Show us your harvest!

[ina]

There were fruits on the plants alright - but none of them matured. I'd say the temperatures are too low to grow them without a tunnel around here. Anyway, I don't care enough about them to make more of an effort - space is at a premium, so I stick to stuff that will grow without me jumping through hoops...

[Odsox]

There were fruits on the plants alright - but none of them matured.

Aah, but that's what happens to unpollinated fruits Ina, they start to swell and sometimes get fairly large, but then start to rot (usually from the stem end)
But I totally agree with you about not being worth the trouble. I'm not that fussed with them, they're far too sweet, difficult to peel, caramelized skins are chewy if you don't peel, and I always give away at least half of my crop.
If they didn't grow easily here and behave themselves in the corner of the tunnel, I wouldn't bother either.

[diggernotdreamer]

I didn't know about the not being pollinated thing, that explains a lot. I will give them another try next year, I love butternut squash.

[Odsox]

Several years ago I bought some Oca tubers, but found out that although the plants produced masses of tubers, they are slug magnets. So much so that hardly any of the tubers were worth eating.
Last year I found a small self sown Oca plant growing in amongst a rubbish heap where I throw plant material I don't want in the compost bin. Anyway to cut a lengthy story a tad shorter, I "harvested" one tuber about the size of my little finger nail, which I planted in a dry corner of my tunnel and left it to get on with it.
I dug it up today and got a huge amount of tubers, mostly small but a few bigger ones, and they are still getting eaten by slugs.

As I can't remember what they taste like, we will try the bigger ones and see if it's worth persevering with them next year, and if so trying to devise some way of keeping the slugs away (and probably feeding the plants this time)

Oca.jpg (99.94 KiB) Viewed 6562 times

[doofaloofa]

They are quite ascorbic Tony

You can't beat spuds for ease of growing and palatability

All these substitutes I have tried are always a dissapointment

[ina]

But can't you use them as "sacrificial" plants to lure slugs away from other plants?

[Green Aura]

We only grew oca once - in a big tub. I don't remember any slug damage (but nor do I remember a huge harvest ). It's possible we put grit on the top, we often do in pots.

[diggernotdreamer]

I don't know a slug that has ever obligingly just eaten a sacrificial crop, they see everything as fair game in my place, perhaps the slugs that live in my garden are just bad mannered

[Odsox]

These slugs (I presume anyway) are those underground keel slugs, not the ones that roam about at night. So growing in containers is probably the answer, assuming I want to grow some more that is.

[doofaloofa]