What unusual vegetables should I grow that I've never heard of?

I like them. Roselle juice is quite common in Thailand. It is refreshing.

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Nice harvest! I grow rosella(2 potted plants) this year and harvested several flower buds like yours. I didn’t pay too much attention to the plants, I am not sure these are before blooming or after blooming.

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Those calyces were harvested 2 weeks or more after the blossoms dropped.

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Probably will be picking my roselle next week. I have 8 plants, but they took alot of damage from the two hurricanes, so I have to cut them down by at least 50%. Will probably still have a 5 gallon bucket amount.

I plan on using them to make jam and then use that jam to make baked bree. Its one of our favorite appetizers here.

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I also grew roselle this year. I was surprised at how well they grew here. I did have an issue where they got infected with gray mold (Botrytis) pretty bad during a spell of wet weather in late September when it rained off and on for nearly 10 days straight. I didn’t get to harvest as much as I could have because of this but was still able to get a lot from them. The biggest issue was trying to get seeds for future years. Most of the older pods that I left on to develop the seeds got infected with the mold. Only got 1 pod with seeds that wasn’t affected. The season might not be long enough here some years to get seeds from them.
They were fun plants to grow. Hummingbirds liked the flowers and the plants were very pretty. The tea I made from the calyces was really good, though not nearly as tart as I thought it would be.



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Love your name btw :rofl::joy:
https://www.nwcb.wa.gov/weeds/perennial-peavine
Lathyrus latifolius

It says it’s toxic but a lot of Asians eat it. Only the first 4-6 inches of the tip though, you don’t want the pods or the flower and only in earlier spring. When it starts to try to flower, it’ll get woody and won’t taste as good.

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That tea is chock full of antioxidants and highly recommended for people with high blood pressure. We don’t get enough heat up here, but I would because it’s hard to find organic for less than $20/lb up here.
John S
PDX OR

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I’ve been convinced to try these just from the photos. I’ve had the dried roselles bagged for tea but didn’t think I could grow these!

processing my sorghum attempt today. we shall see if it pans out on the small scale. if I get a bowl of cereal and a tiny bit of syrup from this lil patch I’ll be satisfied enough to replace corn with this next year

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I cut them up, discarded seeded, boiled them for juice and jam.

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How about this one:





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Very ripe bittermelon? I had one do that and it actually tasted sweet

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I used to buy candied rosella flowers from store for snack. It’s very tasty. I didn’t have enough this year. I might grow more plants next year so I can harvest enough to make a batch of roselle candy

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One jam recipe i have used in the past boiled the pods, after peeling off the calyx material, to extract the pectin in the pods.

One of the theories about Christopher McCandless’ death - the protagonist of John Krakauer’s “Into the Wild” - is that it was caused by “lathyrism”, a condition of acute poisoning caused by consuming members of this genus. FYI. I have no practical experience or otherwise to offer, but remembered reading this:

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Yeah, you’re not supposed to eat the peas or the pods. We only eat the green tips before they get woody. I don’t know how, but us mountain folks know not to eat the fruit of the plant :sweat_smile: I’m assuming that dude ate the fruit?