Fruits and veggies?

[kvet]

I've been eating about 1-2 white alpine strawberries daily since last week, today had a bumper crop with five total There is a short period when they are ripe, one tells by the fragrance - also, the seeds and flesh do turn slightly brown.

They are mildly sweet with a slightly mushy texture, and taste pleasantly "tropical". The flavor may improve as we progress into summer. It was a fun diversion, not sure whether I will continue with them next season - first, because the local farmer has some amazing strawberries this year that puts everything else to shame, and second, the homemade self-watering containers are absolutely infested with fungus gnats (I've tried nearly everything, can't recover without non-organic pesticides at this point) that makes it a bit unnerving searching the bush to find the berry.

[SouthPark]

That's awesome kvet. I've never seen or knew about white alpine strawberries before.

Maybe they can possibly be soaked in lemon juice or something acid to cut down on the reaction with oxygen or something - causing the browning. Not sure ..... they do that with avocados hahaha

[kvet]

The "browning" occurs on the vine, I not sure I would equate it with avocado/apple oxidation.

[SouthPark]

I see! Probably not much can be done if browning happens when attached to the plant! Was still awesome to see white coloured strawberries - as in it's certainly a change from the red colour ones I always see at the supermarket!

[Diane56Victor]

Try ebay...you can buy seeds for BLUE strawberries. That's is you believe their 'description'.
Also recently seen a 3 petal orchid in blue, labelled as a Blue butterfly orchid with 'seed available'.

Just amazing what you can buy in blue these days. 🤭😉

[JScott]

Up here in North Texas, we have a pretty good climate for a lot of produce. I have tons of tomatoes right now just loaded with fruit (still a couple or three weeks from being ripe), and I've got more zucchini and yellow squash than we can eat. The watermelons are coming along nicely. No fruit on those yet, but it's still early for those to set fruit. I'll probably start seeing little watermelons toward the middle of June. I have some bell peppers, but they just aren't doing much of anything. Don't know what's going on with that.

And that's just the summer stuff. In the fall, I can plant garlic, broccoli, mustard greens. There's a variety of onion developed in Texas called Texas Supersweet 1015Y. The 1015Y part of that name refers to the appropriate date for setting out the onion sets in the fall on October 15. I grow a combination of hard neck and soft neck garlic. Soft neck garlic is supposed to do better in warmer climates like I have, but they don't produce a scape (the little stalk that would be the flower spike of the garlic plant, but you can harvest them while they're still young and tender and cook them like asparagus, and they are to die for). I get better bulbs out of the soft neck varieties, but the hard necks still do alright, and they have those delicious scapes, so it is totally worth it.

I"m not into corn. It takes up too much room, and the fresh corn you can buy at the farmers market is just as good as what you can grow at home, so I don't bother.

I'm interested in pawpaws, and would like to plant a few of those trees (they're not self-fertile, and you need more than one variety for cross pollination to set fruit), and I expect I'll get to that someday, but I had too much to do in the garden this year to get to it. Not a lot of fruit trees will grow well in Texas. It's too hot for cherries, raspberries, most peaches, most apples, apricots, and a bunch of other things, so I haven't messed with any fruit trees, but if I had the right climate, I would have a whole orchard of sweet black cherries. Have you ever had a pie made from fresh sweet black cherries instead of those sour red ones that come in a can? If you haven't, you should make one immediately (well, not immediately. the sweet cherries are best in July, so wait until then when they are at their best, and at their cheapest). I add a little Disaronno to the pie to give it a little extra kick with the cherry-like flavor of the amaretto, and it's amazing. I look forward to those sweet cherries every year, and I make more cherry pies than i care to count. I've even had people tell me they don't like cherry pie, and I encourage them to taste the ones I make, and they are immediately converted. Pie made with fresh sweet black cherries is about one of the best things in the world that exists.

[DirtyCoconuts]

oooooh J! that post has me HUNGRY


have you ever tried to grow Barbados cherry? it is NOT the same as a black cherry but they are delicious and a super source of Vit C and they can grow pretty hot...might be a fun plant to play around with

i just pitted a gallon bag of cherries for my daughter last night (purchased, cant grow them at all) and i am about to go and destroy that bag LOL

[JScott]

Originally Posted by DirtyCoconuts

oooooh J! that post has me HUNGRY


have you ever tried to grow Barbados cherry? it is NOT the same as a black cherry but they are delicious and a super source of Vit C and they can grow pretty hot...might be a fun plant to play around with

i just pitted a gallon bag of cherries for my daughter last night (purchased, cant grow them at all) and i am about to go and destroy that bag LOL

I'll look into the Barbados cherry. I love cherries so much. The hardest thing about making a pie with them is that as I'm pitting them, I'm also sitting there eating them, and so I have to buy more than I know I'm going to need for the pie, because I know I'm going to eat half of them before they even make into the pie crust hahahahaha

---------- Post added at 08:59 AM ---------- Previous post was at 08:46 AM ----------

I looked it up just now, and it says that temperatures below 28 will kill the tree. It rarely gets that cold here, but we get two or three nights a year in the 20s most years, but I could certainly give it a shot. It sounds like it doesn't get particularly huge, so maybe I could cover it with a big tarp if it's going to get below freezing. If it dies, well then I know it won't work out here, but there's a chance it might do fine here, and I think I'm willing to take the chance. They are really nice looking fruit, and I bet I could eat the heck out of those just standing outside by the tree haha

[kvet]

Another update for the white alpine strawberry bushes: I'm harvesting more than a dozen or so berries at a time every 3-4 days. The texture is meh, while the aroma is quite amazing, I can smell them from a couple feet away. Many are tiny, maybe the size of a pinky nail. They are only mildly sweet, continue to be tropical. I like them with oatmeal for breakfast. When I began growing these, I had this romantic idea to make jam, but there just won't be enough, and also they turn a rather unpleasant brown color with heat.

I am also growing two kinds of tomatoes, Black Krim and Tasmanian Chocolate. Following final potting to containers, the BK began strong but this weekend the tops balled up?? I'm concerned. The TC is very strong and healthy so far. Any ideas?

[kvet]

Originally Posted by JScott

I'll look into the Barbados cherry. I love cherries so much.

J and DC: A couple months back I was reading about tropical fruits, and ran across something I've never heard of before called tropical cherries. There's a variety called a "Rio Grande", then there is something called "surinam". I've never had them, but they seem like interesting non-cherry-cherries to check out, maybe they'd grow in your areas?