Growing health food plants- How to make so-so food taste delicious-(newer post)

Joined
Feb 8, 2007
Messages
2,594
Location
New Smyrna Beach FL
New hobby, trying to grow interesting healthy food, with minimal effort. No raised beds :lol: just plant in yard w/fertilizer.
video on heat tolerant greens https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOln1dNRMZI
Also experimenting with purple cherry tomato- seeds from a store tomato, so likely a hybrid, so may not work- of 7 seeds, only 1 came up, so i almost gave up.
And a Texas cherry tomato - real heirloom seeds $1, so will try these too. of 6 planted, have 5 that came up. This is an experiment as it is the wrong time of year, so really a test to see if they get root rot and die from all the rain. If they make it until Nov, then we are in the dry season and should be OK.
And on trash day got some free stakes, 1x3's one 9 ft, and 2, 4' (actually baseboards)
 
3 of 4 red malabar spinach popped up! just the RED stems so far 8) Tips on growing it https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVT8tn4wcZw and it has berries too! Not sweet so just add a teaspoon of sugar to a bowl https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbefh64pX7Q .......ONE YEAR of growing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0JsMbPocYw ...........Awesome, i cant wait :bigthumb: ...........
also stuck 2 small sweet potatoes in a cup. sp are also a vine. I wasn't going to grow sp, but they say the leaves are good to eat, so even if bugs eat the root, or there is too much shade, i've got something.
Transplanted the 1st cherry tomato in the front lawn. There is real dirt there as it was low and filled in. Mostly sand otherwise. added two oz. 10/10/10 fert.
have 2 purple cherry tom, but growing very slow. thats fine as i really should not plant until Nov. to avoid bugs etc.
I like this hobby; almost like having pets :mrgreen:
 
Don't mess with this lady! She knows how to use a knife :lol: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZNtP8HTUNfQ
Can't wait to grow these on my front lawn 8)
 
pic of baby red malabar spinach
IMG_20190701_035451.jpg
also just got 30 Dragon fruit seeds. it sells for $5 a pound around here! Anybody ever try it?
 
trans-planted all 5. At first i only wanted 1 plant because they grow so big. But i've since learned that a pound of greens, put into a juicer, only makes 1 small glass of juice. So i plan to buy a juicer when i have tons of the spinach. Spinach in the store can cost $6/lb, so i'd never buy 2 lbs a day like some that say they eat/juice that much. But grown for free, that i can stomach (i hope) :lol: Some say it has health benefits. Time for a test 8)
 
what salt air does to a tomato plant, north side, gets direct sea breeze and full sun.
IMG_20190916_175451.jpg
2nd pic shows how on the west side of the house, 2nd plant is doin great! only gets half as much sun, but house shields it from the sea breeze
Note the "raised bed" i cut the top and bottom off of a gallon jug, to contain some mulch and slow evaporation. works good, uses half as much water 8)
 

Attachments

  • IMG_20190916_175522.jpg
    IMG_20190916_175522.jpg
    138.2 KB · Views: 6,619
after 2 weeks at room temp, no luck with 4 artichoke seeds. found some weird instructions, to put them in the fridge for 2 weeks in a moist towel. so i put 2 more seeds in the fridge, and 12 days later they both are sprouting 8) BUT the other 4, near 4 weeks, are still asleep :(
maybe this is just artichoke, or :?: so i just put some passion fruit, sweet potato,bonsi plum and citrus trees seeds in the fridge, as a contest, to see which sprout first. :twisted:
Growing your own healthy food is a great hobby 8)
 
Ate some today. Tastes just like regular spinach 8) This vine is not related to real spinach, so i'm real pleased that it tastes good (cooked). 8) I don't want to try to grow real spinach for 2 reasons. They contain oxilates that can give you kidney stones if you eat like a pound or 2 a day. And won't tolerate summer heat.
I was not going to pick any until the 5 plants were bigger, but, today i found #5 broken off and wilted. maybe i stepped on it when working in the woods :oops: or an animal stomped on it.
So i ate it. :lol:
my plan was for 2 plants, but all 5 came up. so not a great loss. :D They grow like a weed and will try to take over your entire property, if you don't eat them :mrgreen: :lol:
They are very smart. i gave 2 a stick for support and in 2 days they curled right around it :shock:
 
I love spinach, but no way I could eat a pound or 2 a day. Hopefully the coconut water I drink regularly will keep the stones away.
 
A woman ended up in the hospital several times before she realized it was the pound of spinach she ate every day. I'm sure 100+ does not get stones for every 1 that does. Just something to keep in the back of your mind. Spinach, beet greens and swiss chard are the 3 to watch out for. I eat an oz. or 2 of beet greens, for 1-2 months when in season, so i don't want to grow spinach. Some take a pound, put it in a juicer and drink the small glass of juice that you get. That is what i plan to do with the malabar, if my 4 plants deliver more than i can eat.
 
10 seeds cost $2 https://www.ebay.com/itm/Rattlesnake-snap-pole-Beans-10-seeds-bulk-fresh-preacher-Drought-resistant-Snap/182662285821?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649
i planted 2 seeds direct in the ground. Yesterday i could see the stems about to pop thru.
Today it already has a 2nd set of leaves :shock: great fun growing unusual beans 8)
 
1 rms is way way way ahead of the others :shock: and it does not get as much sun, being on the west side of the house. This one got a bucked of ground up decayed log mixed with the sand/dirt, and 1tb 8-8-8. The 1 in the rear got the 8-8-8 and it is barely growing. It could be it gets too much sun. the 1 on the east side gets less sun and got no 8-8-8 and it is the worst. So today i moved it to the west side of the garage. dug out the bushes and made a 18" deep hole with grass and log mulch in the bottom, then finely ground log, then 1tb 8-8-8. It is 2' from a palm tree, same as the best one, which loves climbing around it like a barber pole sign 8) they are really smart vines. i saw how they do it. the wind blows them all around, and they grab on when they contact something. pretty smart for a plant 8)
 
ran into a problem with the 1 spinach on the west side :( it wilts as now we have days with 100% sun. not sure why, the temp is only 82F. maybe it is growing too fast for the root size, or it has some kind of root rot? i watered it like 5 times :roll:
My neighbor threw out a new screen door screen, so i put it in front and it perked up 8) maybe it is not as heat tolerant as advertised? Would a merchant ever lie to sell something? :lol:
update: next day 1 runner not under screen wilted. as sun moved it perked up too. Also ate 10 leaves to help out :mrgreen:
 
update: the spinach are all dead :( will try again in spring, maybe the short days told them winter is coming.
2 days ago i planted about 100 broccoli seeds direct in the ground. Got lucky and last night we had drizzle and 67F. at least 25 came up :D Will see how many survive. i'm hoping for 6.
 
Lebowski said:
Once tried growing coliflowers in a plant pot... they came up and grew to about golf ball size, but did not get any bigger ... ? What could have been the cause ?
i started 5 in pots last summer. would not grow. it was too hot. i left them to die. 2 refused to die, so i gave them some water. BUT they would not grow. So i put 1T 8-8-8 in an old vodka bottle with water. gave them the "plant booze" 2x a week, growing nice 2 weeks later. I plan to give any that don't grow some "plant booze" :mrgreen:
.
guys,
ever eat a delicious mango? what did you do with the seed? i put it in a little water, and 3 days later the root is growing :shock:
see video on how https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wZcYn12Nds0
i used my vice to crack open 2 seed pods :shock: to my surprise, the seeds were not damaged 8)
.
this looks really good (mango seed birth) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rwfn5BmaLdw :bigthumb:
 
Some surprises discovering what i can grow easily:

Broccoli love crushed shell, which is my rear driveway. I had been digging it up to get to the sand/dirt. The broccoli that i put in the sand/dirt grow SLOWER :shock: And my composted leaves don't seem to help at all :(
The artichokes are growing really nice looking leaves with a sawtooth pattern with thorns. And they so far resist insects, so i'm encouraged.....BUT
the okra attract black tiny bugs, i sprayed 1 and it killed the bugs and the plant too :eek: :lol:
threw out the mango seeds. too cold. they like a tropical rain forest.

Cherry tomatoes do grow easily and i've been eating 1 every day from the old west side september plants which would not fruit in the heat, are making some before they die. i made 4 cuttings from them and the 1st 2 are doing amazing in the rear location, for the winter sun, which they love.
.
and the biggest surprise is how mood elevating this is. must be similar to yoga or meditation but i have not tried those, just read about it.
 
how to turn mango seed into fries https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjwhKr3aEBM
i might bake them without the butter.
EDIT: bad news, i boiled it for 40 min and i spit it out. tastes like crap :roll: :lol:
 
so the spot with most of the broccoli was very windy, which knocked over some. So i found a better spot near my back door which only gets sun in the winter as no leaves on the sycamore tree. perfect for broccoli which cant take the summer heat. moved 14 over in 45 min. only room for 6, so they all dont have to make it.
had to mix in the leaf compost as the sand repels water :shock: water beads up like when you wax your car :roll: :lol:
9am-edit did another 17br to the rear garden- this better taste good :lol: the good thing about broccoli plants is the whole plant is edible, so i can put leaves in soups or freeze them for the summer, even if they don't make heads for some reason - bugs or heat? never grew it before so i'm hedging my bet :twisted:
1-29-20 UPDATE - REPLACED 3 dead broccoli under warranty :mrgreen: and added 1 more for a total of 32 plus the original patch which still has 40-50 too close to fully grow.. offered free to my neighbor, but his dogs would dig them up :roll:
 
So i'm actually eating the broccoli greens to extend time between trips to the store. FL is on lockdown, even the beaches are closed. :shock: NSB has 3 covid19 cases total so far :roll:
So i moved 14 plants to hopefully a better location where the heat is not as bad and the dirt is maybe better. The last 7 did not wilt :shock: despite all day sun. So with a large dirt ball, they don't mind it at all.
I put the leaves in my bean dish; very similar to collard greens, but not quite as good.
 
I'm quite surprised that i like these greens so much :shock: Way more than broccoli. I just can't eat broccoli very often. But the greens i like them 3x a day :shock: A month ago once a day was enough, but i seem to have developed a taste for these greens, over about 4 weeks.
(i'm eating 5 meals a day plus 1 or 2 snacks.)
I thought i was wasting my time growing broccoli when i'm not a big fan. But even with 40-50 plants, it is not too much, as they don't really make much broccoli in this climate. But plenty of greens (which are said to be as nutritious as the broccoli)
 
I know what you mean about broccoli, with this whole covid thing going on instead of having a bag of chips, I ate about a volley ball size amount of broccoli in one sitting, i could feel it going through my system, scrubbing my intestines :shock: im better now
 
I tried broccoli sprouts when I was much younger. They tasted like burned rubber. If I were to grow sprouts to eat they would NOT be broccoli.
 
LeftieBiker said:
I tried broccoli sprouts when I was much younger. They tasted like burned rubber. If I were to grow sprouts to eat they would NOT be broccoli.
that is how i got these seeds. i tried sprouts, not impressed. so, one day when i got bored, i planted 100 seeds, thinking they would die outside, but they all came up and many lived :lol: now i'm hooked :mrgreen:
the secret is, leaves need to be cooked 30-45 minutes 8)
.
They sell "broccoli rabe" if you want to try the greens, the rabe is a side shoot w/leaves +b, these smaller leaves cook faster
 
So i was inspecting each leaf, looking for bugs, and a wasp was doing the same thing to the next plant :lol:
I look up and there is a nest on the garage eve. Normally i'd nuke them, but since they are helping out, i'll keep them. 8)
 
Back
Top