Mulberry tree comparison

I love berry season, and one of the best tasting berries is the mulberry, which also happens to be one of the easiest to grow.  I currently grow three varieties of mulberry tree.  If I had space/water/time I would grow many more varieties, but for now I grow three varieties of mulberry. 

I currently grow two white mulberries (Morus alba), and one white shahtoot (Morus macroura).  I thought it was time to write a brief comparison of them. 

Mulberry variety comparison

The one on the left is a dark fruiting form of white mulberry, Morus alba.  I was told it was a black mulberry, or an 'English black mulberry', but it is not.  Even though it is not a black mulberry, it is a great little tree and has worked hard and earned a place in my garden. 

The one in the middle is another variety of white mulberry, this one is white-lavender fruited and is non-staining.  I've had this tree for a few years, it is now 15 to 20 feet tall.  I'm thinking of hacking it back in winter so the fruit is easier to reach.  

The one on the right is a white shahtoot.  White shahtoot is potentially a different species to the others,  Morus macroura, or it is a distinct long fruited form of white mulberry, or maybe it is a hybrid between M alba and one of the other Morus species.  I am not entirely certain.  This one is not as well suited to my climate as the other two, but it crops and grows each year so I haven't removed it.  

Mulberries - typical fruit from each tree

Comparing the two varieties of white mulberry M alba, is simple.  Both of these trees grow very fast, which is characteristic of white mulberries.  The leaves and growth pattern are much the same between the two types.  When not in fruit I would struggle to tell them apart.  This makes sense as they are both the same species.

The fruit of the darker one is usually a little larger than the lighter one, longer and fatter.  The darker ones taste more sour but in a good way, and they have greater depth of flavour.  Darker berries can stain things, this can be an issue when the fruit is stolen and deposited by birds. 

The lighter mulberry produce smaller berries, some are white and others have a purple blush to them.  They look vaguely similar to immali corn in their colouration.  These mulberries do not stain anything, which is nice as the birds do steal a lot of my berries.

Two mulberry varieties - the dark ones are larger

Two varieties of white mulberry (Morus alba)

I am yet to see a true black mulberry (Morus nigra) for sale in Australia.  I have seen plenty of trees labelled as nigra, yet so far none of them have been the real thing and all have been mislabeled alba.  The dark fruited one I have was listed as Morus nigra, yet it is clearly not M nigra.

M nigra is a slow growing tree and is difficult to propagate by cuttings, the buds are thick, often thicker than the branches they are borne on, and the stems of the berries are tiny and almost non-existent.  The taste of the fruit of a black mulberry is far superior to the best white mulberry.  

Dark fruited white mulberries

My dark fruited white mulberry is a really great tree.  It is very vigorous, and crops really well.  The berries are reasonably large, and are produced in large numbers.  They ripen over an extended period of time, which is common for white mulberries.  

The taste of the fruit is great if picked when fully ripe, few berries taste as good as a ripe mulberry.  If picked under-ripe the taste is good but not as great, and like all mulberries the fruit does not ripen further after being picked.  We discovered that the stem gets a little colour when they are fully ripe.  If the stem is only green, then they are not yet completely ripe.  This is good to know. 

These are not as sweet as the lighter coloured fruits, but they have a depth of flavour that is lacking in the other varietes.  I really like the taste of these darker mulberries.  I am told they make great pies, but at my house the berries are eaten so fast that few ever make it into the house.

The only issue I have with this tree is that it grows too fast, and gets top heavy.  As it rushes to reach the sky, the wood does not seem thick enough to hold the weight, and it can get broken in strong winds.  I wonder if giving it more sun, or less water, may help this.  I don't want this tree to get too tall, so I aggressively prune it after fruiting.  That seems to solve this problem. 

I am considering planting this tree in my chicken's run with some wire protecting the base.  If I do this the chickens can eat any fruit that is dropped, and there is a lot of fruit over the season!  The chickens can also eat mulberry leaves that are lower down.  Mulberry leaves have an impressive nutritional composition, and are readily eaten by my hens.  Studies show mulberry leaf can replace up to 10% of bought feed without reducing the number of eggs laid. 

Non-staining white mulberries

The lavender fruiting white mulberry is another great tree.  This one is not growing in good soil, where it is far too dry, yet it is a real survivor.  

This one is growing behind my fence out near a footpath and the road.  People walk past this, yet very few ever take any berries.  I doubt many people know what these berries are as they are light in colour, and the few who do recognise them may not realise it is ripe as it is light coloured.  This tree is far too large to net, and birds take many berries.  

This year there are more berries than ever before.  This tree is very productive.  I have no idea how many berries were stolen by birds, or how many my kids ate, but I picked many bowls full many times over this season.  

White mulberries - very sweet

These ripen white or lavender, some individual berries are much darker than others.  The taste of this is very sweet, far sweeter than the darker fruited mulberry.  My kids love the taste of these mulberries.  I really like them, but find I can't eat too many because they are too high in sugar for me.  

I eat these until I start to feel blood sugar issues building, then I try to eat less of them.  I find it hard to limit how many I eat because they are only here for a short time each year, and they are so nice, and surely one more can't hurt...  

I am not sure why some berries ripen lighter than others.  I don't think it has to do with sunlight.  Some of the mulberries are half light and half dark.  While this really doesn't matter, I still find it fascinating.

Mulberry, half dark half light

White Mulberry

The white shahtoot mulberries are not well suited to my climate.  This tree does ok here, but needs a lot of extra water, and parts of it die back each spring for unknown reasons.  The berries are very long, normally a little over 10cm long, this year they were far shorter than normal.  

Normally this tree produces a lot of berries, and this year was no exception.  Last year it got burned back badly by a late frost and didn't really fruit at all.  This year it produced more fruit than ever before.  I don't know if it has enough leaves for the amount of fruit it produced.  

While the taste of these berries is incredible, they do not taste much like regular mulberries.  When ripe they taste like honey ripened apricots, they are amazingly sweet.  I am told they dehydrate well, but have not tried this yet.  My kids love the taste of these shahtoot berries, as do I.  I find them a bit high in sugar and have to limit the amount I eat otherwise I get blood sugar problems.  Again I find it hard to limit these, because they taste so great.  

The white mulberry leaves are good vegetables, and can be used to make something that tastes surprisingly like green tea, I have not tried to eat shahtoot leaves.  They should do much the same job, but seem a little thicker so may need to be picked a little younger.  

I am tempted to get a red shahtoot, these are meant to have more mulberry flavour.  They are also meant to be less cold hardy, and I don't have much space to fit in another tree, so I may never grow one of them.  

White shahtoot mulberries

I don't think it is any surprise that I love mulberry trees.  I think they should be more widely grown.  If I had room for only one fruit tree, a mulberry would be high on the list of the few I would consider growing.  

Mulberry trees are like a vegetable garden on a trunk.  They produce ample nutritious leaves which can be cooked as vegetables or used to make tea or fed to animals, and they produce an abundance of berries which taste incredible yet are too soft to ever be found at markets.

Given how low maintenance mulberry trees are, and the amount of delicious berries they produce is nothing short of incredible, I am surprised I don't see more of them in people's gardens.  

Mulberries - I love them

I do have some extra mulberry trees I grew from cuttings.  At this stage I am not selling them (other than a few plants locally) as postage would be an issue.  Given these things can easily grow from pencil size to more than 6 feet tall in a season, perhaps I should sell small rooted cuttings over winter while they are dormant.  

If I ever do sell mulberry trees, they will be listed on my blog along with everything else I am selling that month, the details will be updated on my for sale page.  

Milk kefir from grains vs sachets comparison

Years ago I had milk kefir grains.  We made kefir most days, and we did this for years.  Other than the cost of the milk, it was very cheap.  

Making milk kefir from grains is very simple.  You put some kefir grains in milk, leave for a day or so, then strain the grains out and drink the liquid.  It doesn't get a lot simpler than that.  

I'm no expert when it comes to kefir, but I don't need to be.  For some reason, people try to make kefir making more expensive, and to appear more complicated, than it needs to be.  For centuries kefir was made by nomadic people, they put milk kefir grains in a goat skin or horse skin bag and added some milk.  Later they drank some of the liquid and added more milk.  Nothing was precise, and this went so well that it was kept up for generations.  

Milk kefir is demonstrated to have a lot of health benefits, so it is worth drinking if you like the taste.  I have heard a lot about kefir starter satchels, I have also seen bottled kefir for sale in supermarkets, so I did some research to compare them with kefir made from grains and thought I would share what I found. 

Milk kefir grains

I read about store bought kefir not being 'real' kefir, so I did a little research.  Supermarket kefir is a poor version that pales in comparison to the real thing, but is far more uniform than real kefir.  It is made by adding a small number of isolated cultures to milk.  This results in a drink that is very uniform and consistent.  

Real kefir made from grains contains a lot more probiotic cultures, both in terms of overall numbers as well as diversity of different cultures.  My kefir is never uniform, it is slightly different day to day, and it changes with the season.  

Store bought kefir is meant to be slightly healthier than store bought yogurt.  I found the image below on a website.  The claims they are making look good, but are rather unimpressive when compared to milk kefir made using grains.  I will explain this further down the page.

Store bought kefir vs yogurt image from https://lifewaykefir.com/kefir-vs-yogurt/

Kefir from the supermarket is expensive, and is an ongoing cost.  You buy it, drink it, and buy some more.  Kefir from grains still has an ongoing cost, but it is much lower.  You buy grains, then the ongoing cost is buying milk to make more kefir.  

Based on the anecdotal evidence above, if you want something that is the same every time then store bought is best.  If you are consuming kefir for health benefits, or if cost is an issue, then making it from milk kefir grains is the far better option.  

Milk kefir

I have also seen satchels of 'kefir starter' for sale.  These are very expensive, and I have heard they are inferior to kefir made from grains.  I was curious about them so I did a little research to compare them to grains. 

Starter sachets, contain very few species of beneficial bacteria and yeasts.  I found one product that claims to only have 5 strains and even the 'good' brands claim to only contain 7.  While this is better than most yogurts which usually have only 1 or 2 strains (some can have up to half a dozen), part of the reason people drink kefir is because it contains a lot of different probiotic cultures.  

Home made kefir using grains contains far more biota in terms of diversity of the species of microorganisms present.  While this number varies considerably, kefir has been recorded as having 41 species of bacteria and 37 yeasts (a total of 78 different species of microorganisms).  This is more than ten times the amount of species found in good starter sachets and more than six times as many as bottled kefir from the supermarket.  

Based on the above, if you want a lot of diversity in your probiotics, kefir grains is the better option.  

Milk kefir

Diversity is important, another thing to consider is the number of colony forming units.  This number is how many live microorganisms (of any kind) are in the end product.  This number is important because many will die on their way through your digestive tract.  The number of colony forming units in sachet made kefir or store bought kefir is often claimed to be a mere 1 billion to 2.5 billion colony forming units per cup.  This small number has been demonstrated to be far lower in real life than is claimed on packages.  For simplicity, let's assume that this exaggerated number is correct.  

Depending on which paper you read (including this paper and another paper), kefir made from grains is said to contain between 100 billion colony forming units per cup up to several trillion colony forming units per cup.  Even the lowest estimate is vastly more than the amount as sachet made or store bought kefir.  

Based on the above it seems if you want a lot of probiotics in your diet, using kefir grains is the better option.  

Kefir grains

Diversity of probiotics is important, as is the number of live colony forming units, another important consideration is cost.  

The supermarket sells a pack of 5 x sachets (which, after you also buy milk, is said to make up to 25L) for $53 plus the cost of milk.  Another brand which has 2 x sachets and claims to only contain 6 strains sells for a whopping $28 plus the cost of milk.  If you like the taste of satchel kefir, you need to keep buying satchels at this high price forever.  I have heard of people using sachet produced 'kefir' to inoculate milk in the hope of keeping this going long term, apparently it stops working after a few tries.

Milk kefir grains, on the other hand, can be used indefinitely to make as many batches of kefir as you want for the rest of your life.  The grains multiply over time, so you can make more kefir, or give some grains away, or eat some grains, or feed them to chickens, or bury them in the garden.  After the once off cost of grains, you buy milk, maybe a kitchen strainer every ten years, and there is no other cost.  

Financially, kefir grains are far cheaper than starter satchels or supermarket kefir both in the short term and far far cheaper in the medium and long term.  

I don't know how to photograph kefir

Taste is a personal thing.  My kefir can be rather yeasty at times, which I love, or hardly yeast at all at other times.  Satchel and store bought tend not to include yeasts so will not have much of that yeasty taste.  

My kefir tends to get a bit sour at times, perhaps more than I like.  A little honey fixes that.  I assume store bought or satchel would be far less sour as consumers prefer sweeter products.  

If you are drinking kefir because of its taste, I can't tell you which is better.  You need to try a bunch of types and make some from grains and go with the one you prefer.  

Milk Kefir and Water Kefir

If you like to drink milk kefir, it is absolutely worth making your own and seeing if you like that. Milk kefir made from grains is far healthier and far cheaper than store bought or made from satchels.  If you dislike the taste of kefir made with grains, or if you dislike that it is slightly different each batch, then stop making it and go back to buying it from the store.

I make milk kefir, and often have extra grains that I can post throughout Australia.  If you are interested, my contact details can be found on my for sale page. 

Perennial buckwheat vs fishmint

A few years ago, I started growing a perennial vegetable called Vietnamese fish mint (Houttuynia cordata).  This perennial plant is used as a vegetable, or herb, or medicine, or grown as an ornamental, in a host of different countries. 

Fish mint is an extremely productive and vigorous plant, and borders on being indestructible, which is a great trait for a perennial vegetable to have.  Fish mint is productive, it looks pretty, and is incredibly healthy to eat, but I find the smell to be a little overpowering.  

I grew fish mint for years, and wished that there was a version of it that was not so strong smelling.  Some people love the smell of fish mint, however, I find it a bit too much. 

Fish mint on left, buckwheat on right 

Fish mint produces copious amounts of food and tolerates poor growing conditions.  I only grow it in a pot with pavers under it, otherwise I worry it may escape through the drainage holes and get into the garden.  After years of growing it like this I have never had it even come close to escaping into my yard.  

I am told that people grow this as an ornamental in the garden and regret it.  They say that spraying with weed killer removes growth above the soil line, but the plant survives and springs up again from rhizomes.  After it escapes, every time you mow your yard, or walk through your yard, it smells like fish.  

My fish mint produces flowers, and I am told it does not set viable seed.  For the first year or so I removed all of its flowers in case they set seed.  After the first year I just let it flower and hoped for the best.  

Fish mint escaping it's pot

Fish mint growing out of the drainage holes 

Not long after allowing fish mint to flower, I grew common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) from seed.  The cotyledons were rather unique, I had not seen cotyledons like them before, but it was the true leaves that concerned me.  

The true leaves of buckwheat were much the same shape as fish mint.  I worried that my fishmint may have set seed, and I was concerned that it had escaped.  Would my yard smell like fish for ever more?  Oh, the terror.  I honestly felt sick to my stomach with worry that this had gotten away from me.  

I didn't remove the seedlings at this stage, I left them to see if I was wrong and hoped I could get on top of things.  I was hopeful that I had not lost control of the fish mint because the seedlings were only in the one spot I planted buckwheat, and were nowhere near the fish mint.  Once the seedlings grew a little larger, I bruised, smelled, and tasted a leaf.  I was pretty convinced that they were not fish mint seedlings, but I still worried that maybe they didn't get their distinctive smell until older.  

The seedlings grew and rather quickly flowered.  The flowers were buckwheat and looked nothing like fish mint flowers, then it set seed that was clearly buckwheat, confirming that they were absolutely not fish mint.  Phew!  

I have been growing fish mint for years, and have never had it set viable seed.  

After growing fish mint for a few years, and reading about all of its benefits, I started to wish that there was a variety that did not smell so strong.  I considered trying to restore fertility and grow seeds and try to breed something that didn't smell as strong, but I am glad to say that I thought better of it.  I didn't want this spreading by seed through my lawn.  Not setting seed is a good trait for this vigorous plant to have, I don't want this plant to set seed. 

Perennial buckwheat - Fagopyrum cymosum

A few years later I learned of a perennial vegetable called perennial buckwheat (Fagopyrum cymosum complex, also called Fagopyrum dibotrys), this also goes by the common names "Golden Buckwheat" and "Tall Buckwheat".  This perennial vegetable sounds a lot like fish mint, but it has no smell.

Even though these plants are not even distantly related, my wish for fish mint that is not strong smelling has basically come true.  Perennial buckwheat does all the things I wanted fish mint to do (and more), and has none of the down sides.  

While perennial buckwheat and fish mint are not closely related the plants look superficially very similar to one another.  They are both perennial plants that are very vigorous and highly productive.  They both cope with hard frosts, and survive poor soils (they survive poor soil, they are vastly more productive in good soil).  They both spread vigorously by underground rhizomes.  They both have nice looking heart shaped leaves.  They have both been eaten as leaf vegetables and their rhizomes used as folk medicine by people for centuries.  They both have a lot of proven medicinal properties (for people as well as poultry and livestock) that have been reported through many peer reviewed papers.  

Perennial buckwheat plants

In my garden, perennial buckwheat grows much taller than fish mint.  In autumn, perennial buckwheat leaves become a brilliant golden yellow colour, whereas fish mint just grows until getting burnt down by frosts.  The flowers of fish mint are visited by pollinator insects only there is little else flowering, while perennial buckwheat flowers seem to be adored by beneficial pollinators and appear to be one of the preferred sources of nectar and pollen.  Perennial buckwheat leaves are high in rutin, and high in protein.  

I have not read anything about how much fish mint is safe to consume.  I think the smell would stop me eating it long before I ran into trouble.  Perennial buckwheat leaves (much like most common vegetables) have some levels of anti-nutrients, even so peer reviewed papers prove that it is safe to eat perennial buckwheat every day. 

Vietnamese fish mint

If you are into Asian cuisine, you should probably grow fish mint.  It can be used like a vegan fish sauce.  I have plenty of these plants, they are very vigorous.  

If you are into growing food, or concerned about food security, growing perennial buckwheat is a must.  I am not sure why it is so uncommon in Australia, it seems to only be common in developing nations where growing food really counts.  At this stage I am still trialing it under different conditions, and seeing what it can do.  

At some point if I have any spare plants I will list perennial buckwheat plants for sale, along with fish mint, on my perennial vegetables for sale page.

String of Pearls Variety Comparison

String of Pearls is a lovely succulent.  They grow long trailing stems, most varieties have almost spherical leaves, some varieties have leaves that are still round but a bit pointier, and the flowers are always white and fragrant. 

I am growing a few different string of pearls varieties and thought I would write a comparison of how they perform for me, as well as take some comparison photos with them side by side to give a better perspective of what each variety is like.  

String of pearls can usually be found under the binomial name Senecio rowleyanus, although it is more accurately known as Curio rowleyanus.  The genus name 'Senecio' is the most commonly used genus, but has now largely been disbanded.  In the year 2019 the genus was split into Curio, Caputia, and Kleiniawas.  I believe there may be a few species of Senecio that remain in the original genus, but string of pearls is not one of them.  While the nomenclature doesn't really matter to growers I mention it as it can be helpful if researching these plants. 

Three string of pearls varieties

I wrote an earlier post on different varieties of string of pearls https://living-mudflower.blogspot.com/2018/08/string-of-pearls-real-and-fake.html.  There are a lot of people from Australia (and other countiries) selling fake seeds for these plants.  They photoshop images of real plants and alter the colour to make them look bright blue or red, then they sell the seeds for a low price.  They then post you seeds of whatever they have on hand, mostly they don't send not even string of pearls seeds.  By the time you realise you have been duped it is too late to do anything and you have already left positive feedback after they posted you the fake seeds really fast.  

String of pearls are only ever green or variegated.  There are no stunning blue string of pearls plants, no brilliant red ones, no deep purple ones.  I wish blue ones existed, but they don't, and they never will.  Sometimes when stressed they get a slight purple tinge, you can see this in the photos below, but they are still quite green.  

String of pearls plants are only green, or green and white, and anyone selling seeds of the fake ones is a thief who you should never buy anything from.  Hopefully my rant about fake seed sellers helps someone not be taken advantage of.  

Slight purple tinge over winter

Slightly purple, but still obviously green

String of beans (different species) gets purplish in my winter

I currently grow three or four different varieties of string of pearls (as well as a few other similar species such as string of beans).  The string of pearls are lovely plants, and very simple to grow.  I grow the typical form, a variegated one, a giant one, and lovely one called 'Angel tears' that is variegated and has pointier leaves.  They are all very different, and I like them all.

I will give a very brief description of each variety, add in a few pictures of each, then show some comparison photos.

String of pearls typical

String of pearls typical form

String of pearls flowers are white

The typical variety has green leaves and green stems.  It grows small, pea sized, almost spherical leaves, each with an interesting little window.  Over winter they produce small white flowers that smell much like cinnamon.  The stems can get very long if the plant is well cared for, I have several pots of them that are well over a meter in length.  

The typical variety of string of pearls was commonly grown as a house plant in hanging baskets in the 1970's, and then somehow became less common to the point that it was rare and difficult to find for a time.  These are succulents so don't need heaps of water to survive, but I find they grow fastest and look best when given extra water.  They grow reasonably fast, are very simple to propagate, and are very forgiving of less than ideal conditions.  

While string of pearls perform best when grown in soil, they can be grown entirely in water.  I grew one string of pearls in nothing but water for over two and a half years.  It certainly is not the best way to grow them, but they survive.  If nothing else, this demonstrates how easy these plants are to grow.  

String of pearls variegated

My variegated string of pearls

Slower growing, very beautiful plants

Variegated string of pearls is much like the typical version, it is the same shape and size, but has variegated with green and white leaves.  For me this plant grows a lot slower than the typical form.  Being variegated it is not as hardy as the typical form, but it is still forgiving of less than ideal conditions.  

The variegated form is less common than the typical variety, presumably this is because it is slower to propagate and is a little newer.  Propagation is still very simple, but it takes extra time as it grows slower than the green form.  While it is slower growing, it is also a lot prettier than the typical form.  For me it gets more variegation when given lots of bright indirect light.  When grown in too little light it will revert to all green.

Giant string of pearls, sometimes called 'Big Peas', 'Big Balls', or 'Perla Grande'

String of pearls 'big peas'

Giant form string of pearls

When I started growing string of pearls I wished the leaves were larger.  That is exactly what this variety is!  I am not sure if it is polyploid, but it most likely is.  This variety is similar to the typical form but larger in every way.  

The smallest leaves on this plant are about as large as the largest leaves on the typical form.  The stem is thicker.  The flowers are white and smell the same as the typical form, but are a bit larger than the typical form.  I have not grown this long enough to know how fast it grows or how robust it is.  

I only have a few pots of these, and they are all still getting established so I have not yet seen what this plant can do.  I really like this plant, it is bigger and more imposing than the typical form.  The flowers are huge.  This variety is very rare in Australia, I am not sure if this is due to it being more fragile or simply because it is a relatively newer variety.  From what I have seen in the short time I have been growing the giant string of pearls, I assume its rarity is purely due to it being a newer variety.  

Angel tears succulent

Variegated Angel Tears

Angel Tears is a highly variegated variety of string of pearls, but with pointier leaves instead of the almost spherical ones of the typical form.  I only have two small cuttings, both of which are very small and are growing well.  

I have not grown it long enough to know how fast it grows or how robust the plant is.  I assume that it will be slower growing due to the reduced chlorophyll, and I am guessing that it will be slightly hardier than the typical form.  I assume the flowers will be similar to the typical form.  

There is a completely green version of this plant, which I am not currently growing.  I really like the look of the variegated form and have no plans to track down the green one.  Sooner or later this plant will probably grow a part that is all green, I can remove that and grow it on if I want a green one.  For me it has developed more variegation when grown under brighter indirect light.  I think it is quite pretty.   

Still small but growing strong

Comparison photos

When I first heard about the giant form of string of pearls I wondered how much larger it was to the typical form, and how noticeable this was.  I could only find two photos online that showed a comparison to the typical variety.  

Below are some comparison photos of the giant form next to the typical form, as well as the giant next to typical and variegated.  As you can see, the variegated and the typical forms are pretty much the same other than their colouration, and the giant form is larger in every way.

For now the giant ones I have are still getting established, so the comparison photos are not the greatest.  Once my giant form grows out a bit, and my angel tears gets some length, I will try to take some better comparison pictures.  

String of Pearls: Typical on left, Variegated middle, Giant on right

Three forms of string of pearls comparison

Giant on left, typical form on right

Typical, Variegated, and Giant string of pearls

I like these string of pearls plants.  You can see that I have a lot of the typical form, this is because I got this variety first.  I also have a few really long ones that I have not taken photos of, and a few that are growing in weird places.  String of pearls plants are very simple to propagate from cuttings.  Once you have one plant, if you like them you can propagate them and over time you can have as many as you want.  

String of pearls plants are surprisingly hardy considering how delicate they look.  As mentioned earlier, even though they are succulents I find they perform at their best when given ample water.  I would never leave the pot sitting in water, but I also would not do that with most other plants.  They don't love frost, and grow far better when protected from frosts, but can survive a few light frosts.  

I sell plants and cuttings of typical string of pearls through my for sale page.  Plants cost more because of the time and space they have taken to grow, cuttings are cheaper because I can simply remove them from a healthy plant.  String of pearls are very simple to grow from cuttings, and the cuttings I send usually have some roots to give them a head start.  

I plan to sell variegated string of pearls soon as I have a few little ones growing out, and would love to sell the giant form once I have grown it long enough to know how it performs so can offer growing advice.  My angel tears is so tiny at the moment that it will be a while before I would have enough to be able to enjoy it as well as have any to sell.  

Is it safe to eat buckwheat every day

Rather than make you read through the entire post to get to the answer I will give the short answer here: buckwheat is safe to eat buckwheat every day.  

I had a few people ask me about the possibility of issues from eating buckwheat every day, most of these questions have been surrounding a compound called fagopyrin.  I am not an expert, and I am not a food scientist, so I did a bit of research, and decided to write what I found in a blog post so I can find it again.  

Too much fagopyrin over a long time period can cause phototoxicity, which is a sensitivity to sunlight and causes skin issues.  I was not sure how much is too much.  Many plant based foods have some level of toxins or anti nutrient.  I am not a food scientist ad didn't have more than a basic level understanding of the topic, so I did some reading into how safe buckwheat really is.  The results were interesting but not overly surprising.  

Common buckwheat with heart shaped leaves

Buckwheat seed has been eaten by people since at least the year 6,000 BC.  There have been few reliable reports of people having issues due to consuming buckwheat.  Based on this information alone, buckwheat seed appears to be safe to eat.  The actual answer, however, is more complex than a simple yes or no.  

Buckwheat seeds, sprouts, leaves, stems, rhizomes, and flowers have all been important sources of food or medicine for thousands of years, over the past few hundred years it has also been used as animal forage or silage.  

Consuming buckwheat has been demonstrated to help prevent various chronic illnesses, such as hypertension, obesity, cardiovascular disease, tumors, and gallstone formation.  Various pharmacological studies have confirmed that buckwheat holds anti-diabetic, anti-tumour, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant, and hepatoprotective effects.  All of this is great, but still doesn't answer if it is safe to eat buckwheat every day, or how much is too much.  

There are some reports of animals experiencing phototoxicity due to buckwheat's fagopyrin content.  These animals ate nothing but buckwheat stems, leaves, and flowers for weeks on end, which means that this only proves that like everything else too much is not great.  To put this perspective, if I ate nothing but apples for weeks on end I would become dreadfully unwell.  The question still remains, how much buckwheat is too much?  

Anecdotally I can say from experience that eating buckwheat groats every day is safe.  I have been eating grechnevaya kasha every day for breakfast for around two years, during that time I have become healthier in measurable ways (lower cholesterol, better LDL:HDL ratio, more stable blood sugars etc).  Buckwheat is highly nutritious, it is simple to prepare, and I like the taste.  

Anecdotal evidence based on personal experience is fine, but it doesn't answer the question over how much is too much, and actual evidence is always far better than anecdotal evidence.

Raw buckwheat groats

There have been rare reports of people reacting poorly to buckwheat seed, many of these have been food allergies.  The reports of skin sensitivity issues are almost entirely from people consuming large quantities of sprouts (and sometimes flowers) over an extended period of time.  So far I have found no reliable reports of anyone experiencing fagopyrism from eating hulled buckwheat seeds.  

When looking at the massive number of people who eat buckwheat seed as a staple food (hundreds of millions of people), and the extended period of time this has occurred (thousands of years), and the relatively few instances of problems, buckwheat appears to be safer to consume than wheat, milk, or eggs.  From this we can conclude that eating buckwheat is safe, but this still doesn't answer the question of how safe is buckwheat, or how much is too much.  So I did some more reading and crunched some numbers to actually answer these questions.  

Reliable data in peer reviewed papers on the fagopyrin content of buckwheat seed is scarce, and there is almost no information on the phototoxic dose in humans.  

The literature states that in leucistic/albino rats, slight skin issues start to be seen when feeding around 2.5 to 3 mg fagopyrin per kg body weight (with severe issues starting between 5 to 10 grams per kg body weight).  While humans are not rats, and most people have more melanin than these leucistic rats, this is the best analogue we currently have. 

The lowest end of this range, feeding 2.5mg/kg body weight extrapolates to 150mg of fagopyrin as being safe for a 60kg person.  I realise that extrapolation does not always work in a perfectly linear way, and this is based on the amount that causes issues in leucistic/albino rats rather than people, but it is the best we can do considering the surprising lack of human research.  I also realise that most people weigh considerably more than 60kg, so this acts as a bit of a buffer.  

Buckwheat leaf on right, fishmint on left

Fagopyrin is present in different amount at different stages of growth, and different concentrations are found in stem, leaf, flower, seed, and hulls of buckwheat.  While there are discrepancies in the literature about the amount of fagopyrin detected, there is general consensus that buckwheat seed contains the lowest concentration of fagopyrin.  

Several papers have reported detecting up to 0.07mg per gram in raw Tartary buckwheat groats.  Tartary buckwheat is Fagopyrum tataricum they did not specified if they were dehulled or included hull.  I am yet to find any mention of detectable amounts of fagopyrin in common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) groats.  While I assume these higher results may have included the hull, thus increasing the fagopyrin content and decreasing protein content, I am going to use the highest number in my calculations.  

While I am yet to find any paper where dehulled common buckwheat (Fagopyrum esculentum) groats had any detectable level of fagopyrin, and while I am not able to buy anything other than dehulled common buckwheat, to err on the side of safety I am going to use the highest levels detected from Tartary buckwheat in my crude calculations.  

If we use the lower safe amount of 2.5mg fagopyrin per kg bodyweight, and take the higher amount of 0.07mg/g fagopyrin possibly being contained in the seed, this would mean that a 60kg person would not run into issues with fagopyrin unless they eat over 2.1kg of raw buckwheat groats to reach the 150mg safe thresh hold.  

Given that it is likely that the amount of fagopyrin is lower than 0.07mg per g of common buckwheat grain, and that it is also highly likely that most adults would weigh considerably more than 60kg, and that most people have at least some melanin in their skin, combined with the fact that it is unlikely to eat more than 2kg of (cooked or uncooked) buckwheat per day, it seems reasonable to conclude that buckwheat grain is safe to consume either raw or cooked, so long as you are not allergic.  

Based on the above, it appears that buckwheat groats are safe to eat every day, either raw or cooked, in any amount you like.  

Pink flowered buckwheat setting seed

Eating buckwheat leaf, or rhizome, or sprouts, or flowers, may be a different story.  

While buckwheat leaves have been eaten as vegetables for thousands of years, and many millions of people still eat leaves, stems, flowers, and rhizomes of buckwheat regularly, they have almost exclusively been cooked in some way.  

There seems to have been some research conducted into raw leaves and stems as they have been used as animal fodder.  Unfortunately, while papers possibly exist, I have been unable to find any research into the fagopyrin content of cooked buckwheat leaves.  If you can direct me to a peer reviewed paper on this please let me know and I will update this blog post accordingly.  

I found an old paper stating that "based on a comparison to hypericin toxicity, the recommendable intake of buckwheat sprouts was estimated to be less than 40 g per day".  This statement is often quoted and is rather misleading at best.

The findings from that paper are regularly quoted when referring to the safe amount of raw buckwheat sprouts to eat.  People often extrapolate that to conclude the same safe limit applies to buckwheat leaves, or even groats, when this is not the case.  Strangely enough, the '40g per day' thing is not even the safe limit when dealing with buckwheat sprouts. 

Hypericin is a chemical found in St John's wort, it is similar to fagopyrin, but not the same.  Rats showed skin sensitivity when fed 0.5 mg kg hypericin, as opposed to fagopyrin which needs to be fed at 2.5-3mg per kg before any slight reaction is noticed.  

Given that studies indicate that hypericin is far less toxic than fagopyrin, I am not sure why this comparison was ever made, and it makes little sense as to why it is so often quoted.  If anything, this data would indicate that at least five times that amount (ie 40g x 5 = 200g) should be completely safe to consume regularly.  That paper also stated that raw buckwheat sprouts contained far higher levels of fagopyrin than leaves of mature plants.  

For these reasons I decided to ignore that often quoted 40 gram number and tried to do my own (also potentially flawed) calculations. 

Perennial 'golden' buckwheat autumn colours

The leaves of Tartary buckwheat have been recorded in one study as containing 0.512mg per gram.  This means it would be safe for a 60kg person to consume at least 292 grams of raw leaves per day for quite some time before any adverse effects would be possible.  

The same study recorded the fagopyrin content in common buckwheat leaves as 0.322mg per gram when in the vegetative phase, meaning it would be safe for a 60kg person to consume at least 465 grams of raw leaves every single day.  It is noteworthy that when in flower, common buckwheat leaves contained higher amounts of fagopyrin than they did before flowering.  Flowers contain significantly more fagopyrin than leaf and stem.  Most forage fed to animals has been from buckwheat that was flowering, which is partly why fagopyrism has been seen in livestock.  

In that same study, the leaves of perennial buckwheat were recording as containing up to 0.947mg per gram.  If it is safe for a 60kg person to consume over 150mg of fagopyrin per day, it would be safe to consume at least 158.39 grams of raw perennial buckwheat leaf every day before there could be possible issues.  While this is the lowest amount out of the three species, it is quite a lot of leaf to eat every day.  

It is noteworthy that several studies demonstrate there is a reduction in the amount of fagopyrin after steaming Tartary buckwheat seeds.  I can't find any papers indicating if fagopyrin levels of leaves are decreased with cooking.  I am also not sure why the fagopyrin was decreased from steaming.  I don't know if it is degraded by heat, or if some of it leaches out into the water and drips away.  While there is a lot I don't know, this is noteworthy nonetheless.  

Perennial buckwheat is used as a leaf vegetable

It is also noteworthy that the few cases of fagopyrism in humans I have read about were due to drinking copious amounts of 'green smoothies' made from raw sprouted buckwheat daily over a long time period.  Most of these reports did not specify if the hull was included in the green smoothie.  

These people reported tingling when sunbathing, most noticeable under their arms, some had tingling around their mouth, others were easily sun burnt, a few had rashes or even blisters after prolonged exposure to sunlight.  These people reported that simply reducing the amount of buckwheat sprouts in their smoothies was enough to eliminate this issue.  This means if you did over do it and ate too much for too long, it should not be difficult to reverse any issues that you may encounter.  

Based on the above, it appears that buckwheat leaves are safe to eat in moderation.  The amount that a person is likely to consume seems somewhat lower than the amount you would need to consume to encounter any issues, and to have any problems you would need to consume these large amounts over a significant amount of time.  If you eat a somewhat balanced diet, and not just buckwheat leaves (or lots of green smoothies), I think it would be difficult to reach the level where you could potentially encounter any issues.  

From the literature it appears there is next to no chance you could ever eat enough dehulled buckwheat groats to experience any issues with fagopyrism, and that leaves are safe to eat in moderation.  

Fish and Chinese water chestnuts

Years ago it used to be common to read on permaculture sites how people would grow Chinese water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis) in those plastic clam shell pools.  People would usually also speak of having guppies in the water over the growing period.  Back then I was researching how to grow water chestnuts, and thought it was a great idea, but there were no tiny fish in the local rivers so I grew water chestnuts in buckets without any fish, and it worked well.  

Late 2023 I tried to read up on this again to see if people had noticed any difference in yield, and for some reason I couldn't find much mention of people growing Chinese water chestnuts with tiny fish.  Perhaps people no longer do this because it makes no noticeable difference to yield, or perhaps it was useful but has been mysteriously forgotten about?  

There are plenty of tiny fish in the local rivers where I now live, so thought I would give this a try and see what I can learn.  I have two identical buckets, put a pot of soil in each, and planted one water chestnut corm in each.  The buckets are next to each other.  I left them to grow for some time, then put some fish in one bucket, and no fish in the other bucket.  

From here I will see if there is any noticeable difference in the yield from each. 

Fish in bucket on the left, photo taken 02/02/2024 

After a month or so of growth there were not a lot of noticeable differences.  The plants looked much the same in terms of size and vigor.  Perhaps the one with fish had slightly thicker leaves, I am not really sure.  

It was obvious early on that there was significantly less azolla and duck weed on the bucket with the fish.  Perhaps the fish were eating some of it, or maybe the fish were eating something that helps the duckweed and azolla grow.  I'm not really sure.  

By the end of February the difference in duckweed and azolla coverage is pretty dramatic.  The bucket on the left with fish has less than 10% coverage, the bucket on the right with no fish has over 90% coverage.  Often it is fully covered by azolla and duckweed, this gets disturbed when I fill up the bucket with water.  

Still early, both plants look similar 

Fish in this bucket - hardly any azolla and duckweed

No fish in this bucket - plenty of azolla and duckweed

I probably should have done this with no azolla or duckweed, but it is too late for that this year.  

I tend to grow a mix of azolla and duckweed on top of the water as it prevents mosquitoes from emerging.  Duckweed seems to eliminate any algae growth.  The azolla also sequesters nitrogen from the atmosphere and releases this when it dies and breaks down.  

Perhaps the fish are eating the azolla and duck weed, maybe they would starve without it.  So perhaps it is for the best that I did include it.  All I know is the bucket with fish has considerably less azolla and duck weed.  

Perhaps fish are eating the azolla and duck weed 

Now that autumn is upon us the leaves have yellowed and mostly died back.  It won't be long before I can lift these pots, let them dry slightly, then harvest the corms.  

Both buckets were growing in my greenhouse, I think the amount of shade will reduce the number (and average size) of corms produced in both buckets.  They both have significantly less leaves than the ones grown in full sun.  

The bucket with fish still has limited duckweed and azolla, the bucket with no fish is covered in azolla and duckweed.  I am keen to compare the yield of these buckets, both in terms of number of corms as well as the size/weight of corms, and see if there is any noticeable difference between the two buckets.  I probably won't get around to digging them up until some time in winter.  

Most winters I sell water chestnut corms, and duck potatoes, through the for sale page on this blog.  Being dormant over winter means they handle postage really well.  If you are interested, they are normally ready mid to late winter.  At this stage I only sell within Australia.