What are new plants are you trying in 2020 Part 2

Lisa K
Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭
edited October 2020 in Vegetables

I had started a post about new plants we are trying in 2020 but in early May my profile was wiped out and with it the original post, so I decided to start a 2nd one.

Many of the new seeds I am trying are now doing great, some of them are Stinging Nettles; Comfrey (I have grown the plant before but this is the first time trying to grow from seed); Wild Bergamot;  Licorice; Ashwagandha; Evening Primrose and Mullein.

Last week I just got some new vegetable seeds to try in Fall are Winter Choy, Ground Cherry and Red Chinese Mustard. One new herb is Horehound.

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Comments

  • DebiB
    DebiB Posts: 92 ✭✭✭

    Hi Lisa,


    Im going to try growing onion from seed this year. I’ve either used onion sets in the past or my walking onions which don’t form a large bulb. So far I’ve found that I should plant them out in September for harvest the following year. It’ll be an adventure.

  • SuperC
    SuperC Posts: 952 ✭✭✭✭

    @Lisa K do you have photos of how the plants are succeeding?

    what is Ground Cherry?

  • dottile46
    dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

    Ha, last fall I ordered numerous new seeds to try - calendula, stinging nettle, lemon balm, hollyhock, snapdragons, mallow, echinacea, and probably some I can't recall at the moment.

    Very little seemed to come together for me this year. The virus issue took up way too much time when I should have been preparing beds, sowing seeds, and starting seeds inside. Then the hot, 80F, weather in April, followed by rain about 17 out of 21 days, cooler than average temps up to last week then heat index in the low 90F range this week. Germination was the worst I have had since I started seed starting five years ago.

  • JodieDownUnder
    JodieDownUnder Posts: 1,483 admin

    @Lisa K I'd be very interested to know how you go with ashwaganda and mullein please.

  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Love all of the comments, I too love trying new things!

    Here is my Licorice and marshmallow -

    Here are my nettles


  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Here are the Mullein, Evening Primrose, Ashwagandha and in the right corner Astragalus.

    And finally wild bergamot

    My plan is to repot all of these this weekend.

    Ground Cherry are also known as cape gooseberries and are in the same family as tomatillos but are sweet.

  • kbmbillups1
    kbmbillups1 Posts: 1,390 ✭✭✭✭✭

    The past couple of years in my spring/summer garden I've planted lettuce, tomatoes, peppers,cucumbers. and marigolds. This year I also planted okra, zucchini, yellow squash, carrots, radishes, cosmos, & zinnias in two of my beds. I also planted horsetail and lemon grass in other places. Oh and my kiwi vine I planted last week is already growing up my arch.

    @torey Is lignonberry the what they make the juice and jelly out of at IKEA? If so I love it since it's not as tart as cranberries. I hope it grows well for you.

  • Torey
    Torey Posts: 5,679 admin

    @kbmbillups1 Yes, same berry.

  • dottile46
    dottile46 Posts: 437 ✭✭✭

    @Lisa K wild bergamot! When I read that I remembered seeing what I think is wild bergamot in the edge of the woods. After I got back to the house I couldn't remember what I had thought it was so didn't look it up. Thank you for the reminder. Your seedlings look lovely.

  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @dottile46 Thanks! 😊

    @vickeym Wow sounds like a great garden and would love to see pictures!

  • blevinandwomba
    blevinandwomba Posts: 813 ✭✭✭✭

    I started mullein, marshmallow, mustard spinach, winter squashes 'tonda padana' and 'kakai', black radishes, and daikon. The black radishes and daikon gave me a lovely crop of greens, but no roots to speak of. I'll try again in the fall.

    I got a few new plants from a local nursery, including mandarina orange balm, and something called mushroom plant. I tried a leaf of the latter, and it does have a mushroomy aftertaste, but I haven't cooked with it yet. The orange balm made a nice tea, not surprisingly.

    @teachercaryn ground cherry is a fruit in the nightshade family; it looks like a very small tomatillo. The fruits are quite sweet, and taste tropical to me- kind of orange-kiwi-mango mix.

    @Lisa K I started wild bergamot from seed more than ten years ago, and I still have an abundance of plants. It's delightful. It isn't the tidiest of plants( it gets powdery mildew where I live), but other than some trimming back after it blooms, it gets no maintenance. To see it covered with bees and butterflies is priceless. Also, it selfsows very well- you'll find it popping up all over the place- but plants are easy to pull. I've just recently started drinking the tea; it's rather savory and aromatic, kind of like thyme or oregano, but I like it.

  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @blevinandwomba cool I am very excited and cannot wait until it is big enough to flower!

  • OhiohillsLouise
    OhiohillsLouise Posts: 120 ✭✭✭

    New for me this year are sweet potatoes, I don’t why I never tried them in the past but so far they look good. Next is okra, I tried to start them from seed but that did not work. I found some started plants at a farmers market. I hope I am successful, I really like okra even though I really don’t have much experience cooking with it. I like trying something new every year even if it is just a new variety of something, like a tomato. Last year I tried a black cherry and decided it’s worth repeating. Several years ago I tried tomatillos and now it is a permanent addition, same with Malabar spinach. Other things I’ve tried never came back, like peanuts.

  • vickeym
    vickeym Posts: 2,134 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Lisa K Unfortunately pictures will be a little while. Garden is still in the making. We can't put stuff outside here till the first of June. I am mixing my own soil by hand which takes longer than I hoped. Planting out larger stuff in 5 gallon grow bags takes a lot more soil than I had anticipated. lol Our weather has gone crazy, so I am a little happy I have not gotten much out yet. Lots of hard rains, we don't normally get what I consider a "hard" rain here. But we have had hail 3 times in the last week and the first time was about half the size of a dime. Also not common here. Broke off two of my Sweetie Pie Pumpkin plants between the rain, hail and wind. Luckily I had several.

  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    @vickeym wow that is crazy weather!

    This weekend I went to Armstrong my favorite local Nursery because they always have new things, this time I got some Vietnamese Cilantro, Aztec Sweet Herb (I have not heard of this before), Fenugreek and Red Long Beans (pictured with Epazote in the background and Rue in the front).


  • dimck421
    dimck421 Posts: 203 ✭✭✭

    I decided to go fully away from my typical plants. I went to Baker Seed site, and ordered all sorts of cool sounding "stuff". Some were epic fails, as they never germinated. Some loved this area and are growing like weeds. Those were all beans. Then again, beans seem to do well most any ol place. None fruited yet, but I have lots of pretty blooms. It seemed like a fun idea, in the moment.

  • Suburban Pioneer
    Suburban Pioneer Posts: 339 ✭✭✭

    I'm trying Urodny sunchokes this year. They're short and supposed to mature a couple of weeks earlier than most others. I've grown sunchokes before, but they were a tall variety that matured rather late. Faster maturity is becoming a must for me as our growing season is now becoming hemmed in by late cold snaps in the spring and early cold snaps in the fall, with the heat and drought generally intensifying the rest of the time (except for this year, which has been extremely cold and wet!). I got Urodny from Oikos Tree crops. It's the place to shop for unique, tough, wild-grown varieties of edible plants. My experience is that Oikos plants are generally stronger and more resilient than most domesticated varieties.

  • annebeloncik
    annebeloncik Posts: 62 ✭✭✭

    I love this thread, I'm getting so many ideas for next year's garden! My new fruit/veggie adventures this year are sweet potatoes, lemon cucumbers, butternut squash, watermelon and cantaloupe. I also added chamomile, lemon balm, purple basil and cinnamon basil, nasturtium and echinachea to my herbs!

  • LaurieLovesLearning
    LaurieLovesLearning Posts: 7,573 admin

    @annebeloncik That sounds like a wonderful garden!

  • JessR
    JessR Posts: 5

    Well, what we have in the ground so far that is new for us are potatoes (sweet, russet, and yukon gold) and onions (red, and sweet yellow) so far. We've got a lot more to get in the ground yet. I also added a couple of new herbs like spearmint and peppermint.

  • MelissaLynne
    MelissaLynne Posts: 205 ✭✭✭

    Have fun transplanting the nettles lol. I have many of those that grow wild so I just leave a little area to let them thrive. Left several large mullein and chamomile volunteers in my veggie garden. I have several dense patches of yarrow in the middle of the yard that I mow around...it annoys the husband lol. I have a mess of nettles and thistles where I would like to put in a small orchard, wouldn’t mind having a few less.

  • GardenMama
    GardenMama Posts: 95 ✭✭✭

    Oh I love this! I'm trying cress this year. I dont usually have much success with anything that is leafy green or even slightly resembling something leafy and green. So I decided I needed a challenge this year

  • tinarock
    tinarock Posts: 37 ✭✭✭

    @Lisa K: I have grown comfrey for years. It is a wonderful plant. I dry it when it is flowering to use for comfrey infusion, which is good for osteoporosis. I also eat the leaves as cooked greens in my daily salads. It is a very large plant, so be sure to give it plenty of space. Also it will spread over time, and can be very difficult to eradicate.

    Evening primrose is high in quercetin. The leaves are edible. It makes yellow flowers that produce tons and tons of seeds per flower. The seeds come up as a bazillion new plants the next year.

    Mullein will self-seed but in an odd way, it will come up the next year in a completely different location. My mullein this year is springing up Everywhere. The flowers attract a lot of bugs.

    Horehound is a little finicky. Last year my horehound was very sparse, so I left it alone and asked it to grow. This year I have much more horehound. Here in zone 7 it already flowered and I already harvested the flowering tops to tincture it in Everclear. This makes an excellent expectorant which we use yearly in winter.

  • Lisa K
    Lisa K Posts: 1,933 ✭✭✭✭✭

    Thanks @MelissaLynne so far the nettles are small enough that I can scoop them out with a spoon. 😀

    Unfortunately I live in part of So. Calif. that does not have a lot of the medicinal plants in the wild and my yard used to be an old runway.

    @tinarock I grew comfrey years ago in my first garden but that was from a small plant, this is the first time I tried to grow it from seed and it is doing well. On the other hand Mullein is new to me and I will be on the look out for wayward plants, you description sounds a bit like borage which ended everywhere including a pipe, haha.

  • ieducate2008
    ieducate2008 Posts: 40 ✭✭✭

    I love spicy and hot things. (Plants I mean! LOL). So, I planted some wasabi radishes. So far, they're doing ok. I also planted some pink dandelions. They're supposed to be very good eating in salads.

  • Cornelius
    Cornelius Posts: 872 ✭✭✭✭

    I am trying to grow from cuttings Hawaiian purple sweet potato and passion fruit vines. From seed I am trying radishes (all sorts I ordered a mixed bunch of seeds) as well as snow peas, and black popcorn.