Growing Weird

OK.  Let me state this right up front:  This article isn't about the way that people seem to get strange as they grow older, although that seems true enough to me.  It's about using limited gardening real estate to grow all those strange and unusual edibles that you either can't buy in the supermarket or that cost you an arm and a leg if you can find them.

This was sort of an epiphany I had a few years back when my wife casually remarked that I was probably spending more money to grow veggies than it would cost to buy them at the store.  After I thought about it for awhile I realized she was right.  I was growing the same tomatoes that the local farmers were and when mine were ripe, so were the ones the farmers were growing.  So I could buy them cheaper at the market at that time than what it had cost me to grow them.  I tried to rationalize by using the old argument that “homegrown always tastes better”.  I really do believe that, but still, it really doesn't make sense to spend fifty bucks to grow ten dollars worth of tomatoes.

Finally I decided that the thing to do was to not waste my limited gardening space growing stuff that I could buy cheaper at the local supermarket, at least when they are in season locally.  Instead I decided to grow things that I couldn't find locally or that were expensive to buy.  Cause the thing is, it doesn't cost anymore to grow those little fingerling potatoes than it does to grow big ones, but because the supply is less than the demand, your local produce department charges you more for them. 

Here are some of the weird veggies that I grow.

Dinosaur kale

Dinosaur kale is called that because it has kind of a prehistoric look.  It is also called Tuscan kale, apparently because it grows wild there.  In any case, it usually costs more at the supermarket or farmers market than plain old curly kale.  Depending upon your taste, it is either better, worse or just different from garden variety kale.  Where I live you can grow it year round if it is in a place where the blast furnace Texas afternoon sun doesn't hit it.  I like the taste better than regular kale.  My wife doesn't.  But since I'm the family gardener, I grow it.

Of course every gardener grows tomatoes.  There is a big variety to choose from and you can buy most of them at your neighborhood market.  There are the ginormous beefsteak tomatoes that are big enough to cover a dinner plate, or at least a dessert plate, but, IMHO, don't really taste all that good.  There are the old standby slicing tomatoes that never have much taste when you buy them and not much more when you grow them.  Then there is a plethora of “heirloom” tomatoes (many of which have been developed in the last ten years or so) that have weird shapes and come in a variety of colors.  Most of them are pretty tasty when you grow them and not too bad even when you buy them. 

Matt's Wild Cherry tomato

These days a lot of people like to buy “cherry” or “grape” tomatoes, so called because of their size more than anything else.  They too come in a variety of shapes and colors.  I don't usually grow the beefsteaks or the plain old slicing tomatoes (though I did try a couple of varieties of them this year because Ellie asked me to) but I do grow the “heirlooms” because they are pretty expensive, even when they are in season locally.  In truth, though, you can buy most of the heirlooms locally for about what it costs you to grow them.  Most heirlooms are what is called indeterminate tomatoes.  That means that they have big vines that take up a lot of space and they produce a few tomatoes at a time over the life of the plant.  So they take up a lot of real estate and they don't produce much.  They are also more susceptible to insects and disease than the more or less tasteless commercial slicing tomatoes, so sometimes they don't produce anything at all before the vines succumb to the ravishes of bugs and damp weather.  I do grow a variety of small garden tomatoes though.  They are real viney too, but they are more prolific producers than the larger tomatoes and they seem to handle disease better.  I grow red ones, white ones, and one called “Chocolate Cherry”, but my favorite this year is “Matt's Wild Cherry” which, despite it's name, is more the size of a currant tomato than a cherry.  That is, it is really small, only about one-quarter to three-eighths of an inch in diameter.  It's hard to find currant-sized tomatoes in the store and they are usually expensive when you do find them.

Fairy Tale eggplant

 My wife and I like Mediterranean food and one of the main components of a lot of Mediterranean dishes is eggplant.  For years I grew the sort of traditional big, dark purple eggplant like Black Beauty.  After awhile I switched to Ichiban because we like to slice them up on pizza and the long shape of Japanese eggplant lends itself to that more than the big purple ones.  This year I grew one called Fairy Tale, which produces clusters of small white and purple fruits.  These are hard to find in the store and, consequently, they cost more than the traditional eggplant.  They are easy to grow, though, and the plants are small so they can be grown in a container.



I like different colors and sizes of  veggies even when the taste is pretty much the same as the more traditional varieties.  One seed vendor I buy from is Renee's Garden.  I like the fact that they package multiple varieties of the same type of seed in a single packet.  This year I planted their patty pan squash trio and also their tricolor zucchini. 

Carnival Blend carrots

 I planted the multiple colored carrots from Botanical Interests in this picture and kind of forgot that that was the variety I had planted.  So I was pleasantly surprised when I harvested them and ended up with a rainbow of colors.  They pretty much all tasted the same and some of them turned orange when they were cooked, but they looked pretty when they were harvested.

Easter Egg radishes

I'm looking forward to planting these Ferry-Morse Easter Egg radishes as soon as the weather cools off enough to plant them.  Yeah, I know they will probably all taste the same, but with these guys it's all about presentation.

There are other veggies that can add a lot of variety to your menu without a lot of cost.  I plant some of them in the landscape beds because they also add beauty to the landscape.  Two of my favorite plants for doing that are Bright Lights chard and Rhubarb chard.  They are both colorful and showy.





 So the next time you are in the mood to do a little gardening, try growing weird.  It's fun, and tasty too.