Allotment Stuff > The Basics
Celtuce
Tiny Clanger:
--- Quote from: Beersmith on February 28, 2021, 19:25:32 ---I'm always open to trying something new. My experience is that most of the novelties are acceptable but very few have any "wow factor". Over many years I've tried lots of them.
Among the best are Inca berries / physalis. Easy to grow, rarely bothered by pests, and delicious fruity flavour.
Asparagus peas .ok for an occasional dish, especially steamed when very young, but they soon get tough, and not worth eating when they do.
Tomatillo are actually quite good for green salsa. But that's it in my opinion. Never really found any other way of serving them that appeals.
Cucamelon perfectly edible but I find little to set them apart from snack size cucumber.
Salsify and Jerusalem artichokes are quite different. I love the flavour. But, pardon me, pardon me, pardon me, oops, pardon me again, sorry that was me, etc, etc, etc.
Nasturtiums are worth a go. A pleasant peppery flavour, and a useful garnish on salads. But I once grew two rows and only ended up eating about one plant.
One year I plan to have a go at bamboo shoots. Has anyone tried them?
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I use nasturtiums when I've no capers in the cupboard 😆😆😆
Tiny Clanger:
--- Quote from: Paulh on February 28, 2021, 20:15:35 ---I don't grow tomatillos now and I've not dug any Jerusalem artichokes up for a couple of years.
I've had some experiments that have stuck - Spanish Black Radish Round which crops prodigiously in the Autumn as a succession crop and roasts really well in place of turnips, also climbing bean "Golden Gate" which brightens up the plate.
My problem is more that I have success with an experiment and can't repeat it - land cress, Greek cress, Hamburg parsley.
I looked at celtuce a couple of years ago and decided it wasn't interesting enough.
My experiments now are mostly different varieties of courgette and winter squash (Pink Banana is a wow).
Love the Blue Banana. Think Musquee de Provence and Crown Price are my favourites. Honey bear as an acorn and Thelmas sweet potato (it is a squash) was a real eye opener. Definitely growing that one again 😆
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Obelixx:
Same here with oca - forgettable - and cucamelons and we also tried a poire-melon which I think is also called Pepino. Total waste of time and they took up a lot of space in the polytunnel. Now all I have in there are some lemon grass and over wintering citrus and fuchsias. The lemon grass is looking 3/4 dead so may go as I've now found a Vietnamese shop where I can get fresh supplies and then the PT will be filled with chillies and tomatoes and maybe one cucumber for OH.
saddad:
"Cucamelons.... Wong on so many levels!"
As in James Wong?.....
How did you guess?
Vinlander:
I have tried just about every asparagus substitute there is, and none of them taste anywhere near asparagus - 99% of them are so inferior they are a total waste of time.
The only one I've found that's any good at all is the first hop shoots - they still don't taste like asparagus but they are definitely worth eating- though I can't be bothered cooking them - they are a nice raw snack to browse when you're at the plot.
Salsify sprouts do taste good - but absolutely nothing like asparagus - more of an interesting vegetable in its own right - certainly a useful resource right now.
I like oca - partly because I don't like boiled potato so I much prefer oca, though again they are better raw or stir-fried - some of the varieties have a different taste (though the most different was one I was given that had an absolutely beautiful root - it was rose pink and translucent and looked more like a branched gemstone nodule than a vegetable - sadly it tasted of nothing at all).
I've tried a few veg reputed to have a hint of nutty flavour, often "sweet chestnut flavour", but only one is worth growing - the tuberous pea (Lathyrus tuberosus) is delicious - but it's quite fiddly to find the sparse tubers (brown or black things the size of your thumb - camouflaged against the soil) - if I had broad acres I'd definitely just plant the tree, but until then I'll keep growing them in bags of rotchip (Linnaeus was a big fan, and was apparently annoyed when the potato took over and he couldn't buy them in the market any more).
On the same theme the "American groundnut" (Apios) is just awful - dry and fibrous if you grow them on a pond margin and far worse if you don't.
Yacon is good (almost mainstream now) - sweet, juicy and smoky - sort of halfway between a milder J.artichoke and a watermelon.
I agree that the pineapple guava is nice (Acca/Feijoa and very ornamental) - the flowers are as delicious as marshmallows, and the fruit is sweet & good if you don't mind that hint of "hospital corridor" in the skin - a sort of delicate whiff of iodine and TCP.
Physalis "Aunt Molly's" is much better than the type sold in the shops or on cupcakes. It's probably P. mollissima - very nearly reliably hardy in London under cover in a raised bed - but it is a bit of a thug in a PT - better in it's own giant cloche - a 1.5m cube is about right...
Cheers.
PS. Chinese artichokes are lovely - they look just like witchetty grubs but are surprisingly easy to rinse clean - sort of ribbed white teflon - but they are almost as rampant as mint, so better in a big container or a plastic-lined trench.
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