Skirret in Australia

Skirret (Sium Sisarum) is the ultimate perennial vegetable.  As far as I am concerned skirret is the perfect vegetable for organic gardeners, permaculture gardeners, people who are into increasing self-sufficiency, people who are increasing their food security, and people with fussy children.   That’s right, even fussy kids will eat skirret.

Skirret has a long history as a vegetable, it has been blessed with the highest recommendation and cursed with the lowest popularity of any of the root crops.  It grows wild across Asia, and has been well established across Europe.  Skirret may have made its first documented appearance in a 1322 list of seeds maintained by the gardener for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace, which included a penny's worth of skirret in a 1321 to 1322 inventory.  We don't know how long it was used as a vegetable prior to this, it is believed that skirret grew along damp riversides and ditches and was easily harvested for free, so didn't need to be bought and sold.  It is likely that skirret was grown and eaten long before this but simply not recorded.

People keep telling me that there is no skirret in Australia, but I grow skirret, I sell skirret, and eat skirret.  I have given skirret to some people who now also sell it.  So skirret is slowly becoming less rare in Australia.  Hopefully one day I will see skirret for sale at a farmer's market.

I adore skirret, I have grown it for a number of years now, have written a few posts on it to try and show other people how to grow it.  Skirret is the most delicious roast vegetable ever.  I have never eaten anything that even comes close to how great skirret tastes.  I like the taste normally, but frosts make it far sweeter.  I want to encourage more people to grow this remarkable vegetable.

Skirret next to 30 cm ruler for scale

Skirret next to 30 cm ruler for scale

Growing string of pearls succulent in water

I love string of pearls succulents (Senecio rowleyanus).  There is something special about their almost spherical leaves with little windows, and the crazy way they grow out of their pot and drape over the side that I love.

I started two tiny cuttings a while ago and have expanded my stock significantly since then by planting more cuttings.  They are a delightful and surprisingly simple plant to grow.

Unfortunately my two year old shares a similar fascination with these plants too.  He likes to rip off the longest strands and hide them around my yard or in boxes.  While I would prefer he didn't do this, and would prefer to have longer strands growing, whenever he pulls parts off I use them as cuttings to create more plants.

Small string of pearls plant

Normally when I take cuttings of string of pearls plant I remove the lower few leaves (its leaves are the round pearl things), then I stick that lower part in soil, and that is all.  In a few weeks the cutting has roots and the top is actively growing.  Very simple.

So far, even using cuttings that have been ripped off by the baby and hidden in the yard for a few weeks, I have had 100% strike rate.

String of Pearls cutting ready for planting

Recently I heard of another method to grow string of pearls cuttings.  Instead of putting the cutting in soil, you put it in a glass of water.  I root plenty of other cuttings in water like this but not succulents.  Being a succulent, and having such great success simply planting cuttings in soil, I had not even thought of rooting them in water.

I was intrigued if the cutting would grow or if it would simply rot.  Curiosity got the better of me so when the baby pulled off a strand I gave it a go.  I think that it is fun learning new things.

The water method of rooting string of pearl cuttings is much the same as the soil method I currently use.

I take the cutting and remove the lower few pearls as normal.  Then, instead of planting in soil, you place the lower section in water.  Common sense tells you that only the lower part goes in water, the top section with leaves remains above the water level just like most other cuttings.  To be honest, I can't think of any cutting that you would totally submerge other than fully aquatic plants.

I have an egg cup on the kitchen window sill where I grow a few cuttings.  A jar would probably work better, but the egg cup takes up so little space.  So I put the end of the cutting in the egg cup, and the top is draped out of the water towards the window.  As the egg cup is so small it has to be topped up with water each night which ensures less algae growth and more oxygen is in the water.

Strangely enough all went well.  In a couple of wees roots started to form and the cutting was ready to be planted in soil.

String of pearls cutting actually grew roots in water!

I expected it to rot, but it grew roots pretty fast

Not only did roots form, the tip started to grow longer.  This indicates that the plant is alive.  Towards the end the cutting started to put down more roots in search of soil.

Growing longer and forming more roots

At this stage the cutting was ready to be planted in soil.  If you grow string of pearls plants in water then this is the time to plant them in soil.  Once again curiosity got the best of me.  I started to wonder how long the string of pearls cutting could survive in nothing but water.

String of pearls is a succulent, and succulents are adapted to growing in dry places, growing a succulent in water feels strange.  It was worth giving this a go simply to learn more about this fascinating plant.

String of pearls roots getting longer

String of pearls water roots

Surprisingly enough all has gone well so far.  The roots have gotten pretty long.  The plant is growing longer and seems reasonably healthy.

So far the only issue is lack of light as I am growing it in the kitchen where it is bright but there is little to no direct light.

Internodes are a bit long as the light levels are too low

I figure sooner or later my string or pearls cutting growing in a glass of water will start to rot.  When that happens I will cut off the rotting section and plant the rest in soil so it can root and grow normally.  Hopefully that works so I have not lost anything in trying this.  It is fascinating though.  I wonder how long it can actually survive in water like this.

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Update from April 2019: I started the string of pearls cutting from the pictures in water back in late August 2018.  It is now April and it is still going strong.  Who would have thought!  It is not as large as ones of the same age that I grew in soil but still looks healthy.  So far its only issue is not getting enough sunlight because I have had it growing on the kitchen window.

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Update March 2021: my string of pearls cutting in nothing but water died after two and a half years.  

It fell out of the water and I didn't put it back in for a few weeks.  The stem got bruised/broken from having something heavy placed on it, making the roots die.  I tried to put it back in water in hopes the roots would grow again, but they didn't, I think it had been out of water and crushed for too long.  Had I noticed earlier I think it would have survived,

I think this would have kept growing forever if the plant had more sunlight and it didn't fall out of the water.  

This cutting didn't rot, it never flowered but it kept growing longer and branching.  It lasted two and a half years in nothing but water!

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If you want to grow a string of pearls plant I sell string of pearls cuttings as well as small string of pearls plants through my for sale page.  At this stage I only have the regular green variety, I plan to have the large variety and the variegated string of pearls plant for sale day too.

Red Fleshed Huonville Crab Apples

When we lived on acreage we had many apple trees.  We had three mixed orchards, each orchard had some apples.  We had some old heritage apples, we had over 50 espaliered apples consisting of four newer apple varieties.  We also had a few other things such as medlar.

Now we live in town we have far fewer fruit trees.  One I particularly like is the Huonville Crab Apple.  It is believed to be the cross between a domestic apple and a crab apple.  It grows small edible apples and is pretty enough to belong in an ornamental flower garden!  The apples are red fleshed, which is very rare in Australia, but it has other traits that I also like.

The bark of the Huonville Crabapple is a lovely dark colour.

Huonville Crab the branches are a rich dark colour

Domestic apples the branches are often more green

During the growing season the Huonville Crab apple leaves are a beautiful purple colour.  Most types of apple leaves are varying shades of green.

Huonville crab apple leaves

Most apple leaves are green

Huonville Crabapple flowers are a dark pink.  They are incredibly beautiful.  Before they have opened they look like tiny roses.  Most domestic apples are a pretty light pink/white when they flower.  While I like the look of both, and am glad to be growing both, I prefer the look of the darker Huonville crab apple flowers.

Huonville crab apple flowers look like roses before they open

Huonville crab apple flowers before they opened

Huonville crab apple flowers are beautiful

Huonville crab apple flowers

Most other apple flowers are pink and white and lovely

Cripps Pink apple blossom almost ready to open

The flesh of Huonville crab apple is red.  I will try to remember to take some pictures of them this year and put it up in another post.  Even the sap of the Huonville crab apple is purple.

I am quite taken by this tree.  The dark trunk, the purple leaves, and the stunning flowers look amazing together.  The dark red apples with red flesh are great, I think they would be better if the apples were just a little bit larger.

living mulch - do pumpkins shade the soil

Quite often I have read about the "three sisters" method of planting.  People state different reasons for each of the three plants being planted together.  More often that not people state that pumpkins are used as they shade the soil, and provide a living mulch.  But is this really the case?

First, let me say that the three sisters method works well when done properly.

If you grow field corn, dry beans, and pumpkins together they do crop well together.  The beans sequester atmospheric nitrogen that the corn appreciates, the corn provides a stalk for beans to grow up but more importantly the corn exude sugars into the soil for the pumpkins, the pumpkins are meant to shade the soil, but they don't.  Or at least they don't shade the soil when it is hot.

If you have ever stopped to look at pumpkin leaves on a cool day they are large and cast an impressive shadow.  If you look at them during any kind of heat you may notice that they go flacid to conserve water.  When they are flacid they do not cast much of a shadow and do little to cool the soil.

When we lived in Central West NSW we had about 9 weeks each year where the day time temperature exceeded 40 C.  It was incredibly hot and dry for a very long time.  Pumpkins were all but worthless for providing shade in that kind of heat.  The leaves would go flacid at about 7:30 each morning and stay that way until they were watered in the evening.  It kept them alive, I got a crop out of them, but didn't help the corn.

I know that people will argue with me on this, so I took some pictures to demonstrate my point.  I took these pictures last summer on a day that reached 30 C.  It was a still day with no wind.  If pumpkins don't cast shade on a day like that they are not going to do a great deal in any real heat or if it is windy.

Pumpkin leaves in any heat wilt badly, but do they still cast much shadow?

Pumpkins from this angle you can't tell if they shade the soil

Pumpkin leaves, look how little shadow they cast at 30 C

I have had people argue this point with me and say that in the three sisters method that there is plenty of shade on the soil.  This is partly true.  In the three sisters method there is often plenty of shade on the soil, but it is not due to the pumpkin leaves.  Look at the picture above, pumpkin leaves don't cast much shade at all when the days warm up.  They cast even less shade when it is hot.

I think the shade that may be due to the corn.  So I took some pictures of the soil under my corn plants.  It was the same day as I took the pumpkin pictures, it only reached 30 C and there was no wind.  On hotter days the shade under corn plants is much the same as their leaves curl but don't wither away like a pumpkin.

Corn plants (on the left) cast more share than pumpkins (ignore the potatoes on the right)

The three sisters method works well when done properly, but what about when you want to shade soil under other tall crops such as yacon?  If you want a plant to shade the soil what should you use?  As you can see in the pictures above pumpkins are not very good at shading the soil unless the day is cool and still.

In the past I have attempted to use things such as clover.  This is not great, it survives cool weather and appears to die in the heat.  No matter how much water I gave it the clover always died in Central West NSW over summer.  I need something that stands up to the heat of summer, grows densely to shade the soil, but does not get too tall.

I have successfully used purslane to shade the soil under corn and a few other crops.  This worked perfectly, it survived the heat, if watered it produced a thick deep mat, it did not appear to compete with the corn, it self seeded and dies at the end of summer.  It is edible by people as well as other animals.  Purslane apparently contains highest amounts of omega 3 fatty acid of any plant we know of and is very healthy for poultry.

Some people view purslane as a weed, and it self seeded so I more encouraged it rather than controlled where and when it would grow, so I looked for other options too.

I trialed strawberries as a ground cover to shade the soil.  I grew an alpine strawberry that produces a lot of runners.  This produced a thick ground cover that had the benefit of producing delicious edible strawberries.  The strawberries are a short plant, have a relatively shallow root system, and do not appear to compete very much with taller things.

Yacon with strawberry ground cover so dense the soil is completely shaded

Strawberries shade the soil even on hot days - note the strawberries ripening in the background

They also protect the roots from frosts a little

Growing strawberries as a ground cover worked well during the growing season.  Strawberries need a bit of water to survive, but so did the yacon so it wasn't a problem.

When it came time to dig the yacon it was less than ideal as I also had to dig the strawberries.  The strawberries are pretty hardy and survived being dug pretty well so it wasn't too much of an issue.

I do wonder if I could grow something like a creeping thyme as a ground cover.  I may try a few different things and see how they work.

Hybrid fruit: real and imaginary

There are some amazing hybrid fruits around, things such as plumcots (which are a cross of a plum and an apricot) or boysenberries (which are the cross of raspberry and blackberry) or jostaberry (which are a cross between a black current and a gooseberry) are rather well known.  Others are virtually unknown.

Most of the more well known hybrids are crosses of different species, others are crosses of different genus.

Sometimes people get confused by what does and does not cross, so sometimes there is confusion.  Other times people deliberately sell fake seeds and plants with made up histories.  I thought I would write a post showing some of the real hybrids as well as some fake hybrids.


Pear x Apple hybrids - Real hybrids and Imaginary hybrids

There seems to be a little confusion over intergeneric apple (Malus) x pear (Pyrus) hybrids.  There are a lot of common names that confuse people.  Apple x pear hybrids can and do exist, but they have not become marketable yet.  Perhaps one day they will.

Let me show you ome that are not hybrids and why they confuse people, then I will show the real apple x pear hybrids.

'Papple'
The Papple is a hybrid of an European pear Pyrus communis and an Asian pear Pyrus pyrifolia and was originally named “T109” by breeders.  It is a hybrid of two species of pear.  The papple is NOT a cross between a pear and an apple, it has no apple in its genetic makeup whatsoever.  The papple is a pear that has the vague appearance of an apple, so it was named 'papple'.

Papple is a cross between European pear and Asian pear, it is NOT a hybrid pear and apple