Allotment Stuff > The Basics
Celtuce
BarriedaleNick:
Well Celtuce is on my to buy list now so that means I need to spend 30 or 40€ to get free delivery!!
I have yet to get to grips on what new stuff I can grow here aside from the obvious citrus plants. We have a kaffir lime and a yuzu we bought with us and have planted kiwi and edible passion fruit. Looking for guava and I have seen Feijoa plants for sale here and now at least I know what they are.
We have several Loquat trees which the bees love - just hope I do too!
Physalis seems to grow almost wild here in that is self seeded everywhere - thanks to Vinlander a few years back I planted a couple of dwarf ones which did amazingly well in the UK. The ones here get to an enormous size but still didn't ripen prior to the frost.
So still looking for new stuff to try although as mentioned they are often disappointing.. Cucamelon was no-no for me..
Vinlander:
--- Quote from: BarriedaleNick on March 03, 2021, 09:39:25 ---We have several Loquat trees which the bees love - just hope I do too!
--- End quote ---
I can't reliably grow Loquats - even here in London the flowers face huge risks because they appear in late autumn. There are hundreds round here because they are so ornamental, but I only see fruits about one year in 5-10.
I buy the fruits when they appear in the shops because they are better than apricots - not proper ripe apricots of course, but nobody sells ripe ones because they are almost impossible to ship, and if they are picked early enough to travel they never ripen.
So, very few people know how good a ripe apricot is, and they will continue to buy the rubbish in the shops so there is no pressure to improve.
Exactly the same reasoning applies to shop plums - so they are only good for cooking - the only difference with plums is that they are more common, so small towns can source local ones which are occasionally OK (the ones in London are always rubbish). We are stuck in a vicious circle where firm, crisp but tasteless Asian plum species are no worse and occasionally better than shop "european" plums (actually from Eurasia).
Anyway my point is that loquats are sold while they are firm, but at that stage they are still much better than shop apricots.
You might be interested in the yellow strawberry guava (called Lucida). It has a better taste than the true guava (IMHO but also because it isn't gritty) and though it's rarely bigger than a golf ball, the seeds are to scale so they are at least as enjoyable.
I like the fact that Lucida doesn't have that cat-pee smell when it is half ripe, but more importantly it is much hardier (cold greenhouse) - especially in my cold wet soil (which kills many "exotic" fruits that can survive similar frosts in drier climates).
They might be more common in Portugal, but on the other hand they might be illegal as a pest weed.
You should be in paradise for citrus - but if I was you I'd be buying pitaya amarilla fruit (best of all cacti) and sowing the fresh seeds now in a greenhouse or PT.
Not to mention pluots and plumcots (which actually ripen off the tree - a bit - they arrived in shops the 10 or so years ago but disappeared in the last recession because the divots here won't pay 50% more for 10x the flavour).
Cheers.
PS. OTOH if you do have cold winters as well as hot summers then look up the custard banana (Asimina triloba).
Also I can't recommend CRFG.org enough - their magazine is worth the membership.
BarriedaleNick:
Thanks Vinlander - I'll look out for Lucida and pitaya amarilla.
Loquats are like enormous weeds here, they grow all over the place but I'll wait to see if we get a crop or not as we had a few frosts..
Talking of plums - I used to camp at place in Kent which was essentially a farmer that had given up farming and did B&B, camping etc.
He had an old orchard and I asked if I could take a few of the fallen fruit for jam. He told me to take the lot if I wanted as he couldn't sell them anymore. I have no idea of varieties but he had some damsons and quite a few different types - all old English I guess by the age of the trees and absolutely gorgeous, juicy but firm and some almost perfumed.
He said the market wasn't there for them as they didn't travel well and they just weren't what the buyers wanted anymore..
Obelixx:
That is so sad. I had to leave behind a damson tree in my Belgian garden. Nothing like them here and I really dislike the ubiquitous Mirabelles.
Vinlander:
--- Quote from: Obelixx on March 03, 2021, 21:04:32 ---That is so sad. I had to leave behind a damson tree in my Belgian garden. Nothing like them here and I really dislike the ubiquitous Mirabelles.
--- End quote ---
Over here mirabelles are nothing special - just another name for cherry-plums - so called (I think) for their timing (very early) but not their flavour - ours are much less intense than almost any plum (except maybe some Asian ones), certainly nothing like the intensity or flavour of a cherry.
Basically they are half-wild, too tart for some (not me) - I think most people would regard them as cookers - their best point is they ripen very early and give me a reminder of how good real plums are.
I'm most surprised about you finding so few varieties in your shops - maybe it's timing (if real, sweet Mirabelles are also early) - maybe it's regional?
A large section of our heritage plum varieties come from France - especially gages (called reine-claude in France) - I think my Cambridge Gages are so rich and so close to too-sweet that I could fool someone into thinking they were mini-mangoes...
The other thing that occurs to me is that maybe so many people near you have gardens with plum trees that there's no market for the stale and under-ripe fruit we have to put up with? I see a bit of this when I travel abroad - the smaller the local population density the more it leans towards growing fruit not buying.
Every country thinks about some things in a stupid way and other things in a sensible way. I've always thought the French are sensible about food, whereas we are still mostly stupid about food (especially in the garden) and stupidly obsessed with flowers (especially bloody bedding :BangHead:).
If I moved into a new house a plum tree would be the first thing I'd plant - even if there was nothing in there - I'd say replacing stale plums with fresh is the biggest single gain you can make in gardening - call it low-hanging fruit if you like...
Flowers would be at the very bottom of the list - and there'd be about a hundred edible ornamentals between them and the fruit & veg at the top.
Cheers.
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