Unusual Veg

Hi all,
Can you recommend any unusual, but tasty fruit and veg I can grow next year?
I tried yellow tomatoes this year so year next I'm growin green, orange, and black, cape gooseberry was great too, but I'll plant it out of the way!
I'm not all that experienced (3 years) so I'm Looking forward to reading the replies

Unusual is in the eye of the beholder. Many of the Italian heirloom veggies that I grow are considered "unusual" to those unacquainted with them.

Trompocino squash - many were amazed at how long they grew:
http://davesgarden.com/pf/go/56773/index.html

The Padana Winter Squash is pretty with its alternating orange & green ribs:
http://tinyurl.com/y8sxrg

Seeds for the African Horned Melon (aka Jelly Melon or Kiwano) are readily available. It's a type of cucumber:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horned_melon

Tigger melons are pretty:
http://www.seedsavers.org/prodinfo.asp?number=1370

Eggplants come in a wide variety of colours and shapes, so you might consider an unusual eggplant collection. Baker Creek carries seed for 32 varieties of eggplant. Unfortunately, they don't have photos for all of them, so you'll need to google on the variety name to find a picture.
http://www.rareseeds.com/catlisting.php?cat=16

Hope that gives you some food for thought to get you started.
:)

What is unusual to us may be common to you. I would love to get my hands on some of Hazera's melons. http://www.hazera.co.il/catalog/Public/Level/Level/Level/CropFamily.aspx?Family_ID=16&Catalogue_ID=1&Lang_ID=1 or squash from Zeraim Gedera http://www.zeraimgedera.com/

Th squash and melon look amazing, I'll add these to my list!
Just grew black beautyeggplant this year, what a crop, got plans for more unusual eggplant this year,
thanks for the info garden_mermaid
any more ideas out there??

If you haven't purchased your eggplant seeds yet, perhaps we should chat some more???

Our Listada di Gandia purple and white striped eggplant was very attractive, very productive and very tasty. The plant knows it has pretty fruit, so it protects it with some vicious thorns on the cap. Be careful when harvesting.

Perhaps if you browse the various seed sites, you'll see something you like and can then track it down locally:
http://www.felcopruners.net/
http://www.growitalian.com/
http://www.rareseeds.com/

A swiss site devoted to squash:
http://www.kcb-samen.ch/kcbhtml/story.html

biscombe.

I think i purchased 12 or so varieties of eggplant this year (Sequee and i lost control). If you want it and she doesn't have it, i might...

As for more ideas... I am on my husband's computer right now, tomorrow i will post a link to a sight that is trying to preserve and re-introduce many native american varieties. I have purchased many "rare" or "endangered" squash varieties from them. They claim (truthfully as far as i can tell) to be the only source in the world for many of their varieties.

Oh, and i grew Tigger Melons this year, they were very pretty! Unfortunately i found them sweet but bland if that makes any sense. They didn't have much melon flavor to me just sweetness. We live in the desert though and that does some odd things, to melons in particular.

Melissa

Thanks all! Hey Seequee you are sending me loads already!! with my eggplants striped of Gandia, black beauty and the wonderful sounding eggplants Sequee is sending I think I'm ok!
The site sounds great tombaak, dangerous though ;-))))))