Running along the theme of diversity in the garden, I’ve taken note of and photographed a few oddities this year and thought I’d share them. This first is one of the peach varieties of tomato — I don’t know which one it is specifically as the plant was a gift from a friend and was labelled as something entirely different. Only the first fruit came in shaped like a bum. The rest have been round. Here I suspect it has something to do with the radical temperature shifts we’ve experienced this season and what the weather was like when the flower was developing.
Many of the first male flowers (squash plants bloom with distinctly male and female flowers) to appear on the ‘Pilar’ squash were attached twins. I’ve never had this phenomenon appear with such frequency, and again I think it may have been weather-related. It stopped about midway into the season after temperatures had picked up.
This flower is over-sized, absolutely huge, I’d say. Many of the flowers from this particular variety were as big as my hand, some even larger. This was my first time growing ‘Giallo de Italia’ (an open-pollinated golden zucchini that I highly recommend by-the-way) so I can’t speak to whether this is typical or an irregularity. I have been very impressed, although I do find that the size makes them a little awkward for stuffing with cheese and frying. Instead, I’ve been stuffing these with rice pilaf and baking them in the oven.
Here’s a photo of the ‘Giallo de Italia’ plant for context (I purchased seeds from Urban Harvest if you’re interested). I’ve been searching for years for a variety with gorgeous leaves such as this and will surely be growing it again and again.
This is ‘Mammoth,’ a large lettuce-leaf basil that I’ve been growing for years because the leaves grow to be so large. There is nothing atypical about this particular leaf — all of the leaves are like this. I thought I’d throw it in because it seems so novel compared with typical basil varieties. I grow this one specifically to serve on top of a fried egg sandwich. The leaves are just the right size to provide ample coverage across a slice of bread.
Haha, I’m guessing it was quite cold when your first tomato was still developing?
Peach tomatoes are cool though, I like their sweet taste.
It probably was. We’ve been back and forth from cold to hot this year. Even right now we’re experiencing 20 degree temperature shifts. Unpleasant!
I had a lot of these odd blooms as well! The technical term is “faciation” and I saw it mostly in my tomatoes this year (http://sweetdomesticity.blogspot.com/2013/08/a-fascinating-fasciated-federle.html) – from everything I read on the subject, definitely related to the very cool growing season this year. Also, loving that beautiful Mammoth basil!
I’m familiar with fasciation (I specifically collect plants that are fasciated) but I had not thought of the twin zucchini flowers in that way. I think that’s because in all cases they were two distinct flowers attached and fasciated flowers tend to be like a starburst of flowers within flowers multiplied upon themselves. Thanks for mentioning this — it made me think and reconsider.
Quite a few of my Reisetomates turned out bum- or phallic-shaped this year. Keeps things cheeky I suppose! :)
Har Har!
the only peach tomato I grew from seed this year was Wapsipinicon Peach but none of mine looked like bums … bummer HA
I grow the Mammoth Basil now because you mentioned it a few years ago – such a great big wonderful one – love it.
Then that’s what it is — ‘Wapsipinicon Peach!’ I had a feeling it might be that as it was unlike either of the two other peach varieties I have grown.
WHOA! i need to grow that basil! i am a big fan of egg sandwiches with pesto, but that basil would be awesome when i run out of pesto… and also in salads!
Wow. I am curious about the taste of the Mammoth basil. How is the taste?
It’s a pretty typical green Genovese-type basil but with much bigger, ruffled leaves.