Venus Flytrap - Low Giant

Last year I got a 'Low Giant' Venus flytrap.  This is a registered cultivar that was developed in Australia.

Low Giant seems like a good name for this venus fly trap.  It grew reasonably large traps, and the leaves stayed low to the ground.  The inside of the traps turned deep red which I quite like.

My plant attempted to flower in its first spring, but I cut off the flower stalk so it had more energy to put into growing leaves and getting strong.  I planted the flower stalk to use as a cutting, and it has produced some baby plants.  Not all of my VFT varieties are happy to grow from flower stalk cuttings for some reason, but this one threw several baby plants from that one cutting.  The original plant also divided.  

Over winter my Low Giant vft has died back a lot and looks terrible, which is actually a good sign of a healthy vft in my climate.  I often find the ones that die back in the frosts tend to come back strong in spring, while the ones that grow through winter tend to struggle or even rot when the weather warms.

Low Giant Venus Flytrap - note flower stalk cutting on the left

I was a little disappointed when Low Giant arrived as it was very small and I paid a lot for it, but it grew into a very colourful plant.  

Low Giant arrived bare rooted through the post, and like most Venus flytraps it coped really well being posted like this.  It arrived late winter, and had not experienced frosts before it arrived here, so it took a while to settle before it started to grow.

Below are some photos of its growth over the first two months:

Low Giant VFT the day it arrived

Low Giant after one week

Low Giant VFT - one month getting colour but not growing much

Low Giant vft ~ 2 months and still pretty small

The following is a description from the Flytrap Store:

The Low Giant Venus Flytrap clone is a spectacular plant that produces very large traps (rivaling even the B52) with broad leaves that grow prostrate (near the ground) year round in dense rosettes. It often develops a very deep red color in the traps.

 Predatory Plants has the following description:

Venus flytrap 'Low Giant' is an extremely vigorous clone with large traps. As this Venus fly catcher's name suggests, 'Low Giant' tends to grow close to the ground in a tight rosette.

While it took a while to do much after being posted and then hit with frosts, towards the end of spring/beginning of summer my Low Giant started to grow well.  From there it went from strength to strength and seemed pretty vigorous in my climate.

I grow a few different varieties of venus fly traps, some named and others from seed.  I don't have unlimited space, or unlimited water, so I can't grow anything that does not perform well for me.  So far Low Giant is performing well, is pretty vigorous, it has large traps, has nice colour, it divides, and it hasn't needed too much care from me.  While I think Low Giant is a good clone, at this stage 'Wally' is still my favourite venus flytrap. 

I plan to sell a few Low Giant venus flytraps, if you are interested keep an eye on my for sale page in late spring.  While I prefer pick up these things cope well being posted bare rooted pretty easily.  If you grow carnivorous plants and would like to swap, please let me know as there are a few carnivorous plants that I am trying to get.

Kangkong - perennial vegetable from South East Asia

A number of years ago I heard of a perennial leaf vegetable called kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica and/or Ipomoea reptans) that is not very common here but is extremely popular in south east Asia. 

It has heaps of common names including ong choy, Chinese spinach, Chinese watercress, Chinese convolvulus, swamp cabbage, water spinach, river spinach, water morning glory, and water convolvulus.  I am sure kangkong has a lot of other names too.

Kangkong was reputed to be fast growing (~10cm per day), high yielding, undemanding to grow, and tastes good.  Kangkong is absurdly healthy to eat, it is high in many vitamins, high in various minerals such as iron, high in essential amino acids, and has reasonable amounts of fiber.  It also has few calories and almost not fat.  Kang kong is said to reduce cholesterol and has blood sugar stabilising effects (which I need).  To me kangkong sounded intriguing and well worth trying.

Kangkong was said to grow in water and do very well in aquaponics.  I keep hearing how this is sold in bunches at the markets and that it is simple to grow from cuttings, but have never actually seen it for sale in a market anywhere.  

I occasionally see kangkong plants for sale online, but not very often.  So I tracked down some seed and grew some myself.  Back then kangkong seed was difficult to find anywhere, so I think I was lucky to be able to get it.

Kangkong

The seedlings produced rather distinctive forked cotyledons as they germinated, and seemed to germinate in soil better than they did in water.  The ones in water rotted, the ones in soil all germinated quickly for me.

I have since heard that kang kong is very difficult to germinate, but I didn’t do anything overly special and they germinated just fine for me.  The pot below I planted five seeds and had five seedlings germinate.  Maybe I was just lucky.

Kangkong seedlings germinating

Kangkong leaves and spent flowers

My kangkong seedlings grew reasonably slow at the start and after germination seemed to sit there doing nothing for some time, eventually they got large enough to eat a little.  It felt like they took a long time to reach a reasonable size, after that they grew very fast.  I grew most of them crowded in small pots of soil, where they did surprisingly well.  

I thought that kangkong didn't taste very strong, it certainly never tasted bitter.  To me kangkong was good raw or cooked briefly in a stir fry.  My kids happily ate raw kangkong leaves that they picked as they walked in the garden.  The fact that my kids would graze on this says a lot about it.  Our chickens and guinea pigs also liked to eat kangkong leaves and stems. 

I also grew one kang kong plant in a floating pot in a classroom aquarium, this plant did extremely well.  From what I have seen kangkong is well suited to aquaponics.  I have read a few academic papers that demonstrated that kangkong is vastly superior in reducing nitrates and phosphates in water than fast growing brassicas.  It seems to have potential in cleansing water and for soil stability in wet tropical areas.

I doubt I grew my kangkong properly.  I gave them next to no attention, they were crwded in a tiny pot of soil, and they were not in very fertile soil, but they still produced a reasonable amount of leaves pretty much constantly over the warmer months.  Some flowered towards the end of the season, but I never saw any sign of them producing seed pods.  This lack of seed setting may be due to my short growing season, but I have a feeling it may have been due to the lack of attention that I paid them and the poor growing conditions.  The pots were far too small, the soil too poor, and they did not get enough sunlight. 

Like many other vegetables that we commonly grow, kangkong are tropical perennial plants that do great over summer and tend to die over winter in cooler climates.  I didn’t want to grow from seed so I protected some plants over winter by keeping them out of the frosts.  They suffered badly through winter, but they survived.  Temperatures below 12C made them lose leaves and die back to depressing little stumps.  Any frost killed the plants completely, but keeping a pot of kangkong out of the frost was simple enough to do.

Kangkong struggles over winter

Once spring came I had a pot of sad little stumps with no leaves and a lot of dead bits, I doubted that these would recover so I also planted some more seed.  These sad little stumps took off and flourished as soon as the weather warmed, and considerably out grew any seeds I planted that spring.  

There was no comparison in growth rates, the overwintered plants were larger and produced far more leaves earlier in the season.  Again they flowered but did not set seed, I never cared about seed from them as I still had some seed in my packet, plus they are true perennials that were simple enough to get through winter in that climate.  In hind sight I regret not valuing these vegetables enough.   

Even though my climate was not ideal for them, I grew the same kangkong plants for a number of years then moved house and brought some of my plants with me, they kept producing leaves for me to eat which I really appreciated.  At the time due to work I was living away from home during the week, and coming back on weekends where I would eat handfuls of the stuff.  

As I had my garden in pots of soil sitting on concrete, kangkong was one of the few things that produced anything edible for me over this time.  Having a few hand fulls of kangkong as well as Vietnamese coriander, really helped me during this time as I was producing nothing else edible at the time.

A few months later I moved house again.  I don’t remember what happened to my kang kong because I had a lot  going on during that time, but I somehow lost them all, and I haven’t grown any kangkong since. 

Kangkong growing in a 10cm pot (in an ice cream container) and flowering

It has been a few years since I last grew this, but I keep thinking of growing kangkong again.  It was so simple to grow, was so productive, very undemanding, kangkong is meant to be really healthy, and it actually tasted alright.  Much like many other great vegetables I can’t buy this in the markets, meaning if I want to eat it I have to grow it myself. 

I found some of my very old seed (from 2013) and have planted some to see if any germinates for me.  I also bought some new seed just in case the old ones are no longer viable and have planted some of that.  I didn't know if they can germinate with the temperatures so low, so I planted them with bottom heat.  Some are already germinating.  I didn't plant much of the seed, I will plant more in spring if these sprout and die off due to the cold or something.  

Kang kong flower bud

Last time I grew some kangkong in soil as well as some in a floating pot of gravel in a fish tank.  This time I will try the soil again, but I would also like to grow some using aquaponics as I think that is the only way for it to reach its potential in my climate.  I have heard of it exploding in growth in aquaponics and being too productive - that's what I want!

The floating pot of gravel performed incredibly well last time, but I have plans to pump aquarium water through a bed of gravel and I think kangkong may do even better in a set up like that.  I am kind of excited to see what kang kong can do in my goldfish barrelponics as I think kangkong may be perfectly suited to that kind of growing.  Being outside in full sun, having constant access to a stream of nutrient rich water, it should really take off over summer. 

I enjoy vegetable breeding and (as well as many failures) I have produced some incredible plants.  A large part of me wants to buy seeds of as many different varieties of kangkong as I can find, cross them all, and see if I can produce a superior variety.  Being a perennial means that if I do stumble upon an exceptional plant I don’t have to breed it for generations to stabilize the superior traits, I can simply take cuttings and clone the thing.  

Another part of me does not want to do this as regular kangkong is already pretty great, I have no experience in collecting kangkong seed, I don’t have a lot of space or water to use on yet another vegetable breeding project, and this sounds like a lot of work.  I guess time will tell, it sounds like something I will eventually do but I may not invest a lot of effort into it just yet.

Kangkong flowering - this plant needed more nitrogen and more sun

I will probably sell kangkong through my for sale page at some stage in summer.  I am interested in getting a few more kangkong varieties and would love to track down the red stemmed kangkong.  If you have some red kang kong in Australia and are willing to sell or trade it let me know.  Or if you are overseas and are willing to post me some seed of red kangkong I would also love to hear from you.

Growing Peanuts

I always wanted to grow peanuts (Arachis hypogaea).  I gave it a go once when I was in highschool, and we had early (February) frosts that killed them all.  I haven't tried growing peanuts gain since then.

This past summer I decided to give growing peanuts another go.  I am told that you can buy raw peanuts and plant them, but I don't remember the last time I saw raw peanuts for sale so I bought seeds of a variety called 'Virginia Bunch'.  

The seeds were very expensive, and didn't have a lot in the packet.  Unfortunately most were broken when the packet was sent to me.  Still, there were a few good seeds in there, so I planted them and gave it a go.

The plants grew well, looked like any other legume, and had unremarkable small yellow flowers.  The flowers died, as they should, and then the flower stems buried the forming fruits.  Each peanut pod is the fruit of the peanut plant, that has been buried by the plant itself. 

Home grown peanut

The kids and I pulled up the plants after the frosts killed them.  hey hadn't died down completely, but we have had a lot of rain and I was worried that they may rot if I left them in the soil for too long.

The kids and I ate some of the peanuts.  They tasted great.  They tasted like peanut but almost creamy.

I was a bit disappointed by the small size of the crop, but they didn't have a great season and the plants were largely shaded.  I think in a normal summer each plant would have produced more peanuts.

One peanut plant with its peanuts

I would like to grow peanuts again, so have saved some seeds from this lot.  I would love to grow other varieties if possible, so will keep an eye out at health food stores to see if they ever offer raw peanuts for sale.

Comparison Pot Widths and Volumes

I have been trying to work out how much soil a plant pot holds.  This post is to help me remember without writing on a scrap of paper and then losing it.  

I sell seeds and bare rooted plants, and have started to sell some plants in pots at garage sales and things like that.  This increases the costs to me as I have to buy pots as well as soil.  For this reason I need to know how much the pot costs as well as how much the soil costs that they hold, so I can know if this is financially viable.  

While there are shorter pots or taller pots of the same diameter that will change the volume, I have found the following to give me a ballpark idea of how much soil each pot holds:

Plugs (5cmx5cmx5cm) - 0.125L

50mm pot - 0.15L

70mm tall pot - 0.3L

75mm pot - 0.35L

100mm pot - 0.5L (0.46L-0.55L)

140mm pot - 1.55L

150mm pot - 1.7L

200mm pot - 4.3L

 

Aquaponics jar - no tech

We have all seen pictures of plants growing in water beads.  They look great.  We had some water beads that I was going to throw out, so decided to use them for something.

The kids caught some gambusia fish in a local river.  Gambusia are a pest here and cannot legally be returned to the river, so we fed most to the chickens and used a couple in an aquaponics jar experiment with water beads.  I also have some variegated spider plants, they are hardy, survive pretty much anything, and I am sure I have seen them in tiny aquaponics so they should be well suited to this task.

We cut the top off a plastic bottle, and punched a hole in the lid for water exchange.  Filled this with water beads, popped in a spider plant, and expected it to work.  

It looked great at the start.

waterbeads jar aquaponics attempt

It didn't work.  

There was not enough gas exchange with the water and the fish suffered.  I felt really bad for them.  We then put something between the bottle and the jar to leave a little gap for gas exchange.  This was better for a little while, but the fish died several weeks later.  

I still feel really bad about this.  Conditions were not good for the fish, and I think the water beads may have played a part in their death.  The beads themselves are meant to be inert and non-toxic, but maybe the colour used in them is dangerous?

Notice the water beads are all plump and completely fill the container

Everything looked great at the start

I still thought this idea had merit, so we kept it going without any fish.  I figured we could learn from this and it doesn't need fish for proof of concept.  I certainly didn't want any more fish to go through anything like this.

We did learn a lot, it failed again.

The plant flopped over.  It was not properly supported by the beads.  All those amazing pictures you see of plants growing in beautiful water beads probably haven't been growing in it for very long. 

The beads at the top started to lose water and dehydrate.  I am not sure how this is possible, but it is.  Look at the pictures, all the beads at the top are now tiny and dry!  The beads were right up to the top of the container at the start of this, now the level has dropped a lot.

Somehow the plant seems to be shriveling up, maybe due to lack of water.  I'm not sure how this can be possible as the beads in the lower section are below the water level and are constantly submerged in water.  These spider plants are pretty tough, so I expected them to easily thrive in this.

I have tried pouring water over the top of the beads to re-hydrate them...but that only seems to slow the problem rather than fix it.  The top water beads keep drying and shrinking.

Look how much lower the water beads are now, they are drying

Some beads under water, the lid is perforated to let in water, yet the top beads are still drying

The plant is not supported by beads, and is shriveling, as are the water beads

After a while the water beads started to grow algae.  The beads at the top are drying even though the beads lower down are under the water.  The lid of the bottle has holes punched in it to allow the water in.  The plants are certainly not thriving, they flop over as they are not supported by the beads, and they appear to be somewhat stressed by lack of water.  I planted some other spider plants in a small pot of soil, the soil grown plants are probably three times larger.

I'm going to let this run to the bitter end.  There are no fish in there suffering, so there is no real reason to stop.  At this stage is is pretty clear that water beads are no good for growing plants, and water beads should not be used in tiny jar aquaponics.

The beads on top are still shrinking while the ones lower down are submerged

The water beads are starting to get algae growing on them

The water beads are still shrinking, this was full of plump beads at the start

I'm sure I have heard of jar aquaponics working, and I am sure I have heard it working without a pump or any other technology.  After seeing this I don't believe jar aquaponics can work with water beads, but it may work with gravel.  

Overall this experiment has failed.  No part of it has gone well.  While I feel bad for the fish, I have learned from it.  Once this fails completely I should try again using gravel instead of water beads (but no fish).

Black raspberry from seed - first winter

North American black raspberries (Rubus occidentalis) are virtually unheard of in Australia.  So rare that most gardeners in this country are unaware that such a thing even exists.

I have grown a few black raspberry plants from seeds.  Rubus are considered difficult to grow from seed, but I seem to do ok with them.  Being winter means my black raspberry plants are all dormant and I can have a decent look at them.

The difference between each of the seed grown plants in incredible.

Some seedlings are very vigorous, while other seedlings lack vigour.  Some grew to about an inch tall in the season, while others reached about 3 feet tall.  Some grew a single cane, while others grew multiple canes.  

These don't fruit in their first year, so I am yet to taste the fruit from them, it will be interesting to see if any produce more fruit than other plants or better tasting fruit.  

One thing I find fascinating is the thorns (prickles) on my black raspberry seedlings.  One plant has thick curved thorns that grab at my clothes and tear at my skin.  Another has many many prickles that are straighter and thinner and resembles the wild roses that grow as weeds around here.

Black raspberry cane

Black raspberry cane

I have no idea if my black raspberry is monoecious or dioecious, so have to wait until they flower to find out.  I don't have many plants so at this stage cannot trade them as I would hate to end up with only male plants and not be able to taste the fruit!

Unlike red raspberries (Rubus idaeus), the black raspberries root at the tip of a cane if it comes into contact with soil.  This growth habit is similar to blackberries so will need some thought into controlling them and growing them in a productive way.  Apparently hybrids between red raspberry and black raspberry (which tend to produce purple berries) also tend to root at the tip.

So far only one of my plants grew long enough to tip root.  I cut this off and it seems to have a strong root system.  This was by far my most vigorous plant, so even though the rooted tip is tiny I have no question that it will grow into a monster over summer if treated well.  I plan to dig up this little plant and send it to Shane to see how he goes growing them.

Black Raspberries - young canes covered in whitish bloom

These black raspberries are all very thorny, and from my understanding will be floricane (meaning they will only flower on last year's growth).  I dislike thorns on plants, and I much prefer primocane (meaning they can flower on new growth), so if all goes well and they thrive here I may need to do some breeding with these in the future.

One day I would love to try and cross them with my thornless primocane red raspberry, and see if I can produce a thornless purple raspberry, or a primocane purple raspberry.  Or cross them with my yellow fruited raspberry and see what the fruit from that cross is like.  These things take time, and many different things could happen to prevent this from working, so at best that is a few years away.

If I ever have some black raspberry plants to spare I will try to list them on my for sale page.  Best case scenario that will be winter next year, but really depends on a lot of different factors so may be later than that or if they don't grow well here it may be never.