Heirloom Tomatoes 2021

I grow a lot of tomatoes each year, I really love tomato season.  Some varieties are far better than others.  

My kids help me grow the tomatoes, collect the fruit, eat some of the tomatoes, bag some flowers and save some seed for the future.  

I don't have enough space/water/time to grow every tomato I have every year.  I have two tomato varieties that I do grow every year because they taste incredible (Japanese Black Trifele, and Verde Claro), and the rest I grow on a rotation to refresh the seed every 3 years.  

On second thoughts, I also grow micro tomatoes every year, but they are more for novelty and for breeding rather than for feeding my family, plus they take next to no space, so I don't tend to mention them.

Various tomatoes I grew

Some of the tomatoes I grow are very old heirloom varieties, others are more modern, while others I am breeding myself.  This year I grew 14 or 15 varieties of regular tomatoes (dwarf, or determinate, or indeterminate), and a small handful of micro dwarf varieties.  The plants range from a few cm tall to about 2 metres tall depending on the variety.

I also grew some wild relatives of tomatoes and some wild x domestic cross tomatoes.  I really need to take some photos of them and save some seed before winter comes. 

I thought I would show off some of my tomatoes below.

Tomatoes: Tommy Toe, Unnamed, Reisetomate, Igloo, Japanese Black Trifele, Verde Claro, Snow White, and Black cherry

My absolute favourite tasting tomato is called 'Verde Claro'.  It is a green when ripe cherry tomato that tastes incredible.  They look similar in size/shape to a grape.  Whenever people try these they love them.  

Every time I let people try these along with any other variety they always say that verde claro is the best tomato they have ever eaten.  They aren't the perfect tomato, but their taste is absolutely divine.  There is good reason I grow them every year!

Verde Claro and a bunch of grapes

I love the red tomato called reisetomate.  The flowers and fruits are fasciated, the fruits are red and lobed and can be pulled apart into segments.  

Reisetomate tomatoes are very sour, a little salt brings a true depth of flavour that I really enjoy.  Each and every tomato has a unique shape.  

Reisetomate tomatoes

I have been working on developing an improved black tomato for a while now.  The unripe fruit is purple and beautiful, it almost looks like an egg plant.  The ripe tomatoes have greenish yellow under the black, and the flesh colour is green.  

The black comes from high levels of antioxidants, and only appears where the sun hits the fruit.  They are roughly ping pong ball sized fruits and possibly my second favourite in taste after verde claro.  The fruit are a bit too small, but still large enough to slice for sandwiches.

I need to name these and start distributing the seeds as they are an incredible tomato variety.  I would hate to lose them if anything were to happen to my stock.

One of the varieties that I am breeding

This colour in tomatoes was unimaginable a few years ago

Another I grew this year was a variegated tomato.  I grew them to do some breeding and a few other genetics experiments, but after talking to some other growers I don't think anyone else in the country has variegated tomatoes so I should probably try to distribute the seeds so this allele is not lost.  Like many variegated plants, these aren't quite as vigorous as all green plants.

These are truly beautiful variegated tomato plants.  The leaves and stems get variegation of green, yellow, white, and pink.  The fruit is mostly red and round (although some fruits are slightly variegated) and tastes nice and surprisingly sweet.  

They could happily live in a flower garden and are a stunning showpiece of a plant.

Variegated tomato foliage

Micro dwarf tomatoes are heaps of fun.  These Micro Tom plants are thriving yet not reaching 5cm tall!  I am doing some breeding with them and hope to have something incredible to show for my efforts next year or the year after.  

You won't feed your family with micro tomatoes, but they can grow in a cup of soil on a window sill.  Traditionally they can taste a little insipid so they need some work in improving their taste, which is why I am breeding new micro tomatoes.  Some of my newer lines taste better than others.

I grow everything organically and sometimes sell some tomato seeds through my for sale page.  If you see something you love and I don't sell them let me know because I may be able to get you in touch with someone who does.

Giant Edible Dandelions

It is no secret that I like dandelions (Taraxacum officinale).  I honestly believe people should grow more dandelions.  I think they probably have more uses than just about any other temperate permaculture crop.

Dandelions take no real effort to grow outside of arid or semi arid zones or polar zones, they are simple to grow organically, they are perennial, they are forgiving of a wide range of conditions, the leaves are edible and more nutritious than almost every other vegetable, the roots are edible and nutritious, the roots can be made into a delightful coffee or tea, the flowers are edible and nutritious, dandelions flower most of the year to feed and attract a wide range of beneficial insects, native birds are attracted to their seeds, poultry and other livestock adore eating the leaves, they are great companion plants for a wide range of vegetables and fruits, the tap root can be very deep, they make excellent compost, and as a real bonus dandelions look very pretty.

Dandelion leaves for comparison - mine at the top, regular ones lower

I have seen people sell dandelion seeds and plants, and often wondered why.  Usually they are selling the same unimproved plants that you can find as roadside weeds, the same ones people try to spray out of their lawns.  These are edible and very useful, but tend to grow into small plants.

Dandelions are incredibly useful and far more nutritious than almost any other vegetable, so I decided to see if I could improve dandelions.  If dandelions were larger, more productive, and more vigorous they would be more useful as vegetables and more useful as stock or poultry feed.

Dandelion flowers are pretty

Dandelion breeding is strangely difficult as they usually tend to display apomixis. This means that cross pollination does not often work.  Each flower is very difficult to pollinate and often sets seed without any fertilisation.  I can't tell if cross pollination worked unless I grow out the seedlings fora long time.  There were a few dandelion breeding programs decades ago, so I read a few old papers and got a few ideas how to increase cross pollination success.

Dandelions tend to grow different depending on the environmental conditions.  When grown in the lawn and mown regularly they tend to produce shorter plants, when grown in long grass they tend to be more elongated.  Dandelions are perennials that also tend to be different sized plants at different times of the year.  All of this makes breeding improved strains far more difficult than I would have liked.

After a bit of work it appears that I did improve dandelions.  They grew larger, more vigorous, and more useful that the regular ones that can be found in the lawn.  My plants can grow huge if treated well.

Massive edible dandelion plant

Regular dandelion leaves often range in length from 10cm to about 25cm, sometimes a bit longer under the right conditions.  If they are to be eaten as vegetables this is a bit too small and you would need to grow a lot of plants to make a meal.

My dandelion leaves reach well over 50cm in length.  This makes them far more useful as leaf vegetables.  The roots grow very thick and long, which makes them far more useful.  Every part of these plants grows pretty big.  One single plant can be massive.

My kids were joking that these plants are so big they should not be called "Dandelions", instead they should  be called "DaddyLions".  I am not sure how I feel about that...

The flowers and seed heads are usually large and fat

My dandelion leaves grow huge

Often dandelion seedlings are exact clones of the maternal parent.  So while mine open pollinate, and there are plenty of wild type plants around that could act as pollen donors, there is a really high chance that each of the seedlings will grow true to type.  If not, then the seedlings should still be large as they would carry 50% genetics from the giant parent.

I now sell packets of dandelion seeds through my for sale page.  They have been grown organically and are open pollinated.  Growing conditions do have a large role on dandelion phenotype expression, so to get large plants they need good soil, full sun, and regular water.  Second year plants grow far larger than first year plants.

Mentha australis - native river mint

A number of years ago I found a small herb for sale that was labelled as: native river mint - Mentha australis. There are about 25 species and countless interspecific hybrids and varieties of mint (Mentha), only about six species are endemic to Australia.

I had always heard that there were a few species of mint native to the area I lived, I spent much of my life outside in the bush and have looked for them but I had never actually seen one in the wild.

This native river mint plant was small, it had long thin wiry stems, it only had a few leaves and they were all rather small. Overall this plant looked pretty weak. I smelled one of the leaves and it smelled strongly like peppermint. That was enough to make me try growing native river mint.

I bought this plant and excitedly took it home that day. I did some research and it appears to be correctly labelled. Even though I had never seen one in the wild it is indeed one of the species that is, or at least was, native to my area. Who knows, perhaps these are locally extinct in the wild now.

Typical stems of native river mint

From what I read this plant used to be really common and was used as bush tucker or medicine as well as food for the first Europeans. Native river mint is pretty rare in the bush now, it is said to persist as seeds in the soil on ephemeral flood plains where it springs up after rains and may be lucky to flower and drop seed before it is grazed to death. I still hope to see it growing in the wild near a stream one day and I plan to take a small cutting if it is growing where that is allowed.

I grew my plant in a pot sitting in some water, many types of mint have huge weed potential as they spread by underground runners as well as drop masses of incredibly tiny seeds. Mine grew rather well as an emergent water plant with the roots in water and the leaves in the air, it grew far better as a normal terrestrial plant that is never submerged and is just watered infrequently. Like most types of mint, this needs a bit of water to really flourish. Native river mint does spread by runners, and it does set tiny little seeds, but it doesn’t seem to spread very far by itself and doesn’t appear to pose a weed threat. While I don’t have any seedlings from seed fall I assume the seeds are viable. Perhaps it may need a second (genetically different) plant in order to set seed, but I doubt it.

Native river mint is a civilised variety of mint that is simple to contain and if you put in some work can actually be grown in the garden without it taking over. You can’t honestly say that about many varieties of mint!

Native river mint leaves - front and back

Based on what I have seen from growing this for a few years I can say that native river mint always has long thin stems, and always has small leaves, this appears to be its normal growth habit. The small leaves smell and taste very strongly of peppermint, and are simple to strip from the stems for use. My plant always has leaves and does not appear overly bothered by heavy frosts.

I assume it is very healthy to eat but have no evidence of this. My kids enjoy herbal tea made from native river mint and sometimes they mix different herbs together. I grow a lot of different herbs and things so they have plenty of choice.

I have never tried to collect/grow its seed so can’t comment on how easy they germinate or how much diversity they have from seed or even if one plant can set seed without cross pollinating.

Native river mint is native to my area, which means that if its seed ever gets into bush land it will actually be a good thing and it won't be adding to the weed burden in the area.

These grow very easily from cuttings, I take cuttings of this when I remember and they root easily in moist soil or even in a glass of water.

Mentha australis cuttings ready to plant

Native river mint flowers for me each year and feeds several species of native bees and other native insect pollinators. They possibly also feed honey bees but I have yet to see them working its flowers, which means it is not their preferred source of food so the native bees get a greater share of its nectar and pollen resources.

Many of our country’s native bees and other insect pollinators are becoming increasingly rare. I don’t know if this is due to competition by introduced honey bees, or lack of suitable foods due to land being cleared for housing/crops, or lack of appropriate nest sites, or wide scale pesticide use, or any number of factors. Many of the native plants people grow are not native to this area and have larger flowers and are very attractive to honey bees. Growing small flowering native plants such as native river mint provides suitable food for native insects and may give them a competitive advantage over the larger and more aggressive honey bees. By growing organically you are not adding to the pressures these native insects face from wide scale pesticide use.

Perhaps growing small native plants like this organically will help the local ecology in a small way. If enough people in an area grew one or two things like this I think it would make a big difference. Native river mint is a useful edible herb that is easy to grow and doesn’t pose a weed threat, which in itself makes them worth growing. If growing native mint helps the local ecology in some way then that is an added bonus.

Native river mint is simple to grow, is good to eat, is good for the environment, but can be difficult to find for sale because few people know about it. I sell native river mint plants through my for sale page and can post it to much of Australia.

The best culinary thyme variety: Jekka's Thyme

I have a (possibly bad) habit of growing new and interesting vegetables. Some things grow exceptionally well for me, other things I can’t get them to crop at all. Sometimes they taste amazing and earn themselves a permanent place in my garden each year from them on, others aren’t all that great and I decide not to grow them again.

About a dozen years ago I grew yacon, I have kept dividing the same plant since then and have brought it with me as I moved house time and time again. I grew some skirret years ago and it has earned a permanent place in my yard, I can’t recommend this delicious and hardy vegetable highly enough.

Other things such as maca (Lepidium meyenii) I really enjoyed, but they never cropped all that well for me and couldn’t cope with the endless furnace like blasting dry heat when we lived in the Central West so I had to let them go, they may do well now I live in a cooler region again.

Some of the annual vegetables (or perennials that I grew like annuals) such as some fancy varieties of eggplant sounded great but really didn’t perform for me in my garden so have never been grown since.Others have been so great I grow them every single year.

A few years ago I tracked down a bunch of different varieties of edible thyme. I wrote a blog post comparing thyme varieties and showing pictures of their leaves near a ruler for scale. They have all grown well for me, and I am rather fond of most of them, but one variety of thyme in particular is far more vigorous and useful than any of the others.

Jekka's thyme forming a dense carpet

Jekka’s thyme was bred by a well-known herb breeder by the name of Jekka McVicar. I can understand why the breeder would want their name associated with such an outstanding variety. I believe Jekka's thyme won a bunch of awards at various horticultural shows, I would try to list them but really don’t think they mean a great deal. I have a feeling that winning these awards often has more to do with marketing than with the quality of a plant, I have bred some remarkable new vegetable varieties but wouldn’t know how to even enter these competitions.

Jekka's thyme smells and tastes strongly of thyme, which is the main reason I grow thyme. Plants produce comparatively large leaves (for thyme), and even without trimming they produce a lot of them. Most of the larger leaf varieties of thyme seem to struggle in the heat far more than the smaller leaf varieties. Jekkas thyme grows rather dense and casts a lot of shade on the soil, which appears to help it stand up to the heat surprisingly well for a larger leaf variety. Like most varieties of thyme they respond well to regular harvesting.

Jekka's thyme on the right (tabor thyme on the left)

One thing that surprised me was how fast and dense Jekkas thyme grows, they grow into a thick blanket of leaves and branches which cover the soil surface completely. As it is so thick, Jekkas thyme could probably be grown as a deep living mulch around taller plants or container grown fruit trees. I have a feeling that this would work well in pots long term.

Like most varieties of thyme they flower well, and the flowers are moderately attractive to honey bees and various native pollinators. The flowers look and smell like the flowers of most other varieties of edible thyme – dense clusters that are pink and tiny.

Jekka's Thyme Flowers

One thing I particularly like about this variety is how fast and how far Jekka's thyme spreads. They grow faster than any other variety I have grown, they are reasonably low growing, and any node that touches soil seems to set down roots quickly. The plant can be cut at this point and the new plantlet dug and moved, or it can be left where it is to keep expanding. Like most varieties of thyme they also grow easily from cuttings. Jekkas thyme seems to grow a lot faster than any other variety I have seen, I have one patch that has spread more than a meter and a half from the original plant in one single year!

Frosts down to about -10 do not appear to bother Jekka's thyme, it doesn’t really get colder than that here so I can’t comment about its survival in colder temperatures.

Jekka's thyme in the frost

People sometimes ask me about fertilisers and so forth. Honestly I can’t provide advice with that as I don’t use them. I fertilise when I prepare the garden bed by digging in homemade compost or manure from our animals. I water these plants over summer, and sometimes remove weeds, but that is all. I have never seen any pest or disease issues, I assume these issues can happen with Jekka's thyme but I haven’t encountered them yet.

In my opinion Jekka's thyme is a superior variety.  The only difficult part about growing Jekkas thyme is actually finding plants for sale.

Please don’t ever waste your money on seeds of Jekka’s thyme as they won’t grow like the parent. Most will be smaller and less vigorous, some may almost be as good as the parent. You are better off buying a plant as you will be sure of its quality.

I sell small bare rooted Jekka's thyme plants (or vigorously growing rooted cuttings depending on timing) and can post them to most of Australia. If you are interested they are listed on my for sale page along with other perennial vegetables, edible herbs, and heirloom vegetable seeds.

Thyme progress

For some reason it is difficult to find many named varieties of thyme in Australia.  For some reason it is almost impossible to find any comparisons of thyme varieties.  Plant nurseries write such lovely things about their plants, but an honest side by side comparison is practically unheard of.

Last year I wrote a post comparing some thyme varieties to highlight the differences between them.  To expand on that, below are comparative pictures of the growth after about 6 months.  The pictures were taken at the beginning of spring after the plants had survived winter.

I wish I had planted them further apart, but I needed the space so they are cramped together.  The small pots contain cuttings of each variety.  You can see how each of the varieties of thyme grew compared to the others.  They are probably each double that size now and have started to flower.

Four varieties of thyme growing side by side.  It is pretty obvious that Jekka's thyme is larger and stronger than the other varieties.  It goes outside of the picture to the left somewhat.

Left to right: Jekka's thyme, Tabor thyme, Variegated lemon thyme, Orange peel thyme

Skirret in Australia

Skirret (Sium Sisarum) is the ultimate perennial vegetable.  As far as I am concerned skirret is the perfect vegetable for organic gardeners, permaculture gardeners, people who are into increasing self-sufficiency, people who are increasing their food security, and people with fussy children.   That’s right, even fussy kids will eat skirret.

Skirret has a long history as a vegetable, it has been blessed with the highest recommendation and cursed with the lowest popularity of any of the root crops.  It grows wild across Asia, and has been well established across Europe.  Skirret may have made its first documented appearance in a 1322 list of seeds maintained by the gardener for the Archbishop of Canterbury, Lambeth Palace, which included a penny's worth of skirret in a 1321 to 1322 inventory.  We don't know how long it was used as a vegetable prior to this, it is believed that skirret grew along damp riversides and ditches and was easily harvested for free, so didn't need to be bought and sold.  It is likely that skirret was grown and eaten long before this but simply not recorded.

People keep telling me that there is no skirret in Australia, but I grow skirret, I sell skirret, and eat skirret.  I have given skirret to some people who now also sell it.  So skirret is slowly becoming less rare in Australia.  Hopefully one day I will see skirret for sale at a farmer's market.

I adore skirret, I have grown it for a number of years now, have written a few posts on it to try and show other people how to grow it.  Skirret is the most delicious roast vegetable ever.  I have never eaten anything that even comes close to how great skirret tastes.  I like the taste normally, but frosts make it far sweeter.  I want to encourage more people to grow this remarkable vegetable.

Skirret next to 30 cm ruler for scale

Skirret next to 30 cm ruler for scale

Aji Amarillo

I like chillies.  I enjoy their capsaicin, but far more than that I love their taste.  There are literally thousands of different types of chillies and each of them tastes different.  Some are sweet, some bitter, some fruity, some citrusy, some savoury, some earthy, some dirty and I dislike them.

Unfortunately the markets only provide few varieties of chillies, so few that most of the foodies I know have no concept of the many thousands of varieties that are out there.  This means if I want to taste something remarkable I must grow it myself.

My vegetable garden is feeling small as there are so many amazing vegetables that I can't buy and have to grow myself.  I grow everything organically and I save seeds with my kids.

This year I grew very few chillies.  One that I grew this year was Aji Amarillo (Capsicum baccatum) which is a lovely chilli from Peru. 

Aji Amarillo e translates to "yellow chilli", aji means chilli, amarillo means yellow.  When dried it is known as Aji Mirasol (which I am told means "looking at the sun" but I don't really understand how).

Aji amarillo - many were longer than this

How to prune raspberries

In order to correctly prune raspberries or blackberries or any of their many hybrids it is important to understand their basic growth habit as well as what you want to get from them. 

If you don’t understand their growth you will never get the full potential from them.  If you don’t know what you want from them you are wasting your time in pruning them at all.

Floricane blackberry will not fruit well if pruned like this

Established brambleberries grow from a crown, each year they put up new growth, this new growth is referred to as a primocane.  The primo part of this word means 'first' as they are first year growth.

After the growing season is over the primocane will sit over winter and not do a great deal that you can see, the following season this older growth is referred to as a floricane.  Floricanes were originally the only canes that flowered, but we have since bred some varieties that can flower on their primocanes.   Knowing about floricane and primocane is important so you can prune them properly.

Raspberries

How to store water chestnuts over winter

Chinese water chestnuts (Eleocharis dulcis) are very simple to grow at home and are very productive.  For some reason people used to tell me how difficult they were to grow, but the hardest part was finding any for sale in Australia that were not in a can!

To grow water chestnuts you don’t need acreage, you don’t need a stream or a pond, and you certainly don’t need to live in the tropics.  Chinese water chestnuts can easily be grown in most of Australia if you have access to soil, water, and sunlight. I grow them and I sell them so you can also grow them.  I grow water chestnuts in a cheap bucket.

Organic home grown water chestnuts

Being perennial vegetables, you can plant once and harvest forever.   In order to do this you need to store some water chestnut corms over winter while they are not actively growing. Let me explain how I over winter water chestnut corms.

Horseradish seeds

I have been growing horseradish (Armoracia rusticana) on and off for many years now.  It is an interesting perennial vegetable that is worth growing.  The young leaves can be eaten but it is the pungent roots that are the real crop here.  Horseradish has been grown as food and medicine for centuries.

Horseradish Plant - flowering size plant

Being a brassica, horseradish can suffer from cabbage white butterfly.  Other than that it does not seem to suffer from many pests.  There are a few diseases that are said to bother horseradish, but I have never seen these diseases and am not sure if we have them in Australia.

Horseradish can flower.  Many people tell me that it can't, but mine does.  Mine doesn't flower each year though.

Growing chilli the in Canberra region

I am constantly amazed at how little knowledge people have about growing food.  Ironically foodies appear to have the least knowledge about where food comes from.  I am writing this post to help clear up some of the most common misconceptions that I hear about chillies and capsicums. 

Let me explain how growing chillies in a cool climate such as Canberra is relatively simple. I grow everything organically and make compost to feed the soil.

Big and mild chilli - easy to grow

Purple sweet corn seeds in Australia

I bred Immali corn a few years ago in Central West NSW.  It is a coloured sweet corn.  As you can see from the pictures it is purple/pink and white sweet corn.  If mostly dark seeds are planted the cobs are rather dark.  If a mix of white and dark seeds are planted the cobs will be lighter in colour.

Immali corn was bred to be high in anthocyanin (the same cancer fighting antioxidant that is found in blueberries), antioxidant rich, high yielding, sweet corn that is far more nutritious than yellow sweet corn.

Immali corn is a relatively short plant which tillers and is suitable for backyard gardeners and people who like to produce their own food.  I have only grown it organically since I started to breed it and never had pest issues.  This means it is well suited to organic gardeners and permaculture gardens.  It is a stable variety, once you have seeds you can save seed each year and plant it again, meaning that you never have to buy corn seed again.

Immali corn is a stable variety and I sell seeds through my for sale page.  As Immali corn is stable you can save the seeds and grow this year after year.  I sell seeds that are a mix of purple and white sweet corn, most people plant all of them and get some amazing looking cobs.

Immali corn - the first purple sweetcorn bred in Australia

Immali corn, when picked early and 50/50 white/purple seeds are planted it look s like this

Igloo tomato

I wrote a post about finding seeds from the first tomatoes that I ever bred.  I have grown them twice since then, the first time I was amazed at how fit for purpose and great they were.  The second time I grew them I decided to record some stats. 

The first tomato variety I bred I have named ‘Igloo’ after my first son.  It is a sturdy and productive plant that grew to be well under two feet tall.  The Igloo tomato fruit is red and round, this is because at the time I was developing it I only had access to red round tomatoes as breeding stock.  I wanted relatively small fruit as large fruit takes longer to ripen and faces more danger of something damaging the fruit before it is picked.  Most of the fruits were just over 45 grams in weight, they are relatively uniform.

Igloo tomato - the first tomato variety I bred

When I was developing this variety I lived in a climate with a very short summer, so I wanted fast ripening small tomatoes.  This is one of the earliest ripening tomatoes I have grown and was the first to ripen of my productive tomatoes (ie Micro Tom ripened first but doesn’t count).  This year it took 147 days from planting the seed to picking the first ripe fruit.  When you look at my vegetable days to harvest page you will notice that this is very early.  I also wanted something that would set fruit in the cold, which this variety does well.

I didn’t have a great deal of access to water and had to carry manure to fertilise the soil, so I wanted short plants that did not waste resources on growing tall and did not need huge amounts of water.  These Igloo tomatoes only grow one to two feet tall, usually around 1 foot tall depending on growing conditions.  They don’t appear to be too water hungry but I haven’t tried growing them without watering.  All tomatoes need water, don’t let anyone make you think that they don’t.

Igloo tomato - absolutely covered in flowers

The taste of Igloo tomato is very good, probably a bit more sweet than it is sour, but a good mix of both.  If eaten too early they taste ok, if left to ripen properly the taste is far superior.  As with any tomato they are best not refrigerated as it impacts on the taste.  Also like any other variety of tomato they taste best when ripened on the plant and grown in much sun and warmth.

Igloo tomato, loaded with unripe fruit

Igloo tomato is what would be considered to be a determinate variety, or possibly semi-determinate, it sets flowers/fruit at the end of the growing point.  Unlike most determinate tomato varieties, once it has set fruit it tends to put out a few more shoots lower down and starts again.  This means it crops over an extended period.  Each flower truss tends to have 16 flowers, some have more but 16 seems very common.  Even though you would probably consider them to be determinate they do ripen over a very long period of time.

I was amazed at how absolutely covered in fruit this small plant was, it was very productive for such a small plant.  Rather than estimate the number I decided to count every fruit and record it after I picked it.

Over the summer of 2017/2018 my Igloo tomato has already produced a flush of 242 tomatoes and has started to put out a few more branches and has started to flower again.  We lost some tomatoes to insects and birds (and the kids probably picked some that I didn’t know about) so I have not included them in the count.

I didn’t weigh each fruit, but if the average weight is 45 grams this represents a harvest of 10.89 kg of tomatoes from one Igloo tomato plant so far.  This is excellent when you consider that the plant took up a small amount of space and was around 1 foot tall.

 

I sell seeds of Igloo tomato, as well as some other vegetables seeds and perennial vegetable plants on my for sale page.

Wasabi herb (Diplotaxis erucoides)

It is not very often that I find a vegetable that I am not familiar with.  Different varieties or new varieties yes, but I generally have grown and eaten similar things many times before.  This time I happened across something no new to me that the binomial name didn’t even sound familiar to me.  

It was a small an uninteresting looking plant in a nursery labelled as "wasabi salad herb" (Diplotaxis erucoides), the label claimed the plant tastes like wasabi.  I had never heard of Diplotaxis before, so I was immediately intrigued.

I really like wasabi, but it sounds difficult to grow and is very expensive to buy.  I have plans to attempt to grow it in the future, I have even marked out a spot where I think it should grow, but I am not ready to get one yet.  Most ‘wasabi’ paste in shops in Australia contains no actual wasabi but instead is a mix of horseradish, mustard and green food colouring.  I grow a purple mustard that is described as being as hot as wasabi, it certainly has the heat but to me it tastes like mustard.  That is not really what I am after.  I particularly like the complex taste of wasabi, I enjoy wasabi’s heat but would almost prefer that it was slightly less hot.  

While I was at the nursery standing in front of this so called wasabi herb plant I surreptitiously picked a small part of leaf, popped it in my mouth, and chewed it.  At first it didn’t really taste like anything, then the wasabi taste came through, then the heat.  It was nowhere near as hot as real wasabi, and the burn didn’t last long, but the taste was certainly there, as was some of the nose tingling goodness.  I couldn’t help myself, I bought a plant and took it home.  I didn’t really know what it was, I didn’t know how to grow it or if it would survive, but I figured I could work that out later.

When I got home I looked on the internet, Diplotaxis erucoides is also called wasabi arugula or wild rocket.  It is not terribly uncommon, and several online places in Australia currently sell its seeds, but for some reason I had never heard of it.  I have asked around some of the growers I know, none of them have grown it either.  Diplotaxis erucoides is reasonably common, but no one has ever heard of it, what fun. 

Wasabi herb flowers and developing seed pods

Unlike actual wasabi (Wasabi japonica) which is a perennial vegetable, this little wasabi herb is meant to be a short season annual.  They grow, flower, set seed, and die in less than a year.  They can set a decent number of seeds and the seeds are not too tricky to save or germinate.  I decided not to plant my wasabi herb into the vegetable garden in fear of making it bolt to flower and die, instead I grew it in its little pot and harvested its leaves.  I have harvested leaves and have eaten them on sandwiches which cheese, which taste amazing.

It was super easy to grow, I just watered it when I water everything else and picked the leaves when I wanted to eat them.  After I had this plant for a while, and picked and eaten most of its leaves, it stopped growing new leaves.  It  starting to send up a flower stalk.  Being an annual they tend to die after flowering.  Saving seeds was simple and growing from seed was also simple.  I imagine this would self seed easily and take care of itself if I found it somewhere suitable to grow.

I now have many little wasabi herb plants growing.  They don't appear to like the heat of summer, but they are surviving, some are flowering and should produce seed when the time is right.  If you like wasabi and haven't grown this little herb before you should give it a try.  If I have enough extra seed I should sell it through my for sale page.

I ate most of the leaves and then they started to flower

Breeding Superior Slow Bolt Coriander

Coriander (Coriandrum sativum) is a herb that you either love or hate.  This does not store well or transport well or dry well, and hydroponically grown coriander that you can get in supermarkets often taste weak, so for those of us who love coriander we must grow it ourselves.

Most people who grow coriander to harvest leaves (the Americans call the leaves 'cilantro') complain that they bolt too easily.  It often feels like any stress from transplant shock, or hot weather, or a change in the weather, or under watering, or over watering, or even looking at them wrong makes them stop growing leaves and start flowering.  Buying so-called ‘slow bolt’ varieties often makes no noticeable difference as these varieties have been grown by the seed company and no selective pressure has been placed on them for reluctance to flower. 
 

Most people adopt one of two responses to this issue, they either stop growing coriander as it is too difficult/low yielding, or they save seed from the best plants each year and add selective pressure for slow bolting plants.  These are both valid and sensible responses.  

Recently I read a paper written by an overseas seed research facility that said “Selection is the most common breeding procedure used in coriander and crossing is non-existent”.

I encourage people to add deliberate selective pressure when saving seeds, I certainly do this myself.  Common sense tells you that if you plant seed of the slower bolting plants (and cull the early flowering ones) then the next generation will be slower bolting.  The main issue with adding selective pressure coriander is that you are working with a small inbred population of plants that have very little diversity in their genetic makeup, so progress is made but it is slow progress.  To really create slow bolting coriander crossing different varieties is essential.  So that is what I have done.

Coriander mass cross, I had another bed of these behind and another one next to this to ensure every variety would cross with every variety

I was given seed of several different varieties of coriander collected from several different countries, plus I already had some that I had grown previously and added selective pressure to.  I grew all  nine varieties being careful to prevent them from crossing, and while each variety was nice and clearly different from one another none of them really thrives in my climate.  The leaf shape and size varied considerably among them, the size and number of seeds was very different between varieties, but they all taste and smell much the same.  I don’t have the time or space to grow nine substandard varieties and keep them all pure, and I really don’t have space to add the selective pressure required to improve each of the varieties separately, so I had a difficult decision to make.

Coriander mass cross, even this tiny some are already flowering due to the heat

Rather than keeping the lines pure and separate, putting in effort to maintain purity, and having nothing that performs overly well here, I decided to plant all of them and produce a mass cross.  They are very distinct varieties, originating from several different countries, meaning there is a lot of genetic diversity among them.  Inbreeding depression will be eliminated from my population through this mass cross event.  From the mass cross or grex, which is comprised of many different potential f1 crosses, I will grow out and allow them to cross as they see fit, all while culling.  

I did three staggered plantings of several seeds from all the varieties to ensure that each variety will flower and cross with each other variety.  It seems strange to be allowing coriander to flower, and not to be culling, but this is only the start.  Every year from now there will be culling, as well as back crossing to the previous year seeds.

  
If I cull hard each year I should be able to create a new variety or landrace of coriander that performs far better in this climate.  While I feel bad that once these have crossed I have no way to get these varieties back, which means that many of these varieties may well go extinct, the end result should be superior to anything I currently have access to.  I only have small numbers of seed of the original varieties left, but if you are a seed saver group and want a few seeds from the original strains and want to keep them pure please let me know before it is too late.
  

I have been harvesting the leaves even from substandard plants, so I am no worse off than just growing all of the different varieties and keeping them pure, and I should never end up with something as bad as I started with.  This first year I have allowed all of the varieties to flower and cross, I have even done a second planting of all the varieties to increase chances of crossing all the different varieties with each other.
 

Coriander

After this first year, when the lower quality plants begin to bolt they will be culled and not allowed to flower, so each generation the genepool becomes superior to the previous one.

  
When breeding it is important to know what to cull for, to make some culling rules, and to strictly follow those rules.  I plan to cull for firstly amount/size of leaves as that is what I want to harvest from the plants, there is no use having plants that take forever to flower if they don't produce many leaves.  Then I will select for reluctance to bolt as the yield is reduced if they stress and flower too easily.  Then I will select for number of seed produced, then large size of seeds.  

I want to end up with plants that produce lots of leaves and are simple to grow and save seed from each year.  Producing many seeds means I can produce many plants, and large seeds are easier to work with and tend to remain viable for longer, but leaves are the crop here so that is where the main selective pressure is to be added.

Most of these original varieties are 'slow bolt' and 'long standing' and 'giant' leaf varieties, some from hot climates, others from cold climates, this gives a strong yet wide genetic base with which to work.  
  

When I have finished tinkering with this improved coriander variety I may sell seeds through my for sale page.  Currently I am selling the mass cross seeds and allow others the opportunity to create their own new variety that suits their climate.  These will display a wide range of genetic diversity, all will taste and smell like normal coriander.  If you buy these please cull hard, ONLY save seed from the slowest to flower, that way you will create a variety of coriander that will be productive and slow to flower in your garden.

How to grow skirret from seed

Skirret plants will not cross pollinate with anything other than skirret, so saving seed is easy.  Skirret flowers in characteristic umbels that appear to be loved by all kinds of pollinators from beneficial wasps to flies to beetles to ants to native bees and even honey bees, so pollination is never problematic.  Seed grown skirret displays a surprising amount of diversity which is great for breeding improved plants with thicker roots.  I normally plant skirret seed in spring, this year I have sown some in summer and it also appears to be growing well.

Skirret: normal plants on left, offset grown plants on right

Planting skirret seed in spring will yield a small crop of edible sized roots, a few tiny offsets to plant out, as well as more seed before the end of autumn, even in shorter climates.  First year roots tend to be thin and delicious, if you can leave some they will be far thicker the following year.  Planting a tiny skirret offset gives a far larger plant with thicker roots than seed grown plants.  This winter I should take a comparison photo of seed grown skirret, offset grown skirret and older skirret plants. 

One year old skirret plants - each skirret plant produces several offsets

Skirret seeds are very tiny and germination is normally very simple.  I am told that skirret seed remains viable for anywhere from 3 to 10+ years.  While I normally get great germination I am told that germination rates can fall below 75% even with fresh seed.  To cover against this I only sell the freshest seed I have and I put extra seed in the packets so you will easily be able to grow 20 or more plants.  I have read that temperatures of 10 C to 22 C are best for germination but have never paid much attention to this.  

I plant skirret seed either in pots of soil or in an empty garden bed with no weeds.  I normally scatter the seed over the soil surface and water well.  I don’t cover the seed as it is so tiny and the seedling may not be able to grow to the surface.  I am also not sure if skirret needs light to improve germination.  From here I never let it dry out and in a week or two I normally see seedlings start to pop up.  If it rains the seedlings seem to germinate and grow faster, but that may be my imagination.  

Skirret offsets, they aren't big

The main pests I have seen with skirret are slugs and snails, the tiny seedlings may need a little protection until they get larger which is why I often grow skirret seedlings in a pot.  Much like any seedling things like earwigs and slaters may kill them when very small.  I am yet to see any pest bother a large skirret plant.  I assume rabbits, ducks, sheep etc would eat skirret plants to death due to the high sugar content.    

Once the skirret seedlings have a few true leaves and are large enough to handle you can transplant them where they are to grow.  Even if seeds were sown in the garden they will still likely need transplanting as watering tends to move seeds and clump them together rather than leave them to grow nicely spaced.  You don’t have to transplant them if you don’t want to as they will survive and still produce a crop.  

One dormant skirret offset, it doesn't have roots yet

Unlike many other root crops skirret does not appear to dislike being transplanted.  Skirret likes to be protected from the sun for a few days after transplanting, otherwise the leaves sometimes wilt.  I cram skirret in to any space I have and get good crops but the more space you can give them the better, most people plant about 30 cm apart or 9 per square meter.  

Skirret thrives in cool climates and loves water but it is a survivor that is remarkably adaptable.  I grew it in a hot arid climate where it could not survive in the garden by keeping it in a pot of soil in a bucket that I would fill with water each morning and afternoon.  Each year the skirret plants get larger, both taller and wider.  Each year the skirret plants produce more offsets, more seed, and fatter roots.    

Skirret roots from two year old plants

When the skirret dies down it is time to harvest roots.  I have only grown skirret in frosty areas so don’t know if it dies down in areas of warm winters.  Skirret roots do not store well once dug so I dig them up as needed.  Any small ones that I leave behind or any that I miss will just be larger and fatter next year.

 

Few places sell skirret seed in Australia and even fewer sell skirret plants.  I sell skirret seed all year and skirret offsets over winter through my for sale page.