‘Fat Baby’
Fat Baby is remarkably easy to grow, and can be used raw in salads when small a bit like a cucumber.
It is a quick and vigorous climber and you can climb it up and over anything, including garden sheds, although it does need a sunny open spot. Definitely best outdoors though and not in a polytunnel, because it tends to take over if grown inside.
The best thing however, is that the mature fruit taste very much like green peppers when fried - yet they can be grown outdoors with ease and set masses of fruit with no effort.
To cook, simply cut open and flick out the seeds (saving a few for future planting of course) and then slice and fry just as a green pepper. Very similar taste to green peppers, just much easier to grow! Here they are on a very popular pizza Kate made for a dinner party (the tomato sauce is of course yellow - using Plum Lemon Tomato - just for fun, the achochas are the green bits.)
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8 seeds, organic. £2.99
‘The Exploding Cucumber’
The Fat Baby have always been a great hit both with us and everyone who has tried them. So we were intrigued to find that they have a close relative known as the Exploding Cucumber, whose Latin name is - quite aptly - "Cyclanthera explodens".
Anyways, these grow similarly to the Achocha - a tendrilly climbing vine . The fruit are similar, except having an even weirder shape, and when mature, they burst open at the slightest touch, flinging their seeds out across the garden!
Eating use is the same as Achocha; the fruit can be used small (1/2 inch) in salads or mature (1 inch, exploded) cooked. No need to deseed them first as they do this for you at the slightest provocation!
10 seed, organic. £2.53
Giant Bolivian Achocha
We first read about Achocha in the wonderful book Lost Crops of the Incas many years ago. In that book there was description of a huge Achocha, but although we grew many varieties over the years, we never found a really big one like it - until Ben tracked down seven seeds from a collector in Bolivia. The rambling plants grow huge fruit about 5 -6 inches long.
They are tasty both raw and cooked - very like sweet green peppers. And the huge vines yield lots of fruit. You do need a polytunnel or (large!) greenhouse for this one though.
Amazing! Fried, or stuffed and roasted, it makes a great dinner.
6 seed, organic. £3.49