The Unknown Oval Carosello

One of my Italian friends named Angelo provided me with a carosello variety that was labeled “unknown”. Until 2018, I never had time to grow it out and I was becoming ever more curious as to what it could be. So, next to my Medium Long of Taratino and My Medium Long of Barese I grew an unknown variety.

August 6th

June 9th, 2018.

June 12th

June 16th

June 23rd

I started all three around late June/Early July and grew it out until about September 8th. I believe that the Carosello Barese was the first to grow out its fruit, followed by the Unknown variety, then the Medium Long of Tarantino. This meant that I had just enough time to determine what the Medium Long of Barese was before the bees had already pollinated the female flowers of the unknown variety.

June 27th

 
Keeping this variety pure when growing it next to two other varieties was quite a challenge. It required some isolation and quite a bit of effort. I’ll go into how I isolated this variety a little more in another post.

August 1st

  
Most of the fruit started out light colored with minimal, if any, dark coloring. I would definitely say that this variety was partially photosensitive in that the dark green color on the fruit develops faster when exposed to sun than when the carosello matures in the shade.

The flavor of this variety is incredibly juicy and tender. I would definitely compare it to the Carosello Barese. I would say it is much like the Carosello Barese except that it is much more colorful.

August 10th

September 3rd

September 8th, 2018.

So in short, this is something of a mystery Carosello that tastes similar to a Carosello Barese but looks like a mix between a splotched Mandurian Round and a Carosello Massafrese.

Corn in the Fertile Garden

Though I do not grow corn myself, I do quite enjoy seeing it grown and eating it. My friend who owns the fertile garden enjoys summer garden so much that he will occasionally grow it.

The principal reason why I do not grow corn is because I cannot save high quality seed from small plots of land, like I can do with some other seed varieties. This is why I prefer to grow plants to seed that experience very low pressures from inbreeding depression. The smaller the plants and the less inbreeding depression they experience, the less you need to continue to produce seed for future use.

Carosello Mezzo Lungo Barese

In 2018 I was looking for a couple of new varieties. I was interested to see if there was any huge difference between the very ancient variety of the Carosello Medium Long of Barese that my friend Angelo provided to me and the usual variety offered by seed companies.

 

The seed for this variety had been given to me back in 2013 and was probably old seed then. Fortunately, the seed did germinate (slowly) but took off as soon as planted in the fertile garden. Apparently - incredibly fertile soil has the capacity to bring about miracles with older seed. Perhaps it has to do with the healthy bacteria in the soil. In any case, everything grew quite quickly until I had to pull the plant.

Why pull the plant you ask? It is because I was having to isolate the carosello from the unknown carosello variety and the Medium Long of Tarantino. With having to go back to the garden almost every morning to ensure female flower purity, I was getting worn out. I had already grown a Mezzo Lungo Barese and honestly – this carosello can be a little too crisp for some of us. So, in short, the Medium Long of Barese vines were culled to make room for some more interesting carosello varieties.