Project 63 Update

The season is fast closing, and following various posts plotting the progress of the experimental vegetables this year, it is probably time to indicate exactly how we fared with some of the more unusual.

It would be fair to say considerable success was enjoyed with the range of chilli's grown, especially the Piamento de Padron, which are still producing fruits following (thanks to fine weather) quite a lengthy season. All the chilli's have flourished in the polly tunnel, and we are going to retain a couple to grow next season and then experiment with some other varieties. All the chilli's this year were low to medium heat, the hottest Jalapeño's, which are not overly high on the Scoville Index.



The Asparagus Peas were also pretty successful, except we couldn't harvest them quickly enough. They have also self seeded and we have some further plants which are currently still growing, with flower, and waiting to see if we get any further production from these.

One of the most productive successes was the Shark's Fin Melon (actually a spaghetti squash), which ended up rampaging across the plot despite numerous, quite vigorous cutting back. The issue with the fruits here are the charities don't seem to want them, and they have been overly bountiful. If anyone would like to take one or two off our hands we would be really grateful. The squash will keep for several months, and is used in Asia to produce an equivalent Shark Fin Soup, hence the name, and in Mexico with lots of added sugar to produce sweet mix for pastries or Jam. James Wong recipe can be found easily on line,



Cucamelons could also be considered quite successful, and we cultivated one group and grew in the polly tunnel, and one group outside. The results were not particularly different, both sets of plants producing a considerable volume of olive sized fruits.

We are going to re try Edamane Beans for next years, as the results were not great, but believe this to be due to our leaving the fruits on the plants too long, rather than the ability to grow them, so watch this space next year to see how we get along.

Finally, we are still looking forward with some anticipation for the first serious frosts to take hold, to enable the tubers to form on our small crop of New Zealand Yams (Oca). We'll post a further update once we have harvested these.

various plot holders have tried our experimental vegetables, and in the main has meant with a positive thumbs up. So if you fancy growing any of these next year, catch up with Karen or Ray. It's proved interesting!