Brazilian spinach Alternanthera sissoo

Over the years I have heard a lot of great things about Brazilian spinach.  Brazilian spinach is a perennial leaf vegetable that is commonly grown in the tropics.  It has many common names, including Sissoo Spinach, Samba Lettuce, Sambu Lettuce, and Poor Man's Spinach. 

I am a little confused over the taxonomy of this plant.  It carries the binomial name of Alternanthera sissoo, but is thought to be the domesticated form of Alternanthera sessilis.  

Brazilian spinach produces small uninteresting spiky white flowers that look suspiciously like khaki weed.  For some reason this vegetable never produces any seed.  

It is meant to be propagated rather simply by cuttings.  It is said to grow fast, and develop into an edible ground cover in the right conditions. 

Brazillian spinach getting large before winter

I have been looking for a spinach alternative that performs well in the heat.  True spinach (Spinacia oleracea) does not do well in the heat over summer here, yet frustratingly summertime is when we tend to eat spinach.  

Brazilian spinach is used as a warm season alternative to true spinach, and is grown in tropical places where true spinach does not cope.  

From what I am told, this plant likes heat, does not cope with frosts, it spreads outwards and forms a mound, and it is said to thrive in part shade.  This is meant to grow best in tropical and sub-tropical places, and not do so well in temperate climates such as the one I am in.

Brazilian spinach plant

A year or so ago I got a small and healthy Brazilian spinach plant.  I tried to grow this in my greenhouse and placed it where it would receive a lot of light.  It never really grew lager over summer, and then it died over winter.  The plant was certainly healthy when it arrived, so the problem must have been how I attempted to grow it.  Had it been larger once winter hit I think this possibly would have survived as it had a fair bit of protection.

This year I decided to give Brazilian spinach another try, and I got another small plant in spring.  

This was smaller than the first, but looked just as healthy.  I planted it in a large pot of soil, and this time I kept it in shade.  From there I largely forgot about it, I kept watering it but paid it little attention.  

While I was not watching, this plant put on a lot of growth.  The leaves are far larger, the stems are longer, and it is looking pretty healthy. 

The plant did not grow as much as I had hoped, but it was certainly growing.  I had not rotated the pot, so the growth was uneven.  Still, it was a lot larger than when it arrived. 

I had hoped this plant would have grown longer, and branched a bit more by now.  Perhaps this is one of those plants that needs to be harvested in order to put on more growth.  To be fair, it is a lot larger, and is growing quite well, I just hoped it would have spread a lot more than it has. 

Large crinkly edible leaves

True spinach does fine here over cooler months, and performs poorly over summer when I want to eat spinach.  I really want to grow a spinach substitute over summer, and prefer to grow somethingperennial so I don't have to bother with seedlings.  

Things commonly grown as spinach substitutes such as silverbeet don't tend to be overly substitutable, and often have too much of a distinct flavour, other things have a weird texture.  I want something that lacks any real flavour of its own.  

I have eaten Brazillian leaves raw a few times, they taste ok and weren't fibrous.  I tried them cooked once, they were much like real spinach, didn't have much taste of their own and weren't slimy or weird.  This is exactly what I was hoping for from this leaf vegetable. 

I am told that this plant is simple to grow from cuttings.  I took a small cutting, and planted this in soil in a small pot of soil in the greenhouse.  This had a lot of shade and was near the parent plant.  It did not take this cutting long before it wilted badly.  From there the cutting lost all its leaves and then died.  

I took another cutting and put it on the kitchen window sill. This looked ok for a day, then wilted badly.  Perhaps it would have performed better had I removed some of the leaves.  The leaves picked up the following day.  It kind of started to grow roots, got little bumps on the stem, then stopped.  

This cutting has been sitting in water for a few months now, the leaves are far larger, but other than that it is not doing much.  I should plant it in soil and see if it survives.

Brazil spinach cutting in water

While the photo looks dark, it does get some light here

I took another cutting in late summer and planted this in soil.  After my first failed attempt I had low hopes.  This cutting has been there for about a month, and looks much the same.  I have this cutting in a pot of soil with a tomato cutting that I am planning on over wintering.  Sometimes I group things to overwinter, then in spring I divide the survivors. 

Presumably the Brazillian spinach cutting is doing well.  I am guessing it should have died by now if it wasn't growing roots.  Then again, perhaps the soil is damp enough that it is able to survive.  Only time will tell.

I don't rotate the pot so it grew unevenly

Winter and frosts are just around the corner.  I would really like to over winter this plant so I am trying to let it grow large and not mess with it too much.  

Larger plants tend to insulate themselves and have a better chance of surviving the cold than tiny plants.  I am well outside its preferred climate, and I expect it to get damage from the cold, but really hope to keep it alive.  

Brazilian spinach is a perennial vegetable that I think would be perfect in places with milder winters.  My winters are a bit harsh, and get down to -10C most years, and I am not yet sure what my chances are of overwintering this successfully.  If I can get it through winter, I would like to grow more of it.  

If I do grow more Brazilian spinach I will try to list extra plants for sale.  Given how this does not love frosts I am guessing I would only be selling over warmer months. 

Aloe vera from seed

I have had my aloe vera for a long time.  It survives the heat of summer with no problems, it doesn't mind the cold frosts if slightly protected, and it divides well.  

Most people know of aloe vera, and plenty of people have grown it.  It's useful for taking the heat out of sunburns, and I am told it has a few other uses.  I think it is somewhat edible, but I have no interest in eating this plant.  

The plant itself looks nice, it has bright green leaves with a few white spots, and the leaf edges have interesting teeth that aren't too spikey.  I have a clump of aloe vera plants that thrives on the neglect I provide it.  For the past ten or so years, at least one plant in my aloe vera clump has flowered. 

Aloe vera seedlings

The same seedlings a little larger - note different growth rates

Most flowers abort, but a few times they have produced seed pods.  The seed pods disappear over time, and I forget about them.

Last year it made a seed pod that I kept an eye on.  I have never grown aloe vera from seed before, so thought I would give it a try.  I watched this seed pod for a while, waiting for it to ripen, then forgot about it.  When I remembered it again it was splitting open and had lost 1/3 of the seeds.

Aloe vera seed capsule

Aloe vera dry fruit with seeds

The seed pod has three cavities with seeds.  By the time I got around to doing anything with the seed pod one of the sections of seeds had opened and the seeds had already fallen out.

I broke open the dry fruit and saved all the seeds I could.  

Aloe vera seeds are small and dry.  There were around 11 seeds that looked possibly viable, many of them looked under-developed.  The rest were obviously empty and could not grow.  

Aloe vera seeds

Aloe vera seeds, small and dry

I didn't know what to do with Aloe vera seeds, so I looked on the internet.  Reddit tells me aloe vera is a sterile clone that cannot produce seed.  While often aggressive in their claims, these people are incorrect.  Aloe vera can and does set seed.  To be honest, I don't know why I bothered reading Reddit, I knew it is the blind leading the blind, and many of the comments there are computer generated, but I digress.

I could not find any reference to anyone on the internet growing aloe vera from seed.  I found a few people talking about growing other species of aloe from seed, their experiences ranged from simple to near impossible depending on the species.  

I had some seeds, and was guessing what to do, so I soaked them in water.  The little seeds have wings that trap a bubble of air, meaning they all float.  I carefully pushed the air bubble out so they could sink and soak up water through more of their surface being in contact with the water.  

The seeds still kind of floated, so I left them longer than I normally would.  I ended up soaking the seeds in water for a week.  

Aloe vera seeds soaking in water

After a week of soaking in water I planted the aloe vera seeds in potting mix on a seed flat, and placed this on a heat mat.  I had tomato seeds and things like that also in the seed flat, so it was no extra effort watering the aloe seeds. 

From here the seeds sat for 11 days.  I didn't have high hopes that any would germinate, but had nothing to lose by trying.  Then one seed germinated.  At first it was a green dot in the potting soil, but that was still very exciting.

Aloe vera germinating - it's hard to see in this photo

After a little time I ended up with three tiny aloe vera seedlings germinating.  Three out of eleven isn't great, but they cost me nothing, I am growing them for no reason other than I have never grown them from seed before, and having three means I will get to learn how much genetic diversity these plants carry, so I count this as a win. 

I wasn't sure what to expect from these seedlings.  I didn't know if they would display any noticeable genetic diversity, and I didn't know how fast or slow they would grow.  This is all new to me.

The Aloe vera seedlings grew relatively slowly after germinating.  It didn't take too long before the tiny leaves looked much like the leaves of the parent plant. 

Aloe vera seedlings

Three Aloe vera seedlings getting larger

The three aloe vera seedlings were crowded together, so I decided to replant into a small pot so they had space to develop.  

At this early stage there was already some noticeable diversity.  One plant was larger and more vigorous than the other two.  One looked a bit shriveled and off coloured, almost like it was bruised, and I worried it was going to rot.  The third one was smaller than the other two.

Quite often succulents and cacti need a lot of water when they are seedlings, and very little water when they grow larger.  Giving a lot of water when tiny brings with it the risk of rotting.  I bought special succulent potting mix, and planted the seedlings into this.  I hoped this would help them not to rot as it is meant to drain well.  

After the seedlings were divided I planted them in the same pot, and they continued to grow slowly.  They produced more leaves, and grew taller, and look like tiny versions of the parent plant.  

As they got older one always looked a bit brownish and was always looking a bit shriveled.  It will be interesting to see what this plant looks like when fully grown.  I think this is most likely genetic diversity, and while healthy it may always look like this.  

Aloe vera seedlings grew slowly

Aloe vera three months after germinating

One always looks shriveled and a bit off coloured

You can see in the photos, even at this small size there is a distinct difference between the three genetically distinct seedlings. 

One is green and more vigorous than the others, it does not have the little teeth that older plants have but I think these will come in as it grows.  One is kind of brown sometimes and other times mostly greenish, and always looks slightly bruised and a little shrivelled, but grows well.  One is green, and at this stage it is smaller and less vigorous.  This smaller one lacks the teeth that are present on the leaf edges, I am not sure if this will change as it gets larger. 

Seed grown Aloe vera

Aloe vera produces flowers that range in colour from yellow to red depending on the individual plant.  I am told that most clones produce yellow flowers.  My variety produces orange flowers.  The flowers are produced on tall stalks, and open sequentially over a long period of time.  

I see small birds such as Eastern thornbills at the flowers.  Occasionally I see some insects, but I doubt many are the right shape to reach the nectar.  The only time I see honey bees on aloe vera flowers is if there is nothing else flowering, and they tend to chew holes in the side of the flower to steal nectar rather than acting as a potential pollinator.

Almost every aloe vera flower in my garden aborts without producing fruit.  I assume we don't have the right pollinators for them and I have tried pollinating them, but they still mostly fail and abort.  Other than the three seedlings, I only have this one clone, and it is likely that this clone is largely self infertile and needs just the right conditions to be able to set seed.  This year my patch sent up numerous flower stalks, and only one seed pod appears to be setting.

Given how reluctant aloe vera is to set seed in my garden, I doubt I will ever put much effort into breeding with it.  I will grow out seedlings, and see if anything interesting comes of that, but unless I get a clone that sets seed easily I won't be making many deliberate crosses as the chance that my efforts will bear fruit are pretty low. 

Aloe vera flower stalk

Aloe vera flowers

Aloe vera is typically grown by divisions.  When grown well, this plant tends to make a few divisions naturally.  Unlike many succulents, it is not likely to grow new plants from a leaf cutting.  

One thing aloe vera sometimes does, is send up a stalk that has a baby plant on the end.  I haven't seen this often.  Presumably this is a way that the plant can spread a little further than by divisions.  

These pups can be potted up to produce another plant.  I tend to ignore them, they eventually touch the ground and send down roots by themselves.

Aloe vera growing a pup on a stalk

Aloe vera is usually propagated by division.  While growing divisions isn't overly slow, it doesn't tend to make a lot of divisions.  

I have one large plant where the growing point was damaged.  This plant looked like it would not survive winter, then in spring it started to grow.  This plant then grew multiple growing points.

Over time these will get larger, and should be able to be divided into larger plants.  As you can see in the photos below, this one plant looks like it may end up with a dozen or so growing points, each could be divided and potted up to produce a new plant.

Multiple growing points on this plant

Aloe vera dividing

To help me keep track of the amount of time it took to grow these Aloe vera seedlings: 

Soaked for a week, then planted on heat mat 13/09/2025.  

First germinate 24/09/2025.  Three seedlings grew.  

Transplanted into pot 18/10/2025.

Aloe vera seedlings growing larger

Seed grown aloe vera 

Aloe vera seedlings 

I sell small, bare rooted aloe vera plants through my for sale blog page.  At this stage I am only selling divisions from my typical plants that I have been growing for years.  In the future, if any seedlings show any promise, I will try to list some of them for sale too. 

Growing blueberry plants

My son is blueberry crazy.  He loves blueberries.  He loves eating blueberries, he loves talking about blueberries, he has a soft toy that is a blueberry, he has a blanket with pictures of blueberries on it, I think he may have a few other blueberry things too.  There are many worse things in this world he could be obsessed by, so I don't discourage his blueberry obsession. 

Freshly picked blueberries

I have tried to grow blueberries a few times before, and failed.  The first time I bought a variety called 'Northland'.  It didn't really grow, it didn't flower, I had it planted in a bad spot, then we moved house and I didn't bring it with us.

The next time I bought a variety called 'Brigita'.  This did grow, then in its first year we got hit by extreme heat and drought and dust storms and week after week of thick choking smoke and air quality that had over 250 times the safe level of pollutants.  As I didn't go out in the smoke more than absolutely necessary I didn't water things as much as they needed. Sadly, in drought with limited water this blueberry plant, along with many plants I owned at the time, also died.  

As my son is so taken by blueberries, I decided to try to grow a blueberry plant again.  This time I figured I would get a few varieties to ensure cross pollination, and I planned on keeping them in pots the first year so I could water them and protect them if needed. 

Many varieties of blueberry are self pollinating, but they all crop better when pollinated by a different variety.  As well as producing more fruit when cross pollinated, there is evidence that the berries are larger and sweeter when cross pollinated.  For these reasons, I looked around a bit to see what varieties were available.  

I ended up getting three varieties of blueberry plants: Brigita, Blue Rose, and Sunshine Blue.

I got three small plants in February 2025, and almost immediately put them in larger pots of soil.  These grew over summer, then went dormant for winter.  This was a good sign. 

In spring the blueberry bushes all broke dormancy, and all of them flowered a lot.  I am told not to expect much the first crop, but they did well.  

Blueberry toy and blueberry blanket

Brigita and Blue Rose were both flowering September and October 2025.  Honey bees and other insects were active at this time, so they likely cross pollinated a bit which is what I was hoping for.  The fruit on both plants was ripe early December 2025 - January 2026.  The fruit from both plants were large and sweet.  Both plants produced a good amount of berries for their first year.

Sunshine Blue was flowering October 2025, but didn't overlap with the other two varieties as much as I had hoped.  This produced huge numbers of flowers.  Many flowers aborted, we didn't get many ripe berries from this plant, and even though this variety is said to be self-pollinating I suspect the large number of aborted flowers may have been due to low pollination.  Its fruit was ripe late December 2025 - January 2026.  This plant produced smaller fruit and was a bit sour.  I'm told this variety is smaller and produces berries that are a little sour, so this was not unexpected.

My son picked lots of blueberries over the season

While I wasn't unimpressed by any of the blueberry plants, I much preferred Brigita and Blue Rose.  They both produces lots of berries, the berries were large, the berries were simple to harvest, and the berries were tasty and sweet.  I am tempted to take a few cuttings of these two, and grow a few more of them.  

I had intended on planting these in the garden over winter while they are dormant rather than keeping them in pots.  I am not sure if I will do that this year, or keep them in pots for another year.  Having them in pots made netting from birds simple, and made watering easy.  The down side of this is they may be stunted or not reach their potential if grown in pots for too long.

This summer was mostly mild temperature wise, but it was very dry and I struggled to keep the water up to the garden.  We also had a few days of extreme heat and wind.  This heat damaged lots of plants that were already suffering from lack of water and had not had a chance to slowly build up tolerance to the heat.  The blueberry plants sustained some damage, but all three survived for me and all three look like they are heading into dormancy strong.

Unless something unexpected happens, I will continue to grow all three of these blueberry plants.  I may try to track down a few more varieties, and see if I can find any that perform even better in my climate.  I was tempted to try and grow some from seed, but may put that off until another year. 

Home grown blueberries taste amazing as they can be picked when perfectly ripe.  Having my kids help grow these organically is something they will hopefully remember fondly when they are older.  The blueberry plants were not cheap, but punnet blueberries from the shops are also pretty expensive.  With the amount of blueberries produced, Brigita and Blue Rose both came close to breaking even price wise in their first year, and Sunshine Blue will need at least a second year to break even.  

African Violet New Hampshire

I like African violets (Streptocarpus ionanthus previously called Saintpaulia ionantha).  They used to be very common houseplants, but like many old things they are becoming rarer.  Some of the older varieties are not particularly great, and many of the newer varieties are vastly superior in a number of ways. 

African violets are perennial plants that can live virtually forever.  I hear of a lot of African violets that are 20 to 30 years old and being grown by someone's mother or grandmother.  I got my first African violet in May 2021, I had never grown one before I got it and didn't really know what I was doing, yet it is still growing strong. 

I also have a variety of African violet called "New Hampshire".   I got this variety as a leaf in July/August 2023.  I had never grown an African violet from a leaf cutting at that stage, and I was hesitant to try, but it all went well. 

New Hampshire is a relatively newly bred variety.  I believe it may be one of the 'optimara' African violets.  These were developed to be compact plants that are simple to grow and produce abundant flowers. 

This is a great variety that is well suited to beginner growers as it grows so easily and performs so well. 

New Hampshire African Violet

New Hampshire is a small and rather compact plant, making it great for small spaces.  

While massive African violet plants do look incredible, I don't have enough space to grow them.  Even if I had space, I would much prefer several smaller plants rather than one larger one.  I have never even seen a trailing African violet, I assume they would be a bit of a hassle to manage and think I prefer these smaller compact plants.  

Plants stay small

African violet New Hampshire produces a lot of flowers

This variety of African violet produces a huge number of flowers.  It can produce a lot of flowers on each stalk, and it produces a good number of stalks.  Sometimes there are more flowers than leaves!  It produces flowers for many months of the year.  

My house gets very cold in winter, and hot in summer, plus I don't fertilise these often.  I don't know the best way to do this, but I give them a little liquid from my worm farm every now and again as fertiliser, and this seems to encourage a new flush of flowers.  I am sure you could buy African violet fertiliser, and that would probably work better, but worm farm leachate is free and does a good job for me.

If I fertilised properly, or my house was not so cold in winter and hot in summer, I think this could flower continuously all year. 

The colour of the flowers is beautiful, and the flowers are mostly single.  I say 'mostly' as it does throw the occasional semi-double flower from time to time.  Flowers produced by young plants are usually smaller and produced in good numbers, while older plants produce larger flowers and more of them.  The flower colour is always rather intense, my photos do not do it justice. 

Flowers are held in clumps above the foliage

This variety stays small

The flowers are on long stalks, and held high above the foliage.  If you wanted you could cut them and place them in a small vase. 

The flowers are a lovely colour, and are relatively large.  Flowers start out small, and get larger as they get older.  On average the flowers reach about 4-5cm across. 

The plant itself grows pretty fast, and is forgiving of less than ideal conditions.  I don't know the best way to grow African violets, and can only comment on what works for me.  

I grow mine in potting soil mixed with perlite, and I grow most in self watering wicking pots.  I have a few others in just pots (of potting mix and perlite) that I water by hand.  They both do equally well, but the wicking pots are far less work.  

Even small plants are quite floriforous

Another thing I like about this variety is how vigorous it is.  This plant has a desire to survive.  

I was always told how finicky African violets are, and how tricky they are to grow, but I have never found this to be the case with any variety I have tried.  While all of the African violets I have grown have been simple to grow, this variety is one of the easiest.  This variety propagates easily, grows fast, and flowers like mad.  

Sometimes this variety produces suckers.  I know this is not a desirable trait if you are showing them, but for the home grower it is great.  Once the baby suckers reach a good size, I cut them off, and plant them in soil.  The mother plant continues flowering, and the divided suckers produce new plants. 

Some flowers semi-double, most are single

Many African violets propagate easily by leaf cuttings, while some varieties are far more reluctant than others.  I am happy to say this variety is one of my simplest to grow from leaf cuttings.  

I only propagate African violet leaves in a small pot of soil.  For me these generally grow 3 or 4 leaf babies per leaf, and they go from leaf to flowering size plant reasonably quickly if I divide them.  

Other people propagate African violet leaves in water and have great success, but for unknown reasons this has never worked for me.  

I love the colour if its flowers

This variety is one of the few that will produce viable seed for me.  I hand pollinate flowers, and they take a few months to develop seed pods.  The seeds are tiny, and need light if they are to germinate.

I have a few other varieties that will not produce seeds no matter what I have tried.  If they have traits I want to breed with I could use those varieties as the pollen parent, and New Hampshire as the seed parent.  

Flowers start small, and get larger as they age

African violet seeds are tiny, and are produced in their hundreds.  Every seed grown African violet, even self-pollinated ones, are genetically unique.  Growing them from seed is a bit fiddly, and the results are unpredictable, so I understand why few people attempt this. 

Growing an African violet from seed to a mature flowering plant takes about the same amount of time as growing from leaf cutting to flowering.  When growing from a leaf cutting I am pretty much guaranteed to get genetic clones (unless I have a chimera, which is a lengthy topic for another time), when growing from seed there is a lot of diversity among the plants.  

Under good conditions, this variety of African violet usually takes 2 or 3 months from planting the leaf until I see tiny leaf babies.  From there is is another 2 to 3 months before they are flowering.  If I over crowd them, or it is winter and super cold, then it can take a lot longer.  

New Hampshire is a great variety of African violet that is well suited as a gift as it would grow well for beginners.  It is easy to succeed with this variety as it is so vigorous, and produces so many flowers for months on end, and the flower colour is impressive.  It is also small so it is easier to find a small spot on a window sill to grow this. 

If you grow house plants, African violets are worth considering.  I sometimes sell extra African violet plants, but at this stage they are only for local pick up at the moment.  I may post plants at some stage in the future.  I do sell leaf cuttings of  African violets through my for sale page as leaves easily survive being posted.  I may also be interested in doing a leaf swap with someone if they had another nice variety.  

Small plant producing blooms

African violet - small and cute plants