Author Topic: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.  (Read 12257 times)

ed dibbles

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #40 on: November 19, 2017, 19:17:18 »
The time I grew pepino I sowed seeds the first year they flowered around august set fruit but didn't ripen in time. The plants were overwintered with a view to earlier flowering the second year so more time to ripen the fruit.

But it didn't work out as they again flowered late and failed to ripen.

One to put down to experience never to be repeated. :happy7:

Another grower may have more luck of course.

winecap

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #41 on: November 19, 2017, 21:15:38 »
Regarding pepino, I had a good yield perhaps three years ago with cuttings I took from a plant that my friend bought in Lidl. I grew them in the greenhouse and had perhaps ten decent sized fruits which I vaguely remember ripened quite late. After that the plants didn't make it through the winter, so I tried again with seed and now I have plants that for the second year running have produced nothing. They have just now managed to produce flower buds. Will try for one more year, but am starting to think that some strains are better than others.

Vinlander

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #42 on: November 20, 2017, 11:22:33 »
I got two named Pepino clones from Clive Simms many years ago before he retired ("Otovalo" was the most productive for me), and they were one of my favourite "long shots".

They fruited every year but only ripened properly in good "Indian Summers" - the fruit is good but isn't actually outstanding. Shop melons are better, but I didn't have a polytunnel then.

It's enjoyable and a great talking point, but the main reason I kept them going was they were so easy to overwinter from cuttings - I've never seen a faster more enthusiastic rooter (I grow a wide range of veg but just a very few flowers, and even then I lean towards edible ornamentals like pot marigolds).

Unfortunately Pepinos are moderately hardy too so I became lazy and complacent - I relaxed into just leaving a few plants in the greenhouse and taking cuttings in the spring - until the surprise winter of 2010/11 killed the lot.

I recently gave up on trying to find named plants (why pay through the nose for a plant that might just be a seedling?), but it sounds like the Lidl one actually came from a selected strain.

I'm sure the species is well-selected in South America, (the Chavins etc. seem to have been red-hot on selection), but they aren't adapted to our day-length, so it's pointless expecting much from anything except the very best croppers.

I tried seeds in Jan this year with heat and LEDs before planting them in my polytunnel. They flowered well but late - no sign of  fruiting at all and then the frost stopped them. They are still alive and rooting so I'm quite happy to assess them next year - they will probably fruit and then I can decide whether they need proper selecting and breeding before becoming worthwhile again.

This means I could have validated cuttings this time next year - or more likely I'll need to spend 10 years breeding them first...

I'm still hoping proper named clones will turn up if people keep buying novelties and the industry continues to thrash about trying to find them - it seems like totally uninformed thrashing but maybe "Pepino" will turn up on one of the monkeys' typewriters? Unfortunately the novelty industry is only interested in the quick buck - cheap seedlings will kill the product for another 10 years :BangHead:.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

John85

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #43 on: November 25, 2017, 18:25:01 »
Thank you all .Very useful informations.
I guess I'll stick to melons

Digeroo

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #44 on: November 25, 2017, 18:56:27 »
Sweet potato, best compost any plants Asap so you do not waste time trying to get a crop off them.

Robert_Brenchley

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #45 on: December 16, 2017, 20:28:14 »
I've tried oca every which way; I like the taste, but can't get a crop!

squeezyjohn

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #46 on: December 16, 2017, 21:43:00 »
I've tried oca every which way; I like the taste, but can't get a crop!

That's funny, I can get a crop, but I don't like the taste and I've tried cooking them every which way!  Well I say I can get a crop, I can if the slugs don't beat me to it.

Vinlander

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #47 on: December 17, 2017, 11:58:32 »
Don't forget that oca are edible raw, where the lemony taste comes through better, so they can bulk out salads, slaws and even fruit salads (though yacon is better for the latter, because that sweet smoky taste is almost unique).

I always get a small oca crop in late Sep/early Oct, but if I leave them in to get a good crop they get so many holes they are useless. Fortunately that doesn't happen when I grow them at home.

I think the difference is that I've never grown potatoes at home, and I'm pretty sure the previous owner didn't grow anything edible.

I've tried burying the whole oca plant when hard frosts arrive before they have bulked up, and they did bulk up better than the plants that were cut down by frosts - but they still got attacked. If I didn't have a safe soil to grow them I'd try digging the whole plant up, then rinse it and clamp it in clean soil/spent compost.

Potatoes are also edible and tasty raw.

In fact I prefer them raw to boiled or steamed, (that includes the abomination that is a potato "baked" in foil - it's not baked! it's boiled in it's own watery juice :BangHead: :BangHead: :BangHead:).

I don't know why raw is such a minority taste - I think it's just the thought of the bitterness (and poison) in green ones that has put off the majority who've never tried.

If you dutifully destroy all the tubers too small to cook, you are missing the treat of just rubbing them clean and popping them into your mouth -  a delicious snack - often when you need one most.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

squeezyjohn

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #48 on: December 17, 2017, 13:23:47 »
Potatoes are also edible and tasty raw.

In fact I prefer them raw to boiled or steamed, (that includes the abomination that is a potato "baked" in foil - it's not baked! it's boiled in it's own watery juice :BangHead: :BangHead: :BangHead:).

I don't know why raw is such a minority taste - I think it's just the thought of the bitterness (and poison) in green ones that has put off the majority who've never tried.

If you dutifully destroy all the tubers too small to cook, you are missing the treat of just rubbing them clean and popping them into your mouth -  a delicious snack - often when you need one most.

No matter how rationally I try to think about this new information, my brain cannot process it without coming up with the response "that's just plain weird!"

squeezyjohn

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #49 on: December 17, 2017, 13:28:33 »
Don't forget that oca are edible raw, where the lemony taste comes through better, so they can bulk out salads, slaws and even fruit salads (though yacon is better for the latter, because that sweet smoky taste is almost unique).

I always get a small oca crop in late Sep/early Oct, but if I leave them in to get a good crop they get so many holes they are useless. Fortunately that doesn't happen when I grow them at home.

I think the difference is that I've never grown potatoes at home, and I'm pretty sure the previous owner didn't grow anything edible.

I've tried burying the whole oca plant when hard frosts arrive before they have bulked up, and they did bulk up better than the plants that were cut down by frosts - but they still got attacked. If I didn't have a safe soil to grow them I'd try digging the whole plant up, then rinse it and clamp it in clean soil/spent compost.

I wonder if we employed the "growing potatoes in big buckets" method for oca they could be better protected from slugs and also potentially protected from frosts while they bulk up using straw.  I'm kind of converted to growing my spuds this way next year after a pretty successful trial.

Silverleaf

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #50 on: December 17, 2017, 15:09:03 »
Raw oca has a floury kind of mouthfeel to it which I don’t like, presumably it’s the uncooked starch in it. Potatoes are even worse! The taste is fine but I don’t like the texture.

ed dibbles

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #51 on: December 17, 2017, 18:40:41 »
Quote
I wonder if we employed the "growing potatoes in big buckets" method for oca they could be better protected from slugs and also potentially protected from frosts while they bulk up using straw.  I'm kind of converted to growing my spuds this way next year after a pretty successful trial.

This could be a worthwhile experiment and would certainly solve the volunteer problem. You would probably need to play around to get the right size of container but if it works you may have an answer to clean oca cultivation.

Mine will be dug tomorrow. :happy7:

Vinlander

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #52 on: December 18, 2017, 09:56:20 »
I don't know why raw potato is such a minority taste - I think it's just the thought of the bitterness (and poison) in green ones that has put off the majority who've never tried.
No matter how rationally I try to think about this new information, my brain cannot process it without coming up with the response "that's just plain weird!"

I think it's just how you're brought up - 1) my Ma liked raw potato and when she was cutting chips she would always pass a few around, 2) my worst experience of bullying when I was a child was being forced to eat grey lumpy mashed potato by some zealot running the school dinners hall who objected to any child rejecting the genuinely appalling food.

Another example of 1) is that I've never met anyone rational (ie. not a fashion victim) who likes plain boiled corn polenta but wasn't fed it as a child... A good example of 2) is that the original pre-Columbus recipe for sweet-chestnut-based polenta is an entirely different experience, but some people's great-grandparents in Sardinia who got used to eating it as famine food apparently grew to hate it so much they avoided it for the rest of their lives.

QED.

Cheers.
With a microholding you always get too much or bugger-all. (I'm fed up calling it an allotment garden - it just encourages the tidy-police).

The simple/complex split is more & more important: Simple fertilisers Poor, complex ones Good. Simple (old) poisons predictable, others (new) the opposite.

Silverleaf

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #53 on: December 18, 2017, 15:45:51 »
And lobster used to be hated by many in the US because it was seen as “poor people food” (often given to prisoners) which you’d only eat when you were starving and there was nothing else. Now it’s mostly prized as a delicacy (although I can’t see what all the fuss is about myself).

Pescador

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #54 on: December 18, 2017, 18:32:09 »
The same was said of salmon in UK. One of the earliest agreements between farmers and the agricultural workers union stated that salmon must not be provided more than 3(?) times a week. The farmers would use it as cheap food as it was found in most rivers running through the country, and was easily caught as cheap food!!
Regarding lobster, I enjoy it, but would much prefer crab which normally is significantly cheaper.
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Paulh

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #55 on: December 18, 2017, 20:42:48 »
Oysters historically were a cheap food for the masses in the UK, from the Romans up to Victorian times.

Silverleaf

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #56 on: December 19, 2017, 00:55:17 »
I’d happily eat salmon every day if I could, but I haven’t found many creatures with a shell that’re worth the work of getting them out of that shell!

It’s probably a texture thing. I’m really weird about texture so something has to taste absolutely amazing to get me over that, so I’m usually disappointed by non-fish seafood where the flavour is pretty subtle.

saddad

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Re: "Novelties" = best picked straight into into the compost bin.
« Reply #57 on: December 19, 2017, 08:03:43 »
When I was doing my MA in Local and Regional History in Nottingham about 1990 one of the documents we had to transcribe, from a form of secretary hand which has some different letter formations which make it tricky to read to modern eyes, was a complaint by the apprentices that they were literally fed-up with Smoked Salmon and could they be given beef occasionally!

 

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