander]

I do agree that they have a rather unremarkable "green vegetable" taste ... but then again that's also my opinion of runner beans!  The giant bolivian ones have much more flavour than the variety Fat Baby which are much smaller and taste of precisely nothing.

Are the Bolivian ones the "Aladdin's slipper" type? (I nearly typed Oblivion - a good name for an exploding/squirt cucumber).

The slipper ones were definitely different but I haven't seen them on sale for 10 years.

Cheers.

[squeezyjohn]

I don't know if it's the same as Aladdin's Slipper as I've never heard that name ... but they do kind of look like pointy shoes!

[Vinlander]

This is the best picture I could find - best known as ladies slipper - but harem might be a better description.

https://www.magicgardenseeds.com/pics/WH_IsbXAdlS0-dnrMznuVq4abvhWok1giDbbyLAZP44DYOGvhK_25ILrahSucA7NU3iHIwNDCYHC0cWj6Wp0Pg/CYC01_1000_2.jpg

The ones I had from future foods were a little wider &  flatter towards the point so they looked even more like an aladdin slipper (future foods is sadly now defunct - certainly nothing like any of  the current www.futurefood.*)

The Bolivian Giant picture below looks even closer than the one above, but I'm not sure if mine had the extra veining - they certainly weren't giant - maybe 70mm max.

www.growingfoodsavingseeds.co.uk/filedata/fetch?id=5360&d=1459842642

Cheers.