Jurassic Plants & More Unusual Plants

It was no good, once I'd ordered that Blue Sausage Fruit I knew I'd have to have more unusual edibles growing here. 

I bought it from Jurassic plants and I dropped them an email to say it arrive in good condition (I believe in writing to praise as well as complain to companies - otherwise how do they know they're doing something right?) and they decide to send me a free tree, a Dawn Recdwood, which will go great in an area I'm planning to plant up with a few different conifers. This is a tree I would have got if I'd ordered through their website rather than eBay.

Superbly Packaged

I decided to have another look at what else they'd got for sale. I picked out the "Chinese Prickly Ash" or "Szechuan Pepper" it's more likely to be know as. This will produce seeds that can be used like traditional black pepper, so should be good for our self sufficient goals! Also on there (pointed out by Sandie's Patch) is a plant called a "Japanese Bitter Orange". Not a true citrus but it's meant to have a strong scent, a fruit you can make maralade with, and it is completely frost tolerant. Worth a shot!When they sent the plants they also sent me two more free trees! A couple of Chinese Crab Apples (different Latin name to our common ones so I'll be interested to see what they produce). I've potted all these trees up and they're growing really well, situated between my greenhouses. I just need to plan where to plant them in the future.I've been really impressed with Jurassic Plants and if you're interested in something a little different it might be worth having a look, plants come well packaged, good instructions and some plant food to keep them going and it's always nice to support a small nursery.

Blue Sausage Fruit Tree

James Wong has got a lot to answer for in our house at the moment. After reading his book I've been doing my research to try and buy a few things from it, so we've got a few things to eat that aren't "run of the mill".

 The Blue Sausage Fruit or Dead Mans Fingers seemed to fit the bill perfectly. They have edible fruit in the autumn that looks like a blue broad bean pod filled with edible flesh. I found a small plant on eBay quite cheap and order it.

It came from Jurassic Plants and was really well packaged with good instructions and even some plant food for the first six months. If I'd ordered it straight from their web site I would have gotten a free tree as well but never mind - there's always next time!

I potted the plant on into a much bigger pot to give it room to grow, the tree isn't huge but buying it small like this saves me some money as I'll just grow it on until it's big enough to be planted in the ground and not need too much attention. 

Only time will tell whether this tree is worth growing or not but I'm intrigued to say the least. If the fruit isn't tasty it still has attractive foliage and might make a nice tree in the garden.

Anyone else got any interesting and usual fruits I can look at growing over here in our climate (we get quite heavy frosts in the winter)?