His daughter, Dr Joanna Bourke-Martignoni, has emailed her parents to say flower sprouts are the "trippiest veg experience I've had since the Broccoflower". Max says that Joanna, who lives in Neyruz, Switzerland, is a long-time vegetarian and she stir-fried the flower sprouts with garlic, chillies and sunflower seeds.

Flower sprouts came about using traditional plant-breeding methods. The result, after 15 years of work by Tozer Seeds in Surrey, UK, is a cross between a brussels sprout and a kale with dark reddish/purple rosettes up the stem and a frilly-leafed green top. In the northern hemisphere they grow from November to March.

After taste trials, flower sprouts were released in the UK in December 2012. They were launched in the US (where they are called kalettes), the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia in autumn 2013.

Hannah Parker, marketing executive with Tozer Seeds, says flower sprouts will be available from late May in Coles supermarkets in Australia.

Griffin Seeds in Victoria, owned by agronomist Bruno Tigani, is breeding hybrid parsnips, celery and brassicas as well as dragon's tongue wild rocket. He says because flower sprouts have a very narrow window for best agronomic results, plants are being grown for retail home garden nurseries for sale to kitchen gardeners. Initially plants will be available in Victoria only, at Masters and Bunnings but, in 2016, they will be sold in other states.

At a Woden fruit shop four young Filipino women were buying chokos for cooking, but I was scrabbling around for one with a protruding seed. Have any readers in Canberra or the south coast ever tried growing chokos, with or without success? (email: bodenparsons@bigpond.com)

My brother-in-law has a choko vine at Bundeena, in the Royal National Park south of Sydney and, although deer eat the stems that weave through his fence, the plant returns each year.

Choko or chayote (Sechium edule) comes from tropical America, but it was the traditional vine to shade the Aussie outdoor dunny or chook shed. We ate them boiled, sliced, with butter and pepper and salt. The seed tastes nutty.

My four garden trellises are covered with climbers so, in exchange for feeding the neighbours' cat, I sought a "rented space" on a sunny wall outside their kitchen where the choko could climb with vigour.  It needs protection from frost and hot winds, and plenty of water. Before planting, the choko was placed on a kitchen bench and watched daily as it shot from the seed like a praying mantis.

Compost was added to my raised bed and, in early December, the choko was half-buried with the leafy shoot end above soil level. It is now three metres tall with numerous stems and lots of heart-shaped/triangular leaves. The roots have been given probiotic liquid fertilizer GoGo Juice mixed in water. No flowers yet and the growing season is four months.

Chokos are a popular Louisana Creole vegetable and in Reunion, where they are called chou chou, they are served au gratin, baked in a cheese sauce. In South Indian cuisine the choko is served as chow chow Bangalore brinjal and in the Phillipines chokos are added to soups. In Indonesia and Thailand the edible leaves and tendrils are served in salads or stir-fries and, in Taiwan, the vegetable is known as dragon's whiskers.

Prickles on the skin of choko mean wear gloves when handling and peel under cold water, particularly as they have a "tacky" sap.

New potatoes

On December 17 (Canberra artist Julie Ryder's productive kitchen garden) I suggested a spud experiment where a single seed potato, we thought a Kipfler, was planted in a large pot. A month after the flowers fell, and bottom foliage started to yellow, it was time for "bandicooting" (lifting out by hand) baby potatoes nearest to the surface.

It was like digging for gold so my entire plant was pulled with 14 potatoes in the composty soil. Too eager, because there was a larger harvest to follow from small potatoes attached to the roots, some with umbilical cords still attached, and new leaves forming on the stems. The taste of the crop was melt-in-the-mouth but what is the variety?

Susan Parsons is a Canberra writer.