Strange Edmonton Vegetables

If you have ever seen strange looking vegetables before and wondered where they came from, you are not alone. These types of vegetables can grow because of abiotic and biotic reasons. The abiotic reasons might be related to the weather and biotic could simply be due to living organisms, such as insects and diseases.

There are some vegetables that are common on prairies and here is a list of some of them:

Fussed Cucumbers

These are more common than you might realize. They sometimes develop a fruit that in the shape of a crescent moon with another cucumber developing on the inner surface of the fruit. This creates a fusion of two fruit conjoined. There are some varieties of cucumbers that are more prone to this type of fusion. This starts to develop after pollination due to a connection of fruit ovaries.  It is eatable.

Hairy Carrots

There are some occasions when a smooth carrot becomes hairy. The taproots create a fusion of fine, white hairs that make them look odd. Hairy roots develop because of too much soil nitrogen due to excessive manure being applied to it. Carrots require fertilizer but only a small amount to actually produce the results that are most common.

Knobby Potatoes

The smooth tubers quickly start developing small nodules that will eventually erupt directly from the skin’s surface. This will then create an interesting amount of appendages. These odd potatoes develop because the potatoes went through a drought period that was then followed by a lot of soil moisture. Its tubers react fast to take in the water, however, this won’t increase the girth, knobby offshoots develop. They can be eaten but the knobs break easily. This leads to the potato rotting if they are stored. Russet Burbank is one type of prairie potato that is prone to developing knobby potatoes. In this case, the prairie potato should consistently have moist soil so that they grow smooth and knob-free. Please take not that there is no difference in the taste in the knob-free potatoes and the knobby potatoes. Both of them look the same once they have been smashed.

Bald Headed Vegetables

We’ve mentioned a hairy vegetable but there are also some that are bald. Bald plants don’t fully develop to maturity. If seeds are not handled properly this will cause cracked seed coats that damage tiny yet sensitive growing point inside the seed. The most common vegetables that are prone to being bald is string beans, cauliflower, and cabbage.

Stunted Corn

When the temperature is too cold it will limit the height and width of the plant. However, transported corn will fail to grow more than a foot or two no matter how much sunlight, fertilizer, or rainfall it receives. It is because of root restriction in the corns cell that its growth becomes stunted. It has to mature early to grow to maximum capacity.

Collecting odd and weird vegetables is something that many people have fun doing, Edmonton restaurants have even begun to use them .