Unusual Plants for a Vegetable Garden

Pick an unusual plant to bring a different look to a vegetable garden along with the regular fare. They will bring a different taste to your meal. Change is good sometimes and trying out new plants is just good fun.

Mountain spinach(Atriplex hortensis) is also known as orach, orache, French spinach and arrach. The plant produces flower stalks from 2 to 6 feet tall. Leaves are triangle or arrowhead shapes, 5 to 7 inches long and either green, yellow-green, red or purple with matching colored stems. The plant does well in poor, sandy, salty or alkaline soils and is best planted in full sun. This is a cool season crop. In zones 8b to 11, plant orach in the winter. Any further north, plant it in the spring. The plant can survive a mild drought or frost. The leaves will be ready within 30 to 60 days from planting. Take them off as you need them and cook like you would spinach. The leaves are also used in salads.

Corn salad(Valerianella locusta) is also known as fetticus, mache, lamb's lettuce, feldsalat and nut lettuce. The plant has spoon shaped leaves up to 6 inches long that grow in a rosette pattern no more than 1 foot across. Tiny, silver-blue flowers grow in small clusters at the top of stalks 1 foot tall. Corn salad is another cool weather crop, planted in the winter in the south and in the spring in the north. Harvest the leaves when the flower stalk appears or before, but not after. Plant in full sun or partial shade and just water when the soil becomes dry. Corn salad can winter over as far north as zone 5. Just give it a good, straw mulch. It will go to seed when the temperatures reach 80 degrees F. Plant 2 to 4 weeks before the last expected frost in the spring or about the same time as the first frost in the fall. The leaves are juicy with a sweet, nutty flavor the leaves are used in green salads, potato salad and in omelets.

Pawpaw,(Asimina triloba) is also known as Indiana banana and Hoosier banana. The plant is a tree that grows up to 25 feet tall with leaves up to 1 foot long that turn brown or gold in the fall. Maroon flowers measure from 1 to 2 inches across and bloom in the spring before the leaves put in their appearance. The flowers are followed by green fruits measuring 3 to 6 inches long growing in clusters of 2 to 9. The fruit tastes like a combination of banana and pineapple and can weight as much as 1 pound. Plant in a rich, well-drained soil and in filtered sun or shade for the first two years. Once it is established, it can take full sun. The tree is hardy in USDA zones 5 through 9.