The Tropical Fruit Forum

If you like Yod Fah, Purple Hon Tsai Tai is also one of my favorites and it has beautiful purple stems.

My favorite mustard green is Ho-Mi-Z, mature leaves are beautiful with dark purple and green and it's the best tasting that I have tried.  It's spicy but also has a sweet aftertaste.  One year when I was cutting back the large flowering stalks, I noticed the inside of the stalk looked tender so peeled the outer layer and found it to be one of the best tasting vegetables for stir fry and also good raw.

Best tasting collard green is an heirloom variety from North Carolina named Yellow Cabbage Collard.  Cascade Glaze collard is a unique collard green with shiny waxy coating.

My top heat tolerant lettuces:  Italienischer, Cougar Batavian, and 2 Frank Morten varieties, Jester and Icy Oak. 

With all my lettuce trials I found that I prefer growing open head lettuces that I can harvest from over a long season.  Some of the heading lettuce tasted good but it was hard to control slugs hiding inside and all that time to harvest one head wasn't worth it for me in my small home garden.  With the open head lettuce varieties, instead of just harvesting the outer leaves for salad, I harvest from the young center leaves.  As the plant matures the center leaves continue to have crisp texture and good taste even when the leaves are small and the larger outer leaves keep feeding the plant.  I also found when the lettuce starts to go to seed they will grow several feet tall and the leaves can still be harvested as good cooking greens.  They are excellent green for soups and stews. A can harvest for several months from a single lettuce plant.

Sea kale, Crambe maritima, make gourmet greens easier than belgian endive.  This is effortless to grow.  I grow them in pots, they go dormant in winter.  Before spring growth I cover the top of the pot with a black fabric pot to exclude light.  The new growth is tender white with beautiful pinkish purple leaves.  Makes a fine dining restaurant quality salad.  The leaves during the regular season that get sunlight can be used as a cooking green.

I also have greens that are my own breeding selections that I've worked on for around 15 years from crosses of my favorite brassicas.

Janet

I have so much to share on this thread! 

I feel like I’ve trialed all the edible greens and most annual vegetables offered by Baker Creek, Kitazawa, Seed Savers exchange and many other regional catalogs and independent specialty growers.  I trialed all the root crops offered by Cultivariable before he stopped selling most of his offerings and most vegetables bred by Dr. Alan Kapuler (Peace Seeds).  Sand Hill Preservation Center is also a great source of heirloom seeds, root crops, and heritage poultry breeds.

I finally have narrowed down my garlic to 2 varieties after trialing over 50, including specialty varieties from all over the world, in the last decade.  I needed a variety that could produce in my cool coastal climate over a short season and have good keeping qualities. 

I have many of my own breeding projects and selections as well.  I lost my phone and a lot of photos, need to go back and see which ones were saved on my computer.

Galatians522, Gai Lan is one of my favorites and I consider Bele to be one of the best perennial greens.  I removed longevity spinach because I didn’t eat it after I started growing Bele.  Peace Seedlings (Dr Alan Alan Kapuler’s daughter’s seed company) is a great source for peas in many colors, some hypertendril.  They’ve done a lot of breeding and selection for edible podded peas.

Bele in my garden, one has burgundy new leaves and beautiful variegation, it gets some grasshopper damage.  The other has dark green mature leaves with beautiful red stems.











Janet

Growing cranberry hibiscus and sorrel. The leaves are tasty (both, especially cranberry), and sometimes make tea from the calyxes (sorrel).

I am going big on fruiting solanums this year (tomatoes, peppers, eggplants and various edible nightshades). My pigeon peas are all mostly in there 2nd year, and I eat them both green amd dried (I blanch and freeze thee greens if I don't eat them fresh). Its brasica season, but I still haven't had any luck with anything but mustards and collards. The rest just don't seem to grow, from seed or from starts, in ground or raised beds. I do have some kolrabi doing very well though. My carrots and magnolia peas are growing well, planting sugar peas this weekend.
In spring, in addition to my nightshades, I am also going to be putting on a good amount of Egyptian Spinach. That stuff is super tasty. Lots of squash and melons to trial this year as well.

I grew a new to me Cowper last Summer that I was very impressed with. The variety is "mavuno". Very productive and rampant. I got it from Cody Five farm. I will continue growing this one. D

Early morning posting mistake🤣