Unusual vegetables you've grown

[Martin Mikulcik]

I'm very interested in underappreciated even underdeveloped crops, things that are maybe more unusual than exotic, historically important but forgotten, this can include fruit

What all has everyone tried, good or bad?

This year I'm planning to grow for the first time
Ethiopian kale brassica carinata
Portuguese kale oleracea tronchuda
Spigariello brassica ?
Winged bean
Egyptian spinach molokhia
Sea kale crambe
Caucasian mountain spinach
Apios americana


I tried new zealand spinach unsuccessfully last year
I've been regularly growing lambsquarters, nettles, trying to establish some chicory, i like dandelions, bitter melon, wild lettuce, jerusalem artichoke, i have a burdock I've yet to try, same with cup plant (sylphium)

I've done but don't like
French sorrel
Arugula
Purslane

Things I've considered
Malabar spinach
Good king Henry
Turkish rocket
Salsify
Persian barberry
Medlar
Chinese hawthorn
Rose of sharon
Watercress

Less unusual but not too common
Muscadine grapes
Sesame
Sweet potato greens

I know the list could never end, but i don't anticipate getting tired of trying new things. It's not intended to be a comprehensive list of edible wild plants, just ones you think are worth encouraging/cultivating/trying

 

[Meadowlark]

...just ones you think are worth encouraging/cultivating/trying

I have for years enjoyed trying out new to me varieties…some work for me and some don’t but it is always fun experimenting. Sometimes they become a staple and a favorite in my garden.

For example, I tried out the Grande Rio Verde Tomatillo a few years back and it has become an annual staple in my garden. I have a neighbor who specializes in making salsa verde and chile verde and we team up with me growing the tomatillos and she making the sauces. Works out great for both.

I order a lot of seeds from Baker Creek and this year my “free” seed sample included the Datil Pepper. Probably too hot for me but fun to try. Baker Creek also had a melon which caught my eye…the Madhu Ras Rajasthan Honey Melon…an historic melon from India. It likes hot weather and sandy rich organic soils which describes mine.

Baker Creek also brags on a couple of carrots I’m going to try: 1) a red carrot…the Kyoto Red, a Japanese sweet carrot and 2) the New Kuroda carrot which is claimed to be the best tasting carrot ever and an improvement on the famous Japanese Kuroda carrot.

I’ve never had much luck or should say any luck growing Limas but found one from R.H Shumway’s that claims to be successful in our hot humid weather of summer…The Alabama (Phaseolus Lunatus). Giving it a try this year.

I’m always looking for a better seedless melon and @Heirloom farmer1969 has claimed to have found one but meantime I’m trying the “Big Tasty Hybrid (seedless) from Burpee for the first time this year in addition to my standard “Triple Crown” seedless. Burpee also has a new summer squash, the Golden Goose Hybrid, that sounds especially interesting and worth a try this year. Park Seeds offered a new to me Magda Hybrid Squash which I’m hoping will replace my regular zucchini squash in the garden. Also, from R.H Shumway’s the Konstance Kohlrabi and Amish Snap pea both caught my eye as things new to try this year.

I am trying several new to me varieties of sunflowers and pollinator attracting flowers in addition to old reliables.

In the fruit category, the most underrated and perhaps under-utilized grapes are the muscadines. Highly disease resistant specifically to Pierce’s disease which wipes out just about any other grape planted in the South. The taste is simply unequaled. I’ve grown them since about 1980 when I purchased this ranch which had a nice stand of them growing, The same root stock produces wonderfully through today without virtually any maintenance. Wonderful fruit.

I’ve tried out probably over 25 different varieties of potatoes, and this year add the new Sarpo Una to my list. It is a rosy-skin white fleshed potato known for high yielding, mid-early potato. Along with onions, I consider potatoes my personal specialty items to grow in my garden. Both provide continuous year around staples for the table.

I could literally write pages on everything I've tried but we would both probably get bored with that...so I choose to just stick pretty much with this year's new stuff in my reply.

p.s. also adding the Black Russian tomato recommended by @Oliver Buckle as a late addition to my list.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

Limas did good in Kentucky and i tried two varieties last year here and kurzers calico traveler was okay. I didn't think our season would be long enough (it wasn't for the fordhook), but kurzers i got from bakers Creek who got it from Michigan and i can attest that it will produce quickly. I'm surprised you'd have trouble there, i thought limas liked hot and humid

I love tomatillos, my standard variety didn't do great last year so I've bought a couple different ones to increase genetic pool, everona is one

My brother tried new kuroda because it's supposed to be heat tolerant, he said the rats liked them

I found the "black hole" sunflower from experimental farm network to be exactly what i was looking for, a tall sturdy oilseed, most oilseeds are very short

Any tips you'd have for growing onions here especially from seed? Bunching onions and walking onions are supposed to overwinter but regular onions won't and the heat comes on fast in the spring and they do poorly in the summer never getting very big, usually rotting.

Sets work okay, but for the price of sets i might as well buy onions. I've tried eds red shallot, which didn't rot, so maybe shallots are where it's at. I haven't tried sowing seed as a fall crop and overwintering the little bulbs in a cellar

Multiplier onions failed for me and i was pretty hopeful with them. I didn't irrigate anything, but we get 3-4in per month and i have deep well drained soil

I've grown 2 red potatoes Norland and pontiac and they were mostly too physiologically old to plant come spring, did i do something wrong, was it the variety? I've heard you say lasoda keeps well for you. Do you have the same success with the blues? I've never grown them.

My cellar is 22F right now but my pipes aren't frozen so maybe my infrared thermometer is lying

 

[Meadowlark]

... I'm surprised you'd have trouble there, i thought limas liked hot and humid

They do like "hot and humid" but at temps above 85 deg f. pollen release and quality rapidly diminish. We routinely go above 85 deg. F. in May and sometimes in late April....just when most limas spring planted begin flowering. That is a show stopper here.

I have my doubts about the "Alabama" butterball lima but the claims are they tolerate up to low 90s deg F in setting fruit. If so, I'll be happy.

...My brother tried new kuroda because it's supposed to be heat tolerant, he said the rats liked them

I take that as an endorsement

I found the "black hole" sunflower from experimental farm network to be exactly what i was looking for, a tall sturdy oilseed, most oilseeds are very short

We have a sunflower growing comp here usually annually. Would be delighted for you to enter your varieties.

Any tips you'd have for growing onions here especially from seed?

I grow for big, sweet bulbs that store well. The only way to be consistently successful at that is to start from seed in fall to enable a long growing season. Your climate, as I recall, won't tolerate fall planted onions. Hence, you probably have to settle for bunching onions and/or smaller bulbed onions started in late spring. The "candy" onion, a day neutral, would be one I would try there from seed. I'm surprised the bunching (aka Egyptian, walking onions) didn't work for you. I know they won't make large bulbs or almost any bulbs but they produce good eating onions. Leeks might be something to try also...I grow them successfully here.

...I've grown 2 red potatoes Norland and pontiac and they were mostly too physiologically old to plant come spring, did i do something wrong, was it the variety? I've heard you say lasoda keeps well for you. Do you have the same success with the blues? I've never grown them.

My favorite red skinned potato is the Red LaSoda...better for me in taste and storage than other reds including Pontiac and red norland. They should work for you there. The blues are fine, but I just prefer the taste of reds and the white (Yukon gold). This one worked for me:

...My cellar is 22F right now but my pipes aren't frozen so maybe my infrared thermometer is lying

I so wish I could have a root cellar here. Some of my fondest memories are of my grandmother's root cellar in the Ozarks...the smells and the amazing varieties that she stored there all winter. Just amazing.

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

I do believe the Egyptian walking onions will work (they did well in ky) but i only planted them this fall here in mo. And bunching onions/scallions do very well from seed but this is the first year I'm overwintering them as well

I was unsuccessful with leeks once, i will try again, and i will see about getting candy onion and lasoda

Thank you for your knowledge

 

[big rockpile]

That is one thing with Baker Creek. I sell produce and going to try and save seed.

I was going to grow extra long Okra that is supposed to be tender.

My sister said it don’t sell because everyone thinks it’s too big.

big rockpile

 

[Martin Mikulcik]

My sister said it don’t sell because everyone thinks it’s too big.

If only they'd try new things. I guess you could slice it with a credit card or something to show them but probably not worth the effort

 

[big rockpile]

I’m going to try couple things New this on growing.

Thinking of cutting Okra back to get two Main Stems.

Going to try Reseeding using Ruth Stout growing method. They say it will work, we shall see.

big rockpile

 

[skinyea]

we trade with my neighbor different seeds every year.
this year we picked tromboncino squash. looking forward to trying