A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

Would Stevia replace the sugar?

I hadn't thought of that Alasgun, I should give it a try. Thus far, I have not been super crazy about the type of sweetness stevia plants supply but I do like roselle tea so much that I think I'd give anything a try to be able to drink it more often.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Green Roselle? Does that mean the dried flowered bracts are green, not burgundy?

As far as I know yes. I imagine that the flowers are also going to lack the red "throat" they normally have.

I've often wondered about roselle. I grew some plants about 4 years ago, I don't know what specific kind they were, just 'regular red' I guess. But they did actually flower and produce seed for me, not much, but I think I only grew about 8 plants. But I've read several times that you have to be careful which roselle 'variety' you get because some, maybe most, won't flower in time.

Well, that's pretty much the case with MOST varieties of tropical crop plants; your main impediment isn't the heat, it's that their photoperiod doesn't induce them to flower until it is too cold for them to survive outside. If that wasn't the case, I wouldn't have to devote a major pot each year to working out what hyacinth beans types will actually PRODUCE this far north. (so far I have only found two, Ruby Moon and the bushy one @Zeedman gave me. I think there is a third as well.) And I'd be able to grow things like wingbeans with no problem. I'd have seed from my Egyptian River Hemp, Sunn Hemp and Kenaf (I DO have seed from my Kenaf, but only because I was able to take it inside over the winter and hand pollinate it.)

I know you can "fake" some of these plants with strategic use of covers and timing, but, usually, it isn't worth the effort versus what I would get.

I can't even ask the person I got them from if they will since not only will he not know, he might actually get cross I am trying to get calyces. When I asked him what the tea was like from this one (i.e. how it tastes without the anthocyanins) he threw a fit and said that this was was only used for its leaves for soup greens, not for the drink. And he doesn't exactly have an incentive to help me produce seed of my own (since it is in his interest for me to have to buy more of the seed next season.)

They sure were pretty plants though and I've thought to grow them many times since, it's one of my favourite herbal teas, too bad it needs sugar to bring the flavor out. My plants were not that big, maybe 4 feet, but the flowers looked just like Jing Orange okra flowers. Beautiful.

Same thing with a lot of my plants. I don't tray to grow those pseudo-hemps for fiber production; I'd never be able to grow enough to use anyway. I grow them for the flowers, Kenaf look like Hibiscus (which they technically are) River hemp have nice yellow legume flowers with black speckles on the back of the petals, and Sunn also has big yellow flowers (I DID get the Sunn to flower inside the house, but since pollinating it needs either an insect or knowing how to do that pea flower "tripping" trick (which I can't do) I got no seeds (then again, if I had, it probably would have driven everyone crazy until I took them off, there's a reason members of the genus Crotalaria are called "rattleboxes".)

I hadn't thought of that Alasgun, I should give it a try. Thus far, I have not been super crazy about the type of sweetness stevia plants supply but I do like roselle tea so much that I think I'd give anything a try to be able to drink it more often.

I imagine it will. I use stevia instead of sugar in pretty much everything, and it usually does ok (though there is a bitter taste if I add too much.) I think the trick is stevia works best in strongly flavored things, where any aftertaste is drowned out.

If I doesn't there are two other "natural" zero calorie sweeteners you might want to try. The first is monkfruit, which works pretty much like stevia (just don't try and grow your own, not only is the cucurbit that makes it tropical and hard to grow here, but, based on the dried ones I bought in Chinatown before I really knew what it was, without processing it smells, and probably tastes rather like chicken soup (not a great combo with sweetness).

The second, newer one is called allulose. This is the closest to normal table sugar in properties (you can even bake with it the same as sugar with no problems). But it does ten to be fairly expensive (I got my supply cheap, but that's because I found it at a clearance store that must have gotten it from somewhere going out of business, so that line is not a reliable source.)

 

[Alasgun]

We use the drops in some stuff and home grown/ dried in others.

 

[heirloomgal]

Now that I think of it I was in a cafe with a friend a few weeks ago who was drinking a chilled canned beverage; it was a *healthy* cafe in that they serve mostly alternative options, sugar-free, gluten-free etc. I haven't had a drink from a can beverage since I was probably a child, and was curious because it was apparently a drink with no sugar & no caffeine. Could it have any taste? It was absolutely delicious with ice, it believe it was called 'Zevia'. Not sure what else was in there for such a good taste.

 

[heirloomgal]

And I'd be able to grow things like wingbeans with no problem.

Aha, so you can't grow them here afterall. I see Richter's offering one that they claim is early at 75 days, day length neutral and I wondered because I thought to try it. But I didn't feel confident that claim was reliable.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Now that I think of it I was in a cafe with a friend a few weeks ago who was drinking a chilled canned beverage; it was a *healthy* cafe in that they serve mostly alternative options, sugar-free, gluten-free etc. I haven't had a drink from a can beverage since I was probably a child, and was curious because it was apparently a drink with no sugar & no caffeine. Could it have any taste? It was absolutely delicious with ice, it believe it was called 'Zevia'. Not sure what else was in there for such a good taste.

I find Zevia a little weak for my taste (I just got a few cans of the blood orange earl grey iced tea today). Maybe the soda ones are better.

One zero I do like is something called Shaka, a sort of bottled herbal tea of from Hawaii. I think there are four flavors (though I only like the pineapple mint, the lemon rose has a sort of woody aftertaste, and, as I don't like mango or guava to being with, those are no goes.)

There's also some sort of lemon mint iced green tea that is good, will have to check the brand name when I got up to my room.

Swoon is another zero beverage, though, again most of them are super weak and flavorless (the only okay one is the sweet tea, since they add enough monk fruit to that so that it actually does taste sort of sweet, as opposed to just watery.)

Aha, so you can't grow them here afterall. I see Richter's offering one that they claim is early at 75 days, day length neutral and I wondered because I thought to try it. But I didn't feel confident that claim was reliable.

I can only report on my own results, which have not been good (I'm not sure if I have even gotten any to germinate here.) @Zeedman has also been trying, and, according to him both the Ricter's and the Hunan Wing Bean that Baker creek offers, while slightly better on photoperiod, STILL aren't ready by the time the frost hits.

I notice my seed guy in Ghana now has mixed wing bean seeds in large amounts, maybe I get some of his when I do my next order and see if any of those work. Though I really don't seen any in the picture that would meet my other requirement for my wing beans (as I am interested in also using the mature seeds to make some tofu like product I have heard of , my wing bean of choice has to be both productive here AND have as pale a shade of tan seeds as possible, to minimize the amount of stuff I'll have to leach out to make them taste OK.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Ckecked the brand name of the lemon mint one, it's Takum.

 

[Zeedman]

Aha, so you can't grow them here afterall. I see Richter's offering one that they claim is early at 75 days, day length neutral and I wondered because I thought to try it. But I didn't feel confident that claim was reliable.

What I noticed about winged beans is that they appear to be very susceptible to cool weather; after a couple nights where the temp dropped under 50 F. the vines began to yellow. They were very slow to recover even when temps warmed. It has surprised me how many vegetables of tropical origin thrive in my short, sometimes cool summers (such as limas, most yardlong beans, and some tropical cucurbits) but sadly, winged beans do not appear to be one of those.

Which should not be interpreted as meaning that I have stopped searching for a winged bean that can grow here. I only found a hyacinth bean that could give me seed a few years ago, and finally found a luffa that succeeded here only last year. I'm trialing 3 more hyacinth beans & another luffa this year... hopefully at least one of those proves to tolerate my climate. Trying peanuts this year too.

 

[heirloomgal]

What I noticed about winged beans is that they appear to be very susceptible to cool weather; after a couple nights where the temp dropped under 50 F. the vines began to yellow. They were very slow to recover even when temps warmed. It has surprised me how many vegetables of tropical origin thrive in my short, sometimes cool summers (such as limas, most yardlong beans, and some tropical cucurbits) but sadly, winged beans do not appear to be one of those.

Which should not be interpreted as meaning that I have stopped searching for a winged bean that can grow here. I only found a hyacinth bean that could give me seed a few years ago, and finally found a luffa that succeeded here only last year. I'm trialing 3 more hyacinth beans & another luffa this year... hopefully at least one of those proves to tolerate my climate. Trying peanuts this year too.

Which peanut @Zeedman?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'm surprised you had trouble with peanuts. I grew them a few years ago with no problem, and I was just using ones I picked up at an ethnic grocery store. My only real complain was that they shrunk a little going throgh the cycle (the ones I got back were ordinary size, but the ones I had planted I had hand selected to be HUGE, like circus peanut size (the marshmallow candy, not the actual peanuts you'd get at the circus.)

I've tried to get the wild peanut (Arachis pintoi) for here as well, but no one seems to have it in a convenient form for me i.e. seeds I can sit on and plant when the time is right, as opposed to pre grown plants that have to go into the ground more or less as soon as I get them (I think I read somewhere that, while A. pintoi will grow quite nicely as a cover crop here in the US, it tends not to flower or set seed, so that may be why.)
And I agree about the not giving up, I assumed rice beans could not flower this far north for five or six years before I lucked into the kind that could. A senna strain that can do it is probably only a matter of time (I'm already close, like with the river hemp, I just need one that matures about 30-45 days earlier...…..)