20/04/2026
I found this image today.
Here’s my experience of the first 4-
Kohlrabi- sure, if you like sliced radish/ brasica then go for it; otherwise just grow thread which is kale, collards and others.
Ground cherry- in NZ we call them cape gooseberry, the self seed prolifically, zero effort, large rewards, easy to propagate once and then never again. Kids love them!
Celeriac- same as the kohlrabi- if you think you’d like the starch go for it. I prefer the leaf therefor celery is better for me.
Sunchoke, 0/100. I have a million and can’t eat another one, want some? Text me! 😆 cool flower and carbon crop, good medicinal benefits, but know as fart-a-chokes for a reason!
The most interesting crops in American gardening aren't hard to grow.
They're just hard to find — buried in specialty seed catalogs because grocery stores never carried them and garden centers never stocked the transplants. Most of these are easier than tomatoes.
🌱 Nine crops worth searching for:
- Kohlrabi — tastes like a broccoli stem crossed with an apple. About fifty-five days from seed. Eat it raw in slices or roast it in wedges
- Ground cherry — pineapple-tomato flavor in a papery husk. Hundreds of fruit per plant. Grows well in containers
- Celeriac — celery flavor from a knobby root. Stores for months in a cool space. Mash it like potatoes
- Sunchoke — grows tall with sunflowers on top. Dig nutty tubers in fall. Give it a contained spot or it takes over the bed
- Malabar spinach — a spinach substitute that climbs a post or trellis. Thrives in the heat that makes regular spinach bolt
- Luffa — eat it young like zucchini. Let it mature on the vine and it becomes a natural sponge
- Shiso — Japanese herb with a flavor somewhere between basil, mint, and anise. Used as a sushi wrap. Self-sows reliably
- Tomatillo — essential for salsa verde. Highly productive, often producing more fruit per plant than most people expect
- Yardlong bean — pods grow over a foot long. Cut into stir-fry lengths. A heat-loving climber that produces heavily
They're unusual because of marketing, not difficulty 🌿
