Showing posts with label Vegetables. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Vegetables. Show all posts

Friday 8 March 2024

Asparagus seed germination

I wrote in an earlier post about saving asparagus seed from my purple asparagus plants.  It was a bit of work, but the result was worth the effort.  

I got a decen number of seed, then got my daughter to count out 100 seeds, I soaked them, then planted them, and recorded the results.  

Planting one hundred seeds makes estimating the germination percentage both easy and reasonably reliable.  I don't like estimating percentage of germination with the number of seed any lower than this if possible, and higher numbers are more work to count.  

Asparagus seedlings - all pretty similar at this stage

I dried the seed.  Then prior to planting I soaked seed overnight.  You don't need to soak asparagus seed, but it makes me feel like I am helping so I sometimes soak it.  I have read mixed things about cold wet stratification of asparagus seed, I have never tried that and it appears that it is not needed in fresh seed.


100 asparagus seeds soaked   
Seeds planted        06/02/2024     Day 0
Germinated           18/02/2024     Day 12
Percent germinated: 98% - the remaining two seeds may still germinate later

Two weeks to germinate isn't bad.  Asparagus seed can take a bit longer to germinate if conditions aren't right, they can also germinate a little faster if they are on a heat mat.  

I grew seeds from a purple asparagus that was open pollinated.  The seedlings all look similar, which indicates there may not be too much genetic variation, and hopefully it has not crossed with a green variety.  

I didn't pay too much attention to the colour of the first spears, and will have to separate these and grow them out to see how many are purple.  Any green ones will have 50% purple genetics, so should still be much sweeter than most green varieties.  Any that have crossed should also display hybrid vigour and be more productive.  It is exciting to see what comes of this lot.  

Asparagus germination test

I wrote earlier that from bought seed I usually get low germination, and I have always thought that was due to the age of the seed.  Given that my fresh seed had such high germination I think this is likely the case.  
Asparagus seedlings divided 


Now I know I can save seed from my purple asparagus.  If many are crossed with green, I can take extra precautions next year to ensure only purple asparagus is able to pollinate my female purple asparagus plants.  

Hopefully this means I will no longer have to buy expensive purple asparagus seed and can grow my own.


Friday 23 February 2024

Zolotoe serdtse tomato

This year I grew a tomato called Zolotoe serdtse (золотое сердце), this roughly translates to something along the lines of golden heart, or heart of gold.  I am not entirely certain how to spell this in English, Zolotoe or Zolotoye or Zoloto, I have seen all these spellings used in different places. 

This is a semi determinate tomato variety, that produces very early in the season.  It produces shorter plants, perhaps two feet tall, with regular leaf that are slightly rugrose.  The plant itself looks quite weak compared to many other varieties.  Even though the plant looks weak, it is very productive.

Zolotoe serdtse - persimmon coloured fruits

Zolotoe serdtse is an old commercial variety from Russia, apparently it was bred by Agrifirm Ailita/Aelita.  

I grow a few heirloom Russian tomatoes.  I like old Russian varieties, and I like Russian commercial varieties, often they were bred to be useful rather than to look good.  Often Russian varieties tend to produce well under harsh conditions, and they tend to have a lot of flavour.  

I grow everything organically, so need my plants to have a high level of resistance to pests and diseases, the old Russian tomatoes often have high resistance to pests and disease.  

Zolotoye serdtse tomatoes

Unlike some heirlooms, Zolotoe serdtse doesn't crack.  It is a firmer tomato that does not bruise and seems to store for a remarkably long time.  Many tomatoes I grow cannot even be transported to work when ripe without damage as they are so soft, but this one holds well to transport as its flesh is firm and dense, yet it still stays remarkably tender.  I can't really explain this well.

This tomato has lovely uniform colour.  Unlike many heirlooms it does not have green shoulders.  My camera seemed to have a lot of trouble with the colour, most of the pictures looked too yellow.  

When I put a red tomato, an a yellow jar lid in the field of view the colour seemed to be a lot closer to real life, and stayed like this for a few photos.  In real life they look remarkably similar to persimmons. 

Zolotoe serdtse tomatoes

The fruit is remarkably uniform in colour, but not in size or shape.  Most fruits are about the size of a goose egg, but I realise most people would never have seen a goose egg so this comparison is not useful.  

Probably a more useful comparison would be to say the tomatoes are similar is colour and size to a small persimmon.  They weigh about 80-200 grams each, with most being towards the larger end of this scale.  They are quite beautiful, the colour is uniform throughout the entire fruit.  I really love the colour of these.  

The shape is not entirely uniform, most seemed round and a bit flattened.  This stops them rolling off my bench, while still being large enough and round enough that they are good for slicing.  I quite like the size and shape.  

Zolotoe serdtse fruit size

This year many of my tomato varieties did not produce any fruit, or produced very little fruit, but this one was an exception.  For me it was highly productive, the small plants were covered in loads of beautiful large fruit that looks like persimmons.  While I don't grow tomatoes for looks, these are really beautiful.  

Another thing I liked about Zolotoe serdtse is that it is very disease resistant.  I get a bit of late blight that affects tomatoes here, this variety showed no signs of disease.  I am told that they are cold resistant, and can survive light frosts with minimal damage.  I am also told that they can produce fruit under cold cloudy conditions that would prevent fruit set in most tomato varieties.  This is important to me as it means it will produce for me in cooler years.

In poor soils and with irregular watering, much like many larger tomatoes, it does suffer from blossom end rot.  While frustrating, this can be prevented by regular watering and growing in fertile soils.  Normally the top half of the fruit is unaffected, to the damage can be cut off and the top part still eaten.

Uniform colour the entire way through - my photos don't do justice

The fruit can be a little drier or more dense than most of the varieties I grow, making it great for cooking or for paste.  It also means it can be sliced onto sandwiches in the morning and the bread is not too soggy at lunch time.  I prefer tomatoes with a bit more seeds/gel than Zolotoe serdtse has, but after growing this one I can see the benefits of having a slightly drier tomato with fewer seeds.  

I have read the "medium sized orange golden fruits are superb, meaty and fully-flavoured unlike some other yellow tomatoes".  I agree, they are superb, and meaty, and have considerably more flavour than most yellow tomatoes.  I did find them to have a milder flavour than some tomato varieties I grow. 

They certainly have a richer flavour than anything I can get from the markets, and they taste better than a home grown 'roma'.  People often talk about home grown produce tasting better than store bought, then for soem inexplicable reason they tend to plant and grow insipid varieties.  While no the most intensely flavoured tomato I grow, Zolotoe serdtse are probably tastier than most home grown tomatoes that people grow.  

Some of the tomatoes I grew this year

I saved seed from these and plan to grow them again.  They taste good, they produced early, they were very productive, and they look incredible.  

Zolotoe serdtse and Tommy Toe tomatoes

Monday 19 February 2024

Igloo tomatoes

One of my first attempts at breeding tomatoes is also one of my best.  This project began when I was in high school where I had limited access to germplasm and limited knowledge of genetics and breeding.  

I was aiming to breed a tasty, highly productive, early ripening tomato that did not need much water.  Igloo tomatoes tick all of these boxes and more.  

Igloo tomatoes produce red and round tomatoes, they are small salad size tomato, but large enough to be sliced onto sandwiches.  They are remarkably uniform in size, each weighing slightly under 50 grams.

Igloo tomatoes weight almost 50g each

Igloo tomato plants are stocky compact things only growing to around 1 foot tall, sometimes reaching under 2 feet tall.  Being smaller plants means the space can be used for other things, it also means they are not draining nutrients from the soil merely to produce length of stem.  They do require staking as the amount of fruit they produce is too much even for stout little trunks to hold without some support.  

Being small plants does not mean they are less productive, incredibly Igloo tomatoes are one of the most productive tomatoes I grow.  

Each truss has around 16 flowers, sometimes a few more or a few less.  Each plant produces several hundred red round fruit over the season, for me when crammed in too close to other tomato plants they usually around 12kg of ripe fruit.  This doesn't sound like a lot, but 12 kg of fruit produced on a plant that is only a foot tall and one foot wide is spectacular.  

Igloo tomatoes

For me they are always among the first tomatoes to ripen.  Last time I recorded days, it took 147 days from planting the seed until I picked the first ripe fruit.  This is incredibly quick.  They produce the bulk of fruit before other varieties (including most cherry tomatoes) even start to ripen.  

It is probably best described as semi-determinate.  It does produce a lot of fruit early in the season when no other tomatoes are ripe, and it produces fewer fruits towards the end of the season when many larger and later varieties are ripening.  Even though it is producing less towards the later end of the season, igloo tomatoes always keep producing up until a killing frost.  I have never tried to overwinter them, so don't know how long they can live if protected.

The fruit has a little elbow on the stem, making picking ripe fruit easy an fast.  I think they have the uniform ripening gene, which means the fruit are very evenly red.  I am not a huge fan of the uniform ripening gene, and much prefer fruit with green shoulders, but it was prevalent in the germplasm I had access to at the time I was developing this variety.  

Igloo tomato

Igloo tomatoes never crack or split even if watering is erratic.  I have never had any blossom end rot on these even when other varieties planted next to them are besotted in blossom end rot.  Never cracking, and never succumbing to blossom end rot, means there is not a lot of wasted fruit.

Not only are they among the first to ripen in my garden, they are also one of the few varieties that consistently provide large yields.  Some years the conditions are a bit harsh and other varieties don't really crop, igloo tomatoes always produce about 12 kg of ripe fruit for me.  

Igloo tomatoes produce large seeds, meaning that seed saving is simple.  Larger seeds also tend to remain viable for longer than small seeded varieties.  While seed is always best when relatively fresh, I have grown seed from this that was over 20 years old and had been stored dry in a cupboard.  

igloo tomatoes - not all are ripe enough

I find that these taste ok when not quite ripe enough, but taste great if left to ripen fully.  I tend to allow them to ripen on the plant, but they can be picked early and ripened on the bench.  Like every tomato, they taste best if not put in the fridge.  

I have no idea how well this variety copes with humid coastal conditions, all I know is it performs well for me and produces large amounts of food even with a short growing season.

I have donated seeds of Igloo tomato to a few different community seed saving groups (and encouraged them to distribute the seeds among their members) as it does have the potential to feed a lot of people using a small amount of space.  I hoped to get some feedback about how they perform under different conditions in people's backyards.  Unfortunately I have never heard anything from any of them, and don't know if they have even planted the seeds.  I hope that at least some of them shared the seeds among their members.  

While I am biased because I developed this variety, I think it is a great tomato.  It tastes good, looks nice, provides a huge crop on a small plant, never suffers diseases, ripens early, and is simple to save seeds from.  

If you are interested in buying seed for Igloo tomatoes I list them on my for sale page along with various other vegetable seeds, perennial vegetable plants, and edible herbs.  


Monday 12 February 2024

Mulberry tree for food security

A mulberry tree is like a vegetable garden on a trunk.  

Mulberry trees are well known for producing delicious berries.  What many people do not realise is that mulberry trees also produce abundant and surprisingly nutritious leafy greens.  

I have cooked and eaten mulberry leaves, they taste nice and can be used like spinach or silverbeet.  I have only cooked eaten young leaves.  I imagine older leaves would be too fibrous and I can't imagine raw leaves to taste all that nice.   

Mulberry leaf as a vegetable

While there is little mention of them on the internet, mulberry leaves are eaten as a vegetable in several places such as Cuba and Latin America.    

Mulberry trees produce well with little (or no) irrigation, can thrive in many climates from frosty temperate areas to the tropics, thrive on many different soil types, they have few significant pests, and they produce well on many different soil types.  Mulberries are remarkable trees that are drastically underutilised for food security, they are excellent fodder for livestock, and are a great vegetable for people.  

The taste of cooked mulberry leaves is ok, not bitter or objectionable, but also not remarkable.  I have started to see people sharing recipes using mulberry leaves to wrap lamb or chicken or rice or tofu, similar to how people use grape leaves.  Given how nutritious and abundant they are I think mulberry leaves deserve to be eaten more commonly.

Stuffed mulberry leaves - image from https://maryamsculinarywonders.blogspot.com/2019/04/1234-freekeh-stuffed-mulberry-leaves.html 

Mulberry leaves typically contain more than triple the amount of protein found in many vegetables, and under normal circumstances mulberry trees can produce up to double the amount of protein per acre compared to soy.  

If you don't already have a mulberry tree, you should consider growing one.  Mulberry trees are one of the simplest fruit trees to grow, they grow very fast, and mulberry leaf is the easiest vegetable for beginners to grow and the most productive vegetable for beginners to grow.  

Cutting grown mulberry tree

A study was undertaken comparing the nutritional value of fresh leaves from six different genotypes of mulberry.  Even though there is a bit of a range of values between cultivars it demonstrates that mulberry leaves are far more nutritious than most vegetables we commonly eat.   

I have summarised their findings below:

  • Moisture 71.13 to 76.68% 
  • Protein 4.72 to 9.96% (most vegetables have about 2% or less) 
  • Ash 4.26 to 5.32% (ash is the mineral content: calcium, phosphorus, magnesium, zinc, etc) 
  • Neutral Detergent Fiber 8.15 to 11.32%  
  • Fat 0.64 to 1.51% 
  • Carbohydrates 8.01 to 13.42% 
  • Energy 69 to 86 kcal/100 g 
  • Vitamin C 160 to 280 mg/100 g (oranges have 50 mg)
  • Beta-carotene 10,000 to 14,688 mcg/100 g (carrots have 8,729 mcg)
  • Iron 4.70-10.36 mg/100 g (spinach has 2.6 mg)
  • Zinc 0.22-1.12 mg/100 g 
  • Calcium 380-786 mg/100 g (full fat cow milk has about 120 mg)

Recently a desktop review was conducted comparing several options for households producing all their own protein when there are future disruptions to supply chains.  Their conclusions were unrealistic at best, but they made me think about back yard food production.  

We have a good size vegetable garden, but it is nowhere near large enough to supply our household with all our protein requirements.  We also have a few egg laying chickens, and some fruit trees, including a white mulberry (Morus alba) and a white shahtoot mulberry.  

Following on from the growing protein study linked to above, and given how nutritious mulberry leaves are, I wondered how many mulberry trees I would need to produce all my protein for a year.  So, out of curiosity I crunched some numbers similar to the desktop review.  The results were interesting.  

Mulberry leaf stuffed with chicken - image from https://www.greenprophet.com/2013/05/stuffed-mulberry-leaves-recipe/

A lot of research has been conducted into mulberry tree leaves as they (mulberry leaves, not the berries) are commercially important due to silkworm farming.  I used this research to work out how much protein a mulberry tree can produce, and how many trees would be required for a year supply of protein.  

Often, about 9,600 mulberry trees are grown per hectare or almost 4,000 per acre, this works out to just under one per sqm.  Yields of fresh leaves range from 3.2–21 tons/acre/year (8–52 tons/hectare/year) with most in the 8–12 tons/acre/year (20–30 tons/hectare/year).  This means that on average, each year roughly 2.5kg of leaves are harvested per mulberry tree.  

The protein in mulberry leaves ranges from 15-35% dry weight, or 4.72-9.96% of the fresh weight.  I used 6.5% for the protein content of fresh leaves in my calculations, which is lower than the average.  That works out to 162.5 grams of protein per tree being produced from leaves alone, meaning a one year supply of protein for one person can be provided by the leaves harvested from approximately 112 mulberry trees.   

Mulberry leaves are abundant vegetables

To give this perspective, commercially potatoes yield about 4kg per sqm, providing about 80 grams of protein per sqm.  That’s about 228 sqm of growing area for potatoes per person if relying solely on potatoes to meet protein requirements.  Mulberry trees would only use about 53% of the total land that would be required to grow potatoes and produce the same amount of protein.  As I said earlier, a mulberry tree is like a vegetable garden on a trunk.  

Soy is a legume crop that is known for producing high amounts of protein per acre.  Soy is said to produce up to 513,066 grams of protein per acre.  

Around 4,000 mulberry trees are planted per acre, each yielding 2.5kg of leaves with 6.5% (or more) protein fresh weight.  This produces over 650,000 g protein per acre, which is significantly more protein per acre than soy.  

If growing a mulberry variety with 10% protein in fresh leaves it would produce double the amount of protein that soy can produce per acre.  Mulberry trees produce more protein per acre than soy.  

White mulberry tree outside my back fence 

Comparing the water requirements is a bit more difficult and far less accurate, so you have to take the following 'with a grain of salt'.  

Not surprisingly, I could not find any publications directly comparing the water requirements of mulberry and soy.  According to Agriculture Victoria (https://agriculture.vic.gov.au/crops-and-horticulture/grains-pulses-and-cereals/growing-grains-pulses-and-cereals/growing-soybean-in-victoria), soy requires an average of 2.6 Megaliters of water per acre.  According to the Rural Industries Research and Development (https://agrifutures.com.au/wp-content/uploads/publications/00-056.pdf) mulberry tree plantations require less than 1.3 Megaliters per acre.  

Using the above calculations it appears that mulberry trees could produce about double the amount of protein per acre compared to soy, while using half the irrigation.  Mulberry trees can produce good amounts of protein per acre in marginal areas where soy will not produce any crop because the climate and soils and climate are not right for soy.  

Who knew that mulberry leaves can produce that much much more protein per acre that soy!  

Mulberry cutting

Does all of this mean I am suggesting that people should grow 112 mulberry trees each to produce all their protein needs?  Absolutely not.  

Even though it would be really cool, replacing the lawn with an orchard of heavily coppiced mulberry trees isn’t something that people would want to do.  

While growing this many mulberry trees may be possible in some yards, and would take less time and effort to look after than the average lawn of the same size, I don’t think it is realistic, and I'm not planning on doing that.  

10cm tall to 6 feet tall in under 5 months

I can’t imagine what a miserable existence it would be having to eat about a kilogram of mulberry leaves each and every day to meet your protein requirements.  I don't know what you would do over winter while the deciduous trees are leafless.  

I am not suggesting you plant 2 or 3 mulberry trees, and eat nothing but mulberry leaves for a few weeks each year.  I am also not suggesting that you should grow a mulberry and regularly incorporate its leaves in your meals over the growing months. 

Mulberry leaf plantation
Mulberry leaf plantation. Image by Nahid Hossain, Creative Commons 4.0 license

What I am suggesting is growing a mulberry tree, or several mulberry trees, is a good idea if you have the space.  It will add to your food security even if you never eat the leaves.  

The estimated leaf yields above are based on coppiced trees that are regularly harvested for silkworm production.  When grown like this there are no berries, just leaves.  

Most backyard mulberry trees would not grow like this, most would be allowed to produce berries and develop into large trees with a single trunk or as a multi trunked tree.  As the trees grow larger, they produce increasing yields of both berries and leaves.  

The FAO mentions very old trees in China producing 400kg of berries and 225kg of fresh leaves in a year.  What an incredible sight they must be!  

My mulberry producing food from otherwise unused land

A mulberry tree would increase your food security.  Each year you can eat some berries (they are utterly delicious), or you can grow the tree in your chicken run and let your chickens eat them, if your chickens eat all the berries you will save a little money on chicken feed and help your chickens be a little healthier.  Or you can let the birds take care of them for you.  From time to time the leaves can be eaten, or made into tea, or just left alone to allow the tree to gain energy and grow larger.  

During times of financial hardship, you hear regular stories of vegetable gardens being raided and produce being stolen (and/or destroyed).  While people would probably take some berries, it is unlikely during an emergency that your neighbours would take any leaves from your mulberry tree as they would not recognise them as being edible or as being high in protein and vitamins.  This adds to your food security as you would have a tree full of leaves to cook if you ran low on everything else.  You could use the leaves like spinach, except mulberry leaves are far more nutritious.  

Fresh mulberry leaves can grow large

Chickens and other small animals enjoy eating mulberry leaves.  When hard times hit, you may be unable to buy food for chickens or other little animals .  You certainly don't want them to starve.  The mulberry tree can be used to reduce the amount of bought feed you are using, to get you through until you are able to buy animal feed again.  This also adds to your food security.  

Mulberry trees appear to be the ultimate perennial vegetable.  Most people who have eaten the leaves cooked enjoyed them, some felt neutral about them, so far I have never met anyone who has disliked them.  People tend not to eat mulberry leaves as a vegetable often due to the cultural taboo surrounding eating tree leaves.  For some reason we have been told to view tree leaves as a famine food rather than a sustainable and easy to grow perennial vegetable.  There is nothing wrong with eating healthy organic leaves from mulberry trees.  

Having a nice-looking shade tree in your yard, that is able to provide you with delicious berries in season, and a few handfuls of vegetable leaves if needed, seems like a sensible thing to do.  If you can get past the idea of tree leaves being famine food, all the better! 


Friday 18 August 2023

Leafy vegetable comparison

I have trouble growing spinach over summer, and I'm not great with lettuce, so trialed a few leafy vegetables that may be able to replace them.  It is currently winter here, which is not the greatest time to grow much, but it is the only time that there is space in the vegetable garden, so winter is when I ran my little trial.  

While most are very common, I have not grown a lot of these vegetables before, so this comparison was a lot of fun.  I will need to set aside some space to grow these in the summer garden, and see how they hold up to the heat as well as see how they cope with cabbage white butterflies.  They all survived frosts and temperatures down to -8C with no observable damage.  

These seeds were all planted in the garden on 09/04/2023, two months later (11/06/2023) I took the comparison picture below.  

From left to right: Spinach, Yakuna savoy, Senposai, Tokyo Bekana, Hon Tsai Tai, Bok Choy 

Various leaf vegetables, seed planted on the same day

In August, four months after planting the seeds, I took the comparison photo below.  All of the plants other than spinach are flowering.  Some leaves on each plant are far larger than the ones in the photo, while others are smaller, I tried to pick an average sized leaf from each variety.  The senposai for example has several massive leaves per plant, a bunch of leaves similar to the photo, and a few smaller leaves.

I didn't remember to include a tape measure in the photos.  To give you some idea of perspective, the spinach leaf is about the same size in both photos but with a longer stalk.   

From left to right are: Spinach, Yakuna savoy, Senposai, Tokyo Bekana, Hon Tsai Tai, Bok Choy.

Leafy vegetable comparison
Comparison after four months of growth

I grew spinach partly to act as something to compare the other leaves against, and partly because it only seems to do well here over the cooler months.

I will ty to briefly compare these, going from left to right in the photo.

Spinach Oriental Summer Jade: inconsistent growth rates between individual plants, some plants were large while others were tiny.  On average it seems to be a productive variety but takes up a fair amount of garden space.  This spinach has arrow shaped leaves that from a distance look a lot like sorrel.  Flat leaves don't trap dirt as much as regular crinkled spinach.  This taste like regular spinach (ie it's nice enough) and is meant to hold up well to summer heat.  

Yakuna savoy: this one took time to grow, and is growing far too slowly for my liking.  The plants were still all tiny while all the other vegetables had become rather large.  These are meant to be very resistant of extreme temperatures.  I didn't like the taste, it is mildly spicy and I found it a bit too cabbagy/mustardy/something for my liking.  It never got large as it bolted to flower as soon as the weather warmed.  They may do better if planted earlier or growing in warmer weather.  

Senposai: this is a cross between komatsuna and cabbage.  Fast growing plants and can become rather large.  These plants are vigorous growers, take up a lot of room, and produce a lot of food.  I don't like this (or any cabbage) raw, but it makes a good cabbage substitute when cooked.  I plan to keep growing this as it is one of my favourites.  

Tokyo Bekana: this is an Asian cabbage that looks like lettuce.  I had hoped it would taste more like lettuce than it does.  In a mixed salad this would do ok, and it can be used any way a cabbage would be used.  These fast growing plants are not slowed down by frosts and look really nice in the garden.  They don't take much room to grow a lot of these.  I plan to grow more of these.  

Hon Tsai Tai: this is a flowering choy that is grown for broccoli like flower heads, and the leaves are usually only really used as a secondary crop which is a waste.  The leaves taste almost sweet, and I prefer them to most of the others listed here.  These grew very fast, and look a bit raggedy and messy in the garden.  This one flowered through the depths of winter and was very pretty when in flower.  I like how sweet these are, and plan to grow more.

Baby Bok Choy: this is one of the prettiest looking vegetables I have grown.  These taste ok raw, and became sweet after hit by some frosts.  These are good cooked and I am told they are great in fermented foods such as sauerkraut and kimchi.  These grow very fast and I love how they look in the garden.  These are compact and productive plants, a lot of plants can be grown in a very small area.  I need to grow more bok choy.  At this stage I'm not sure which variety is best for my needs.  Perhaps one day I will grow out a bunch of types and see which I prefer.

Tokyo bekana and Senposai 

Bok Choy and Spinach

All of the above leafy vegetables grew reasonably well over winter.  All of them are meant to be very nutritious and all are far more nutritious than lettuce.  

All of them would be great as green manure, and all of them are adored by chickens and are very nutritious, meaning if you don't get around to eating them or if you dislike their taste they would certainly not be wasted.  

It didn't take long for them to grow large

Not much space is wasted 

Leaf vegetable comparison 

All of them, other than senposai, are commonly available in Australia.  They all grow easily from seed.  All are simple enough to save seed from if you isolate them to prevent crossing.  Or you could let them cross, and plant out mixed up seed.  


Saturday 22 July 2023

Solanum acroscopicum - wild potato relative

I sometimes grow potatoes from true seeds, each seed grown potato is unique and can create a completely new potato variety.  I do a little potato breeding, and have developed some nice varieties that taste better than anything you can buy from the markets and better than any variety you have grown at home.  

Supermarket potatoes, and most heirloom potatoes, are tetraploids.  I grow some tetraploids, which yield high but lack any great flavour (I grow some tetraploids which taste almost as good as a diploid).  

I grow some diploid potatoes, which taste incredible and often have remarkable colouration, but often tend to have lower yields and smaller tubers (some of my lines are yielding higher than some tetraploids).  

As well as these, I also grow a wild potato, Solanum acroscopicum.  I don't think it has a common name.  This potato is very rare, and not many people in Australia grow Solanum acroscopicum.

Solanum acroscopicum flower
Solanum acroscopicum flower 

Solanum acroscopicum produces tubers with white skin and white flesh, mostly round or oblong, and small to medium size.  The skin is smooth and simple to clean (or simple to peel, if you are so inclined).  The taste is good but about as uninteresting as regular potatoes.  

Small yields of unimpressive tasting potatoes that don't have vivid colours makes it sound like it is not worth growing.  Even so, this variety has a few features that make it well worth growing.  It is great in smaller spaces, the plant looks nice, and its certainly worth considering in breeding projects due to its disease resistance.  

Solanum acroscopicum grows large, pretty flowers.  This plant would not look out of place in a flower garden.  I keep forgetting to take photos when it is covered in blooms (or when there are other flowers I can hold next to it for comparison).  Growing food in a flower garden is a good idea.  

Solanum acroscopicum flowers
Solanum acroscopicum flowers

The plant looks like a potato plant, but with pointier leaves.  The leaves mostly point upwards, which helps keep the plant looking compact.  It grows rather short, neat/compact plants that do not tend to sprawl unless they are shaded.  Being such a compact and neat plant also makes it look good in a flower garden even when not in flower.  

It dumps all of the tubers very closely together directly under the plant, and very close to the soil surface.  It is a good idea to hill soil around them as they grow to prevent light getting to the tubers.  You don't have to search for the tubers, they are all together rather neatly.  Unlike most potato varieties where you always miss some when harvesting, it is simple to get every tuber as they are all so close together.  

Solanum acroscopicum tubers
Solanum acroscopicum - tubers get a little larger than this

Being such a compact plant, and dumping the tubers so close together and close to the soil surface, make it better suited to growing in pots than any potato variety I have ever grown.  Even growing in soil in the vegetable patch, there is far less digging as the tubers are all right there, all bunched together.

I am told that this species is much lower in toxic alkaloids than regular potatoes.  I have never eaten them when green, and do not encourage people to do this.  I only include the next sentence for informational purposes.  I have been told that it is so low in solanine that this can be eaten when green, when regular potatoes are highly toxic and would cause severe stomach cramps and intense vomiting.  This is important: if you try eating them green please be careful, please only eat a little at first to see how you go, and if it tastes bitter stop eating.  I don't eat them green, and I don't encourage other people to eat them green, but if you are going to do this please be careful.

Small potato good for growing in pots
Solanum acroscopicum growing in a pot of soil

Solanum acroscopicum has genetic resistance to many potato diseases and tolerates light frost better than many other potato varieties.  From what I have read, this species seems unaffected by things that would destroy regular potatoes.  If you are into potato breeding, this variety would be useful to consider due to its disease resistance.  

I grow everything organically, so am interesting in plants that are resistant to pests and diseases.  This makes it suitable to breeding, or for growing in the flower garden where you may not look after it all that well.  

Wild potato
Wild potato

I have grown these for a few years and have tried to share them with some enthusiasts who I have encouraged to share them further.  Hopefully they don't go locally extinct in Australia.  

I have reached a point where I will sell some seed tubers for growing (not true seed) through my for sale page when they are in season.  I am not sure what the rules are in each state for sending potatoes from NSW for growing, so you may need to look this up if you want any.  If you are in a state that does not allow them, I may be able to send ware potatoes for eating.  Again, not really sure about this so you would need to look up what is allowable in your state.


Friday 14 July 2023

Days to harvest Hon Tsai Tai

I grew some purple stemmed Hon Tsai Tai (Brassica rapa) this year and recorded the number of days from planting the seed until harvest.  

Recording the days from planting the seed until harvest is far more useful for home gardeners than the ambiguous 'days to maturity' which has different meanings depending on who is recording it and is often starts being counted from transplants of an unknown age.  

Hon tsai tai is a nutritious vegetable that can be harvested as a leaf vegetable, or for flower stalks that are used in a similar way to broccoli, so I recorded the days from seed to both.  

This quick growing vegetable is sometimes called flowering choy as it is a type of bok choy that is usually grown for the edible flower stalks.  The leaves taste like bok choy, but are a bit sweet.  I have eaten the flower stalks raw when the first flowers were just opening, and they tasted really nice.  I expected some of the stalk to be a bit fibrous at this stage, but they were tender and perfect.  

I grew this during the winter, night temperatures have dropped to -8C and the days have mostly been overcast and cold.  If grown in spring, I think the days to harvest would probably have been a lot less.   

Hon Tsai Tai (Brassica rapa) - purple stem 

Planted in garden      09/04/2023   Day 0
Germinate                 14/04/2023   Day 5
Baby leaf                  14/05/2023    Day 35
Flower stalks            01/07/2023    Day 83

Hon Tsai Tai - larger leaf
Baby bok choy and Hon Tsai Tai - baby leaf

Hon Tsai Tai and Bok Choy can and will cross pollinate, which means care must be taken if saving seed.  It should also be possible to intentionally cross the two, do a little culling/back crossing/rouging out of undesirable plants, and develop a vivid purple stemmed bok choy.  

I have a few breeding projects on at the moment, add while I would love to develop a tightly packed purple stemmed bok choy I am not sure if I have the space, time, or energy to put into another project.  Then again, I could leave a few of each to flower, cross at random, and self seed, then cull heavily...  

Have a look at my Guide on Days to Vegetable Harvest to see a full list of days to harvest various vegetables and berries in my garden.  As above, I recorded days from planting the seed until harvesting.


Tuesday 11 July 2023

Tearless onions in Australia

'Tearless' onions are now available in Australia 

A quote from the paper - Production and characterization of tearless and non-pungent onion | Scientific Reports (nature.com):

We believe that these tearless, non-pungent onions not only will wipe tears away from the kitchen and the food processing facilities, but also will add a new dimension to the enjoyment of onion recipes around the world.

What fun.  I wonder if you could eat these raw like an apple.  I also wonder if the taste would be watered down significantly.  The US has been selling tearless onions since 2018, I am not sure if it is the same as these or if they have a different variety.  Perhaps someone from the US can comment and let me know if tearless onions are worth trying.  

These 'tearless onions' were not Genetically Modified.  These were bred from inducing a mutation, and then selecting and culling and self pollinating until the new variety bred true to type.  

To summarise how these tearless onions were bred:

  • They irradiated seeds from “Super-Kitamomiji” onions and planted 1,500 seeds.  From these they selected the best 9 plants and culled the rest. 
  • These were allowed to flower and set seed.  From these the researchers planted about 350 seeds.  Selected the best 18 plants and culled the rest. 
  • These were allowed to flower and set seed.  From these they planted 1,078 seeds.  Selected the best 2 plants and culled the rest.
  • These two plants were allowed to flower and set seed.  They appear to breed true to type.  
  • They now have 2 lines of tearless onions that are being produced commercially.

As you can see, breeding a new anything takes large numbers, and several generations.  

One variety of tearless onions is to be sold in NSW and VIC Woolworths starting tomorrow!  I have no idea how they taste, the news says they are sweeter than regular onions.  

I want to get some, plant them, collect seed, and…you can probably guess the rest, plant breeding is a slippery slope. 

Tearless onions Australia
Tearless onions - not my photo
Edit to add: after writing this post I bought some tearless onions and got to taste them.  I wrote a blog post of what tearless onions taste like.  I also grew some of these onions, allowed them to flower.  Once the seed is ready I plan to offer it on my for sale page for home gardeners who would like to grow tearless onions themselves.  


Saturday 1 July 2023

How tall does asparagus grow

Asparagus grows much larger than you probably think.  Unless you grow asparagus yourself, you probably can't imagine how tall it can get.

I remember years ago reading about asparagus and being surprised to see the stated heights it reaches as being much shorter than what I have seen.  

Many places on the internet, including wikipedia, state it can reach 1.5 m (about 5 feet) tall, other places (such as Better Homes and Gardens) say it reaches 12 inches tall.  Asparagus grows far taller than this.  

I found this rather perplexing.  At the time we had orchards, and in them some asparagus grew that was much taller than any of those.  This asparagus had been there since before we moved in, given its location, presumably seed had been deposited by a bird.  We eventually moved from there and left the asparagus behind.  

Since moving to town I have started growing asparagus again.  I grow a few types of asparagus now.  The most delicious also happens to be the largest and most vigorous variety.  It is an heirloom variety called Precoce d'Argenteuil.  From seed it only takes about 6 months to reach 1 meter tall, and it produces the best tasting spears of any asparagus variety I have eaten.  

After harvesting some spears this year, I left a few spears to feather out so they can feed the crown for the following year.  I could not help but notice how tall this asparagus was.  I wanted to measure it and photograph it, but didn't want to take another frond so I let it grow for the remainder of the season.

Now that winter is upon us my asparagus plants have gone dormant.  This year they have gone dormant nice and early.  I was removing the old growth and decided to measure a frond.  There were a number of fronds on my plants that were around this tall.  

Asparagus frond and tape measure

The one in the photo reached around 282cm, or about 9 feet 2 inches.  That is pretty big for asparagus.  Certainly a lot larger than most places say they will grow.  

I don't look after my asparagus anywhere near as much as I should.  My plants are not pampered, they have competition from other plants, and I have not made any attempt to make them larger.  I certainly haven't done any breeding work with them.  

The strange thing is, I don't think this is the tallest asparagus I have seen.  I am pretty sure some of the ones we had at the orchard were much larger than this.     

Asparagus frond reached over 280cm

Not a great photo

It makes me wonder why so many garden books etc say the height of asparagus is so much shorter than they will actually reach.  As a gardener, these wildly inaccurate estimates can cause problems when planning what to grow where.  

Presumably the person writing about it does not have much experience growing asparagus.  Perhaps (as I suspect is the case with Better Homes and Gardens) the author has never grown asparagus themselves, and has probably never even seen asparagus plants growing.  This kind of thing is very common with gardening books and permaculture books, and the misinformation is often repeated by companies who sell plants (that have been grown by a contractor), and I find it rather frustrating.  When gardening books make up nonsense, or re-spout these inaccuracies, what else have they gotten wrong?

Some of my 6 month old asparagus plants

I only sell plants and seeds that I have grown and propagated myself.  While the information I provide is vastly different than you will find in books, it is based on actual experience.  I can tell you what does or does not work for me in my garden.  

Asparagus plants are dioecious, meaning that some plants are male while other plants are females.  Female asparagus plants tend to produce larger yields than male.  Female asparagus plants also tend to produce fatter, longer, higher quality spears.  Commercial asparagus farms only grow male plants (or super male plants) so they don't have to worry about seeds falling and choking the beds with volunteer seedlings.  Commercial asparagus farms usually grow low quality asparagus varieties, they really can't compare to the delicious asparagus varieties you can grow at home.  

New asparagus fronds already over 6 feet tall

I grow a few different varieties of asparagus.  Some are purple, some are green, all can produce tender white asparagus.  At this stage they are all seed grown, from seed purchased from reputable businesses to ensure the correct variety rather than a mystery cross.  

Late winter each year if I have any extra asparagus crowns I will offer them through my for sale page.  I sell a few different perennial vegetable plants, some berry plants, as well as some heirloom vegetable seeds.

Wednesday 28 June 2023

Days to maturity Bok Choy

This year, as well as growing the micro dwarf Hedou Bok Choy, I grew a baby bok choy and recorded its days from planting a seed until harvest.  These baby bok choy plants still grew incredibly fast, and they produced a more substantial plant than Hedou.  

I like the look of bok choy, I don't know why but there is something about it that just looks right.  Bok choy is very fast growing, extremely nutritious, simple to grow, incredibly forgiving of harsh conditions or poor soil, yet it is not really grown or eaten very much here.  It is sold in supermarkets, so maybe things are starting to change.  

Bok choy seems to cope well with cold weather when little else will grow.  This bok choy has survived frozen soil and temperatures down to -8C with only minor damage.  Being compact plants you can plant a lot in a small space, and planting new seeds every few weeks guarantees a long harvest.

Bok Choy could be harvested at a tiny plant stage, or larger plant stage so I recorded both dates.  Being in Australia, all dates are written Day/Month/Year.  

Baby Bok Choy (Brassica rapa)
Planted in garden      09/04/2023   Day 0
Germinate                 14/04/2023   Day 5
Tiny plants                17/05/2023   Day 38
Large plants              04/06/2023   Day 56

Baby Bok Choy - larger plants


Baby Bok Choy - tiny plants are edible

To see a full list of vegetable days to maturity recorded in my garden from planting seed until harvest, please click here.