I love your odd-shaped fruit! Alas, I only have the tomatoes, strawberries and raspberries--not much oddities to be found here. Nevertheless, here is my not-so-odd-shaped fruit:

Here is a link that might be useful:

I did it! I grew an odd-shaped fruit! Here is a photo of my first "big" tomato:
It was extra sweet, juicy and delicious, by the way :)

Here is a link that might be useful:

I was reminded of your post out in the garden today about sun-up, Bonnie.

Searching thru the cucumber vines what do I find? There's a double cuke that's both double and rather bent, as well. The silly little thing looked exactly like it was "mooning" me! My first reaction was to be offended, LOL! I picked it off the vine and tossed it. Now being offended by a cucumber vine is just about as childish as one can get. I just stood out there laughing.

No, I may have trouble with exhibiting my misshapen and "offensive" fruits - - too childish. I did take a picture of this tiny petunia volunteer that showed up in one of my tea herb planters. (What was that about someone being odd? :o)

Another petunia was in with a catnip. The planters had home-grown potting mix so have a few weeds but the catnip was in store-bought mix. So these petunias came from Richter's Herbs and all the way from Toronto!

digitS'

{{gwi:1214460}}

Re volunteer petunias. Some years ago, I had a couple hanging baskets of the 'wave' purple petunia, and in the winter I took them in and hung them in the greenhouse window. Below were some trays that I used to grow winter salad.

Long story short, seeds from the 'wave', which is some kinda hybrid, fell into the salad trays and germinated, and I took some of these and planted them separately. I had all kinds of variations of purple petunia growing, and a couple of them were spectacular. I've been selecting them, propagating by cuttings, and I haven't bought a petunia now for years.

I'm now concentrating on one that is a darker purple, with a huge blossom, and I have a dozen hanging baskets with that one this year, and I noticed a new derivative showing up in one of them, a smaller flower, but almost painfully bright.

I don't bother to dead head them, I whack them back by 2/3 every now and again when they get scraggly, and just let them do their petunia thing, which is flower constantly.

david52,
How do you propagate petunias by cuttings? Is that easy? I have a petunia that I accidentally broke off and it has been hanging out in a vase for about three weeks...at least. It looks very happy...

Find a leaf node, pull off the leaves, and stick it in rooting medium. Keep a couple of small leaves on the upper stem. Better results are had by dipping the stem end in rooting hormone, and putting them on a heating mat.

awesome!! I'm going to try this tomorrow...
Thanks :)

To the Western eye (that'd be mine, too) some of the Asian veggies are rather odd looking. Especially the bitter melon which begins to glow with an inner light as it ripens. (A setting sun in a very smoky sky adds to the effect. ;o(

- click pic for a close-up -

I especially enjoy the Japanese cukes. Or, are they English cukes, see how things can really get confusing when one "group" appreciates something from somewhere else? Oh, it makes for a lovely world!

The one on the left is especially long but no where near the 3 feet claimed - Kyoto 3 Feet. Tasty King deserves high recommendations but it isn't usually quite as long. The crooked one on top . . . well, they often turn up that way.

Cannot go the bittermelon . . . just TOO bitter.

Snake gourds on the right only look dangerous. I think they may be preferable to Summer squash, flavorwise. But of course, taste is all subjective.

There's a little luffa sponge gourd amongst the snakes! Yikes!! Snakes in the bath!!

All of 'em are just about as similar and dissimilar to each other and to cukes, melons, and squash as muskmelons are to watermelons. This is a wide and diverse family - the Cucurbitaceae.

digitS'

Could have said, "This is a wide and diverse family - Humanity."

digitS'

I pulled an odd coloured beet amongst the Detroit Dark Reds today. Maybe a chard seed got into this row?

Never mind, it's a chard root. Should taste like the beets.

There are also white, albino beets....We grew some last year, and had some tiny ones over winter or something, and I pulled one a couple weeks ago, size of a soft ball.

I have started calling this Delicious {{gwi:1214468}}

Happy growing all! :)

Okay, Shelley, here's one to guess. Clue - not a cucurbit:

Steve's digits
Now you know that you can't go wrong . . . If you start each day with a song. ~ The Great Schnozzola

I'm interested in what David said about petunias from cuttings -- I understand how to root the cuttings, but the question is what do you do with them in the winter? Will the plants just continue to live if brought indoors? They're not an annual that *has* to die at the end of the season?

I overwintered a nice annual geranium (pelargonium) in my basement last year, and I made cuttings off it in mid-winter and grew 12 more from it. Very easy to grow from cuttings. But pelargoniums are actually a tender perennial rather than a true annual. So, are petunias also tender perennials that will live indoors through the winter?

Is that a very different eggplant, Steve? That'd be my guess. Pretty things!

You got it, Shelley!

They are a Thai eggplant, hybrid Long Green - nice mild flavor, early, and productive plants.

(I was thinking someone might suggest unripe bananas! :o)

d'S'

Stevation:
I'm not sure of that much regarding the petunias except that I read they are perennials when the temps are not extreme like ours. I'm going to try the petunias cuttings over winter, too, because I just had to try clippings from them and because they look so cute. My pelargoniums are inside as they have been all summer and are beginning to look a little raggy. I might cut those, too, to start fresh for next year. I hope we hear back from David a bit more on the petunias...

Sorry, hectic weekend - on the trail of the roasted green chili. This is, I think, a New Mexico - centric phenomenon, and expatriate New Mexicans go to great lengths to get their annual ration. On to petunias.

I generally keep mine in 12" dia hanging baskets, but thats just because its easy since thats where they're growing in the summer, and I just take them into the greenhouse and hang them up in there. Before I take them in, I trim off most of the plant, but still leaving a few leaves. I have one plant that is now, I believe 5 years old. They will get root bound, so every year I take that one out and prune off most of the roots, and stick it back in with new soil.

Its pretty much standard over-wintering, not too dry, not to soggy, some light, don't let them freeze. They don't do a whole lot of growing until they get longer day length in the spring.

The fun of it all, for me, is to grow the various off-spring of the the original plant, which are all variations of the original hybrid, and they do seem to be particularly prone to mutation - on one extreme, some will just grow lots of leaves and no flowers, on the other end, I now have one that follows the wave habit, but with huge blossoms. To check out what ya got, plant the cutting or the original plant somewhere where the seeds can fall into something viable, even a wide mouthed pot, and grow out a few of the seedlings to see what you find.

Thanks for sharing David. I learned something new this week! That's great -- I'll be taking cuttings of a pink wave next month and overwinter them in the basement by the south windows. I think my purple wave died (I bought them after it was too hot for transplanting), but if there are any remnants left, I really want some cuttings from that one.

With the petunias and the geraniums, I'm going to have a lot of plants overwintering down there.

So which is it: the

Actually, it is a Red Star tomato. This is the 1st year I've grown them and most look a little more "reasonable" and all have been just a little larger than most cherries.

I'm very pleased with them but only had a few ripe ones so far. With all that extra . . . it helps that the skin is very tender.

digitS'

Perhaps it is a hybrid of the sublime and ridiculous, Steve. Subdiculous?

Pretty little mater that favors the sublime more than the ridiculous.

Here are some pics of my strange tomatoes. The butt one was a Brandy Boy 2 yrs ago. The other one is from a Kosovo plant.

[IMG]http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h156/spyfferoni/IMAG0003.jpg[/IMG]
IMG]http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h156/spyfferoni/IMAG0001.jpg[/IMG]

[IMG]http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h156/spyfferoni/uglytomato2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h156/spyfferoni/uglytomato.jpg[/IMG]

I haven't posted photos on gardenweb for a long time, I guess I forgot how. Is there a way I can go back and edit my pos?

Thanks,
Tyffanie

Unfortunately you can't edit your post, but you can repost using the HTML tag instead of the image tag for your images at Photobucket.

Those look like big tomatoes!

Yoooww! All that suturing must have hurt!

Not sure, but GW may only accept "a href" tags. Don't even know if I said that right . . .

digit-ally ignorant Steve

Ever wondered what happened to

Great pics, everyone! Really enjoying them all!

How do I up load a pic of my odd shaped tomato, or as we say- tomarto? I was looking to find out if it is safe to eat.In case I can't load pic, it is healthy looking tom with thin stalk coming from it, and bud shape at end.

Use a hosting site, like photobucket or imageshack. Upload your pictures there and use the code from the html link to post here. Or do it like this:

<img src="put the url for your photo here">