Litchi tomato Solanum sisymbriifolium

A generous friend sent me some seeds of litchi tomato (Solanum sisymbriifolium) a while ago.  I had never eaten, grown, or even seen this species before so this was something new to me.  

Litchi tomato is also called Morelle de Balbis, vila-vila, sticky nightshade, red buffalo-bur, or fire-and-ice plant.  My kids call these 'prickle tomatoes'.

Litchi tomatoes - can you see why my kids call them prickle tomatoes?

Litchi tomatoes are somewhat related to tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries.  Like many of the vegetables we grow, they are a perennial that is treated as an annual.  

I left my plants where they were over winter, fully expecting frosts to kill them.  To my surprise they handled mild winter with frosts down to about -4C with minimal damage.  I have no idea if they would survive a cold winter, but a mild winter didn't seem to bother them too much.

They flowered through winter but didn't set fruit in the cooker weather.  I transplanted them in spring and with warmer weather they started fruiting pretty quick.

Litchi tomatoes flowering

The leaves look deceptively soft and velvety, but have prickles on them.  The stems and fruit husks also have prickles.  The leaf shape varies a little from plant to plant, some have deeper divisions in the leaf while others are not as deep.

Litchi tomato leaf

Leaves look soft, but have prickles

I am told that they need more than one plant in order to set fruit.  I don't have heaps of space to use so I plant several plants in the one hole.  This ensures a pollinator is never far away.

I probably get less fruit per plant by having them this close, but it frees up space to grow other things so I am happy with the result.

I grow several plants in the same hole

Litchi tomato stems are prickly

Litchi tomatoes produce reasonably large, showy flowers that were white or bluish.  They varied from plant to plant but were always rather ornamental and showy.

Litchi tomato flower

Prickle tomato flowers

Flowers vary slightly from plant to plant

Fruit are born on a small truss with up to a dozen red fruits per truss.  I found they took a while to flower, then the wait from flower to ripe fruit felt like it took some time, once they started to ripen they were nicely productive.

Fruit can be harvested once the husk starts to turn brown.  Either individual fruits can be picked, or the entire truss can be snipped off and brought in.

I am told that ripe fruit slips out of the husk, but didn't experience that even once.  I assume different strains act differently, and this one does not slip from the husk.  

I was able to harvest carefully bare handed, but think using gloves would make harvest a lot faster and easier.

Litchi tomato truss

Unlike many other fruits, I found that picking them when fully ripe made them taste bland.  They were sweetest earlier, and got progressively less sweet and lost complexity of flavour the longer I left them.  

Their taste varied from plant to plant, as well as varying as the fruit ripened.  Some tasted a bit like cherry, some a bit fruity.  Some tasted like kiwi fruit mixed with something nice, I liked those ones the best.

Ripe Litchi Tomatoes

The fruit were glossy red on the outside, orange on the inside, and had a lot of small hard seeds in them.  

I didn't mind the seeds at all as I didn't really notice them, but my wife disliked them and found them annoying.

Litchi tomato fruit with seeds

I don't tend to grow many things with thorns and prickles.  Unfortunately Litchi Tomatoes have a lot of prickles on pretty much all parts.  

If you ever grow Litchi tomatoes be sure to stake or cage them to prevent them sprawling, and try not to grow them anywhere that you will be brushing past.

Litchi tomato - so thorny

I am glad I got to grow these, and I am growing the overwintered plants again this summer.  I really like the taste, plus the plants are intriguing and ornamental, so will likely grow them most years.  

I don't have endless space, and there are a lot of things I want to grow, so going forward may have them on rotation and grow them every second year.

I do sell seeds of Litchi tomatoes, as well as a few other interesting edibles and perennial vegetables in Australia through my for sale page.

Utricularia subulata cleistogamous and chasmogamous flowers

Utricularia subulata, the zig zag bladderwort, is a small terrestrial carnivorous plant.  The leaves are tiny and often go unnoticed even among other tiny carnivorous plants such as pygmy sundews.

This carnivorous plant grows easily from division and far too easily from seed.  

Utricularia subulata flowers

U subulata flowers

This terrestrial bladderwort has lived in my carnivorous plant collection for quite some time.  

For years they have produced tiny flower stalks with cleistogamous flowers.  These were spherical flowers with no petals, these flowers never open yet they self pollinate and produce copious amounts of seed.  

These uninteresting flowers that never open seem to spread seed everywhere, as such I do my best to pull them out whenever I see them.

This year my Utricularia subulata sent up rather tall flower stalks and chasmogamous flowers.  

These are larger showy flowers that do open and do have petals.  These flowers look rather nice.

Utricularia subulata flowering

Flowers of Utricularia subulata

U subulata in a pot with pygmy drosera

This plant has been growing in my carnivorous plant collection for a number of years, under a variety of different conditions, and has never flowered like this before.  

I wish I understood what conditions it requires to send up flowers like this because they are nice.  

Variegated water parsley Oenanthe javanica (flamingo)

Variegated water parsley Oenanthe javanica (flamingo), is also called water celery, water parsley, Java water dropwort, Japanese parsley, Chinese celery, rainbow water parsley, minari (미나리), and has a bunch of other common names.  

Variegated water celery is a perennial vegetable or perennial herb that is very simple to grow and very productive.  I am told that this perennial  vegetable has a native range that extends between Siberia, Tropical and Subtropical Asia, India, Papua New Guinea, and some of the northern parts of Australia.  

Strangely this plant appears to be distributed across a lot of tropical places, yet survives harsh frosts with no issues whatsoever.  I think any plant that is native to tropical Asia as well as Siberia to be rather perplexing.  It also means that this plant is likely to survive anywhere as long as there is enough water and sunlight.  

As this plant can survive and even thrive across such a wide environmental range, and given how productive it is, I don't understand why it is so uncommonly grown.

Variegated water parsley

I wrote another blog post on this plant back in 2017 and had already been growing it for a few years at that stage.  I still have the same plants, they continue to thrive with less than ideal conditions and a lot of neglect.  I had wanted the all green form as I am told it grows more aggressively, but I only have the far prettier variegated one.  

I have been growing variegated water parsley for a few years, and it has to be one of the easiest of edible plants to grow.  Even the 'weaker' variegated form grows like mad in my garden.  Even though it is very productive we don't tend to eat much of this plant, I do feed it to our animals and enjoy how ornamental it looks.

Variegated water parsley leaves

Water celery plants love water so much that they can grow with roots submerged and leaves above water.  I have grown some like this in a bucket of mud for several years and they look great and perform well with no care from me other than topping up the water from time to time.  I also grow some on a pot of water that is floating in my goldfish barrel, it seems to perform well in these conditions too.

They can also be grown in regular garden soil with regular watering.  They don't appear to die if grown in drier soils, but also don't perform their best without watering.  They are rather vigorous and forgiving of less than ideal conditions.

Variegated water celery loves to spread

Variegated water celery flowers but I have not yet been able to grow any seedlings.  Unfortunately I tend to loose track of the flowers and have never found out if they can produce fertile seed.

I find that the plant grows some underground rhizomes and divides a bit in this way.  

This plant also throws above ground runners similar to what strawberry plants do, and it divides quickly in this way.  Last year I grew some in little pots to sell at a garage sale, and they grew runners that spread into all the nearby pots of other plants.

They can handle full sun, but seem to do better with a little shade.  If they are in too deep shade the leaves get stretched and it throws runners in search of sun.  I assume the all green form can handle more shade than the variegated form.

Variegated water celery leaves

Water celery tastes and smells a lot like weak celery, and a little like parsley.  It is not the strongest flavour, and it gets weaker with cooking.  It can be eaten raw, or added at the end of cooking.  

As well as being edible by people, animals can also eat this plant.  Chickens, guinea pigs, ducks etc all seem to enjoy eating the leaves.  Given how nutritious this plant is, and how quickly it can grow, this is a good thing.

The leaves and stems of this edible herb are various amounts of green, white, pink, and are pretty all year.  In cooler weather, or while the plant is under any stress, they tend to get a lot more of the pink colouration.  Sometimes the leaves go a bit purple, this is usually an indication of stress.  Harsh frosts can cause this purple colouration.  It doesn't seem to change the taste, so is not a problem.

I planted one small plant in each of the pots below, each of them has divided quickly into multiple plants and also sent out a few runners.  It is difficult to see in the photos below, but most of them have also grown out of the drainage holes.  This plant likes to survive!

I sell bare rooted plants of variegated water celery through my for sale page.  I don't expect to ever run out of this plant, ever, so if it is not listed on my page feel free to ask me about it.  

Pinguicula flowering

I got some Pinguicula butterworts a few years ago.   Butterworts are carnivorous plants that have sticky leaves, similar to sundews but without the glandular hairs.  They prefer to be a lot drier than most species of sundews, but still require a lot of water.  

I grow them with a wick that goes down into a reservoir of water, similar to how I grow African violets.  They seem to like similar light levels to African violets too.  I have been told by a very knowledgeable grower that many species of Pinguicula should be grown almost exactly the same as African violets, just without the fertiliser.

They have grown well in the time that I have had them.  They go reasonably dormant over winter and get chubby little non-carnivorous leaves.  Then once spring arrives they grow larger carnivorous leaves again.  

Pings are such lovely little carnivorous plants.  

This year as they are emerging from dormancy one of them is flowering!  

Looking at the flower I can't imagine that they are self pollinating.  Given their morphology I don't think I have the ability to pollinate this one without destroying it.  So chances are it will not produce any seed.  

I don't care about that too much, I am enjoying growing these plants and think the flower looks nice.  The flower has stayed on the plant for a few weeks now, which was unexpected.