Part of the attraction of getting an allotment for me was to grow some things that you just can't get in the shops.
This year I've grown asparagus peas... which I have to say are horrible, celtuce... nothing special, land cress... love it & scozonera which I haven't tried yet.
What unusual crops have you grown and liked or disliked?
I agree about Asparagus peas...
Have Oca, Ulluco, Yacon in the big greenhouse...
A non-starter was para-cress which had a numbing effect on the mouth... (like novocaine). Pod radish are ace... winter radish... Good King Henry... about to sow some skirret...
(I'm just very sad!) ;D
They're not unusual but you don't get them in the shops...Sweet Peas i've picked/given away bunches&bunches&bunches...... :)
i don't frequent farmers markets and such like so in my run of the mill supermarket i don't see mizuna, kohl rabi or differently coloured veg like purple carrots/ french beans or red sprouts.
I'm also growing loads of different squashes and pumpkins which i don't see (only ever see butternut) and i also have Grain Ameranthus, Scorzonera, JA's, globe artichoke, oca, yukon and ulluca.
next year I'll be starting my sea kale.
I only have a small greenhouse and it's full of tomatoes and physallis - will probably drop the physallis next year though... takes up too much room for little reward, and look into the ones you mentioned.
I love radishes but haven't done very well with them this year... slugs! I think Good King Henry probably grows wild round here (I'm on the coast) but I haven't identified it yet.
Are sweet peas edible? Or do you mean just as a cut flower?
I also like to try out the different varieties of the 'normal' fruit & veg... I've got purple caulis & french beans, multi-coloured radishes, blue leeks (though they don't look very blue yet - maybe they go blue in the winter), red skinned carrots etc.
I think it's more fun to grow different things, and probably better for you than the grown for size, shape and shelf life of supermarket stuff.
QuoteWhat unusual crops have you grown and liked or disliked?
Here we go. Give me a week while I format a list for you.
From memory growing this year:
Roselle
Papaya
Sorghum
Worzels
Scorzonera
Leonotis
Grain Ameranthus
Melocoton
Oca
Ulluco
Yacon
Sweet potato
Yard long beans
Hyacinth beans
tropaeolum
Banana
Quinoa
In between that lot is most representitives of the usual stuff.
The food which grows on the allotments tastes of proper food. How different is that!
I like to grow what is expensive to buy too.
Quote from: Eristic on August 10, 2009, 00:04:41
QuoteWhat unusual crops have you grown and liked or disliked?
Here we go. Give me a week while I format a list for you.
From memory growing this year:
Roselle
Papaya
Sorghum
Worzels
...
(http://www.artists2events.co.uk/artistsimages/wurzelsPicis/wurzels.jpg)
Do you start them in a greenhouse ?
Nice one Chris...
Sweet Peas as a cut flower Oliveoyl.... the pods and seeds are poisonous... :-X
I like to grow vegetables with taste, I'm sick of supermarket blandness. My biggest problem is that one of our favourites is the tomato, and my efforts at growing it outdoors are going nowhere. So it's time to start building polytunnels!
I agree about Asparagus peas...
;D-I wonder how many of us have tried them----------once???
What we grow today is may become celeb cheffies fave and then cost a fortune??
I can remember when a local greengrocer would pay me 69p for `Oak leaf ` lettuce. A lot back in the 80`s.
And what we may consider a `pest`(well if allowed to grow unchecked) but always nice with a bit of beef)-horseradish.
On sale at our local farmers market described as `wild`(dug up along the roadside??) for a price close enough per kilo to high quality cheese or smoked salmon ???
Beetroot Burpee's Golden as I said here
http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,52933.msg537307.html#msg537307
Germination has been erratic, and those that have have only grown to the size of a golf ball but they taste delicious!
In my first allotment year I grew lots of unusual things and with limited success. Scorzonera (not very productive), good king henry (didn't come up - can you believe? Sounds like an insult to a gardener 'she couldn't even grow weeds' :))
Salad burnett - tastes okay, but not very useful. jerusalem artichokes - don't enjoy the taste enough
Still growing unusual squashes (eg marina di chioggia) because they are so sturdy and look magnificently successful even when they don't fruit enough on a bad year.
and tomato carbon - haven't eaten one yet, but they look great.
Now I think it's good to grow very simple things which are cheap and 'boring' in the shops - they're never boring when you've grown them yourself. You can always enjoy them, just in case the rare and exciting veg don't perform. I mean things like runner beans, onions, potatoes, beetroot, radish...
But when I look at seed sites and catalogues I still can't resist the unusual ones!
QuoteSalad burnett - tastes okay, but not very useful
It's lovely cut through a green salad... the mint/cucumber taste and a bit of french sorrel for bite... :)
Forgot to say Pigeon.. if you want some GKH I have some self sets...
Yes, I grew asparagus peas....once......
What you can't get in the shops is fresh food. I look at runner beans in the supermarket and they are not like the same veg that I have in the pan 5 minutes after picking, same goes for peas, asparagus, new potatoes......and how can you beat a tomato hot from the sun?
Be very careful about Good King Henry. I spreads like wildfire. The leaves are arrow shaped. Having said that, if you don't mind your plot being taken over (its a devil of a job getting rid of it), the leaves appear quite tough but cook very quickly and the spinach taste isn't very strong.
Thanks guys. Oca, Ulluco & Yacon seem to be popular choices... I'll check them out.
I've got Jerusalem Artichokes in my garden at home... I got some from a shop, didn't like them so planted the rest because the flower is supposed to be bonny... they've grown but no sign of a flower yet.
Does anyone eat their weeds.... fat hen, dandilion, cleavers etc.? Shame bindweed's not edible >:(
JA's flower late in the season, sunflower like... Dwarf Sunray probably flowers earliest... :)
I'm with Thifasmom on this one - pumpkins, they are so hard to find in the shops.
The same goes for a lot of the other things I grow - it's the varieties that you don't get in the shops that I grow.
1066
Quote from: saddad on August 10, 2009, 22:27:47
Forgot to say Pigeon.. if you want some GKH I have some self sets...
Why thank you saddad! I would like to try it!
You'll need to pm me an addy then... :)
Forgot the eddoe and mango from my list.
Quote from: Eristic on August 12, 2009, 02:27:30
Forgot the eddoe and mango from my list.
Mango - one of my all time favourites. What kind of success have you had and how and where is it planted?
Thanks
far too early to think about a result. Last years plant suffered badly with the cold and has taken till summer to regrow.
I have now got the germination off to a fine art:
1. Eat the mangos.
2. Put stones in a container of water for about 3 days.
3. Scrub remaining pulp away with pan scourer.
4. Put cleaned stones in polythene bag while still wet.
5. Leave bag on greenhouse staging or other warm place for a few weeks.
6. When a shoot emerges from stone, pot up.
Leaving the stones to soak allows moisture to permeate the kernel and trigger germination. Scrubbing the stone helps stop fungal growth. Leaving stones tied in a poly bag keeps temperature and humidity high.
The shoot usually emerges before the root so plant with shoot pointing upwards. The root when it emerges is a tap root so pot up in a tall pot. Depth is more important than diameter.
All that remains is to overcome the winter problems.
Thanks Eristic the info is interesting & comprehensive.
I know I can certainly manage number 1 ;)
I was always envious of a friends garden in Queensland that had a massive mango tree - they got fed up with the gluts, but the kanagroos that came down into town certainly loved the fruit that had fallen
Anyway, something to try next year, but I'm presuming they might not like being indoors overwinter?
1066
I think they just don't like Winter.... :-\
I don't think anyone has mentioned Nasturtiums yet. Grow them as a trailing / flowering plant or as an addition to the salad garden. They grow like weeds but never take over, if they pop up anywhere you don't want them, just pull them out. Use them instead of lettuce for a strong peppery taste, just right for ham and mustard sarnies. Slugs hate them!
Quote from: terrier on August 13, 2009, 02:01:24
I don't think anyone has mentioned Nasturtiums yet. Grow them as a trailing / flowering plant or as an addition to the salad garden. They grow like weeds but never take over, if they pop up anywhere you don't want them, just pull them out. Use them instead of lettuce for a strong peppery taste, just right for ham and mustard sarnies. Slugs hate them!
gotta agree with you there, i like them in cheese sandwishes.
I've only mentioned the more unusual food items growing on my plot. I thought everyone had nasturtiums.
Quote from: Eristic on August 12, 2009, 12:28:52
far too early to think about a result. Last years plant suffered badly with the cold and has taken till summer to regrow.
I have now got the germination off to a fine art:
1. Eat the mangos.
2. Put stones in a container of water for about 3 days.
3. Scrub remaining pulp away with pan scourer.
4. Put cleaned stones in polythene bag while still wet.
5. Leave bag on greenhouse staging or other warm place for a few weeks.
6. When a shoot emerges from stone, pot up.
Leaving the stones to soak allows moisture to permeate the kernel and trigger germination. Scrubbing the stone helps stop fungal growth. Leaving stones tied in a poly bag keeps temperature and humidity high.
The shoot usually emerges before the root so plant with shoot pointing upwards. The root when it emerges is a tap root so pot up in a tall pot. Depth is more important than diameter.
All that remains is to overcome the winter problems.
Can't even grow mangoes here in the Spanish mountains! The slightest bit of frost and you will loose them. You'll need a monster greenhouse!
Back to Stuff you can't get in the shops that I grow here, for me it's
Chillies
Okra
Passion Fruit
Unusual tomatoes
QuoteBack to Stuff you can't get in the shops that I grow here, for me it's
Chillies
Okra
Passion Fruit
I take it that there are no shops in Spain. Almost everything on my list is readily available in the local shops here.
Quote from: Eristic on August 13, 2009, 10:19:00
QuoteBack to Stuff you can't get in the shops that I grow here, for me it's
Chillies
Okra
Passion Fruit
I take it that there are no shops in Spain. Almost everything on my list is readily available in the local shops here.
I think that's because you live in a major world city Eristic. In most small towns and villages you don't get much choice. Think wrinkly golden delicious and limp parsley.
When i was staying at my mum's I asked in their local greengrocer if they had aubergines and had to explain what it was, she said she could order one in for me from the wholesalers. She sounded quite excited.
Not everyone has our benefit of multiculturalism... exotic foods are all over Derby and the migrant communities support local "grocers" :)
I can get almost anything in Birmingham because it's so multicultural, there's money in stocking a far wider range than traditional English people want. But when I lived in Cornwall it was a very different story! Even there, the range is a lot broader than it was in Oxford when I was a kid. Things have disappeared as well; you can't get lambs' brains in the local butcher any more. To some extent it's healthy, to some extent it isn't. The food miles bother me, along with the waste of food. Why don't we eat brains any more?
I Have Oca, Yacon, physallis, green tomatoes and jerusalem artichokes
Quote from: Eristic on August 13, 2009, 10:19:00
QuoteBack to Stuff you can't get in the shops that I grow here, for me it's
Chillies
Okra
Passion Fruit
I take it that there are no shops in Spain. Almost everything on my list is readily available in the local shops here.
Yes shops ::) but fruit and veg shops in my small town sell really basic fruit and veg! That's why I love my garden so much. I think the only way you would get okra is if you flew over to the other side of Spain to Barcelona!
Quote from: cjb02 on August 13, 2009, 17:20:19
I Have Oca, Yacon, physallis, green tomatoes and jerusalem artichokes
I keep seeing Yacon being mentioned can somebody tell me what it is ? ???
It's a huge triffid of a plant that has (hopefully) an edible tuber... first time for me... :-\
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on August 13, 2009, 17:03:53
Why don't we eat brains any more?
Basically BSE, I think.
valmarg
QuoteI keep seeing Yacon being mentioned can somebody tell me what it is ?
Heres some pictures.
Yacon (http://downtheplot.com/yacon.php)
Quote from: macmac on August 13, 2009, 17:39:50
Quote from: cjb02 on August 13, 2009, 17:20:19
I Have Oca, Yacon, physallis, green tomatoes and jerusalem artichokes
I keep seeing Yacon being mentioned can somebody tell me what it is ? ???
first time for me too. but fingers crossed that it is good
That's an impressive site Eristic... :)