Interesting Crops to try?

[Matthew]

Wondered if anyone had some interestign crops they have tried growing.

 

I am in Rochester NY  (limitted growing season).

 

Much success with Legend tomatoes and Matt's wild cherry tomatoes (blight resistent/immune).

 

Wheat was a pain, probably will not do that again.  Pain to harvest and process.  Tastes good addign to normal flour to make it mroe whole wheat.

 

Odd crops I will be trying in 2011:

 

Quinoa- it's like rice. 

Wild Garlic- like it's name, a wild smaller garlic

Lemon balm and lime balm (people might like tea?)

Barley- hopefully not as bad a wheat to harvest.

Dill- I love this, grows great inside too.  Excellent on fish.  Too expensive at the store.

 

[TCLynx]

perhaps try some hulless oats?

 

I've got lots of watercress growing rampant in my AP system.

[Sylvia Bernstein]

Shiso is probably the weirdest thing I have going on.  It's that lovely, big green leave they serve with sushi.

[Matthew]

I also have tried growing lovage, which is supposed to be like celery, but could not get it to germinate.  Had trouble with celery germinating last year but currently have 50 celery growing indoors in compost.  By the time I can put them outside, they will be full grown.

[Matthew]

what is hulless oats?  I googled, it, and they look liek wheat.  Are they in some way easier to separate the seeds from the stalk?

TCLynx said:

perhaps try some hulless oats?

 

I've got lots of watercress growing rampant in my AP system.

[TCLynx]

oats, like for oat meal or rolled oats.  The hulless kind are just easier to separate the seed from the hull, apparently processing regular hulled oats is kinda a pain.  Yea oats are a kind of grass seed similar to wheat or rice or many of the other grain crops we eat.  Now I don't really have much personal experience trying to process any kind of oats or wheat at home, I've only actually grown them as forage crops or green manure.

[Matthew]

anybody grow black pepper?  Was thinking of indoors or bringing in at the end of the year.  In NY state.  Was eating cracked pepper and sea salt chips and thought it would be neat to make my own pepper.

 

So part of the year it would be indoors with flourecent lights and maybe 55 degrees.

[TCLynx]

Interesting idea.  I don't know enough about the plant to know if it would work.

[Two Jay]

Never tried growing black pepper, we actually don't eat much of it since my wife makes a wonderful hot pepper blend now.  Hot peppers need to go in the freezer, after drying, over night or longer to get rid of any larvae.  We have made hot hot blends, sweet blends, etc.  Never looked back.

[Ryan Chatterson]

Between the different methods, you really can grow most types of crops. Ive grown everything from Dragon fruit to 3' cucumbers to purple potatoes to parsnips to cauliflowers, broccolis, garlic, leeks, baby corn, and the list goes on and on. I even have a friend that has figured out how to grow Wasabi (no easy task). Just takes a little experimentation to match the plant type to the proper growing method.

[Gary Sandahl]

I've always wondered about root crops such as carrots, beets, parsnips etc.  Do they grow okay when continuously submerged in water?  Thinking they'd probably do okay in a flood & drain setup, but not so well in a deep water tank.  Any comments?

[TCLynx]

Well I've seen turnips, radish, beets grown in the net post in a raft but the longer roots don't really work in a net pot.

All the root crops so far are growing just fine for me in flood and drain gravel beds and even a constant flow/flood media bed can work provided there is enough flow and media above the water level that the plants don't get crown/root rot from lack of aeration.

[Sahib Punjabi]

Need your help please :-)

 

Has anyone grown wheat grass via Aquaponics?

 

If yes, could you please explain your method of growing, time frame and post any photos and any other helpful information. I have a good friend who owns a Natural Health Food store who has requested me to supply him this as well as curly parsley. I am fine with the parsley but growing wheat grass on a mini commercial scale will be the first. I have checked You Tube and read blogs about growing it in Hydroponic systems but did not see any good post re growing in Aquaponics.

 

God bless