Growing Oyster Mushrooms in a cup

Last year or the year before my kids and I grew some oyster mushrooms in a cup.  It was heaps of fun.  I had forgotten about it until I found the photos.

The substrate was damp newspaper mixed with used coffee grounds.  The cups were used cups from something else.  I was surprised how productive each cup was.  We got 3 or 4 flushes of mushrooms, each smaller than the previous one.

Growing edible oyster mushrooms is incredibly simple and can be cheap.  I have stopped growing edible mushrooms for some reason.  I think it is because getting newspaper or logs to grow them on became too difficult.

I really should get into growing oyster mushrooms again.

Tomato Gene List

There used to be a comprehensive list of tomato genes on the web, then one day that page was gone.  I wish I had saved that list somewhere safe, but I didn't.  I really could have used it to decide on a few tomato breeding projects I was considering.

I searched and now have a long (twenty page) list of tomato genes.  Even though not all of these genes are present in Australia, this list can be very useful when breeding new varieties.

I tried to put a downloadable pdf file on my blog so it would be easy for me to find.  I just can't work out how to do that.  Instead I have a link to the pdf: Gene list pdf

Various tomatoes - understanding the genes can make it simpler to breed something new

Various coloured tomatoes

I also have the tomato gene list in word and excel, if that is more useful I can email them to you if you provide your email address.  To contact me there is a 'contact form' on the right hand side of the page under the page views.  If you are viewing this on your mobile phone please scroll all the way down and click on 'view web version' and you will then be able to see and access the contact form.

I do sell seeds of some of the tomatoes I grow, if you are interested they are listed on my for sale page along with various perennial vegetables and other interesting plants.

Purple cauliflower

I have grown cauliflower in the past.  To be honest they never really impressed me.  They seem to be a lot of work, and the end result is often no better than the ones I can buy from the shops.  I am also not terribly fond of their taste or texture, so I don't eat a lot of them.  All of this means I haven't grown cauliflowers in some time.

Recently my wife went to the market and brought home a purple cauliflower.  I have heard of them, but never actually seen one and never eaten one.  The purple colour of the head was rich and incredible.  I was pretty excited.

Purple cauliflower - I didn't grow this one

I have always been told that the purple colour mostly disappears during cooking.  So I was surprised and glad to see that the colour not only didn't go away, but it intensified somehow and became darker!

I have read hat the purple is due to high concentrations of a powerful antioxidant called anthocyanin and several other flavonoids.  I am also told that they contain significantly more vitamin A than white cauliflower.  I have read in many places that purple cauliflowers are easier to grow, but no one gives any details about that so it may just be wishful thinking rather than fact.

Purple cauliflower - raw and steamed

Purple cauliflower once steamed

We then put the steamed purple cauliflower in the over for a while, and the colour became so dark it was almost black in some places and smurf blue in others. It looked truly remarkable.

The taste was nicer than regular white cauliflower, it was almost a little bit sweet and a bit less cabbage like.  I want to eat more of this.

While I did not grow the cauliflower in the photos above, I think I should grow purple cauliflower in the future.  There are also bright orange cauliflowers, but I haven't seen them other than pictures on the internet yet.

If you are in Australia and grow purple cauliflower, or orange cauliflower, or any other interesting colours and have seeds to share let me know and I may have seeds or something to swap with you.  I have a 'contact form' on the right hand side just under the page views.  If you are viewing with a mobile phone you may need to scroll all the way down and click on 'web view' to be able to access the form.  If you are not quick I will just buy some seeds from somewhere. 

Giant Edible Dandelions

It is no secret that I like dandelions (Taraxacum officinale).  I honestly believe people should grow more dandelions.  I think they probably have more uses than just about any other temperate permaculture crop.

Dandelions take no real effort to grow outside of arid or semi arid zones or polar zones, they are simple to grow organically, they are perennial, they are forgiving of a wide range of conditions, the leaves are edible and more nutritious than almost every other vegetable, the roots are edible and nutritious, the roots can be made into a delightful coffee or tea, the flowers are edible and nutritious, dandelions flower most of the year to feed and attract a wide range of beneficial insects, native birds are attracted to their seeds, poultry and other livestock adore eating the leaves, they are great companion plants for a wide range of vegetables and fruits, the tap root can be very deep, they make excellent compost, and as a real bonus dandelions look very pretty.

Dandelion leaves for comparison - mine at the top, regular ones lower

I have seen people sell dandelion seeds and plants, and often wondered why.  Usually they are selling the same unimproved plants that you can find as roadside weeds, the same ones people try to spray out of their lawns.  These are edible and very useful, but tend to grow into small plants.

Dandelions are incredibly useful and far more nutritious than almost any other vegetable, so I decided to see if I could improve dandelions.  If dandelions were larger, more productive, and more vigorous they would be more useful as vegetables and more useful as stock or poultry feed.

Dandelion flowers are pretty

Dandelion breeding is strangely difficult as they usually tend to display apomixis. This means that cross pollination does not often work.  Each flower is very difficult to pollinate and often sets seed without any fertilisation.  I can't tell if cross pollination worked unless I grow out the seedlings fora long time.  There were a few dandelion breeding programs decades ago, so I read a few old papers and got a few ideas how to increase cross pollination success.

Dandelions tend to grow different depending on the environmental conditions.  When grown in the lawn and mown regularly they tend to produce shorter plants, when grown in long grass they tend to be more elongated.  Dandelions are perennials that also tend to be different sized plants at different times of the year.  All of this makes breeding improved strains far more difficult than I would have liked.

After a bit of work it appears that I did improve dandelions.  They grew larger, more vigorous, and more useful that the regular ones that can be found in the lawn.  My plants can grow huge if treated well.

Massive edible dandelion plant

Regular dandelion leaves often range in length from 10cm to about 25cm, sometimes a bit longer under the right conditions.  If they are to be eaten as vegetables this is a bit too small and you would need to grow a lot of plants to make a meal.

My dandelion leaves reach well over 50cm in length.  This makes them far more useful as leaf vegetables.  The roots grow very thick and long, which makes them far more useful.  Every part of these plants grows pretty big.  One single plant can be massive.

My kids were joking that these plants are so big they should not be called "Dandelions", instead they should  be called "DaddyLions".  I am not sure how I feel about that...

The flowers and seed heads are usually large and fat

My dandelion leaves grow huge

Often dandelion seedlings are exact clones of the maternal parent.  So while mine open pollinate, and there are plenty of wild type plants around that could act as pollen donors, there is a really high chance that each of the seedlings will grow true to type.  If not, then the seedlings should still be large as they would carry 50% genetics from the giant parent.

I now sell packets of dandelion seeds through my for sale page.  They have been grown organically and are open pollinated.  Growing conditions do have a large role on dandelion phenotype expression, so to get large plants they need good soil, full sun, and regular water.  Second year plants grow far larger than first year plants.

Breeding new black tomatoes

I have started to mess around with breeding new black tomato varieties.  I mean true black tomatoes, the ones that are high in a powerful antioxidant called anthocyanin, not the muddy brown tomatoes that often are called 'black'. 

I have some lines that are segregating and if they are any good will try to stabilise them over the next few years, and other lines are almost stable.  The deep black colour of some of my crosses are incredible.

Some of my ripe black tomatoes - their colour is incredible

When they are unripe, the tomato fruits take on an amazing purple colour.  The black is only on the skin, the colour of the flesh underneath the skin changes the colour of the ripe fruit.  To get the darkest black a clear epidermis appears to work well.

If the tomato fruit is red underneath, the colour of ripe fruit are not overly impressive.  If the tomato is yellow or green underneath it allows the fruit to take on an incredibly dark black colour when ripe.

These ones had black skin and green flesh

The ones that are green under the black taste the best so far.  Unfortunately they are far too difficult to tell when they are ripe, I can't tell if they are ripe unless I gently squeeze them, so I will likely not continue with those lines. 

Unripe fruit displays stunning purple colours when unripe

Some of these black lines are also heterozygous for the woolly gene, others are dwarf, some indeterminate, and others determinate.  I certainly want to keep the high anthocyanin fruit but have a few options with various other traits.

I will see what other traits pop out before I decide which lines to keep. 

The fruits get darker as they ripe

Interesting black/purple unripe tomatoes

I grow things very close as I lack garden space

These tomatoes are incredibly black

I am not intending to release any lines that are not stable varieties.  I may change my mind in the future, or I may eventually sell seeds of lines that I have stabilised.  If this happens they will be listed on my for sale page with other vegetable seeds, perennial vegetables, herbs, and other interesting plants that I sell.

Update: this variety has been stabilised, I call them "Tracey".