For the horticultural road less traveled, you can take a swing at growing Black Goji Berry, or Lycium ruthenicum. Originally discovered in the higher inner Himalayas, Lycium ruthenicum holds a storied past as an ancient medicinal fruit, which is still cultivated for its benefits in traditional medicine practices. It makes a strong case for its potential healing powers, as a plant that thrives in dry climates, with a good hardiness against cold conditions.

As Lycium ruthenicum matures, its growth pattern will emerge with copious branches stemming from the original plant, flowering in the spring, and fruiting in the late summer. It fruits with purple-black berries to be eaten raw, cooked, or dried into teas and tisanes. 

Like most passionfruit vines, Passiflora ligularis is a vigorously growing thing of beauty. When passionfruit season nears, intrepid gardeners eagerly await the zany, amoeba-looking flowers that Passiflora ligularis produces as a sign of tropical euphoria to come. Native to Latin American countries like Bolivia, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru, Passiflora ligularis is as bold as fruiting vines get. Once you see the flower and taste the yellow passionfruit, you will never forget it.

Passiflora ligularis will thrive in a tropical highland forest climate, where the weather is neither too hot nor too cold. When grown beside other plants and vegetation, it has a tendency for aggressive overgrowth. With a little encouragement and the right conditions, Passiflora ligularis will add a charming sweetness to your garden’s tropical fruit harvest.

Jerusalem artichoke (Helianthus tubersosus) is a plant with keen survival instincts. These towering, classic sunflower look-alikes have been harvested for years. But it’s the hearty underground tubers of Helianthus tuberosus that have intrigued naturalist chefs, who say the taste is similar to artichokes. Nowadays, Jerusalem artichoke plants can be found primarily in the Eastern United States where they were once grown as vegetable crops, but are now more commonly found thriving in old fields, steambanks, railroads, and more.

Growing Jerusalem artichoke is best done without a lot of coddling. As a plant that naturally has the tendency to spread colonies of rhizomes where they aren’t intentionally planted, you might consider keeping it in a container, where it will thrive and regenerate itself for bounties of old-time veggies.

The Loofah gourd plant (Luffa aegyptiaca) is an annual fruiting vine plant that will scrub what you thought you knew about plant powers. The vine produces dark, ornamental, squash-like leaves, fluttering yellow blossoms, and — the main event — loads of fruit. The young gourds are totally edible and can be eaten raw, cooked, or even pickled when they're still quite small. They're very popular in the Caribbean, where they are eaten like cucumbers.

However, patience is certainly rewarded when you play the waiting game with the loofah plant. You’ll need to wait for the large gourds to mature and dry on the vine.  But once dry, the skin will peel away perfectly. The gourd can then be dried for a day or two in the sun to harden. Slice into pieces or use whole. And voila! You have a perfect bathing or cleaning loofah! One plant can yield enough sponges for a lifetime. That's a lotta Loofahs!  But you can bask in the glow of a job well done, with plenty of leftovers to spare for thoughtful and useful gifts.

At first blush, the Cassabanana plant seems stranger than fiction: It is not a banana; rather, it is in the Cucurbitaceae (cucumber) family. Sicana odorifera is also commonly known as casbanan, sikana, puttigel and musk cucumber— among others —but none of its given names seem quite right. This plant is a perennial fruiting vine that can also be cultivated as a long-season annual. It bears enormous, 2-foot-long fruit, with a hard shell that can range in color from orange-red, to maroon, to jet-black, to dark purple. The inside is made up of a sweet, yellow fruit similar to cantaloupe.

It’s no wonder that this fruit is grown, cherished, and sometimes placed on church altars in Latin American countries where it was first documented: The sheer volume and strength of Sicana odorifera seems like an act of God! To that point, it has a number of uses in medicinal and culinary traditions, with a place in recipes for beverages, soups, jams, and more. To grow Cassabanana, you will need a strong trellis for it to climb. Once well-established, it will produce an abundance of fruit that will be ready for harvest towards the end of the summer. Harvested fruit will keep for several months if it is kept in dry conditions and out of the sun.

Jackbean, is a climbing perennial legume commonly cultivated as an annual that produces foot-long bean pods! Canavalia ensiformis will produce 1-inch long flowers that are pink, purple, or white. The trademark ivory-colored beans of the plant should be harvested before complete maturation, with anywhere from the first 80 to 120 days of growth. They are about the size of a quarter, and were often eaten as a vegetable by native tribes in droughted regions of Arizona and Mexico. If eaten fully mature, they must be cooked before eating. Jackbean is native to Central and South America, where the bean pods are traditionally used for animal fodder and human nutrition, especially in Brazil where it is called feijão-de-porco. It is also the source of concanavalin A, a lectin used in research to better understand soil pathology, our immune systems, cancer cells, and more.

It is called by a list of common names that almost match its list of potential uses: Chickasaw lima bean, Brazilian broad bean, coffee bean, ensiform bean, pig bean, horse bean, mole bean, go-ta-ki, overlook bean, Pearson bean, watanka, raba de burro, and more. It has a lot in common with sword bean, Canvalia gladiata, but grows as a vine instead of a bush.