Ultra Violet torch

Recently I bought a small UV torch.  Mostly because I want to look for scorpions, but also because a lot of things look incredible under ultra violet light.  

While I have no way to measure or confirm this for myself (and have to go off what it said on the order spec sheet) this torch emits light in the range of 365nm 395nm.  

Anything below 400nm is often referred to as invisible, but that isn’t strictly true.  In small torches like this there is always a trailing off of light to the edge of the visible spectrum.  The 365 emits a dull bluish light that is almost invisible to the human eye.  The 395 emits a blue purple light that is more easily seen by the human eye.  

If it only emitted invisible light I would not know if my torch was ever working, so I find that the little visible light they produce is a good thing.  This little torch runs off three AAA batteries and can make things glow intensely even from a reasonable distance.

Parts of corn stalks fluoresce under UV light 

There are a bunch of things around the house that glow under UV light.  Some plastics glow, while others do not.  I can't work out by looking at them which will and which won't.  Interestingly some white paper glows intensely, and other white paper does not.  Some fabrics glow, while others do not.  Under UV light my daughters' room looks somewhat like what I imagine a fairy princess rave party would look like.

Some clear plastics glow, some white ones glow, and some of the dark colours glow.  Below are some photos of things under UV light as well as under normal light for comparison.  

I can't take photos that really look the same as the UV light looks, my phone alters some of the photos and makes them less bright, but this gives you a decent idea of what we are seeing.

A plastic jewel

Some plastics glow, but not others

The plastic container on the lower shelf looks the same but did not glow

My little pony under UV light

My little pony under normal light

This glows a lot more in real life

The same bottle 

Some foods also glow under UV light.  Some things I would have guessed, such as milk, while others took me by surprise.

Honey under UV light looks cloudy

The same jar of honey under normal light

Peanut butter under UV light

Peanut butter under normal light

Ripe bananas under UV light - not a great photo

The same bananas under normal light

White sprinkles glow

I took the kids for a quick walk around the yard to see what would glow under UV light.  We found something under a log that glowed which I think was eggs of something.    

One thing I found interesting is that some spider webs glowed.  No other spider webs glowed, so I think this one had an egg sack under it.  Once the weather warms up and more things are active I would like to see if all spider egg sacks glow, or if it just some species.  I have a feeling that most do not glow.

This spider web glowed, most others do not

As we were walking past the guinea pig hutch something glowed brightly.  

I had a closer look and it was part of a corn stalk.  I wasn't sure if it was due to guinea pig urine, or if corn stalks normally glow under ultra violet light.  

I noticed something in the guinea pig house glowed brightly

This photo does not show the colour, but the corn stalk was bright yellow/green

Glowing corn stalk under ultraviolet light

I still have some corn in the garden that is standing from last season, so we went to have a look at it.  To my surprise, parts of the corn stalks glowed green/yellow, other parts glowed bright blue.  Some of the corn stalks glow intensely under UV light.  I looked on the internet and have not been able to find any other mention of corn stalks glowing under UV light.

To be honest, I thought the corn looked a bit creepy under UV light.  Blair witch style creepy...

I am interested to see if corn stalks glow when they are alive and growing, or if it is only once they are dead.  It may be that there is some fungus or something breaking down the dead stalks that makes them glow.  I don't know yet but I plan to find out in Summer when I have new corn plants growing.  

Corn glowing under ultraviolet light

My photos don't do it justice

I need to look around and see what else glows under ultraviolet light and take some photos.  I really should also put up a blog post of scorpions under ultra violet light because they look incredible.

Heirloom Russian Tomato Varieties

I grow a lot of different varieties of tomatoes.  Some are very old heirloom tomato varieties, while others I am developing myself.  

Some of the tomatoes I grew 

Some of my favourite tasting tomato varieties are old Russian heirloom varieties.  As a generalisation, Russian tomatoes have been bred for rich tastes and high productivity.  There are very few heirloom tomatoes in Australia that can rival the flavour of the old Russian varieties.  

I always used to be under the impression that Russian varieties would be quick to ripen and not mind the cold (unless there is frost) and perform well with short days with only weak sunlight.  From what I understand now, that is not always the case as many Russian tomato varieties were developed for greenhouse culture.  That is ok as they make up for any short comings in having a deep and often complex tomato taste that is hard to beat.  

Unfortunately I have not grown very many heirloom Russian tomato varieties.  I would like to grow a few more of them as their taste is often superb.  Some of the Russian tomatoes I have grown are listed below.

I like tomato season 

Japanese Black Trifele - Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyyi   Японский трюфель

Tomato - Japanese Black Trifele

Japanese Black Trifele is a great Russian heirloom tomato and one of the few varieties that I will grow each and every year.  They produce mahogany brown, pear shaped fruit, that is often green on the shoulders.  The size and shape of the fruits varies a little even on the same truss.  Apparently it was named 'Japanese' to make it sound more exotic, but was developed in Russia and it is a commercially produced tomato in Russia.  These produce a large yield for me every year under different conditions, and they taste incredible.  They are great raw or cooked.  This plant has potato leaf and is indeterminate.

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka - Malachite Box - Малахитовая Шкатулка

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Tomato - Malakhitovaya Shkatulka

Malakhitovaya Shkatulka is another great Russian tomato.  The size and shape of the fruit lend it to slicing for sandwiches, and it goes well in a salad.  Everyone who tastes this has loved it.  It is difficult to tell when they are ripe from a distance, but you are close enough to touch them it becomes pretty simple.  They tend to have small yield in my garden, I wish that it was higher yielding as they taste so great.  It is often said that Russia does not produce green when ripe tomatoes, often when being sold in Russia it is listed as having yellow skin.  I don't care how you describe it or what colour you want to call it, this variety tastes great.

Giant Siberian Pink - Sibirskiy Velikan Rozovyi - Сибирский Великан Розовый

Tomato - Giant Siberian Pink

Giant Siberian Pink is a good tasting Russian tomato that produces very large, mostly round, pinkish fruits.  This variety produces firm flesh, and has a decent number of seeds which makes seed saving easy.  This plant produced a medium to large yield (medium number of fruit, super large sized fruit) over the season.  Being a large fruited tomato it does not ripen early in my garden.  

Little Oak Like - malenʹkiy dub, kak   маленький дуб, как 

Tomato - Little Oak Like

Little Oak Like is a great tasting heirloom Russian tomato that is far too rare.  It is only a small plant, maybe a foot tall and wide.  The red round tomatoes have green shoulders and taste great.  Little Oak Like tomatoes have the deep, rich, old fashioned tomato taste that people think of when they think of home grown tomatoes.  This is one of the best tasting red tomatoes I have eaten.  This plant has a large yield over a reasonably long season for a short determinate tomato.  It is usually among the first tomatoes to ripen in my garden.  The fruit are a little small, but more than make up for that by tasting great.

Black Russian - Chernyy Russkiy - черный русский

Tomato - Black Russian

Tomato - Black Russian

Black Russian is probably the most famous variety of heirloom tomato in Australia even though it is one of the worst.  Black Russian tomato is by far the worst Russian tomato I have ever grown!  Crops are small, the fruit cracks often, and it lack any real depth of flavour that you expect from home grown tomatoes.  If you disagree with this I dare say you are either comparing it to the ethylene ripened cold stored garbage from the shops, or with other home grown insipid varieties such as 'Roma'.  Let's face it, a home grown Roma will always taste bland compared to a home grown flavoursome variety.  The colour of the black Russian tomato fruit is amazing inside and out, and they are a good size, unfortunately the taste, yield, and time it takes to mature always let it down severely in my garden.

Various tomatoes I grow

I often sell seeds saved from my open pollinated organically grown plants through my for sale page.  If you are interested please have a look.  

If you are Russian or have a Slavic background, and know about some other traditional vegetable varieties I would love to hear from you.  I would be interested to grow some more Russian vegetable varieties, not just tomatoes but other vegetables as well.  I would love to grow an old Russian beetroot variety but seem unable to find the names of any.  

If you grow some other Russian tomato or other Russian vegetable varieties and would like to swap some seeds or sell me some seeds please also let me know.  Either leave a comment on this blog post or my email address can be found on my for sale page.  

Daffodil breeding - first attempt

I have done a lot of vegetable breeding over the years.  I have developed some excellent new varieties of tomatoes, potato, corn, berries, herbs, and other edible things.  To a far lesser extent I have dabbled in breeding of ornamental plants.  

One of my first efforts at breeding daffodils is below.  Unlike vegetables, growing from seed is tricky, but breeding spring flowering bulbs does not take too long.  

To create a new variety of daffodils you do not have to spend years and produce/cull many generations (usually 7 to 10) to stabilise the line.  On the other hand, once you have a new variety of daffodil that you like, the bulbs are divided, bulbs produce exact genetic clones, and you have new variety.  The hardest part is getting daffodil seeds, and germinating them into seedlings.

My new daffodil

Seed grown daffodil

This daffodil variety produces small flowers that are highly fragrant.  The numbers of flowers per stem vary a bit with 8 or 9 being most common.  They seem rather vigorous, and happily divide in my garden.  Which I like!

Not every bulb produces a flower stem every year, I think that is pretty normal for daffodils.  Larger bulbs produce flowers, smaller bulbs don't.  I think if I gave them better soil and less competition I would probably get more flowers and more bulb division, but I don't have the space for such things.  Even with poor soil and a lot of competition they are performing well.

This daffodil makes an excellent cut flower.  They have multiple fragrant blooms per stem.  Each cluster lasts a long time in a vase.  Each flower is small, around 3cm, the stems grow to around 40cm tall, they could probably be taller or shorter depending on the conditions.

They produce flowers early this year, opening the first few days of August.  This year winter has been mild, so they may open a little later on a cold year.  Even if they open later they are still one of the first daffodils to bloom in my garden.

Each flower is about 3cm

Stems are about 40cm long

The bulbs do divide quickly so it should not take too long to build up numbers of these daffodils.  

Being seed grown they are genetically different from any other variety around.  I need to look around and see if they are noticeably different from other varieties.  If they are I need to name them.

If I ever have enough to sell I will list them on my for sale page when the bulbs are dormant.

Purple asparagus spears

I grow a few different varieties of asparagus, most I grew from seed.  Asparagus is a perennial vegetable that can produce for decades.

By far my favourite tasting asparagus variety is an old heirloom variety called Precoce D'Argentuil.  It has spears that are mostly green with a little bit of purple.  It is a large vigorous variety, which is great for home gardeners.  It is far better than anything you will ever buy from the markets.

I also like purple asparagus.  It is often sweeter than the green varieties.  For me they usually produce fat and high quality spears.  I do find purple asparagus to be less productive than the green varieties, so it is a bit of a trade off.  I grow several varieties of green and purple asparagus, so get to eat the ones I like best.

Below are some photos of my purple asparagus.  I have put a green spear next to them for comparison.

Purple asparagus next to a green one for comparison

The spears do get much deeper purple colour than this, but I didn't pick them until a bit late so they started to get a bit long and get a bit more green.  As purple asparagus spears open out they turn green just like any other variety.

I normally stop picking when they spears get a bit thin so the plant can gather energy for the next year.  Some years I keep picking a bit too long.  The spears in these phots are a bit thinner than I would normally pick, but as long as I don't pick this hard the following year the plants don't seem to mind.

You can also blanch the spears and force purple asparagus to produce white spears.  This is very tender, and not hard to do.

Purple asparagus 

Purple asparagus spears

I have a few different purple asparagus plants.  Some are male, others are female.  I prefer female plants as the spears are fatter, better quality, and the plants more productive.  Male plants are good too as they do not produce berries and you don't have to remove seedlings to prevent them from crowding the bed.  As my plants are seed grown I just have a mix of both male and female, for most home gardeners this is not an issue.  

I do sometimes sell asparagus crowns of different heirloom varieties.  I normally sell dormant crowns of one or two year old plants late winter or early spring.  I do not know which are male and which are female.  I tried to tag them while they were in flower but by the time they are dormant I tend to lose track of which is which.  When I do have them for sale they are listed on my for sale page.