Growing veg from supermarkets

[catalyst]

i recently bought some roots from supermarket, as they were sprouting...
but i dont know what they are!! they are a bit like yams but much smaller and darker skin. about 2 inches long mini yams!!!
4 of the 5 i put in the ground are coming up... wahey...
but i would like to know what they are.... any ideas?

oh, and yes, i've grown most of what everyone else here has said.... i grew an avocado that is now probably 7 or 8 years old, and is thriving in my aunts greenhouse. I have one here in a pot 2 years old too.

[chadspad]

Have jsut seen this thread and wanted to say about avocados. Ive found the easiest way to get them to shoot is to just put them in a pot (or straight in the ground) with earth or compost and up they come - easy as! Between myself and my mum with have over 20 growing now, anywhere and everywhere we put them theyve come up!

[the.fee.fairy]

I've never managed to grow a single avocado!
I tried and tried - i;ve planted them in pots, i've suspended them over water - nothing not a single shoot!

Lychees i did well with though - out of 6 stones, i've got 2 plants (it was 3, but one died).

[chadspad]

The avocados do take a really long time. Maybe just leave one in a pot outside and forget about it??

Never tried lychees.

How did your coffee beans do? Are they still growing? Mine went mouldy

[possum]

yes avocados to take a while to some up, I have three on the go at the moment, one sprouted in about a month, the other two in a couple of months, the rest still show no sign of life.

I am please that someone has success at growing lychees, I kept the stones from the last lot that I had, so going to be chucking them in a pot tomorrow., Have you had any fruit from them?

[nessnco]

A freiend of mine has grown quinoa - the plants grew well sort of like beans. Throw them in when ground is warm and you should be right.

[possum]

Thanks for that idea, I like quinoa, but it is expensive, would be worth buying some to try to grow though, a lot cheaper than buying it as seed

[the.fee.fairy]

Coffee: Yes!! I've got 2 coffee plants growing, very very slowly. They did go mouldy, but there were a few shoots. I'll try to get pics when i get home.

Lychees: i put them in a jar with some wet kitchen roll in the bottom, screwed the lid on and put them on the radiator. Then, when they grew into plants, i planted them in ericaceous compost. Apparently, it will take around 15 years for fruit - they're proper trees!!

Avocadoes: still not the slightest bit of luck, they all seem to be sterile or something.

Tea: i bought some tea seeds from Ebay, and they've taken about 4 months to shoot, but i've got 2 plants out of 4 seeds, so i've done quite well there. I'll take pics of them too.

Orange/Lemon: i've got 4 plants now. I did have 8, but they die really really quickly if you forget to water them

[possum]

regarding lemons, in NZ (the winter does get cold here, it aint suptropica) our main lemon bush survives outside happily as long as it get a dose of epsom salts every now an again. I know it needs it when the leave turn yellow. (oh and OH pees on it occassionally). It has lemons pretty well all months of the year.
I didn't try to grown them in the UK, but I would guess if they were up agains the side of a house then they would survive the winter outside, you could always bubble wrap them for extra precaution

[chadspad]

I am dead excited! I have a mango growing from a seed/pip from a shop bought fruit. Theres a huge shoot on it! How cool is that?

[QuakerBear]

Physalis.

I squished the fruit in my mouth and then spat it out, picked out the seeds and shoved them in some compost. They all took! I let th plants get abit too long and they broke in half, I shoved the broken off bit back in the compost and it also took! Amazingly easy to grow, they need to be in a greenhouse to over winter though.

[the.fee.fairy]

I've still got my lemon plants (down to 2 now thoug - all the leaves fell off one, and the other dies), and the lychee plants too.

Still not managed to grow an avocado or a bloody pineapple.

John at work's pineapples are about a foot tall now. I'm jealous...i want pineapple plants...

[farmerdrea]

Be careful when planting grocery shop-bought things, as if they are imported, for use for human consumption, they may also be carrying diseases which can potentially harm the domestic crop. I wish I could remember the details, but in recent days there have been several news stories about people planting imported Chinese garlic in their gardens, and the possibility that it can harm the local commercial crops. Again, I wish I remembered the details!!! Still, it pays to be careful what you plop in the ground.

Cheers
Andrea
Oxford

[Jack]

Gidday

Yeah good onya Andrea, that's a very good point. Unfortunately the Chineese garlic has almost totally destroyed our local growers already, with their cheep tasteless rubbish.

And Possum, I think you will be waitsing your time with the avacado and the sweet potato or kumara which we have hear. You are too far south. Definately for the avacado as they have to have a night temperature much warmer than you will have when they are flowering. However the tree may still grow but very little chance of getting any fruit from it.

[possum]

And Possum, I think you will be waitsing your time with the avacado and the sweet potato or kumara which we have hear. You are too far south. Definately for the avacado as they have to have a night temperature much warmer than you will have when they are flowering. However the tree may still grow but very little chance of getting any fruit from it.

well the avocados are doing quite nicely at the mo, the climate here is not like christchurch , put it this way, it was about 25C today and roasting hot in the house this evening