Allotments 4 All

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
...

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.

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