What new and interesting plants will you be trying this season?

I don't have my own property yet, but I do try and do balcony gardening each year. For the past couple of years I have been planting and growing tomatoes. I usually only get a small handful of (very tasty) tomatoes by the time the season ends as my balcony doesn't get enough direct sunlight. So this year I have decided to branch out and try planting something else. I will be trying my hand at container gardening cucamelon's, also called mouse melons. They are tiny (1x1/2 inch) watermelon shaped fruit with a taste like a cucumber with a dash of citrus. They look like watermelon's for a doll house as described on the site that I bought the seeds from.

So I was wondering if anyone else was planning on trying anything new or unusual this year and what they might be?


This is an image of a cucamelon.

Not really "unusual", but new for me this year will be siberian pea shrub, mulberry, and goji.

With a little luck I might get a small first-ever harvest of plums this year.

Lemon cucumbers were new to us last year and they went nuts!

I am trying for the first time: jícama, groundnut (apios americana), chinese yams and oca (not that unusual), lima beans, walking onions, and a few other perennials. Also trying siberian varieties of some vegetables.

Groundcherries were a hit last year. I live in an area where adventure isn't something normal, so anything slightly out of the norm is new and exciting. I like the variety, so I am going to try to stretch my zone limits and plant some things that are just plain different than anything I have ever come across. And so the adventure begins.

Winter is coming...
I'm a big broad bean (fava) and this season I'm planting a very old red seeded variety. It crosses like mad with the standard green one, so it's red only as I want to save the seed.
Mountain pawpaw. A narrow, fast-growing tropical-looking tree for partial shade. I've got just the spot!
Blackboy peach (it's from the days when that was a perfectly ok name for a dark-skinned fruit...) a delicious freestone 'bottler' with beetroot-coloured flesh and concrete-coloured fuzz that the birds don't recognise it as food

okra.

Wonderful everyone! Please keep it going. I would love to see pictures of any of the more unusual fruits and veggies if any of you have them to share. I must admit, I have never even heard of Blackboy Peaches. I Googled images of them, they are certainly different looking aren't they? How do they taste, are they sweet, tart, a mix of both? What do you mean by "Freestone Bottler" if I may ask?

Aside from this season's fruit and veggie annuals, I am focusing on trees, bushes and vines, this year. From cuttings, I am planting goji, elderberry, aronia and fig. From Oikos, pawpaw and American Persimmon. I am, also, thinking about ground cherries because I love them dried and eaten like raisins... yummy little sweet-tarts!

Are those also called Mexican Gherkins? We grew those last year and they did great. Tasty buggers when pickled, too.

Matt Smith wrote:Are those also called Mexican Gherkins? We grew those last year and they did great. Tasty buggers when pickled, too.

If you are referring to the cucamelon's yes they are also referred to as Mexican Gherkins. They are supposed to be good for all kinds of things from eating raw in salads, to dicing and tossing into stir fry's, as well as pickling. I can't wait to actually have some grown so that I can try them. I like the thought of little bite size pickles as I love pickles in general, so I think it would be fun to try these that way. Nice to know that someone on here has tried them and thinks them tasty!

We mixed them in with cucumbers for a lacto-ferment. Worked great!

Katrin Kerns wrote: How do they taste, are they sweet, tart, a mix of both?

They taste...'peachy'. I know that's not very helpful, but think of a really dense-fleshed peach with a hint of muskly plum.

Katrin Kerns wrote: What do you mean by "Freestone Bottler"?

I forget my international words sometimes
The stone 's loose and can be twisted out, as opposed to a 'clingstone...'
'Bottler'='canner'-great preserving variety.

I tried Melothria scabra (cucamelon, mouse melon, Mexican sour gherkin, cucamelon, Mexican miniature watermelon, Mexican sour cucumber, or pepquinos). this year. Had never heard of it. LOVE THEM!

Most of the rest of my cukes started to die when they had just started fruiting. But nothing affected the cucamelons. They won't break any records for tonnage but they produce a lot of small fruits...about the size of a small grape. They are VERY crunchy and taste about like you squirted lemon on crunchy cucumbers. My new favorite thing of the year! I'll be growing them every year now. Here's a pic of a few below...