Living-Mudflower Original Vegetables - vegetable breeding

I used to look at online plant shops at all the plants they had that were claimed to be 'exclusives'.  That used to impress me.  Then one of these places bought plants from me and started selling them as exclusives.  One of these places talks about saving heirloom vegetables, yet often renames things and then claims that they are exclusive to them.  I am no longer impressed in the slightest when I see claims of plants or seeds as being exclusive. 

Very few online plant shops carry things that they have developed themselves.  I am far more impressed by this as breeding a new variety takes years of dedication. 

I breed new vegetable varieties, and improved herb varieties, and berry varieties, and fruit varieties etc myself.  Some are listed below while others are not yet stable enough to list here.  Some are named, while others still need to be named.  Maybe I should have a competition of some sort one day to name some of my new things.

Some of them are for sale through my for sale page, while others are not for sale yet.  Everything I grow is organic, I don't even use the poisons that are certified to be used in organic farms.

Original Vegetables developed by Living-Mudflower

Igloo tomato

'Igloo' tomatoes were the first tomatoes I ever bred.  I had limited access to germplasm, at the time I was young with only a rudimentary understanding of genetics and no one to guide me, yet I was still able to get a great end result.  

Igloo tomatoes are short stout little plants somewhere between one and two feet tall, small red round tomatoes that are very uniform in size and colour.  They normally taste ok but it tastes far superior if left to fully ripen.  Large seeds make seed saving simple.  Great for small spaces or short seasons as it is one of the first to ripen and produces over a long period, and they are incredibly high yielding usually producing 10kg to 12kg of tomatoes per plant in my garden. That is a tremendous amount of tomatoes for such a small plant.

Igloo tomato

 

Nanuq tomato

'Nanuq' was another of the first tomatoes I bred back when I was very young.  Small wimpy looking but surprisingly strong plants, small red round tomatoes produced on plants that are about a foot tall.  These have wispy carrot like foliage that were bred for taste and early ripening.  Nanuq tomatoes are one of the first tomatoes to ripen and only takes up a little space.  I’m not blown away by the size of the crop but it makes up for that with the taste. 

Nanuq tomato

 

Immali corn

'Immali' corn is a pink/purple and white sweet corn.  I believe this is the first purple sweet corn to have been developed in Australia.  This purple sweet corn is healthier than yellow corn as it is high in antioxidants, and better tasting than any store bought corn.  Reasonably short plants around 5 feet tall, most tiller to some extent, they produces numerous cobs per plant but is highly dependent on spacing and soil fertility.  Sweet corn with su se+ genes means it is best suited for backyards rather than market gardens as cobs don’t store anywhere near as long as the Sh2 varieties, but they have a superior taste.

Immali corn - purple sweet corn

Immali corn - dry seeds for saving

Amiah potato (pronounced 'uh-my-uh')

In my opinion 'Amiah' potatoes are the best of the best of diploid potatoes.  They have the great taste of a diploid potato without having the low yields that are common among diploids.  The size of potatoes is small but reasonable, they don’t need peeling, and each plant produces crops that are good but not as large as many tetraploid varieties.  Amiah potatoes are healthier to eat and better looking than white potatoes due to its rich yellow flesh and interesting skin colour.  

Amiah potatoes have a great taste, easily produce two crops per year here, are quite stubborn/aggressive in its spreading, and always survives over winter in the soil with no care from me.  As well as all this they produce huge numbers of beautiful purple flowers on long stalks held high above the foliage.

Amiah potato and white tetraploid potato for comparison

Amiah potato and white tetraploid

 

Oaken (dwarf multiflora) tomatoes 

These produce dwarf plants with regular leaf.  Flowers are produced in clusters of about 150, but not all of the fruit sets in my garden and many of the flowers fall off.  The fruit is small, mostly round, and light orange often with some green stripes.  It has a sweet taste and is surprisingly late to ripen for such a small fruited tomato, but once it does ripen it crops until killed by the frosts as it is an indeterminate dwarf tomato.

The colour is off in this photo, they are darker orange than this

One truss of dwarf multiflora tomato flowers - good luck trying to count them all

Tracey tomato (black yellow/green)

Tracey tomatoes are the result of a more recent breeding effort, where I had greater understanding of genetics, more access to germplasm, but far less time to put into the endeavor than many of my earlier breeding attempts.  The plants produce tasty little tomatoes that are intensely black where sun hits the fruit, yellow/green under the black.  Tracey tomato produces the darkest true black tomatoes that I have ever seen.  The black is from the high levels of antioxidants, which make this a very healthy tomato to eat.  They have green flesh when ripe, and taste incredible.  Unripe tomatoes are beautifully purple, similar to an eggplant.  

Tracey tomatoes are very productive, producing mostly round ping pong sized fruit, but are not completely uniform and never will be.  This variety has produced well for me in hot dry summers, in mild wet summers, in dust storms, through drought, as well as during lovely mild years.  Ornamental, highly productive, with great taste makes these a great variety to grow.

Ripe Black Yellow/Green tomatoes

Unripe Tracey tomato

Unnamed things

Thornless Primocane Raspberry 

This is a dual cropping, thornless, red raspberry.  This variety is sweeter than many red raspberries and is always completely thornless.  The berries don't crumble, and ripe berries are easily and cleanly removed from the plant.  Each plant is very productive, they can produce several dozen flowers per cluster.  Not all berries ripen at once, some berries are ready while some flowers in the same cluster are yet to open, meaning that harvest is over an extended period.  It produces two or more crops per year and being a thornless primocane variety means pruning is simple.  All of these traits make it an excellent variety to grow in back yards.

Thornless primocane raspberry - highly productive

 

Giant edible dandelion

I can’t remember why I started to breed dandelions, it was a lot more work than it ought to be, and the end result is rather impressive.  They are much like normal dandelions you find in your lawn, but bigger in every way.  Every part is edible and useful, only bigger and better.  

Giant edible dandelions produce longer and wider leaves, larger yellow flowers on longer fatter stalks, it also has deeper fatter roots.  These won't escape into your lawn as they are so large that they need extra water, they are also strangely susceptible to disease and pests.

Giant dandelion - 30cm ruler and leaves of regular plant for scale

Massive parsley

The leaves are absolutely massive and have the strong taste that is common among flat leaf parsleys.  The leaf stalks (petioles) are so huge that they can be used in the place of celery.  The roots do fork a bit, and sometimes have a woody core, but are large and taste incredible roasted (as most parsley roots do).  

This is not yet a stable variety as it still produces a range of plants from large to massive.  Some plants produce large round leaves, but this trait is uncommon (even when self-pollinated) and may disappear from this variety.  I have mostly stopped growing this because it got too large.  It is too bad, I really enjoyed the look of absurdly large parsley plants.

Massive parsley leaf - 30cm ruler and leaf of regular plant

Improved coriander

I love coriander.  Far too often coriander is bred only using selection, and very rarely through crossing different varieties.  This is not a stable variety, and I am doing my best to ensure that it never will be.  I deliberately mass crossed a dozen or so varieties of coriander, some that were bred for leaf production, others for seed production, others were said to be slow bolting.  I keep introducing parent varieties, earlier generations, and other improved varieties.  The result is a highly genetically diverse population of mostly large leaf, large seed, and slow bolting coriander.  Most have the usual white coriander flowers, but some have pink/red stems and flowers.  When you grow this you cull anything that flowers early and you quickly establish a variety that is slow bolting in your garden. 

Coriander leaf

I can't get enough coriander

I really should add to this list in the future.  I have a lot of breeding lines, some are almost stable while others are still segregating.  

I also have a few lines of spring bulbs and other ornamental plants that I have bred, perhaps I should add them in here too.  Or maybe they deserve their own blog post? 

Rejuvenating an old bird nest fern

Back in the year 2001 I went rock climbing with a friend.  Up high on the cliff was a tiny bird nest fern that was about an inch tall.  

I scraped that little fern off the rock face, I shouldn't have, but I did.  

I have had this fern for over twenty years now.

My 20 year old bird nest fern looking tired

I put the tiny fern in my pocket and finished the day of rock climbing nonsense.  When I got home the fern was bruised and crushed, but still alive so I filled a small pot with soil and planted it.

I was always told that old tea leaves are good for ferns.  So I used to rip open used tea bags (and sometimes also new tea bags) and sprinkled the tea leaves around the pot.

The little fern grew very fast.  To this day I have no idea if the tea leaves helped or not, all I know is that thing got big quick.

As the fern was growing against a rock face it only had fronds on one side.  It took some time and lots of rotating the pot each week before it filled out on all sides, but we got there.

The fern grew large, and sometimes produces spores on the back of some fronds.  I figured this was a sign that I was looking after it well.

Bird nest fern spores

I repotted it a few times as it grew, and moved house with it many times.  I can't give this fern a larger pot as I really struggle to lift the one it is in now.

At my last house the fronds reached about six feet in length.  It was really impressive.

Since then this bird nest fern has declined. The largest fronds are now only around a metre long, and it looks generally pretty shabby as you can see from the photos above.

The other week we had a lot of rain, so I moved my fern out to get some rain.  Rain is good because it washes dust off the fronds and flushes away salt build up in the soil.  Normally I struggle to life the pot, but this time it weighed next to nothing.  It's been in that pot for around a decade, I haven't really been caring for it very well, and there was very little soil left.  Perhaps that's why it looks so tired!

I have since got some soil and leaf litter and filled up the empty space in the pot as best I can.  I also sprinkled some used tea leaves over the new soil.  Hopefully I didn't let this go on for too long and new soil this fixes everything.

Bird nest fern, new fronds

With the combination of warmer weather of spring, new soil/leaf litter, and having the rain flush out any built up salts, this fern should be ready to do some growing again. 

It already has some fronds starting to develop.  I wonder if the new fronds will be larger, or if it will take some time for it to produce long fronds again.

Hopefully it doesn't take too long for the bird nest fern to regain its former glory and look healthy and lush again.