Spiny Leaf Insect

We got my son some Spiny Leaf Insects (Extatosoma tiaratum) as a Christmas present.  I have never kept these before, so it is an adventure for all of us.

We had planned on getting three, but they are so fascinating that I ended up buying four.  There is one that is slightly larger than this little guy, and two that are smaller.

They are far too little for me to know if they are males or females, hopefully there is at least one of each so they can set up a little breeding colony. They don't live terribly long, so if we want them next year we need them to grow and lay some eggs.

One cool thing about this species of leaf insect is that they are parthenogenic, meaning the females can lay eggs even if there are no males present.  These eggs hatch into clones of the mother, which is pretty cool.  There are some species of parthenogenic lizard which males have never been found!  

I am told in this species of leaf insect that eggs produced with fertilisaiton by males tend to have higher hatch rates and produce larger and stronger offspring, and that after enough generations of parthenogenic reproduction that they start to become pretty feeble.  So I hope that there are both males and females in this lot.

Beeswax candles

My wife likes candles.  I have beehives and I have collected and rendered some beeswax from them.  I bet you can guess where this is headed...

That's right, I made some organic beeswax candles from scratch.  

Making beeswax candles was heaps of fun, and a little scary, and I learned a lot from it.  The best part of all this is that I am completely self taught.  No one helped me, no one showed me what to do, and other than a little bee keeping info on the internet I didn't even read anything on how to do any of part this.  

In hind sight I probably should have looked up a few youtube tutorials or something on candle making, it can be a little dangerous if done wrong, and if you are going to make candles you should do some reading.  I just gave it a shot and it worked out ok, with a little research I think these would have turned out amazing.

I bought a nuc of bees, drove them home in the back of my car, transferred them into a proper hive, collected honey, got the bees to build straight foundationless comb, fed them when needed, stopped feeding them when not needed, split the hive, collected the beeswax, rendered the wax, bought silicone moulds, put in candle wicks, melted beeswax, hand poured beeswax into the candle moulds, and removed the completed candles from the moulds.  

I did all of this with no help, being self taught, just giving it a go.

Beeswax candle

Second attempt, even neater

If beeswax gets too hot it discolours.  Far more importantly, beeswax has a low flashpoint, and I am told that once it reaches flashpoint it burns with a ferocity that is far scarier than any oil fire.  For these reasons it is best to melt beeswax over boiling water. 

Cleaning beeswax off things is difficult, so I used some old pots and things that the kids had in their play kitchen.  Certainly not the simplest or most elegant method, but it worked.

Melting beeswax above boiling water

 

Beeswax melts fast - this bowl floats nicely on the boiling water

I ordered some silicone candle moulds, they come entire with no hole or slit in them.  I poked a hole in them using a needle so the wick could go through, and I cut a slit down the side using a Stanley knife to make candle release simple.  

A rubber band holds the mould together and mysteriously it does not leak.  It doesn't even leak out of the hole with the wick.  The rubber band is enough for the silicon to hold together.

I poked some candle wick through the hole and tied it to a needle to keep it in place while I pour the molten beeswax.  You could tie the wick to anything really, but I had needles handy so that is what I used.  Candle wick comes in different thicknesses, so you need to do a little research to ensure you get the right size for the candle that you are making.  

I used cotton wick, which is meant to be best for beeswax.  I also made sure the wick did not have lead in it, apparently a lot of cheap wicks are impregnated with lead.

Candle moulds with wick

I thought I might spill some beeswax while pouring, so I put down some baking paper.  I am glad I did because when pouring I did spill some beeswax.  This solidified on the baking paper and was put in a container with the rest of my wax to be used for something else later.

I guessed the amount of wax I would need, for the first candle I used the perfect amount.  The second candle I spilled some wax and probably didn't have enough to begin with, so the candle is a little shorter than it otherwise would have been.  It was remarkably close, not too bad for a blind guess.  

After the candles set I weighed the amount of wax I used, so next time I was more precise.

Beeswax has been poured - baking paper means no waste

After this I left the candles somewhere safe to cool.  Once cool it was simple to remove the rubber band and carefully pop the beeswax candle out of the mould.  The candles come out of the moulds surprisingly easily.

Beeswax candles almost finished, I still need to trim the wicks

The detail on candles made using silicon moulds is just amazing!  I can't believe a complete novice like me can create something as amazing as this so easily and quickly.  I made a few more candles with my kids, each came out neater than the first.

Making beeswax candles was simple and heaps of fun.  They turned out ok and with a little tinkering I think I could make some that are really neat.  

I didn't use a candle making kit, I bought everything separately.  This was more difficult and expensive than I would have liked.

After looking on the internet at the candle making beginner kits I think I could do better.  Most kits are hideously expensive for what they are, and most have soy or paraffin wax.  I don't know why but beginner candle making kits are aimed at people who only want to pour wax into a cup, or roll up some wax foundation, none ever have nice silicone moulds.  Surely beginners would prefer to make cutie little candles that look like bee skeps and owls and things like that?

If buying things separately you need to work out the right type of wick and buy a minimum of 5 meters of it.  Beginners probably want enough wax to make 3 cute little candles, they certainly don't want to spend $50 or more to get one kilogram of beeswax! 

I have written some simple instructions, got a few silicone candle moulds, the right sized candle wick, a small amount of organic beeswax, and sell it together as a beginner candle making kit on my for sale page along with the perennial vegetables and things that I also sell.

Amiah Potatoes - diploid potatoes Australia

I have been growing potatoes from true potato seed for a while now.  I grow a few diploid potatoes, some tetraploids, and I have a wild relative of the modern potato.  When grown from true seed, each and every plant is genetically unique.

Most diploid potatoes have really low yields, and produce small potatoes, but the taste of diploids is vastly superior to any variety of potato that you will have ever eaten.  Modern domestic potatoes are big and bland, even the tastiest modern potato is nothing compared to a diploid.

I have been messing around with breeding diploid potatoes.  I mostly grow as many as I have space to grow, cull everything substandard, each winter everything with low/no dormancy die, and I allow them to open pollinate before collecting true potato seed to plant.  

Some years one variety will do better, other years another variety will do better.  I am starting to get some really nice seed grown potatoes.

Amiah diploid potato compared to a modern tetraploid potato

 

One of my seed grown potatoes is yielding quite well for a diploid, and produces two crops per year in my garden.  It looks pretty similar to another high yielding diploid called 'toffee apple' which was bred by Garden Larder.  As I originally got some true potato seed from Garden Larder my variety (named Amiah) may be closely related.  

Interestingly someone recently sent me a few tubers of Toffee Apple Potato, it is yet to produce a crop for me because I planted it a bit late.  It carries good genes and is flowering well so I assume some of the true potato seeds I am currently harvesting will carry some of its genetics.

Amiah potato compared to pumpkin

Amiah diploid potato produces gorgeous looking potatoes, with rich yellow flesh, it yields surprisingly well and produces multiple crops per year, it flowers well and can produce berries and true potato seed if pollinated by a different clone.  

The only real down sides to this diploid are its low dormancy and its relatively long stolons.  Most of its tubers are produced under the plant but a few will spread out and be found further from the plant.  To get the most out of it this plant likes a little space to run!  

Compared to a modern potato, Amiah potatoes taste incredible when baked.  I am bad at describing taste, all I can say is this is how a potato should taste.  If I had my way I would never eat a modern domestic potato again.

I love rich yellow flesh potatoes

We roasted this diploid potato along with some modern potatoes for comparison.  The diploid looked like it was already buttered, much the same colour as pumpkin, indicating it is very high in beta carotene vitamin.

I really like the look of yellow flesh potatoes.  That being said I also grow some blue flesh potatoes and some whites that are worth keeping.  Hopefully a nice red flesh potato pops up soon.  

When grown from rather diverse and heterozygous seed it is difficult to know what they will produce!

Amiah potatoes and the white modern tetraploid ready for roasting

Diploid potatoes can sometimes produce small tubers.  Small potatoes are frustrating to clean and difficult to use.  Normally the diploids aren't too tiny, but at the start I had a couple of lines that produced pea sized tubers, needless to say I culled them from my breeding efforts pretty quickly. 

Any potato grown from true seed can produce tubers with deep eyes.  These are difficult to clean.  Some can produce really long stolons.  I have heard that some produce tubers on stolons that can be 6 foot long, making them unrealistic to grow.  Luckily I have never come across anything like that.

This diploid potato produces reasonable sized tubers, nothing huge but certainly a size that is usable in the kitchen.  The eyes are not very deep.  The stolons are a bit longer than most varieties, but not too bad.

Amiah potatoes are a reasonable size for a diploid potato

Amiah potatoes look nice

There were some potatoes that got a little sun and turned a little green, rather than risk eating them these were replanted.  

I have a few extra tubers, if you are interested I should list them for sale on my for sale page along with the other perennial vegetables and things I have for sale.

Shahtoot mulberry and White mulberry

I love mulberries.  I have a few mulberry trees and really should get some more.  They are such an underrated tree and they have so many uses, both on acreage as well as in backyards.

I have a white mulberry that I grew from a tiny cutting.  This is a lovely and hard working tree.  It gets larger and stronger each year even though I planted it in a really bad position, it tries hard to fruit no matter how difficult the situation and pumps out a lot of berries, it grows many large tasty leaves, the berries taste good, and it doesn't stain things.  The berries are very sweet, some ripen white, some lavender, some pinky, and some can ripen a bit darker.

 

 

White mulberry - all picked from the same tree

I also have a white shahtoot mulberry tree.  The berries from this little tree are long, they don't stain, it produces numerous berries per bud, and they taste like honey ripened apricots.  

Unfortunately this tree is determined to die in my garden.  Every summer it grows larger, it survives winter well, in spring it starts to bud all over, and then large parts die back for no apparent reason.  I can't work out why, but there is something about spring that the tree does not cope with in my garden.  It is fine in summer, autumn, and winter, but for some reason does not like spring.

I love the taste of these berries, but am pretty sure that I will lose it one day because I don't think it is well suited to my climate.  That is too bad as it really does taste great.

Shahtoot mulberry

I originally didn't want to get a dark fruited mulberry because I am now in town and they tend to stain things, but to be honest they probably taste better than the lighter coloured mulberries.  

I have never eaten a black mulberry (Morus nigra), but am told they taste far superiour to white mulberries (Morus alba) or mulberry hybrids.  I am yet to even see a black mulberry tree, I see plenty white mulberry trees with dark fruit that are incorrectly labelled as black mulberry, but have never seen an actual black mulberry tree.  Hopefully these currently exist in Australia.

I really should look around and see if I can find a nice tasting mulberry, who cares if it stains, and grow this as well.  I am sure my kids will pick most of the berries so they won't have a chance to stain anything. 

Mulberries - shahtoot and white mulberry