"Do you love growing tomatoes, but wish they were just a little bit more stabby?" I laughed so hard. Thank you!

For me the joy of gardening is getting stuff you can't find at a grocery store (like actually good tomatoes) or things that are very expensive to buy (like fresh basil and sage). So my overrated list includes anything that doesn't taste sufficiently different from cheap grocery store versions: cilantro, potatoes, carrots, onions, garlic. These are things I can buy a huge amount of for a few dollars, and the garden versions aren't astonishingly better -- although maybe I've just not had the right variety.

Amaranth can be a trap crop for pests and you can consider using it to trellis other plants that need support. Great video by the way. I also have a lack of impulse control when the baker creek seed catalog arrives 😆

I’ve got Malabar spinach growing wild all over my garden from last year. Wife says it tastes like dirt. Will use as chicken food. Also planted Litchi tomatoes this year. We’ll see about those. Also planted Korean zucchini, zucchino rampacante, and Seminole pumpkins just for grins. All three are curcubita moschato, and are supposed to be borer resistant. I’m all into heirloom plants. Prepper mindset.

One thing I learned last year is to be really careful when plant descriptions ONLY say leaves of a plant are edible (and they don't mention any particular taste etc) because they are probably: bitter, fibery and perhaps worth knowing about if you're living through a famine - or if barely anything grows in your area - but otherwise, totally not worth it. I mean, if I need to blend it into a green smoothy with lots of other tasty ingredients, or cook it and pair it with other veggies that will mask the awful taste.. no thanks. Also, there are some oddball enthusiasts out there who seem to love any all all things leafy and edible, no matter the taste seemingly - I've learned not to believe them.

In terms of the amaranth….Golden Giant is worth growing in terms of seed size and quantity. But it’s best attribute is, it attracts the cucumber beetle, diverting them from that cucurbit and others.

Cucamelon surprised me. It looks so delicate and i wasn't expecting it to thrive in the desert, but mine took over a huge bed with tomatoes in record time. It gave us thousands of fruits. The issue i had was that my kids won't eat them because they're slightly sour, so my husband and i were choking them down by the handfuls trying not to waste them lol. (Very good with tacos though.)

I'm in Southern CA zone 10 and every fall I grow cauliflower. I do exclusively container gardening and I do not have problems with insects. I use mesh pop up laundry baskets to keep the cabbage moth off the plants. I also use organic sprays for other pests. This year was phenomenal for cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli due to the colder temps we had here. Growing brassica in the fall here are always a challenge but when you get a great harvest it's worth it.

I’m running a micro garden of burpless organic cucumbers, sun sugar cherry tomato, dill, Oregon sugar pod 2 peas, lunchbox orange snacking peppers. Love it

I've grown the cucamelon. I've had good success with them. I didn't know you needed a male and female flower for pollination. Even with one plant I got a handful a week. I think the trick is to have several plants to have a good crop. I had a year where I about 6 plants and that was a good year! I'm in zone 5b

I'm in Zone 9 too and my Litchi Tomatoes grew wonderfully well and over-wintered too. However, I'm done with the stabbing and the plants went to the City's compost pile - I wasn't going to risk it in mine!

I am so glad I am not the only one who struggles with Jack o lantern pumpkins 😂. Awesome tips to look for varieties that have the strengths you are looking for. I too have an impulse control issue when my BC catalog arrives 😁.

I am a fairly new gardener and tried cucamelon for the first time last year. I got a huge harvest, and did absolutely nothing other than water.

I had good luck with the cucamellons... I agree with you on early girl and doll! Lots better maters out there! Great video!!!

I respect your desire for interesting and unique plants. A "designer garden" is a special and interesting hobby. What is needed here is understanding that Everything you say is "relative"........to where you live, to your interests, your money situation, your food needs, your climate, your culture.....so it really is nice of you to showcase some of your failures and dislikes but its hardly information that can be generalized and set in stone.

“Do you love growing tomatoes but wish they were just a little more stabby?” LOL! Thanks for the laugh!

New Girl has been my favorite slicing tomato for years. It now shares that spot with Chef's Choice Orange. They are both also great for drying.

Thanks for sharing. So helpful.

I think you'll like the Maju Ras melons, I live in a dry desert where most melon plants go to die but mine turned out yummy :)

Agree with Early Girl. I grew it one year, because it had the reputation of growing relatively quickly in cool weather. Taste was bland. Never grew again. Same with cauliflower -it's a bug buffet.

Amaranth is an amazing crop. It contains substance fighting cancer. You can add leaves to smoothies and make facial masks out of it.

I too have an expanding "Nope" pile of things, that I am not willing to spend the effort on, in my small backyard container garden. I appreciate the fact that you made a video of some of yours. :)

This season I’m going back to my old favorites, I have grown a few of the plants you have here and I have to agree on your points. The only thing I’m doing “new” is trying out some determinate tomatoes but they are award winners - I’m really picky about tomatoes, they have to be good 😂 not just interesting!

Thank you for all this great information. I have to admit that though I’ve never grown amaranth, I must try to now! It’s gorgeous!

I agree with all the crops you named. I was about to grow amaranth, wasn't sure about this one, now I know. I promised myself not to grow none popular plants this year to keep my energy and space (there's a reason why it's not) but I'm a seeds addict. I only will try the Queen of Malinalco here in Canada. I tried the cucamelon, you're right, waste of time to me, it's cute and fun that's it.

Red garnet amaranth is amazing as a flower in the flower garden. It is the number 1 favorite for visitors. I grow them as fodder for the hens and sheep also. The tiny seed size is comical. Thousands of tiny seeds fit on a spoon. I can’t imagine every growing enough to make edibles out of. They’re more like super mini poppy seeds than a “grain”

Excellent garden talk. I order from B.C. also. Definitely following you

I live in a cool zone six where in high summer our nights only sometimes get to ten Celsius. Any tomato is a blessing, however cauliflower and other brassicas love my climate and there are varieties like blumini which is a sprouting cauliflower and a few varieties that produce up to five heads I have forgotten the variety name a while ago I save the seeds. There are many varieties in your warmer climate that are started when it's cool in fall and overwinter to produce heads in spring that are for climates like yours. If you want a happy brassica then put some all natural unscented clay kitty litter in your garden bed. It's pure bentonite clay. The plants grow themselves in my experience.

Cauliflower is like an herb, really. I love to eat it, love the flavor it adds, love to stuff it into all sorts of dishes (especially curries and pastas - soaks up incredible amounts of deliciousness). I don't love paying out the nose for a head of it when I could take a square foot of garden and a little love and get it fresh, clean, and local. So I'm hoping this year it will meet my expectations, despite being a temperamental crop. To help get more bang for your buck, try lacto fermenting cauliflower stems (especially with peppers). One of my favorite pickles to make, and it uses a large portion of the plant that usually gets thrown out.

We love amaranth! We grew 5 kinds last summer and plan to grow 10 this summer. Couldn't find an easier, more colorful grain to grow. Seed collection is very easy as well.

If you do give a variety of amaranth meant for eating the leaves, be warned that the flower head isn't as striking and does not produce significant grain. Also, you can eat the stems and they are almost asperagas like.

We couldn't keep up with our cucamelon harvests. We didn't need to hand pollinate at all. We grew it vertically on cattle panels and didn't have any rodent issues either. I don't care for cucumbers or cucamelons, but I am considering growing these again just because they're fun to grow.

Yes, indeed cauliflower can be disappointing. The same goes for Peruvian physalis for me: it grows perfectly in my garden with many fruits. But they hardly get ripe. It just creates expectation during the summer because it grows so well, but in the end there is little to harvest. Amaranth reseeds itself in garden every year and is a beautiful autumn flower for me.

I do grow Asian types of amaranth bred for larger leaves. It’s steam wilted and used like spinach in a Korean dish or for bbq wrap addition.

I always struggle with tomatoes. I've had huge sucess with lantern/ground cherries. They are so pest resistant and prolific. I even like the taste better too. Bonus, the ground cherries are natives, and make good ground cover for my taller crops. Can't wait for them to produce again this year!

fantastic list! thanks for the post!

I think the cauliflowers really illustrated to me how right you are about everyone's gardening circumstances being different. I'm in New Zealand and have never even heard of most of these, but cauliflower... Cauliflower us our beloved crop from late autumn to late spring. It grows really well where we are and is so versatile (stir fry, Sunday roast, soup, salad...) that it's definitely an every-year thing. Loved hearing about all the other veg - like I said, most of them I've literally never encountered before

If you have alot of sparrows, they love eating bees so keep an eye out for that and don't make it easy for them to pick off the bees. I even had to put up bird netting along my hedges and around my cucumber tunnel. Also I noticed the sparrows can't see the bees if they're on a dark centered flower. When my pollination dropped off drastically I started watching (from the window) what was happening in the garden when I wasn't there and was amazed to see how destructive the sparrows were.

I appreciate your detailed information- real experience...priceless!

I like to try different varieties. I have a Baker Creek weakness as well😅. I have a “three strikes and you’re out” rule. Cucamelons and Dragon Tongue Beans are on the list this year to be traded for a more promising prospect. Malabar Spinach has always grown well for me and I love the looks of it. I haven’t decided if I like the taste yet. I tend to mix it in with other greens for variety in a salad.

I love amaranth- it tastes great stir fried with garlic, although I never tried to grow it for grains. They self seed easily and do well where I live (zone 9b).

The mango melon bit made me chuckle. This has been the outcome I've experienced with a number of my late-night Baker Creek seed orders. The plant produced, but the fruit needed more prep than I was willing to put in; or the plants were gorgeous, but two small fruits were produced, and they were... fine; or the tomatoes grew vigorously, and produced volumes of heavy, luscious looking fruits that were ...mealy and insipid. "Ah. I see why this heirloom variety fell out of favor." It doesn't diminish my excitement at receiving the catalog, mind you. I look forward to it for months, and I am keeping better notes as I learn.

Ups I did plant cucamelons. You are right, high hopes. Let's see what it brings. Didn't plant Zucchini, because we hadn't enough pollinators. Well we' ll see.

I agree with everything except amaranth. We grow it stacked with other plants. We use it as greens and for fodder for chickens . But that is our space. It is a beautiful and very underknown edible.

Corn is actually a valid choice if you grow a mixed variety grex or mutt-blend. Let them adapt to your circumstances and they will produce hearty amounts with no amendments.

In South India, we eat both green and red amaranth, the young leaves and tender stem only, we stir fry them with freshly grated coconut and eat with rice. The red amaranth when mixed with rice is the most beautiful color. We never eat the seeds or grains. Also we don't let it grow too much till it produces the grains, but we harvest early to make use of young leaves and tender stem.

Thank you

Kind of the opposite of what you asked, but if you like squash and Japanese varieties like Kabocha, I *love* kuri. They are excellent roasted and give a good amount of flesh for how relatively small the fruit can be

I love the insights you provide on your channel. I do have to say, however, that Malabar spinach was the bane of my existence. I am in coastal zone 8 and have little trouble growing most things due to a very long growing season. This is a problem for tropical Malabar spinach. It literally took over my garden, self seeds way too easily and made it through a few winters down here. It did finally get frost killed. On top of the kudzu-like growing habit, it’s leaves are very mucilaginous. But, I also do not like okra, a staple in most gardens in my area, for the same reason. Slime. 😅

"A field of pain" OMG! LMFAO! Great name for a metal song lololololol!

i live in Santa Cruz, California, on the Northern California coast. Our summers are cool. Early girl is the local tomato. It is the tomato grown by Santa Cruz market gardeners selling into the San Francisco Bay Area. It is pretty much the only tomato that ripens for us. You live in a hot climate. Early Girl is designed for the Pacific Northwest and other cooler climates. As for taste - this tomato is phenomenal. Flavorful, acidic, sweet, it matches the great tomatoes of Southern Italy IF you grow it as a "dry farmed" tomato. Once established, our farmers do not water their Early Girls. Locally they are sold as Dry Farmed Early Girls. From a Spring planting we do not get tomatoes until later in the Summer.

I fell into the vine peach trap this year too. I did research after I made the purchase and immediately regretted the purchase. I will not plant those seeds. From the information I have read the fruit will not be worth the time or effort. I thought I was overreacting and should plant some seeds, and maybe it would go okay, but after your confirmation that the fruit is less than "meh" I will not do it. Thanks for saving me a lot of disappointment! I am so happy I saw this video!

Awesome tips! 👍🏽👏🏽

Great video. My only disagreement is the vine peach. Ours were very good. Sweet with a tang. I know a lot of people use them as a fruit extender

We grew quinoa last year, and it looks a lot like amaranth. What I hadn’t expected, was a huge amount of black aphids to really love it as well. So many aphids I just didn’t get to harvest any of it! I’ve never successfully grown Malabar spinach. My FAVORITE winter squash is Waltham butternut. Sweeter than any pumpkin- even Pie. Stores like a king. At this point I still have bins full of healthy Butternut and delicata squash. Spaghetti stores well too but I don’t tend to really appreciate eating it. Agree about cauliflower!

I LOVE cauliflower. But it’s very easy to grow them here in Berkeley. I can plant broccoli and cauliflower in late fall and they take almost no care here to be ready in spring. Thanks for the heads up with the rest. I would love to learn more varieties to avoid!

If you live in UK try Crown Prince pumpkin, they roast wonderfully and makes the greatest soup. There is a cut n come cauliflower too.

I also have an impulse control issue when it comes.to gardening! thanks for the tips, I will.save myself some work in the long, except for the vine peach. Already fell.for.that one, even made a taste test video (kids were not happy lol)

I absolutely agree about the lychee tomato. They have a unique taste that's good in pies but being able to manage this plant is horrible. I'll not grow them again. They are more cold hardy than tomatoes I noticed and I had no pest problems with them.

Thanks.

Thanks for reporting on things that are not worth the effort. Very helpful. I will look at growing Chinese broccoli and maybe even Armenian cucumbers. Thank you for the attention to detail in your closed captioning, too. I really hate auto-generated text.

Ground cherries have a fun paper husk and produce a sweet/savory golden fruit and no thorns like the litchi! You either love them or hate them but they are definitely fun to try. When they are fully ripe I enjoy them, but they are not for everyone.

That Vine Peach melon makes me think of the gigérine, the watermelon exclusively for jam, cannot eat it fresh out of the vine but have to process it into a jam. I avoided the variety because I wasn't interested in having to cook it and I don't like jams anyways. But someone gifted me the seeds, so I couldn't refuse. Funny thing is that these are pretty popular and others love the jam made with gigérine. I just had to get lucky and be the one they chose to giveaway the seeds.

Couple years back I wasted an Earthbox, a bunch of dirt, and a summer's worth of watering on some tomatoes called "best boy". After cutting around all the massive splits and blossom end rot I managed to taste part of *one* tomato and it was disgusting. Maybe there's a climate where they're "best" but it sure as heck isn't the Idaho panhandle. Seeds went in the woodstove but only because I don't have any tomato growing enemies I could have given them to, lol.

I grow them for picking..it helps with the bitterness..😊

tl;dw list - cucamelon amaranth litchi tomato Turkish orange eggplants Jack O' Lantern pumpkins Early Girl tomatoes cauliflower vine peach (mango melon)

It is so hard for me to grow default varieties. I just cannot do it. I do not grow any red tomatoes or any orange carrots, I want to grow weird and whacky fruits and vegetables in fantastical shapes, colors, and sizes. I just started gardening last year and my pumpkin pick was flat white boer pumpkins. I had a lot of sizable fruits and despite a lot of pest pressure and powdery mildew the plants just outpaced every challenge. On the subject of corn, I live in a duplex so my yard is limited but I grow a small and very dense patch of corn and I love it. I had several huge bowls full of it and gave much away. I grow two quick growing varieties that let me plant twice in one year.

I'm only a renter down here in Florida so I make do with a few pots... but if I had the opportunity to grow I'd certainly be growing just for the sake of discovery and variety, or indulging in collecting behavior.

I planted New Girl 2 seasons. It was planted next to my Early Girl (yes, I am one of those 🙂) These were planted in zone 9, Northern CA. EG outperformed NG in quantity, taste, first to table both years. I won't plant NG again. I also plant several varieties of cherry tomatoes but I want an early tomato I can use on sandwiches as well.

Oh, and I like the alternative to a litchi tomato… any good cherry tomato will probably taste better and it’s not going to stab you for your trouble. I love it!

I think Early girl is popular because of people buying plants and not growing from seeds. For Pumpkins we will be trying a pumpkin where the seeds don’t have hull. Makes it easier to eat the seeds, so 2 crops in one plant. I almost never grow brassicas. I grew the Ugami cucumber last year and liked it. I don’t go for cuckamellons or some of the other weird types. We occasionally have a cross pollinated cucumber/mellon/squash grow out of our compost. We let them grow until we figure out they are not that good and pull them out.

I planted 4 cucamelons and had lots of them. No rodent issues and they never made it in the house as my kids loved them :)

First video of yours! Love!

I LOVE Black Futsu! Such a good baby! So much food for so little work!

Early girl did amazing for me in Washington state. (Totally different climate from where you grow) it’s an amazing plant, just need to be growing in the right ZONE 🤓🤪

Cauliflower was awesome for fleshy greens i added to chard. Otherwise weve dropped it and broccoli too tho a volunteer broc in the compost over the winter is a main bee attractor right now so yeah flowers good and head brassicas, not so much i thought it was just me.

Do you have a list online that you can share of your go-seeds for a small garden?

In my experience, watermelon (especially small varieties) and other kinds of sweet melon, are super GREAT producers and I've not had a pear problem with them. They grow great in sand too. I especially love heirloom varieties from the middle east

I am gonna grow red amaranth next year because I think it's pretty, but then it's going directly to the chickens haha. The opening to the litchi tomatoes gave me a good laugh 😂

Cinderella pumpkin is not only a great soup pumpkin, it is also amazing for pies. It adds an extra flavor dimension.

Oh no! I love growing cucamelon! I grow them on an arch so they give my garden a really nice visual space in addition to fruit.

I swear by pickling type cucumbers. Great for anything you want to do with them including slicing. They're also fairly disease and pest resistant with a healthy amount of spines that are easy enough to avoid when harvesting.

We grow the cucamelon as a garden snack food.

My garden is "backyard" rather than "homestead-style", if the distinction means anything. Wheat - growing it now, for the second time. Not worth it economically, I suppose, but it does get me whole wheat, most of its growing season is in the winter when I can't grow much else, and it's not as hard to process as lots of people claim. Corn - This will be the third year in a row that I have grown field corn. I grow a red corn, which is colorful and interesting. Like wheat it produces a lot of calories. If you prefer not to eat GMO (I'm fine with GMO, myself), then growing your own corn is a good option. Watermelon - Grew them last year, and loved them. They'll be following the wheat this year.

In Arizona I couldn’t get regular cucumbers to produce much but Armenian cucumbers in partial shade produced tons and tons,never bitter,wonderful plant. Not as productive in North Carolina though.

Typing as I go as usual lol. Cucamelons: 100% agree. Just grow cucumbers lol. You can harvest as baby cukes or let them go full grown. Either is fine. They are adorable, but they are really only for a curiosity. Lebanese & continental cucumber is the one grown here pretty commonly. Amaranth: Amaranth Viridus. Green Amaranth. I don't use it for grain because I don't have the patience. It is a fantastic green. Has so many nutrients (borderline super food) . It's also a weed here lol. So free food for us. I'd grow that red one for the looks tho! Lychee tomato? Hmm. That looks like a torture weapon. Also lychees aren't even that sharp haha. I hadn't even heard of them, but I don't think I'll be trying it 😂 Turkish orange eggplant: have also never heard of it. Looks like a tomato. I'll just take it as a nightshade haha. It's cute though, but my concern would be that it takes off like pea eggplants. Jackolantern: Never understood the obsession with those type of pumpkins. Our classic ones here are Kent, Jap or QLD Blue. And obviously butternut. The Kent or Jap x butternut is amazing too. But we don't carve pumpkins here. And pumpkin pie isn't super popular. Early girl tomato: another one I've never heard of. Have you tried "Tomato tree"? It doesn't cope well here but would be interested to see how you go. We also like tigerello but we use them as green tomato's 😂 Cauliflow: yeah. Brassicas are such an annoyance here. They get chewed on left and right. However, I'm pretty sure you can leave it to get little cauliflower and of course the leaves are edible. Blooming cauliflower is now very popular here now too. Mango melon: Huh, have also never heard of this. Have you done African horned melon? Haha another cool video. A few things I'm going to see if I get some of them and try them here 😂

Question for Mrs. Scientist. Does publication bias also pertain to "profitless" fertilizers like manures for example? I see so much variation in NPK levels for cow/goat/bat guano/ etc.

Such a disagreement list that actually make sense! Most people just assume too much on these or too generic like "I will never grow a grain ever again".

I only grow , mangos varieties, peaches , citrus , avocados, lychee, plum ,peppers , herbs , & last tomatoes for my mother .

0:21 This is why I am guided by ANCESTORS and doNOT follow gentrified gardening recommendations from ppl who are affiliated with/benefit from soopreemazzy's narratives. I appreciate your no-nonsense, transparent delivery of truly information and appreciate the way you blend your academic knowledge with LIVING COMMONSENSE/EXPERIENCE. The way you've thought these things through and is really beautiful and I appreciate the transparency in the delivery.

Early Girl is beloved in the PNW becasue of our super weird weather. It's nothing like any other part of the country.

I was surprised at the Early Girl entry. That's the most prolific tomato in our garden and also the best tasting. I also grow heirlooms. WARNING: Last season I read everywhere how wonderful malabar spinach was, I bought some seeds, grew some and 🤢YUK! It tastes awful.

Good stuff.

One year I had a small invasion of cucamelon in my backyard. Didn't know if I had cucumbers or watermelons in the making but luckily after some research I found out what they were. However even though some sources confirmed they were edible, after I found out if you don't eat them at the right time, they can be an astronomical laxative....well I chickened out.

Thanks for heads up about growing Amaranth for food. To me it's not exactly beautiful but definitely 'interesting' for the ornamental garden. So far I've had no luck with beans of any kind, whether climbing or bush so probably won't bother with them this year. I may do some bean trouble shooting and try again later.

Ive only got 3metres of balcony,so far potatoes, parsley,coldframe of salad,dill,and on my windowsills tomatoes(dont think they will fruit)3 pots of carrot seedling which will be moved out once they grow a bit,and a tea plant. Dont have room for anything spreading!

For me the 1 mouse melon plant erupted into 100’s of little cucs! I’ve been quick pickling as fast as I can! I wonder why yours didn’t work out?

Mouse melons' flavor sounds off-putting! I've never had them, but steered clear based on what I've read. A lot of effort, and not enough enjoyment. Thank you for confirming that I'm not interested. Pumpkins need plenty of room! Only watered in drought! I've killed them by over watering watering two years in a row. Broccoli over cauliflower every day. Thank you for your opinions. They have some good points.

I am new to real gardening. What type of beet would grow in zone 9?

Cucamelons look cute but I'm not keen on the flavour. I imagine that due to their small size and thin skins small rodents find them easy to nibble. If you like mini cues, try Nimrod. Lovely flavour, smooth skins, very productive variety. For cherry toms, Sungold and Gardeners Delight are both sweet and tasty.