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.. turns out these choko things are bloody good! ๐
(www.healthline.com)
I didn't know what the they where but somebody gave me some and I just peeled it, cut it up and steamed it, but you could totally throw this into all sorts of casseroles, soups, roasts or hangi it's really nice! Not too strong of a flavour kind of like a potato with a celery-like tinge, 10/10 will have more often ๐
Update: apparently they turn to mush if you roast them
There's a massive amount of vegetables our supermarkets just do not stock. Its really sad - the same 20 or so product lines all year and so many other things (particularly seasonal) that never get a look in.
Occasionally my local New World will have Kamo Kamo when they're in season but compared to the variety of veg you can pick up at the farmer's market (usually for less) its just not worth shopping at Supermarkets for veg if you're privileged enough to be able to avoid it.
Same goes for the meat sections too - so many cuts they just don't bother with.
I'm lucky enough to get choices in farmers markets, depending on how long I want to drive. It's funny seeing different varieties you never knew existed. I bought "beetroot" one day, got it home, cut it open, and it had white and red striped flesh! After some research, it turns out it was (probably) the Chioggia variety. Never heard of it!
I also see things listed as "squash" that can be one of many, I often see "turnip" that is not what I expect a turnip to look like, there are really quite a range of things you don't get at the supermarket.
Yeah its very silly really.
One of my favourite things to grow is radishes, there's dozens of different varieties, all sorts of different internal and external colours and combinations, and some are firey peppery in flavour while others are mild and sweet.
What's dumb is that say come apple season you can see the evidence for the Supermarket's supply chain stupidity. There's probably 6 different varieties of apples proudly on sale all different colours, shapes & flavours.
Well why isn't the same true for carrots - there's a myriad of different kinds, why are there only 2 kinds of Onion in NZ supermarkets?!
For a real eye-opener I highly recommend checking out Kings Seeds catalog (https://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/) it blew my mind. Eg the Cocozelle I found way more enjoyable than the average zuchini you find at New World (https://www.kingsseeds.co.nz/results.html?q=courgette)
That's a cool site, thanks for linking! Though it's quite a risk growing courgette from seed, you could plant one seed and end up having it not germinate, or you could plant two and risk them both germinating, ending up with more courgette than you can give away ๐
I suspect that there isn't the same market for different kinds of carrots or onions as there is for different kinds of apples. You really start to see a variety of apples at the time of year when all the stone fruit is gone (i.e. now). People want fruit and so will buy from the small selection available, which means supermarkets sell a lot of apples, which lets them support a wider variety.
I think farmers markets can better support the different varieties as people come knowing that what they find will be different each time, and if they see an unusual variety of something they know it might not be there next week so they buy it and give it a go. Mainstream supermarkets are running on the premise of people have expectations about what they should have and they try to meet those expectations.
I started 6 pots for the courgettes, 2 seeds per pot; and pulled the weakest out. Then I gave away 3 of the seedlings and planted the other 3, trying to balance the level of growth so they would hopefully stagger harvest.
In the end the strongest seedling produced the most courgettes by a long way, the middle seedling produced very little - possibly because I planted them in order so it was crowded out by the others maybe; but the smallest one did live up to the plan of having a longer running harvest rather than just a huge glut of them.
We did end up with more courgettes than we could eat, but that partly comes down to not picking them early & small enough when they tasted a lot better. I made many chocolate-zucchini cakes which was one way to get rid of the excess, and gave away what I could.
There's a local app for gardening & sharing called Magic Beans - that's an option for trading excess produce, and having a different kind of courgette/zucchini to share would probably be a help i'd guess (not actually tried it!). It was in beta for ages so hasn't got a huge population, but I think just launched - pity its not Fedi :) https://www.magicbeansapp.com/
I grew courgette for the first time last year, one plant and it gave us more than we needed. Just managed to stay on top of them with I getting sick of them.
Thanks for the link to that app. I'll check it out, though my garden is empty at the moment.