Last of the parsnips. Dollar for scale (out of bananas)
Itās just a parsnip, Michael, what could it cost, a dollar?
The middle one looks totally suspicious, though. Are you sure itās not some sort of mandrake?
It swears it isnāt
Okay, thenā¦
The African Blue Basil is still producing new flowers and growing even bigger
And the bees, they love her
Save those seeds! I had a huge basil crop this year and most of the seeds were from last yearās bolted plants. Kind of a PITA to peel the seeds out, but you get 3-5 per seed pocket.
I will try, but Iām pretty sure African Blue Basil is a sterile hybrid
In the spring Iāll go to a plant sale in Austin. They had 15 varieties of basil for sale last year
My boss clued me in and warned me to be there early and bring a partner to guard our cart because the nice old ladies are vicious
heehee!
sounds like the orchid farm sales down here! they can get nasty at times for coveted varieties as they come out.
i am no orchid snob, but love to grow them. these days i am only into cloning the varietals i currently have.
may be a better suited post to the horticulture thread, but our orchids live outside and are a major part of our garden.
Itās true: for you, your orchids are as normal a part of your garden as pots of petunias or asters are around here in the Midwest.
My neighbor works at Home Depot. They were clearing out all the old seeds to make room for the new stuff. She gathered all she could and gave me this huge box of hundreds of seed packages. Iām set (heh) for years!
In another thread we were talking about using heirloom corn for popcorn. I just ran across these pictures from a couple years ago of some of my Glass Gem harvest and the popcorn that it turned into
There are lots of seemingly unpopped kernelsā¦but they just havenāt really exploded out. They have a nice, fried crunch IMO. Not a hard tooth-breaker in the bunch.
Someone just liked my previous post, which reminded me that this pineapple has been very happy over the winter! Itās about the size of the original crown now. Will repot in a couple of months
I got my hands on some of these seeds
This will be an experiment, we shall see!
Iām guessing a lot of those antioxidants are better if not cooked, hope itās got a good flavor profile.
Thatās notable: nobody serms to talk about the flavor of these things. But thatās also really subjective, so i figured Iād just find out! Also, with alot, but not all, of these things, that beautiful color goes away when cooked. I suspect this will be a fresh eating tomato, although deep purple pasta sauce would be fun! (With liquid smoke, of course!)
I was thinking it would make a nice caprese, interspersed with red and other heirlooms.
A couple of forgotten onions survived the snow and frost over the winter. Knowing this I may set some seedlings in late autumn this year.
Purple tomatoes weāve grown in the past have had mild acidity, kinda umami flavor, and didnāt really lose color in sauce. Quite good cooked or not.
Are those the purple tomatoes featured on Baker Creekās catalog this year? I would like to grow them this year, but I havenāt ordered yet, so theyāre probably sold out.
No, they are only being disrributed by the developer this year. I shall report back.
I grew Indigo Rose tomatoes (hybrid, not GMO) in 2021 as an alternative to temperamental Cherokee Purples. The Indigos had really pretty dark blue-purple skin with a dark reddish purple inside, were resistant to the various tomato afflictions that seem to live in the air around here, and were very productive. And the ones I grew had almost no flavor, very disappointing.
Iām looking forward to updates from your experiment with the Purple TomatoTM.
Are you planting any purple/blue-adjacent heritage or traditional hybrid tomatoes for comparison?