Space Chilli yield per plant

In 2016 I planted Hangjiao #5 Space Chilli Helix Nebula seed in early spring.  Much like my aji pineapple the seedlings grew well, then they died from heat/neglect so had to be replanted.

Unfortunately I did not record the date I planted seed the last time as it was so late in the season that I did not expect to get any ripe pods this year and had planned to overwinter before I would get to try them.  Luckily that was not the case, it really had no issues flowering and fruiting in the time it had left.

Much like the aji pineapple I could not count the pods on the plants, so I counted and recorded the number of ripe pods as I picked them.  I started to harvest ripe fruits from early March and this continued until May when the plants were getting hit with  regular frosts..

On average, space chilli pods weighed between 24 grams and 25 grams each.  They were pretty uniform in weight but differed in twisty shapes.

I harvested 53 ripe pods from one plant before the frosts really hit.  It had a number of unripe pods, some of which ripened later, but I didn't count them.

This meant that for a first year, extremely late planted, seed grown plant I harvested over 1.29 kg of ripe pods.

Hanjiao #5 Space Chilli were very productive

How to Cook Chinese Silkie Chicken

Chinese silkie chicken is a healthy meat that is often consumed in Asia.  It has very little fat, is high in B vitamins and extraordinarily high in carnosine.  The only real down sides are the small size and difficulty in obtaining a dead bird.  To that end, you may have to obtain a live bird and dispatch it yourself.

We faced great difficulty in finding details of how to cook silkie chicken and did not want to do it wrong.  To help other people in a similar situation I have composed this simple step by step procedure with pictures for you to follow.  If you don't eat meat or don't want to know about it please stop reading here.

Chinese Silkie in the pot with herbs and garlic

How to cook a Chinese Silkie Chicken in seven easy steps

Step 1  You will need to obtain a silkie chicken.  You could start with an egg and either incubate it or get a chicken to incubate it, but who has that kind of time these days?  We suggest starting with a cute little guy like this.  The colour of the down or feathers is not important.  It should be as cute as a button and fit nicely into the palm of your hand.  At this age they need heat and lots of cuddles.

Step 2  Treat the chicken well, let it live a good calm life.  Give it clean water, good food and a lot of time free ranging somewhere safe with some other chickens.  Your chicken will need a nice name, children are good at naming animals, this one's name was "Boo".  You can tell by the picture that Boo was a nice calm chicken who lived a happy life.

Step 3  Boo will need to have a quick and honorable death.  The faster and more pain free the better.  It is important that Boo does not get to watch other chickens die as she will find this stressful.  There is no need to make this any more stressful on the animal than it already is.  I generally took chickens behind the shed where no one and nothing could see.  I dislike this step so did not take a picture.  Instead, here is a picture that one of my kids made for me on the wood pile.

This has nothing to do with cooking silkies, but it makes me happy

Step 4  Feathers and entrails will need to be removed.  It is important not to waste anything so entrails could be saved and cooked, or fed to the dog, or dug into the vegetable garden to increase soil fertility and increase soil life.  The feathers can go in the compost or get dug into the vegetable garden to nourish next season's vegetables.  Even white silkies will have blue/black skin, meat and bones.  Once entrails and feathers have been removed the silkie chicken will look similar to this.

Chinese Silkie ready to cook

 Step 5  Cook Boo in some way, raw chicken is not overly good for you.  We followed a recipe from here.

Chinese silkie chicken cooked and ready to serve

Step 6  Eat the cooked meal, we ended up with a meal that looked like this.

Chinese silkie meat

Step 7  Once you have finished the meal you will have bones left over.  Discard the carcase in some sensible way, the bones will mostly be black.  You could make a soup or broth from the bones, or you could bury them in the vegetable garden, either way there is no need to waste them.  Please ensure that dogs do not eat cooked chicken bones.

Carcase of silkie chicken, the colour went odd in the picture

Aji Pineapple chilli yield per plant

People keep telling me that you can't grow chillies in Canberra.  Or they tell me it is very difficult to get a decent crop out of them due to our short summers.  Or they tell me how much work they are and that special heated greenhouses are required to get a crop before the frosts.

Fortunately these people are wrong, very wrong.  Of course you can grow chillies in Canberra and get a great crop.  They are simple to grow and can be productive.

In 2016 I planted aji pineapple chilli seed in early spring, the seedlings grew well, then they died from heat/neglect so had to be replanted.  This happened twice.  I really needed to pay more attention.

Unfortunately I did not record the date I planted seed the last time, but it was very late in the season.  Being so late in the season and in a short summer climate made me worry if they were going to ripen in time.  Then my plant flowered and started to set many fruits.

Aji Pineapple taste amazing, and are extremely productive, so I decided to count the number of ripe pods I got.  I tried to count them on the plant but kept getting confused, so I counted them and recorded them as they were picked which was much more achievable.

On average, Aji pineapple pods weighed between 4 grams and 5 grams each.  They were pretty uniform in this.

I harvested 405 ripe pods from one plant before the frosts really hit.  The plant also had plenty of unripe pods and I also harvested 35 partially ripe pods after we had a week or two of hard frosts that threatened to kill my plant.

This meant that for a first year, extremely late planted, seed grown plant I harvested over 1.8 kg of ripe pods.

I was tempted to overwinter this chilli plant as they are more productive in subsequent years, but I don't know what I would do with all of the chillies so decided to let nature take its course. Last weekend we had temperatures below -8 C, my plant looks bad but is still alive.  It is unlikely that it will survive until spring.

Aji Pineapple chilli were very productive

Blue flower seeds and other things that don't exist

There is a famous quote believed to be from Edmund Bourke which says something along the lines of "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing".  While it is very romantic and poetic I don't think I agree with it.  I think that perhaps this should read "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for people to think they can get away with it".

Let's look at ebay, thieves steal money from people by selling things that do not exist.  The people who run ebay could stop them, at the very least they could remove listings and ban people who are reported for selling seeds that do not exist, but they don't.  Both the sellers and the people who run ebay are criminals.  Lots of good people try to stop them by trying to report these fake ads, but nothing happens.  These ebay thieves think they can get away with it (currently they both CAN and DO get away with it) so they continue to do it, and evil prospers.

Below are a bunch of pictures that I have found on ebay listings, many of them have made a lot of money from selling fake seeds. They are not my pictures.

I have written a few other posts about commonly sold ebay seeds that do not exist: blue and black strawberries, blue roses, and blue watermelons do NOT exist.  Please have a read of them, they may help you stop ebay thieves selling you seeds that do not exist.

Lily of the Valley seeds
I love lily of the valley, it is extremely difficult to grow it from seed, but not impossible.  It is also difficult to get it to produce seed, again it is not impossible.  Lilly of the valley comes with white flowers, some varieties can be pink flowered, and I am told that there is a variegated leaf form.  That is all.  None of these multi coloured ones exist and they never will exist.

 
It gets even worse, the following disclaimer was on the fake seed lily of the valley ebay page, they don't consider themselves liable for selling fake ebay seeds!!!

"Triple Phoenix shall not be liable for any instances where sold items are found to be inaccurate, erroneous, defective, deceptive or misleading, whether caused by negligence of  or any other cause whatsoever. 

Triple Phoenix will not be held liable for misuse or any health problems relating to or using any one of the products sold through this eBay store."

Make no mistake, the people who run Triple Phoenix ebay store are thieves.  Writing a disclaimer does not change the fact they they are deliberately misleading people.  What they are doing is known in legal terms as theft by deception.  Please never buy anything from anyone who does this.

Amazing multi-coloured  Butterfly Bush seeds
I don't know a lot about this plant but am told by some dedicated butterfly bush growers that this does NOT exist.  The thieves who made this ad steal tens of thousands of dollars from people each year through selling fake seeds.  Please do NOT buy them.

Rainbow butterfly bush does NOT exist

White Dove Orchid seeds
Apparently there is a plant called the white dove orchid (possibly Habenaria radiata or Pecteilis radiata), its flowers are rather beautiful.  Unfortunately the images below are photoshopped.

Orchids are notoriously difficult to grow from seed and many require aseptic tissue culture or complex mycorhizal interactions to germinate.  You should NEVER buy ANY orchid seeds from ebay.

Flowers such as in the images below do NOT exist.

This flower does NOT exist

This flower also does NOT exist

Blue or Black or Purple tomato seeds
Wow, with so many thieves making so many fake ebay ads where do I begin?  Some are based on real things, others are completely made up, you need to know what to look for in order to prevent ebay thieves from selling you fake seeds.

The below picture was for sale as "Black Russian" tomato seeds.  Black Russian tomatoes do exist, they are more of a muddy brown tomato, they are a substandard yet extremely popular heirloom variety.  Tomatoes the colour in the picture DO exist, I currently grow a few of them.

When the seller is claiming that this picture of a tomato that does exist, yet their picture is a completely different variety, you know they are up to something.  Chances are these thieves have simply got some tomato seeds from a red tomato and will send that to you.  In five month time when your seeds fruit it is far too late for you to do anything.

This tomato exists, but the seller will NOT send them to you as they claim it is 'black Russian'

Real blue and purple tomatoes do NOT exist.  There are plenty of varieties that are named blue or purple which exist, I grow some, but they look nothing like these photos.  Even the Genetically Modified (GM) blue tomatoes that you will likely never see and never have access to their seeds do not look anything like these colours.  Do NOT buy seeds of tomatoes that are these colours.

Tomatoes this colour have never and will never exist!

These seeds are for sale as "purple tomato" seeds.  This is not even a tomato!

Ripe tomatoes do NOT exist in this colour and likely never will

Amazing Rainbow tomato seeds
Rainbow tomato seeds do NOT exist.  The seller will probably send you tomato seeds, but they will not turn out to be anything like in these pictures.  Different colours on the same truss is not possible, green and red (or whatever the ripe colour is) yes, but more than one ripe colour on the same truss no.

If you want unknown tomatoes seeds, just go to the market, buy a tomato, and plant its seeds.  It will be cheaper, you will get to eat the fruit (minus the seeds), plus you will not be funding these ebay criminals who are selling seeds that do not exist.

Rainbow tomatoes do NOT exist.  Being local from Australia does not stop them from being thieves

Some of these colours do NOT even exist in tomatoes, multi colours on the same truss do NOT exist

White asparagus seeds
White asparagus kind of exists, you may have eaten some, but seeds for white asparagus do not exist.  White asparagus is produced by putting something over the soil so when the spears emerge they do not have access to sunlight, the result is sweet white spears.  You can do this to any/every variety of asparagus.  I have done it with green varieties, I have done it with purple varieties.  You can NOT buy seeds of white asparagus as there are no varieties of white asparagus.  There will never be any white asparagus varieties, any albino asparagus can not survive as they would not be able to photosynthesize.

When an ebay seller is selling seeds of white asparagus you may be sent an inferior unnamed variety of asparagus or possibly something else that is not asparagus at all.  Never buy anything from thieves who sell white asparagus seeds.

Seed for White Asparagus do NOT exist

Vegetable seeds that look like things
These ebay thieves are selling radish seed and claiming they will grow to look like a foot.  They will not.  There are several different ones of these being offered by ebay thieves.  The radish in the picture grew odd, then the photo was slightly manipulated.

Radish does NOT grow to look like this

Amazing coloured radishes
Some amazing coloured vegetables exist, which makes this kind of theft work so well.  Radishes do not come in blue like in this picture, they never have and they never will.  Some of the other colours exist, but they have re-coloured the picture so it is unlikely they have ever seen them.  These thieves buy bulk radish seed for cheap and repackage it to send to you.  You have no way of telling what variety you will get, but you do know they will NOT look like the ones in the picture!

This thief sends you seeds fast, but some of these colours do not exist so they will send you something else

Carnivorous plants
I like carnivorous plants, when I was a teenager I learned a great deal about them.  Unfortunately most people know very little about carnivorous plants so ebay thieves easily take advantage of them.  I have heard of people buying what was claimed to be 'giant venus fly trap' seed, only to be sent Gypsophila seed.  To be safe, I would not buy any carnivorous plant seed from ebay.

Blue Drosera do NOT exist (but I wish they did)

Blue Pinguicula do NOT exist

This doesn't even look real, but ebay thieves make big money selling fake seeds

So many ebay thieves, so little time...

Blue String of Pearls Plant (Senecio rowleyanus)
I love string of pearls plant and think that they are amazing.  I am growing some lovely green ones at the moment.  In real life most are green, and there is a delightful and rare variety of variegated string of pearls plant.

Unfortunately blue string of pearls plant does NOT exist.  It never has and it never will.  These thieves make me so angry because this plant is so pretty that they don't need to lie about its colour.

Blue string of pearls plant does NOT exist

Multi Coloured Succulents

How amazing do these multi coloured rabbit ear succulents look!  Unfortunately they do NOT exist.  In real life rabbit ear succulent (Monilaria obconica) are green and look amazing.  Thieves sell seeds on ebay by changing the colours.

The picture on the right is the real colour, the picture on the left is where they have changed colours and listed this on Ebay.  Take a close look, that is part of the same picture.  I want to grow these one day, but am not willing to buy seed through ebay as there are so many thieves who have changed colours in an attempt to steal from me.  Hopefully I find plants for sale in real life one day.

Rabbit Ear Succulents are NEVER multi coloured

Monilaria obconica are all green, thieves have changed the colours in this picture to try to steal from you

Multi Coloured Flowers
These look amazing don't they, unfortunately they do not exist!  There are heaps of different fake multicoloured seeds and bulbs for sale on ebay.  Most of these pictures are white flowers that have had their stem divided and put into coloured die, the die travels up the stem and goes into the white petals staining them.  Some of these pictures are photo shopped.  If you ever see any multi coloured flowers, do some research to see if they are real, the pictures below are fakes.

Fake ebay seeds

More fake ebay seeds and bulbs

Blue Lily
Someone kindly mentioned to me a little while ago that they are trying to warn people about not buying blue lily.  I don't know much about lilies, but I know that blue ones don't exist.  I had a look and ebay is filled with seeds and bulbs of blue lilies, there is page after page of blue lilies.  I feel depressed from seeing how many thieves are taking of advantage of people with these.  Unfortunately they do NOT exist.

These ebay thieves will send you some seeds or bulbs, and if you grow them long enough they will flower, but they will not be blue.  By this time it is too late for you to do anything about it.  Please never buy anything from anyone who sells seeds or bulbs of blue lilies as they are thieves!

Blue lily do NOT exist

Blue flowers or fruits
There are very few true blue coloured fruits or flowers.  If you see any that look amazing, the chances are high that they do not exist.  Some flowers, like cornflowers are kind of blue.  Please do some research before funding ebay thieves.  It does not matter how cheap they are, do NOT be so ignorant as to fund ebay thieves without at least trying to do some research to see if they are real or not.  While you can never be certain that you are buying the real thing from ebay, if you are buying something that does not exist you will certainly not get what you paid for.

Blue dahlia do NOT exist

Blue dahlias look great but are NOT real

Blue Raspberries kind of exist, but they are never this colour

Bonsai seeds
Seriously, what is wrong with people?  There is no such thing as a plant that has been bred to be bonsai, almost any tree seed can be grown out and made into a bonsai.  So anyone selling bonsai seeds are just selling tree seeds and are trying to steal from you (remember, the legal term is "theft by deception").  These ebay thieves have taken this a step further and have re-coloured bonsai images.  The blue maple below does not exist.  You may get a maple seed, if you grew it out it would never turn that colour.

Blue bonsai maple seed does NOT exist

Too many thieves on Ebay
This list is no where near complete, there are many pages of fake ebay seeds.  Please do a little research before buying anything and be extra careful buying seeds from ebay as ebay is full of thieves.

The bright blue and purple do NOT exist, don't buy ANY seeds from these thieves

If you are one of these ebay thieves, especially if your company name has been included in the picture or description, feel free to write a comment and try to convince me that your deception is justified.

I know sometimes people buy seed in bulk, repackage it into smaller packets and sell that.  If you have done this and are selling fake seeds then you are just as bad as the people who you bought the seeds from in the first place!

Often I hear people say that if something looks too good to be true then it probably isn't real.  Unfortunately in this case it does not help as most of the vegetables I grow and eat look and sound too good to be true!  If you want to see the perennial vegetables, annual vegetable seeds, berries, and edible herbs I have for sale please click here.