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Post by littleminnie on Apr 25, 2012 21:33:07 GMT -5
Ok I will try to up my groundcherry number. I was just going to give them to the CSAs mostly.
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bertiefox
gardener
There's always tomorrow!
Posts: 236
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Post by bertiefox on Apr 27, 2012 3:52:32 GMT -5
Love Joseph's comments on the garden huckleberry. I was very tempted to buy some seed this year after seeing it described as 'just like a blueberry only better tasting' in my French seed catalogue! Thanks to the advice on this forum I didn't proceed with the purchase! How do seed companies get away with this hyperbole. You have to imagine the people who write the copy have probably never tasted the things they are describing.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Apr 27, 2012 4:30:27 GMT -5
I am very excited to grow some Schwartzbeeren that I got from traab. Turns out they are a traditional Volga-German crop that everybody grew back in the day in my hometown of Greeley, CO. I had never heard of them but I asked my grandmother who still lives there about them and she new all about them. She never grew them because she hated picking them as a kid. My dad remembered my great-grandmother making pie and maldausha with them too. So I am growing some and sending some to my dad to grow to make a pie for grandma. Traab said that the Schwartzbeeren are hands down the best of the Solanum nigrum "berries" after trialing them all so I am really eager to try them.
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Post by atash on Apr 27, 2012 15:49:36 GMT -5
Oxbowfarm, I seem to recall Stephen Barstow mentioning that one specific subspecies or form was supposed to have better berries. Let us know how they turn out.
I sowed Cape Gooseberries earlier this month. One plant is growing much more vigorously than the others.
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Post by 12540dumont on Apr 27, 2012 20:38:27 GMT -5
Surprisingly to me tomatillos are one of the most popular items that my CSA raves about. One of the after products is a grilled tomatillo/pepper enchilada sauce. It's one of those things that the jars come back the next week empty. Attachments:
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Post by 12540dumont on Apr 27, 2012 20:58:12 GMT -5
My back door volunteers, a tomato I moved from the path, a tomatillo, a squash and a sunflower. The tomatillos have volunteered for 20 years. I have both Purple de Milpa (which is a cornfield tomatillo) and a Giant Cizneros. This year, Leo tried to cross the 2. The Cizneros is much larger and upright. What we'll have this year is the Foothill Farm Milpa. They do really well around the edges of the corn, and climb right up the stalks. Those were Cherokee Green tomatoes with the tomatillos in the middle in the last photo. I can't imagine salsa without tomatillos. If you haven't tried them, get some at the market and give them a go. They are really easy to grow. Attachments:
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Post by steev on Apr 27, 2012 22:17:09 GMT -5
Having enjoyed tomatillos for years in sauces and salsas, I find I like them most thin-sliced into a salad.
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Post by littleminnie on May 6, 2012 19:55:38 GMT -5
I didn't start any tomatillos but I might buy one if I see it. I have room by my peppers.
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Post by oxbowfarm on Jul 31, 2012 9:08:05 GMT -5
Schwartzbeeren update. I have finally started harvesting some schwartzbeeren. I planted the seeds and then prompty ignored them in the pot for far too long then chunked the whole tangled mass of rootbound leggy plants into the garden a month later than they probably should have gone in. They produce white flowers that become green berries that turn shiny black then flat dull black. Flavor is quite excellent. I would say it is very similar to ground cherry, sweet and tasting of fruity fried bananas (to my personal flavor sensors). Interior of the berry is seedy and a greenish pink. Don't think these are a market crop by any means but they are very tasty and I'm very thankful to jim (traab) for giving me seed that my great grandparents ate. These have the potential to become quite invasive, they are still present in areas of Greeley as volunteers all over town long after the Volga German populations have dispersed.
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Post by RpR on Jul 31, 2012 11:48:50 GMT -5
I had/have ground cherries, volunteers, from some I planted over a decade ago.
I usually rip them out as they got a disease that affects too many plants (the disease came from a potted plant GC I bought at a nursery) and is spread by oxalis and purslane, which I have a lot of.
This year some came up in the rose garden, which now has lots of space due to roses not being replaced every year for a few years, and I let them grow as they showed no disease. (Serenade probably part of the reason,)
Oddly, they are the taller type that was first planted over a decade ago and not the lower type that caused so much trouble some years ago.
As they are growing in a bed of Cocoa Bean Hulls, picking should be easy off of the ground.
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Post by richardw on Jul 31, 2012 14:40:45 GMT -5
One of today's jobs is to sow physalis subglabrata seed,its the first time ive grown this variety,anyone else tried it?
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Post by khoomeizhi on Jul 31, 2012 21:07:34 GMT -5
i have a single plant that i got from oikos tree crops that they identify as P. longifolia subglabrata...
it's supposed to be perennial and decent-tasting (haven't had it for a winter yet, and haven't got any ripe fruits yet, so i can't speak to either). definitely doesn't produce like the standard pruinosas, only one or two flowers open on the whole plant at a time.
i'm playing with trying to cross as many phyalises as will go, i've got 4 species: pruinosa, peruviana, the longifolia subglabrata, and a wild edible one i found locally that tastes fantastic...i'm a big enough fan of the genus that just rolling the genetic dice a bit is fun, but if i can get a perennial that produces like a pruinosa and tastes like the local one, i'll be pretty excited.
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Post by imgrimmer on Aug 13, 2017 8:20:14 GMT -5
khoomeizhi did you have success to cross your Physalis? I have a volunteer looking like a peruviana but leaves serrated like pruinosa. I wonder if it could be a hybrid. The first flower just appeared. Let`s wait for the fruit.
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Post by khoomeizhi on Aug 13, 2017 16:24:12 GMT -5
Take pics/save seeds!
Long story short: no luck. Sadly, every cross I had hopes for being successful looked like the mother, selfed. I think I still have some of the seed from the hopeful crosses...
The whole project is on hold - we bought a property in spring 2015, that seems to be overrun with a pest of physalis - small black insect larvae (fleshy, caterpillarish, but not sure if it's a beetle or lepidopteran larvae) that seem to find every fruit, burrow in, hollow it out, and pupate there. I now have more species (or at least more phenotypes) to try with, but am at a loss as far as proceeding.
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Post by imgrimmer on Aug 14, 2017 4:25:37 GMT -5
bad picture but you can see the serrated leaves and more or less the habitus. it is hairy and fleshy the way peruviana is but the shape of the leaves is like pruinosa.  Foto am 14.08.17 um 10.11 #3 by hebamme.lena, on Flickr what can it be? It is different from ixocarpa, heterophylla, pruinosa and peruviana. Any idea? |
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