After many years of growing disappointing fad fruits & veg, I've come to the conclusion that lots of stuff isn't worth growing - like Okra (damned difficult and better from the greengrocer) and Melons (difficult, greedy and can ripen off the vine - so with careful selection are just as good from the greengrocer).
Also, so much standard stuff can be so rewarding - if only from the freshness and flavour.
Nevertheless, I retain a love of challenge and experimentation, so there will always be a place for something exotic as long as the payback isn't completely disappointing...
I would nominate (in increasing difficulty):
Jostaberry (slightly less flavour than blackcurrants but much less acid 'out of hand' - and immune to reversion).
Hamburg Parsley (for roasts).
Skirret (mashed - the string in the middle spoils them otherwise).
Lychee Tomato (probably better tasting than moneymaker {ugh} and totally immune to blight).
Ground Cherry (easier, earlier, and with a 'lighter' taste than cape gooseberries).
Tayberries (so much better than their parents).
Apples - if you like them young, fresh and with zing (if you prefer apple pie then don't bother).
Plums (P. domestica - not the tasteless asian ones) - impossible to buy ripe, won't ripen off the tree.
Old-fashioned sweetcorn varieties (hard to source, impossible to store, but actually have more flavour than sugar).
Blueberries.
Meyers Lemons & Tahiti Limes (the only safe source of peel and zest in this pesticide-loaded world).
Carrots grown on heavy soil (a totally different taste).
Tuberous pea (really taste like chestnut - but sow in a pot or a membraned trench or they are impossible to find).
Rampion - wonderful fresh and crunchy.
There are many more but I'm interested in your suggestions.
Cheers.
Cassabanana
so much trouble but worth it to bad it would not grow well in UK due to many factors I can't list.
Giganda beans.... massive bean in massive pod on massive plant that needs babying, early sowing indoors to get up to size and the plants need trimming too, but it's a lovely thing to eat freash butter-bean style monster beans and pretty good cooked up from dried too
Catawissa Tree Onions... the largest of the tree onions , the bullet hard, very tear-inducing bulbils make probably the best pickled onions you can make
QuoteUK due to many factors I can't list.
I think that there is only one major factor, it simply is not warm enough.
Not sure it is very exotic but I like lebanese courgettes also called cousa. 35 year ago courgettes were on the exotic list. ;D
Mayan gold potatoes delicious but not a huge crop unfortunately.
Was going to grow some chick peas but not convinced they will taste better than the
bought ones.
Quote from: chriscross1966 on May 08, 2011, 09:54:50
Catawissa Tree Onions... the largest of the tree onions , the bullet hard, very tear-inducing bulbils make probably the best pickled onions you can make
Mine seems to have vanished over winter. I find the bulbils are good used green, but they're really strong.
I like to grow melons, nothing like a ripe, home grown one, peaches, too :)
Quote from: manicscousers on May 08, 2011, 19:15:09
I like to grow melons, nothing like a ripe, home grown one, peaches, too :)
Wow!! you grow peaches in Wigan!! very impressed BTW it was lovely meeting you at your plant sale last week my baskets are beautiful
X Chas
Lovely to meet you, too. we did well with peaches last year, 40 off one tree and 8 off the other. only got 6 melons though, but they were worth it ;D
Hope the baskets go on for ages ;D
Digeroo my lottie mate grew chickpeas,they were very attractive and podded up ......
2 peas per pod :o and she painstakingly podded them !
Definately peaches and melons, both did well for me in East Yorkshire.. so did Cassabanana by the way Plainleaf.
Our peach tree was in a huge pot in a fairly sheltered garden, again variety is paramount. The only problem we had was Peach Leaf Curl which we watched for and stomped on straightaway.
I think with things like melons you have to pick your variety carefully, start early and grow on to big plants before they finally go out into their final spot in a greenhouse. This is also true of mnany of the winter squash that have a long growing perioid and also watermelons. The difference between a home grown watermelon and a store bought is huge.
Blueberries I found were a very easy crop to grow, we had 12 bushes, differentt varieties and different maturity times , so each helped the other. As long as the ground was sufficiently acid they were zero problems for me.
Lima beans were a challenge but experimenting with differnt varieties and starting as soon as possible I got a good harvest after a couple of years of nothings.
Cousa has been my fave courgette for many years and if you have not grown it before then pleease pleesse try it. Also check out the recipes for cousa or kousa to use it.
XX Jeannine
These aren't really unusual but at least I get a good crop - I often try different things, but mostly they seem to be rare because they aren't really worth the effort of growing
Unusual fruit trees presently
Mulberry
Medlar - interesting but I could live without them
Quince - ditto
Greengages - lovely
Mirabelle plums - Delicious good croppers and very easy
Have one peach outdoors, but young and hasn't done anything much yet
Figs - nice to have and a few fruits, but not fully there on growing them yet
Tried a pomegranate and banana but no luck even keeping them alive
I am hoping to sort out more fruit for a greenhouse, which is hopefully to be finished before winter Intending to maybe try
Fig
Peach
Apricot
Sweetcorn in the polytunnel
Melons ditto
Long Cucumbers ditto
Seakale
Globe Artichokes
Salsify and Scorzonera- make a moderately nice change and not difficult
Radicchio always a surprise it when it comes though not always that reliable for me
Romanesco and similar cultivars - again nice change and no caterpillars
Some oranges and lemons, I never seem to get a reliable crop but they are fun to have
Cape Gooseberry - very easy in the polytunnel
Things I have tried and occasionally succeeded with
Trench celery
Mushrooms oyster shitake cauliflower
Things I always mean to try
Endive the type you force in the winter
Oh - and asparagus peas (rubbish) and those little chinese cucumbers (rubbish) and one that was supposed to taste like avacado (rubbish) and that bugderigar seed thing (rubbish) - shall I go on !!!! Of course it could be my growing/cooking abilties at fault ::)
all the best
Sue
Trying to grow ginger after reading suggestion in gardening mag - just bought at chunk, cut into sections and put in compost with a bit of the ginger showing (in greenhouse). Supposed to look handsome and be able to dig up crop in autumn.
Nothing's happened yet..............
hi Alex I'm trying to grow some Ginger as well as Turmeric and Galangal, didn't see the article on Ginger, I hadn't thought about cutting a piece up 1st before you planted it. Thanks :)
We're not all that adventurous these days, since most of our attempts at exotica have produced rather scant results.
But I'd recommend tomatillos for anyone interested in Mexican food. Grew like weeds and produced copious amounts.
Can't beat fresh just picked sun warmed figs & peaches. Nothing in the supermarket touches them.
I should point out that I worked until recently in a stately home with some very nice old fig & peach trees in very large greenhouses! Tempted to try peaches but never thought I'd get enough crop off them to make it worth the while. What variety are you growing Manic? Are they permanently outside?
My fig tree is the thug inside the greenhouse so the only challenge is to keep it under control.
But for other crops it has to be melons-not easy but the reward!!-No shop bought one gets close
Quote from: Mrs Gumboot on May 09, 2011, 15:50:02
I should point out that I worked until recently in a stately home with some very nice old fig & peach trees in very large greenhouses! Tempted to try peaches but never thought I'd get enough crop off them to make it worth the while. What variety are you growing Manic? Are they permanently outside?
they are both outside in the fruit cage, Ray has put a permanent cover to stop leaf curl, it worked, too.
One is from Lidl, bought as an apricot, the other was from Victoriana nursery
Red Haven, we keep them topped to about 7' as that's the height of the fruit cage ;D
forgot about figs, oh, yes, much better than shop bought
Hmmm. Might be worth investigating. Mind you I already have five fruit trees brought from Aldi in pots that I have to find homes for so maybe I'd better not get ahead of myself til i've got the garden laid out. ::) ;D
hiya mrs gumboot
i've also got one of two fruit trees from Aldi - a Peach 'Red Haven' which was planted out in Feb. Tho' much to my dismay, there was hardly anything what you call a root system as most of it had been hacked off by the supplier :( :( :( :( so i wasn't best pleased. It took a long time for it to come into leaf as I was expecting it should of done by April, but it was only about a week ago, the main trunk finally did. The rest of the branches hadn't tho'. Just be vigilant that your trees don't dry out if they're not planted in yet.
I quickly get fed up with yellow peaches from the shops - I really love white peaches - and Peregrine is both white and the easiest/best peach for the UK. I get more than a kilo every year from a fan-trained tree that's only 2m wide and less tall.
In a poor season there is a hint of bitterness, but it's mostly in the skin, and I tend to peel the skin anyway because it comes off Peregrine so easily.
Lord Napier nectarine is even nicer - the green flesh tastes even better than the white - but I only get one fruit every 5 years or so.
Has anyone had real success with doughnut/saturn type white peaches? - I had one once but it turned out to be much more tender than advertised and died - I should have planted it in a greenhouse.
Has anyone tried growing a pluot in the UK? I had some great ones from the supermarket about 10 years ago but haven't seen any since. The big advantage as I see it is that you get the real plum/greengage taste with a little apricot, but they actually seem to ripen off the tree!.
Instead of selling us wonderful pluots they insist on selling absolutely useless watery (probably unripe) asian plums - madness.
Cheers.
When we lived near Cambridge, our neighbour had an established peach tree. She didn't plant it. It was a scraggly thing that grew through the rather ramshackle fence separating our houses. The leaves were diseased every year. No-one ever pruned it.
Anyway, it produced 5-10 beautiful flattened white peaches on our side every year. I've never had peaches like them before or since. The juice cascaded down your chin.
Luck, neglect, and a very sheltered situation seemed to be the solution here!
I'm surprised no one's mentioned celeriac yet. It's much too difficult for me to grow though it is possible, but it is a marvelous vegetable especially for soup.
I have a medlar. Pretty blossom, but you'd have to be starving to eat the fruit. Starving, and deranged.
Thanks for the warning iridium. Think one of the plums has keeled over. Mind I'm watching it bucketing down outside so I think the other's be happy now.
Surprisingly the morello from last year (also still in pot) is COVERED in fruit.
Peregrine is one of the variety's in work. Very, very tasty. If that grows well out of doors, I might well consider trying to get hold of one.
Ive got a large bed that ive been dumping chook muck on this year soi have just ordered some Golden Virginia tobbacco seeds, looking forward to the whole challenge ;)
Quote from: THE DOG on May 13, 2011, 16:26:20
Ive got a large bed that ive been dumping chook muck on this year soi have just ordered some Golden Virginia tobbacco seeds, looking forward to the whole challenge ;)
Tobacco is not challenging to grow. It needs a little warmth to germinate but I managed fine in an unheated greenhouse. Use really good john innes seed compost and just sprinkle the seed on the surface. Keep it moist and in a dark bag and you'll have germination in a week, and then it's just a bit of a challenge to water without washing the tiny seedlings away. Beautifully fragrant on a hot day.
Thanks for the advice ;) Thats exactly how i was going to start them, only i was under the impression they needed indirect light to germinate. I was surprised how tiny the seeds were ;)
All the best D
Unless I have missed it, no-one has mentioned saffron? I bought some bulbs once and was very disappointed as they came up in the autumn year after year, but no flowers.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/gardening/6206355/Saffron-mellow-yellow-and-delicious.html
This article makes me want to try again. It says July is the month to plant, and names a supplier.
'From the 14th Century onward' at Saffron Walden is infuriatingly vague. That's towards the end of the medieval warm period, but Wikipedia places the saffron-growing era in the 16th-17th Centuries, at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Whichever's correct, the climate then certainly won't have been warmer then than now. So it must still be possible to produce the stuff! I think a variable product would have to be accepted, though, due to our weather.
http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/2405/how-to-grow-saffron
I've been aware for years that the Amish are particularly keen on saffron and grow it well, without regarding it as a luxury for one minute. As far as they are concerned it is as essential as any other herb to add flavour to food (was going to write salt and pepper, but those are separate problems....)
I visited Amish farms in Pennsylvania in the 1960s, and even as a teenage London music student was impressed by their gardens and markets.
http://www.geocities.com/mkatz925/nytsaffron.htm
Quote from: Robert_Brenchley on May 15, 2011, 18:12:07
'From the 14th Century onward' at Saffron Walden is infuriatingly vague. That's towards the end of the medieval warm period, but Wikipedia places the saffron-growing era in the 16th-17th Centuries, at the beginning of the Little Ice Age. Whichever's correct, the climate then certainly won't have been warmer then than now. So it must still be possible to produce the stuff! I think a variable product would have to be accepted, though, due to our weather.
Just a thought - there are also tantalising mentions of cumin-growing in mediaeval times, but it seems most likely they were growing 'black cumin' (Nigella spp.).
'Black cumin' is a very valuable spice in its own right. There was no 'trades descriptions act' until quite recently, so you could call your product whatever you liked; and if the lord of the manor was getting his real cumin from the Hansa, then he was happy and nobody cared what you sold the hoi polloi.
So on the same lines as cumin-substitute - isn't there a possibility they were actually growing 'mountain/bastard saffron' (Safflower - Carthamus tinctorius)? It's a much more rewarding crop because as well as producing enough dye to use on clothes (not just food) the seeds are very nutritious.
We'll probably never know, but it wouldn't surprise me if owning a field of crocuses was the best way to convince someone that the safflower you sell them is real saffron.
Cynics anonymous...
Anyway - it's pretty obvious that saffron ISN'T an unusual and challenging crop that is well worth the effort!
Wasabi, although it seems often to be described as a challenge, I've found it a lovely plant to grow and the small pretty white flowers in spring are a delight. Although I don't think the roots I harvest are anywhere near as big as the comercially grown ones, having fresh wasabi on tap is great, leaves are spicy hot too.
Quote from: Jayb on May 18, 2011, 06:19:40
Wasabi, although it seems often to be described as a challenge, I've found it a lovely plant to grow and the small pretty white flowers in spring are a delight. Although I don't think the roots I harvest are anywhere near as big as the comercially grown ones, having fresh wasabi on tap is great, leaves are spicy hot too.
Jayb
Where do you get your wasabi roots to grwo, ive never seen them and would love to give them a try.
all this talk of cumin and wasabi has reminded me that I want to get hold of a Curry Leaf plant. From previous reading, they are tender and are difficult to keep going. But worth a punt for fresh curry leaves :)
If you live near an area where there is a large Asian population (like I do in Nott'm), in the larger Asda stores, you can buy fresh curry leaves with their stems on. Maybe it may be possible to root them rather seeking out a grower who sells them ... just a thought ;)
Celery,
Thanks irridium, I tried it once, but no joy. I buy them fresh (when in London) and freeze them, they do freeze very well. I might try again......
Just seen this.. 1066, be very careful if you buy a plant for curry leaves. The plant that is called curry plant is not the one you get leaves from in the Asian stores The real curry is very tender and last time |I checked it out it wasn;t viable in the UK. I have always been concerned about the Curry plant sold as a herb plant.. so please invetsigate it before you eat it. It is called Curry plant because of it's smell but is nit a cooking plant.
XX Jeannine
I saw the plant that is usually called curry plant Helichrysum italicum (the one with the whitish leaves that smell of curry and not the curry leaf you see being used in curry on tv) being sold in at least one garden centre recently in the herb section.
Personally, I think it stinks of the cheap and nasty curry sauce from a chippy and would never think of using it in my food!
There seems to be conflicting information about it too. It's apparently edible to a point. Probably much like tansy where you can eat a little but too much will have you ill.
oh Wasabi that sounds like fun :) Might try that any tips?
Brownowl23, I got my Wasabi from Poyntzfield Herb, they have some super plants.
Nurseryhttp://www.poyntzfieldherbs.co.uk/catalogue1.asp
Cambourne, I've found they do well in a large pot, kept well watered in a sheltered semi shady spot. They will withstand some frost as they came through last winter in a polytunnel. They have clusters of pretty small white flowers in early spring.
Quote from: Unwashed on May 13, 2011, 14:48:14
I'm surprised no one's mentioned celeriac yet. It's much too difficult for me to grow though it is possible, but it is a marvelous vegetable especially for soup.
I have a medlar. Pretty blossom, but you'd have to be starving to eat the fruit. Starving, and deranged.
Oh great! I am groing celeriac for the first time and have really just left it to its own devices. Can I expect a poor turnout then?
What about peanuts? Has anyone tried them in the UK? I saw them on sale in original touch catalouge
Quote from: Dandytown on June 22, 2011, 10:31:04
Oh great! I am groing celeriac for the first time and have really just left it to its own devices. Can I expect a poor turnout then?
celeriac is easier than celery that for sure. if only because it takes less effort to still get very little
for another challenging veg - how about broad beans? ???
I love Kiwi fruit and this is my first cropping year,I hope its been worth the three year wait! I'm also trying to coaks a couple of Pommegrante plants to set fruit,but I'm told it takes at least six years...so thats three more to go! Love my Boskoop Glory Grape vine,they have a really sweet flavour. Buerre Hardy Pears, I find them difficult to get spot on.
re peanuts - found one growing in an outside flowerpot a few years ago, a 'present' from the local sqirrels.
This year looks like being a good one for kiwis & grapes on my plot. My kumquat seems to be fruiting better now(bigger fruits). Loads of peas but with yellow, purple & green pods. Had a few Honeyberries. Lots of Chokeberries. If we can get some long warm spells I'm hopeful for some olives.
I've got a few things I've had for a few years that have not yet done anything - chinese blue bean, chocolate vine, feijoa
Trying again with mashua, camas, ocas & chinese artichokes.
Unfortunately, lost my Chilean Guava due to the winter weather. However, my strawberry tree is recovering after fruiting for the first time then suffering the cold spell.
New stuff trying this year - Rampion (no luck), Root Chervil (no luck), Tzimbalo (now flowering), Pumpkin Tree (growing well).