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Post by diane on Jan 24, 2012 21:36:39 GMT -5
I don't mean perennial plants, but ones that most people pull out at the end of the season but that can keep on going.
Cutting a cabbage and leaving the stalk in the ground will give you three or four small heads.
I have various other cabbage family plants that go on for a long time. The purple cape cauliflower I'll be picking soon was sown in 2004. My kale plants are even older.
I chop the bottoms off green onions and put them in pots of soil in the kitchen where they sprout new greens.
And now I've discovered a new one: I've just read an article by Carolyn Herriot in Gardenwise, a Canadian magazine. She doesn't pull her leeks, but cuts them just above the roots and they resprout.
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Post by diane on Jan 23, 2012 20:30:49 GMT -5
I grow mine up bamboo poles with branches left on. They are way over my head, but flexible, so I just pull them down towards me to pick the high pods.
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Post by diane on Jan 22, 2012 0:24:42 GMT -5
I'm going to grow some more Lima o del Papa, which I grew a few years ago. I assumed they were just regular pole beans that produce flat lima-looking beans, but now I find that they are actually limas. I am surprised that they managed to produce out here on the cool coast.
I can't remember what part of them I ate - I was growing a lot of pole beans and they all got cooked together. They were pretty - white with brown markings.
I've just looked up lima beans and discover that pretty coloured ones, like the ones I grew, have poisonous cyanogenetic glucosides and need to be soaked and boiled. Would this apply to fresh ones, or just after they've dried?
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Post by diane on Jan 21, 2012 10:28:24 GMT -5
Thank you for looking up that information.
I will try to get wild seeds from various places to see if some have longer or more numerous pods.
The perennial Lotus maritimus, which has yellow flowers and non-winged pods, is often offered in several of the alpine seed exchanges. I think I'll grow that one too, and cross them. Always good to have some perennial vegetables.
Diane W.
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Post by diane on Jan 17, 2012 17:59:09 GMT -5
I grew asparagus peas a few times about 40 years ago and am going to grow them again this year. From what I can find online, no one has developed any improved forms. However, a book suggests there may be some.
Suzanne Ashworth, in Seed to Seed, seems to have mixed them up with the tropical ones (which I ate in Borneo as Four-Angled Beans), but does have the description and growing conditions correct. She wrote: "Asparagus pea, one of ten subspecies of Psophocarpus tetragonolobus, ........ the plants are unlikely to be blooming at the same time of in the same climate as winged bean ................. Asparagus peas are frost tolerant annuals that can be fall planted in temperate climates for early spring harvest ..........Members of the Seed Savers Exchange annually offer about 6 varieties of asparagus peas, and the Garden Seed Inventory lists sources for 10 varieties."
I am not a member of SSE (and won't join since it is such a bother sending seeds into the U.S.) Can someone who is a member verify that there are different varieties of it?
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Post by diane on Jan 16, 2012 18:12:17 GMT -5
Seeds by Size, in your European list, seems to be fading away. I haven't bought from them in many years, but they had a huge list then. Now the website lists a page of flowers, but only some of them are still available.
I couldn't find any vegetables.
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Post by diane on Jan 11, 2012 1:08:45 GMT -5
I've just bought some Colorado Maple peas at the feed store.
I don't know whether Colorado just refers to where they came from, or whether it is the name of a particular pea. The seeds are small, dark and dented.
There was also a bin of Austrian peas, but I didn't note how they looked.
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Post by diane on Jan 8, 2012 2:30:01 GMT -5
I did a search but couldn't find this topic already in use.
I have three vegetables that last a long time after picking. I keep them in the house, in the same room as the computer.
Sibley squash - the best tasting squash I have grown. It is still great after two years, but after three years, the seeds were starting to sprout inside, so now I plant it every other year.
Tomatillos last until the next summer.
Sweet Orange II cherry tomato. ( I still have lots of seeds from Peters Seed and Research - the packet says this is the one the "deer zero in on for eating.) I pick the ripe ones at the end of October and bring them in. Last year I had eaten them all by Christmas, so this year I'm not eating the last of them - I want to see how long they will stay good.
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