Strawbini advice please!

[Two_Sheds]

This might amuse you, from Bob Flowerdew (who will eat almost anything)

"Strawberry sticks, sometimes called strawberry fruited fat hen, [Strawberry Spinach, Strawberry Blite, and now Strawbini] are a good example: there are two species, Chenopodium capitatum and C. foliosum, aka Blitum capitatum, and you see them every so often marketed as new introductions, when in fact they've been newly introduced every ten or 20 years since Victorian times.

They have what are described by nurserymen as strawberry-like fruits up and down the stem, but there's a reason these plants keep disappearing: the fruit is miserable.
They may look vaguely like strawberries, but they're so dry, and pithy and unpalatable, that even my chickens won't eat them."

[selfraising]

Hi Snohare
Wow you're really going for it!! Some of those I've never heard of before!! What are coconut yams? Are they as the name suggest coconut flavoured yams? Salsify interests me, saw a programme about them once, think it was a victorian kitchen garden.
By the way have found two links online for skirret seeds
Suffolk Herbs - Home and The Organic Gardening Catalogue if that helps. You certainly seem to enjoy a challenge. Do you grow in your garden or do you have an allotment?

[selfraising]

Thanks Two Sheds
Oh dear not very flattering description!! Perhaps I'll try them on my OH first!

[selfraising]

Sow thinly, strawbini seed is very small, in rows 18" apart.
Thin plants to 10" apart when larger
Or sow indoors in seed trays and transplant May onwards.
Grows to 2ft tall.
Whilst usually grown as an annual it can overwinter if weather is not too severe and is perennial in habit.

Thanks Two Sheds! Can I start sowing indoors now?

[Two_Sheds]

Well, you have to have room & good conditions for them from now until May. Can you do that? If so, then get sowing.
If not, wait a month

[selfraising]

Hmmm I could probably make room but I think I'll wait.Thanks for the advice!

[snohare]

Ta for the tip, Two Sheds !
Selfraising, coconut yams are a yam that I found in one of the local shops that sells African and Asian produce. It is so called because it looks rather similar to a coconut - same colour and hairiness, but no shell, just a thin rind underneath the fibres. The flesh is white and slippery, soapy would not be a bad word; probably full of saponins, if I guess right. It can be boiled, stir fried, roasted, etc; I find the flavour a bit bland, but I am looking for calories and nutrients, and ease of production, not gourmet status ! (Plus, my cooking skills can turn anything bland, even Anya potatoes.) If truth be told, I am growing it more because I love a challenge, and "I've started so I'll finish".... what I learn from growing these may apply to other plants, so it'll be worth it in the long run. (For example, I expected that all tropical plants like sweet potatoes and coco yams would be very vulnerable to frost; well, so far, it ain't so. My cloche plastic blew off and they were uncovered in snow and ice for at least a week, it has made little difference.)
I have a vegetable plot in someone else's garden, as I live in a tenement flat with no gardens; also, I have an allotment, and a couple of wee growing areas in Braemar for when I am visiting my folks. All of which have pretty, if not extremely different growing conditions ! So when it comes to gardening, I am literally all over the place.
Thanks for the links to skirret seed, I knew I had seen it but couldn't remember where ! I know at least one supplier I had seen was out of it when I went back.
Still, at least I remember now it was Victoriana Nursery that I was going to buy my seedlings from...

[selfraising]

Hi Snohare
The coconut yams sound very interesting. Do they grow from seed? I have also been using the bottom of my neighbours garden. I do have a garden but not very big and as they didn't do any gardening I was able to use theirs. Unfortunately my neighbours moved out last week (with only 3 days warning to me) and I have now had to quickly re-locate all my raised beds etc back into my garden somehow before the growing season starts. I think it's great that your doing all these experiments with different veg! I'm not a hugely experienced grower but I do like to experiment. I figure they have a 50:50 chance!