1) What is the most unusual vegetable you've grown?

Romanesco Veronica

2) What does it taste like?

It has a most unusual flavor that reminds you of broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage but yet it has its own unique taste. It is a mild taste but sweet and when cooked or grilled with a little olive oil and sea salt it is too die for. Also great with an asiago cheese/provolone sauce or just grated over the grilled pieces.

3) How prolific was it?

Very

4) What time of year?

Fall or in our case fa;;/winter

5) How was the disease tolerance?

Fairly well If it is wet it tends to mold a little but I did little to prevent pests and diseases.

You're makin' me hungry Linda...

If anyone's curious why I asked I think we (as a country) are headed for some really hard times. I predicted that oil would hit $140 a barrel by the end of the year, just never though it would happen this fast...Bear-Stearns, GM, the cost of food.... I foresee lots of newbie's starting backyard gardens and now is the time to start thinking outside the box and finding more things to supplement food on the table.

tomncath, I agree with you wholeheartedly! I'm seeing "room for rent" signs all over, which tells me that lots more folks are going to lose their homes before things get better.

I'm "learnin'" myself how to grow plants that I'd have never considered before and I'm adding fruit trees to the landscaping in our yard. I haven't grown anything unusual yet, but I'm stocked up on flour, rice and dried beans...just in case.

I hope that someone out there has grown something that tastes like steak, since that's hubby's favorite food! :)

I have also grown rape and all the other southern greens and they are fall crops with lots of feeding potential in samll areas since you can crop the leaves and have the plant continue to produce. I love young mustard or kale wilted with some bacon grease or olive oil. I know how to grow sweet potatoes and potatoes and use them for flour or thinckening. I love producing tomatoes and I am always looking for the sturdiest that will keep producing and can be used in numerous fashions. Radishes can be sliced battered and fried for an interesting dish. I know how to fish and utilize all of my southern vegetables with them and speaking of this I have stocked up on dried beans and peas and I am dehydrating my own stuff. I am seeking upick places where I can get veggies cheap and dehydrating or canning. I have gone wild gooseberry, blackberry and blueberry picking, etc. Good thread

Tom, I agree with you too. I just got some moringa seeds from ebay and have sprouted a couple. They are growing fasssst. I have no idea what it tastes like but apparently you can pretty much eat the whole tree and it grows very fast. Moringa recipes anyone?

I think there was a thread several months ago that addressed this topic too. I remember Ill-mannered had alot of information.

Lissa, the nice thing about stocking up on dried beans and peas is you can eat 'em or you can grow 'em.

We waste alot of space that could be used to supplement our food and without the chemicals.

Linda, how do you dehydrate? I have canned a long time ago and it is alot of work.

Name'. It tastes like mashed Potatoes. It's a relative of the Air Potato and we know how well THAT does here;>! This is my 1st yr growing it(along with Chayote and Taro...)and it's certainly vigourous!
Malanga. Tastes a bit like Potatoes as well. I tried some in my yard last yr and it handles z8 weather without difficulty....
Cheers,
Pat

I dehydrate utilizing a dehydrater, the sun and the oven.Pack in a food sea;er bag and ready to pop open and cook whatever I want.

Romanesco Veronica - That's the most unusual thing I seen lately, think I might have to give it a try. (see link below to visualize)

Name' - I could not find anything about, can you point me in the right direction?

Chayote - I wanted to try this one but quickly realized I don't have the room.

Tromboncino - Ordered, but probably too late to start now.

Cowpeas - I need to order some of these and try them now but I'm not wild about blackeyes, anything similar to the green field peas? What do you grow successfully? Where do you get them?

Obviously, I'm looking for more things to grow through the summer. So far I've ordered gai lan (Kale), summer Pak Choy, summer Daikon radishes (love icicles), Asia Red Amaranth, Malabar spinach and an Oriental cucumber called Ninja (from Thailand...we'll see if it will grow through the heat)

Anything else growing right now?

Tom

Here is a link that might be useful: Romanesco Veronica

Tom,

About the Southern Pea family: I didn't use to care much for them either, but like them very much now. The thing is that they should contain LOTS of snaps. These are the very young pea pod that has been snapped into short lengths and cooked in the pot with the shelled peas.

If you are not vegan, throw in a piece of salt pork or bacon for the smoked flavor. And use plenty of water because the "pot likker" is the very best part. Combine this with corn bread (NOT the sweet kind!) and you have a bunch of very good eating. This combo is a meal that provides complete protein. If you have to have the sweet, then dribble some honey on the last few bites of cornbread.

I prefer corn dodgers to corn bread. This is a corn dumpling cooked on the top of the peas.

Also, some pea varieties are MUCH better then others. My personal favs are Conks, also called lady or slipper peas. Like vegan caviar. Did you know that Asian yard long beans are in the same family? My plants are about 15 inches high. I am looking forward to tasting them soon.

There is a Middle Eastern dish (the name escapes me) where you soak Black Eyed Peas about twelve hours, drain and rinse. As you rinse you rub them between your palms until the skins loosen and float away and you are left with a white pea center. Then blend them very well into a thick paste with some water, add salt, pepper, cumin, garlic, parsley, etc. Then, fry in oil like pancakes slowly until nice and brown. Yummy. If made from garbanzo beans, this dish is called
fa-laf'-fels. Being of Polish origin, our family name for them is falafskis. Lol...

I am growing sweet potatoes for leaves and stems and of course SP. Started in end of April and first part of May from the SP from Asian grocery, it's growing nicely so far. I can't wait to how this well do here.
Tom, Veronica looks interesting. I might try to grow them just because of heat tolerant and it sounds pretty tasty.
My Malabar is from last year, it's constantly flowering. Even the babies come up flowering so I don't get to eat them. I think I need to yank them out and trash them.

Name'(Dioscoria alata) is found in the local Publix supermarkets in WInter. WHich is where I got my starts for the Malanga. I've a habit of trying to start any Interesting new veggie I run into, sometimes before I've tried one.
Cheers,
Pat

Thonotorose

Yum! Being a native Floridian anything southern is for me.... Where do you buy the Conk seeds? I saw some of those Asian yard long beans when I ordered the pok choy and gai lan but I didn't think they'd grow any better than pole beans in our summer heat. And that cake recipe sounds great; I've got to research that one.

Jan1

I'm not into SP, yams or winter squash, I've tried but their just not my bag....I am looking forward to enjoying the Malabar though and it will be interesting to see what we each think of the Veronica.

Pat

Thanks for the info on Name'. How do you grow it? Is it a vining thing?

Tom,

I planted the yard-longs because I read in a recent John Starnes column in the St Pete Times that they are a great hot weather veggie for here.

In case you don't know, frequently, one can find very interesting seed packets of various Asian veggies at Asian food markets. I have seen large selections at Oceanic in downtown Tampa and the same at M & D Asian market in north Tampa, on Fowler, north side, east of the first big light (Nebraska? Florida? Always get those two mixed up.) Next to the Office Depot.

Asian markets are also great for various veggies that can be rooted or have the seeds saved. I LOVE to eat the bunches of sprouting broccoli sold there, lightly steamed, with a drizzle of dark sesame oil. I have seen it with yellow or white flowers. Like rapini, but not as strongly flavored and cooks faster. Also has more and thicker stems and less leaves and buds then rapini.

T-rose, thanks. I work in N.Tampa so I'll go by M&D and look at the seed packets, definitely going to try some sort of bean this week. I Googled John Starnes and read the four articles he'd written for the paper so it's expanded my "bean-horizon". And, I LOVE broccoli, that's why I decided to try the gai lan and the Veronica, looking for something similar to broccoli that we can grow here.

Tom

WOW that veronica looks like a big green conch shell, it's pretty.

Hi Cindee, I didn't chime in over at the nanner post but that's my next acquisition ;-) That and a few dwarf citrus, maybe a Barbados cherry and perhaps a tropic snow peach (after talking to Lisa).

Cindee I have a recipe for you for rapini with grilled soft shell crabs. Want it? Linda

I tried the long beans,black seeded and other.They were growing like gangbusters till the ants started the apid crop which i could not control with insecticidal soap or my homemade elixer of chiles/water.I started them on a tomato cage next to 2 different 8'cacti,which worked well.If anybody knows how to rid these bugs i will try again,I harvested 6 great beans,and have a fantastic recipie for stir frying.I'm not into the pesticide diet,so until i figure this out I'll be getting mine at the mustang flea market.

just back from vacation -- too much email to answer to spend much time on this thread, but it's interesting. y'all are absolutely right about an increase in interest in veg gardening--the traffic on my blog has exploded in the last could of months.

name, btw, is just another word for yam.

off the wall things this year in my garden include malanga, cassava (thank, felix!), sugarcane (thanks, felix!), peanuts, cowpeas (which are really really wonderful food), malabar, and okinawan spinach, tromboncino, and michael's miracle squash (a volunteer of unknown provenance in my garden)... (and the usual sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, egyptian kale). during the cool season, i grow the traditional stuff...

we'll have to have a 'grazing in your garden' thread sometime this month. i'm always eager to hear what other people are eating from their gardens.

oh, oh -- and just ignore the aphids. really, they can't do much damage to a plant that grows as quickly as those yardlongs. they are all over my cowpeas, too, but they don't seem to do much damage.

the place to go, for all this sort of info, is ECHO. they have the seeds and the literature. great place to support, too.

Ill - Thanks for your input, always valued. I checked out ECHO, have you tried the Queensland lettuce?

Here is a link that might be useful: Queensland Lettuce

i have had a damnable time getting queensland to germinate. even if the lettuce is heat-tolerant, to grow it during the hot season means getting it to germinate in summertime temps. tough to do, i've found. this year i am growing a bunch of lettuces (summer glory from parks, from winter-saved seed) and apollo arugula, from t&m. both seem to be doing well. really, the best lettuce green for this season is okinawan spinach, which is equally good raw and cooked. but you have to get a cutting, first...