That which you sow, you shall also reap...

When you sow corn seeds, you harvest corn. When you plant green bean seeds, you get to harvest green beans...lots of them! (that is, as long as the Japanese beetles don't destroy the plants before they can produce.)

There has only been one time when I planted something- pattypan squash- and harvested something else- not sure what it was but it was NOT pattypan squash. I think I got some contaminated seeds or mislabeled at the very least.

There have also been times when I planted something and nothing grew- okra last year- and times when I planted and the seeds germinated but the result produced nothing- kajari melons two years ago.

But the point of this post is planting, growing, and harvesting things that are unfamiliar to you, new, completely different than you've ever grown before. Did you like what you grew? Was it as hard/easy as you thought it would be? Did it end up being something you'd grow again?

For me it was Jelly Melons and purple tomatillos. I'd never grown either and I learned a great deal by growing both. For those of you who are unfamiliar with these plants, let me explain a little.

Jelly melons are an African cucumber breed. They grow about the size of a baking potato and have vicious thorns covering them. You must be very careful when handling them because they will make you bleed. The inside is the consistency of jello and looks very much like lime jello with white seeds in it. The flavor is cucumber in nature but sweeter and a little bit tangy.

My youngest daughter loved them and ate several. She wanted to grow them again but she's off at college now and the way those things grew- took over about a quarter of my garden area and I only planted 3 seeds. They were crazy invasive and I was pulling up volunteers the next spring that tried coming back on their own. That was one thing I learned- be careful what you plant and do your best to pick up any dead fall so it doesn't come back the next year.

The tomatillos were slow to take off but once they did, they produced like crazy! We had buckets of them off of 3 plants and the sad thing is, none of us liked them. We gave some away to a neighbor who asked for them but no one else wanted them and they ended up in the compost pile. I still find volunteers of those growing around here. My guess is birds dropped some of the seeds they picked out of the compost.

So, have you planted anything odd or out of your experience? How'd it go? Share with me!