Giant Parsley

A few years ago I decided that parsley (Petroselinum crispum) was too small to be very useful.  Even the larger varieties such as 'Giant of Italy' are a bit piddly.  I figured parsley would be better as a leaf vegetable rather than a garnish.  So I bred parsley to have larger leaves.

I may have gotten a bit carried away.  My parsley is now so large that the leaves can now easily be used as a vegetable.

Normally you add parsley at the end of cooking, but my larger parsley holds up reasonably well to heat and can be added earlier during cooking.  The roots are large enough to be roasted, and the leaf petioles can be used similar to celery - but taste far nicer.

My parsley gets even larger than this

My parsley is not a stable variety yet, as a population it still shows some genetic diversity.  Some plants have leaves that are absolutely massive.  Some plants have very large leaves.  A small number of plants have reasonably large leaves.  People who see it often comment that they have never seen anything like it.

I only allow the larger plants to flower, and only collect seed from the absolute largest, that way any seedlings have a solid genetic base but still retain at least some degree of genetic diversity.

Each of the leaflets grow huge

They get larger than this

There are a few varieties of 'giant' leaf parsley around.  My parsley dwarfs any 'giant' varieties that I have ever seen.  In fact, all of the 'giant' varieties are rather puny and insignificant in comparison to my parsley.

The craziest part of this story is that this isn't as large as parsley can get.  With a little more selective pressure it will be even larger than this.  I don't have the time or space to do anything too seriously, but even with modest selective pressure my plants are still getting larger every year.

"Giant Italian parsley" at the top, my parsley underneath

At the moment my parsley is not a stable variety, and my plants seem to get larger each year.  If you plant a bunch of seeds most grow into huge, and some are very large, and the occasional one is regular sized.  It is not difficult to cull the smaller plants and only save seed from the huge ones to end up with a size that works well for you.

If you are interested in growing ridiculously large parsley I will probably offer seed for sale through my for sale page.  Just keep in mind if you do buy this seed that it does not grow true to type and a very small percentage will be large but not all that impressively sized.

Purple and Green Tomatillo

The variety of tomatillo (Physalis ixocarpa) I grow has purple and purple/green fruit, I keep thinking I should get a dark purple variety but don’t seem able to find a source for them.  I also think about getting one with larger fruit as tomatilloes are a bit small.

The variety I grow are great, they are high yielding, pest and disease free, and relatively sweet, plus I have grown this variety and saved its seeds for so many years that I find getting rid of them to be a rather daunting concept.

Tomatillo

Around ten years ago I bought some purple tomatillos from a market, they weren’t dark purple, more of a purple/green. Back then tomatillo were pretty rare, seeds were difficult to find, you never saw seedlings for sale, and very few home gardeners around here had even heard of them.

I put a few of these fruit in a paper bag and took them home, we ate some and I kept the larger and darker ones to save seed. This is how/when I got my variety, they were an un-named variety that I found at a market stall.

At that time I had never grown tomatillo before that, I had never seen a plant, I wasn’t sure they could survive in my climate, I didn’t know how to save their seed, and I didn't know anyone who had seen or grown one. Luckily it was all really simple.

Every time I grow tomatillo now I save some seeds for future years, if you ever grow tomatillo you should also save some of the seeds.

If you only wanted a few seeds you could just pick them out of the fruit and dry them somewhere. The way I save tomatillo seed is to crush up the fruit in a container of water, for larger numbers I use a potato masher to crush them.

Viable seeds sink, I remove the large parts of the flesh by hand, I tip off some of the water along with anything that floats, and then tip whatever is left through a strainer. I put the seeds on some baking paper (which has been labelled with the name and date) and leave them somewhere safe to dry. Once dry I store the seeds as normal, apparently they can remain viable for many years.

Honey bees appear to like tomatillo flowers

Growing tomatillo from seed is also simple. Much like tomatoes they don’t like frost. In spring I get a punnet of soil and sprinkle on some seeds, I water this. I don’t bury the seeds, I just sprinkle them and water them in. I don’t know if they need sunlight to germinate, or if burying them is fine, but I get good results just sprinkling and watering. From here I water them and protect them from snails etc. Not surprisingly, they seem to like warm soil and plenty of sunlight.

Tomatillo grow reasonably fast and tall, they can reach 5 foot tall in a season without too much trouble. They can be left to sprawl wherever they want but to make harvest easier, and to save garden space, it is best to stake them. I water tomatillo plants the same as I would water tomato plants, nothing overly special needs to be done.

Tomatillo appear to be only partially self-fertile, so to get a crop it is best to plant several plants. You can save space by planting two or more plants in the same hole and treating them as one plant. They are very productive when grown like this so try not to overdo it. Two or three plants is often more than productive enough for a family.

I only grow one variety of tomatillo, and none of the neighbours grow tomatillo, so I don’t need to worry about isolating to keep my strain pure.  If I grow a second variety I will either bag the flowers or grow them alternate years. By the looks of the flowers, and the number of insects that visit them, I assume they cross pollinate readily. 

Tomatillo produce ample flowers

For me tomatillo always start to flower early in the season, and the early flowers always abort. It may be different for you, but they always do this for me. They keep flowering, honey bees and native insects appear to like the yellow flowers, but the flowers keep aborting. This goes on for what seems like an eternity, and then one day they produce fruit. Once they start, they produce large amounts of fruit until the frosts kill them.

Much like tomatoes or chillies, tomatillo are perennial and can be grown for several years if protected from frost. I allow frost to kill them and plant new seed each year because it is simple and I doubt I would get an earlier crop anyway.

When the husk starts to dry and split that is when I pick them. Usually they fall from the plant when ripe, but sometimes they need to be picked. The papery husk seems to protect tomatillo from fruit fly even in heavily infested areas.

Once picked you can eat the fruit or store them or save their seed for next year. Tomatillo plants produce an abundance of fruit over the season, so mashing a few to save seeds from is not an issue.

If the stems are slightly damaged they produce roots.  It is interesting, and a little creepy.  If a bug damages a stem it starts to grow roots, if a stem brushes against something and gets bruised it grows roots, if this touches the soil it gains nutrients and water the same as any roots.

tomatillo stem producing roots

When I first got my tomatilloes no one had them.  These days a few places sell tomatillo seeds, and there are even a few different varieties around.  There are no blue tomatilloes, they don't exist, don't waste your money on them.  There are varieties of green, purple, yellow, and orange tomatillo. 

I sell seeds from my purple and green tomatillo through my for sale page.

Dahlia from seed - the second year

My daughter grew a dahlia from seed last year, she was very proud of herself and I was proud of her too.

The seed was planted in spring, it grew into a small and healthy plant which flowered nicely over summer and autumn, and then it went dormant over winter.  I was impressed that it flowered in its first year.

Growing dahlia from seed isn't overly difficult, yet I don't know many people who have ever attempted it.  I like how they produce flowers in their first year, and then a lot more flowers the following year.

We left the plant in the soil where it was over winter, and in spring it sprouted and grew again.  This year the dahlia grew much larger and produced many more beautiful yellow flowers. 

Dahlias covered in flowers in their second year from seed

Dahlia the first year from seed - small plant with few flowers

The honey bees seemed to enjoy the flowers for quite some time, then the bees stopped going near them.  Presumably the dahlia was the best thing flowering earlier in the season, then something else was flowering in the area that the bees enjoy more.

It is good to have multiple different things flowering across the season, that way my bees have more options and can choose what suits them best when they are out foraging.

The bees seemed to enjoy these dahlias early in the season

We may try to divide this plant over winter if it looks large and healthy enough.  I am sure my daughter would like to plant several of these around the place. 

If we can divide it into enough plants that we have any spare my daughter may sell some through my for sale page to earn herself some more flower money.

Onion chives - the smallest edible onion

Years ago I bought some seedlings of Allium schoenoprasum. These are a tiny perennial vegetable that is often called 'chives' or 'onion chives', I am sure they also have a few other common names.

I grow some very rare vegetables, but onion chives are extremely common. They are easy to grow, and have many uses in the kitchen. Onion chives are edible, perennial, and reputed to be the smallest edible onion species, which is fun.

I originally planted mine in a pot, was impressed by how cute they were, then generally neglected and ignored them for years.  I harvested their leaves for use in meals, occasionally I watered them but not nearly often enough, and I never truly valued them. Even though I didn’t take good care of them, and the conditions were downright hostile at times, these onions chives survived and performed really well for me.

Onion chives - flower

After sitting in their little pot of soil for close to a decade and moving house with me I recently planted my chives into the garden and water them more often. Now they have a bit of space and water they are really taking off.

The leaves of chives are elongated green tubes that are hollow in cross section, these leaves are the main crop that can be eaten raw, cooked, or dried. The flowers are small, reasonably pretty, enjoyed by bees as well as other pollinating insects, and are also edible.

Onion chives can die down to bulbs which look like tiny onions. I assume you can eat the bulbs but they are so small that I have never bothered trying. 

Onion chives - growing happily near asparagus

Chive leaves taste much like onion, but not as pungent. It is easy to snip the leaves with scissors and use them in all kinds of meals and garnishes. They don’t blow you away in terms of taste, or yield, but chives really take no effort to grow, they don’t need much space, they look nice, and are simple to harvest.

Being perennial vegetables means I planted them once about ten years ago and have been harvesting ever since. Chives can easily be grown from seed, but I usually just allow plants to divide.

Most people recommend replacing chive plants with seedlings every year or two to refresh them. As they are perennial vegetables I don’t really see the point. Many people recommend removing the flower stalks as soon as noticed so the plant puts more energy into leaf growth. While this is probably best practice you don’t have to remove them, they should do just fine if you allow them to flower and set seed. You could collect the seeds, or allow them to drop, to produce more plants for free.

Perennial onion chives are easy to grow organically

I grow everything organically, I don't even use the organic poisons that many people use. Even though I give them no special treatment I have never had any issues with pests or diseases with onion chives. This means you will find them simple to grow too.

Even though they are so small, onion chives are survivors. Mine have survived blasting heat a touch below 50C as well as frosts down to around -10C. I never water mine often enough, I don’t divide them regularly, or top dress the soil, or anything that I should, and they not only survive but they produce an edible crop and continue to increase in numbers.

If you want to get the best yield then water them, divide them, remove flower stalks as they appear, keep them well weeded, and keep the soil fertile. If you want an edible plant that can be grown in a pot on your kitchen window sill and look great, then chives are for you. If you are lazy and want a plant that will produce a small crop with next to no effort, put them in the garden and try to keep the weeds to a minimum. Onion chives really are quite versatile.

I grow an unnamed variety that is not overly spectacular. I have often wondered if there are improved varieties of chives and if any of these are noticeably different to the ones I have.

I have occasionally considered breeding an improved variety of chives, or crossing with another onion species. While interspecific hybrids look like fun and according to research are achievable I don’t see a lot of improvement that can be made to chives as chives are already pretty great. Who knows, maybe one day I will have an epiphany about some way chives can be improved and use them to create something better.Until then I will continue to enjoy the ones I have.

Onion chives clumping up nicely

I assume part of chives continuing popularity is how simple they are to grow and how useful they are in the kitchen. I quite like chives but they are not as useful or as high yielding as some of my other perennial onions. Hopefully one day some of the rarer perennial onions such as everlasting onions and perennial leeks become more commonly available.

Overall I am happy with these little chives, they are pretty enough to be in a flower garden, they basically look after themselves, they don’t pose a weed threat, and they are useful in the kitchen.

I sell onion chives plants and various other perennial onions and perennial vegetables which I can post to much of Australia. If you are interested in buying perennial vegetables in Australia they are listed on my for sale page. Onion chive seeds only have a short viability, when I have fresh seed I also list them for sale.