My Affinity With Odd Shaped Vegetables

Our polytunnel went up new this March. We had dug over quite a lot of the beds which was a marathon task, but enough is enough, and we called the digging to an end before the blisters became terminal. Theres only so much of a 20x40 foot polytunnel you can get going in the first season, even with the help of many willing friends! However one section of a bed was shallow dug, barely turned, and I decided to put something in there that wouldn't need to grow too deep. A quick shimmy through my box of seeds and I found a willing contender I'd bought on a whim (a bit like that little black dress in Karen Millen) ... round carrots!

I seem strangely drawn to vegetables that fly in the face of the 'perfect' supermarket candidates. I know I'm just such a rebel! I don't care if my harvest isn't the officially required length, shape, colour or size ... so there. Yes, round carrots scored high on my 'odd veg' chart. They grew perfectly, and we harvested them the size of golfballs. Carrot fly doesn't tend to bother carrots grown in a polytunnel, but even so, when thinning out the seedlings I scattered some leaves of bruised mint to disguise the smell. I like to think that works! Visiting kids find the round orange globes a wonder to behold! Very cute in a salad, the children love them as a quick snack, and for an instant boost try juicing the little beauties.

Comments

[Wild Rose]

They look delicious!

[Henriette]

Odd shapes and colours are my weakness as well.

I mixed the carrots seeds this year so we never know if we pull a white, yellow, light orange or deep orange carrot... it is fun for the kids :-) (I know you can get carrots with a deep purple ring as well- but I don´t care for the flavour)
We´ve got white, yellow and normal red beets as well- the yellow taste very much like sweet corn- good since I can´t eat sweet corn.
Last year I grew purple beans- easy to pick - but when cooked they just turned deep green.

[hedgewizard]

Fabbo! Mind you, the crystal lemon cukes I've grown this year seem to be alarming people, and N2S is refusing to eat them if he sees them coming into the kitchen. Oh, well, you can't please all the people all of the time...

[melanie]

In doing research for a documentary about soil I came across a book that talked about all the different types of vegetables there are out there in the world that never make it to market - like all the different types of tomatoes. It's pretty cool to see someone actually growing some of them!

[Henriette]

Crystal lemon cucumber ?
My daughter loves them :-D- we don´t grow them this year though

I got lots of great seeds from:
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/

[hedgewizard]

They're the size and shape of lemons, but studded in vicious spiky hairs - I'll do a post about them on Tuesday, how's about that?

[Henriette]

Great :-D
it sounds like the ones we had.
Nice crispy ones

[debra]

Lovely carrots! I once grew round carrots in our clay soil. They did pretty well. This year's garden is pretty abysmal. Family illness, inconsistent weather--not a good combination. The volunteer cherry tomatoes are doing the best. Sigh.....there's always next year.

[Rebecca (author of Sallygardens)]

Our soil is clay too, so the round carrots meant not tooo much digging of heavy soil! We did the multicoloured carrots too, they are great fun ... reds, oranges, even whites. It takes a while to persuades oneself the white carrots aren't parsnips!
The yellow cucumbers sound intriguing.