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| Little achocha, Jul 2018 |
I sowed seed for this in mid spring, in a tray on my kitchen windowsill. I think I ended up with about seven plants, which I transplanted out in May, about six inches apart. They were initially very slow to get over transplant shock and start growing, but after a few weeks, they were ready for some sticks to climb up. After another month, the vines were starting to take over their neighbors (sweetcorn, tomatillos and tomatoes); by this time I still hadn't picked any achochas. It wasn't till about July that I started to harvest, long after I'd been nipping back over-zealous vines.
The fruits are small and green with soft spikes. They were described by the seller as tasting like green peppers, but to us they taste more like green beans, with a hint of cucumber (which they are related to). It's a pleasant enough taste and texture, though nothing spectacular. I prefer to pick them when the seeds are fully mature, as the fruits are a little more sweet, with less raw bean flavor.
However, the extra luxurious vine growth far outpaces its modest fruit yield. They eventually overtook the sweetcorn completely (I had to search for those sweetcorn plants at harvest time), and mostly swamped the tomatoes and tomatillos slightly further away. By September I'd given up keeping them in check with daily light pruning, and vines were exploring the morello cherry tree on the east side, reaching the lawn at the south, and going for the plum tree to the west (the north side is the patio which I refused to relinquish).
Will I grow this again?
Yes. With more care about placement and spacing. And supports. I used the fruits in salsa, in stir fries, in salads. I like it enough to try and tame it next year; I've saved seed and look forward to another go.
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| Aztec broccoli head, Sep 2018 |
This is not a true broccoli; it's a chenopodium rather than brassica. I direct seeded this one in a corner of the Misc bed (where it ended up being embraced by achocha, of course). About 20 sprouted, and as they grew, I thinned them out gradually, ending up with about 4 plants. Like the achocha, they were slow growing at first, and slow to produce. By late summer, they finally began producing small flower heads.
This plant produces flower buds which I harvested along with an inch or two of stem and leaves. I was able to pick a good handful at a time about twice a week, and although I initially started picking them quite small they are actually better when the flowerheads are nearly ready to flower. Unlike true broccoli, the second and subsequent pickings weren't really any smaller than the first one: the later flowerheads were similar in size to the early ones.
These don't taste like broccoli either, but they have a mild flavor somewhat like spinach, and to my taste a little like potato. They are supposed to retain a little bite after cooking, but I cooked them mainly in stews in the slow cooker and they went very soft. We liked them anyway.
Once the plants started producing, they maintained a consistent harvest all through summer and early autumn. They grew to be about as tall as me, which made harvesting easy (less bending down).
Will I grow these again?
Yes. These nicely behaved (unlike the achocha, for instance!), good tasting, and took care of themselves, really. Plus they had an easy, constant harvest. I hope to collect seed from them, but would certainly buy seed again; in fact, they are supposed to self seed readily, so hopefully I can get them to naturalize, like chard and mizuna have already.
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