Zea diploperennis - perennial corn ancestor

There are a few wild ancestors of modern corn (Zea mays) that are still around.  Most don't look hugely like the corn that we are used to, but you can see how they were bred into what we use today.  Most are annuals, just like domesticated corn.  Most can be crossed with domestic corn if they can be induced to flower at the same time.  

There are a smaller number of species of perennial ancestors of corn.  Most of the perennial ones are on the brink of extinction in the wild, or already extinct on the wild.  I think there may be a few wild species that are growing in such small areas that they have yet to be described.  

Recently someone sent me some seeds of a hybrid between modern corn and the perennial Zea diploperennis.  From memory this contains ~15% mays genes.  I was very excited to grow this as I am not sure how much perennial corn is in Australia.

I planted the seed and ended up with a small number of plants.  I put each plant in a pot of soil and moved this into the garden over the growing season.  Growing in pots means I can move them around and hopefully protect them over winter.

I am told that diploperennis can be used similar to popcorn, but with smaller ears and few kernels in each ear.  If this was crossed with regular popcorn it should be possible to create a perennial popcorn.  As many wild plants contain genes for disease resistance or pest resistance that are not present in their domestic counterparts, a perennial popcorn that uses diploperennis as one of the parents could be very useful to grow in low input permaculture farming or backyard gardens like mine who don't like to spray anything.

Zea diploperennis in pots next to popcorn, pumpkin, and beans

Zea diploperennis tillering a little

Zea diploperennis flowering in my garden

As it has some modern corn genes, it should flower under my climate without having to manipulate daylength, and it should flower roughly at the same time as domestic corn.  It should be able to cross with regular corn.  There is a lot of "should" and very little that I know for certain about this plant.

I had hoped to cross this with pop corn, with the hopes of eventually producing a perennial popcorn.  To give it the greatest chance of working I grew it next to some genetically diverse multi-coloured popcorn.

Unfortunately the weather was odd this summer, and many of my vegetables flowered really late or not at all.  My diploperennis didn't start to flower until the popcorn was already harvested.  Some diploperennis appear to be producing cobs, but I am not sure if any of them contain seed or if they will all be empty.  As the diploperennis are flowering so late I am not sure if they even could produce any seed prior to winter.  

Some of the diploperennis plants tillered a little, others did not tiller at all.  None of them got more than a foot and a half tall and they all had stems almost as thick as a pencil.  This was likely due to the soil I grew them in combined with the cooler than usual summer.  Then again, perhaps they are always scrawny plants.

I can't imagine that these would be perennial in my climate as they are not adapted to frosts.  I planted my diploperennis in pots of soil so I can move them into an unheated greenhouse over winter to protect them from frosts.  Hopefully they can survive over winter, but I won't really know until spring.

I don't have enough seeds or plants to share any at the moment.  I grow and sell a lot of interesting plants through my for sale page, but it is unlikely that I will have diploperennis available any time soon.  I don't even know if this can survive winter in my climate in an unheated greenhouse.  Fingers crossed I can over winter these plants and eventually have enough to share around a little.  

Giant dandelions - the supervegetable

A few years ago I started trying to breed a larger variety of dandelion (Taraxacum officionale).  I can't quite remember why.  It was a lot more difficult that I had imagined, but the results were pretty spectacular.  I wrote an earlier blog post on my giant edible dandelions.  I do a lot of vegetable breeding, and have produced some spectacular new varieties of plants.     

Dandelions are tremendously useful plants.  They are edible and far more nutritious than almost every vegetable I can think of.  All parts are edible and incredibly nutritious.  Livestock and poultry love to eat them, bees and many other beneficial insects adore the flowers.  The roots are deep and bring minerals up from the subsoil.  A nice coffee substitute can be made from the roots, or the roots can be roasted and eaten as an interesting vegetable.  People make coloured dye, syrup, or even wine from the flowers.  The flowers are pretty, and kids (and adults like me) like to blow their seed heads.  

Here are some leaves of my giant dandelions.  While it does change throughout the seasons, leaves over 50cm long are not uncommon.  Even the smaller leaves are very large and easily big enough to be useful in a salad.

Giant edible dandelion

Giant edible dandelion leaf

I find the leaves of regular lawn dandelions to be too small and too bitter to be useful in salads.  Leaves of these giant dandelions are far larger than regular dandelions, the pictures above show them on my hand for scale.  Being massive they seem to be less bitter.  Some people like bitter leaves, but I don't.

I find that bitterness changes in all dandelions.  They become more bitter when they flower.  They are less bitter when given a lot of water when growing fast.  I find new leaves from fast growing plants prior to flowering to be the most tender and least bitter.

Giant dandelion leaves, 30cm ruler

Leaves around 50cm long are not uncommon

I have grown a number of seedlings from my giant edible dandelion plants and they are spectacularly large.   

My giant dandelions seem to need more water than the regular lawn kind, so I figured they would never survive in the lawn as volunteer seedlings.  This summer was wet and cool, and a small number of my giant plants have started to grow in my lawn.  I am happy with this.  I also think next summer they will likely die off.  Time will tell on this one.

Giant edible dandelion leaves

Even the small leaves are large enough for salads

As you can see, leaves of dandelions vary a bit in shape and size on each plant.  I really should grow one giant dandelion in a pot and grow a regular dandelion in a pot as a comparison to show just how impressively massive these larger plants are.

I sell seeds and plants of my giant edible dandelions.  I also grow pink flowered dandelions, which grow to a normal dandelion size but the flowers are fairytale pink, and sometimes sell seeds of those.  If you are interested they are listed on my for sale page with some other perennial vegetables and other seeds and plants.

Potato seedlings from true potato seed Australia

I was transplanting my seed grown potatoes the other day.  I have a few different breeding lines, some diploid, some tetraploid, some wild ancestors of modern potatoes, all grown from true potato seed.  

Growing from true botanical potato seed yields interesting results, and allows me to breed and create new varieties.  As the parent stock is usually quite heterozygous, each seedling is genetically unique.

Most of my potato seedlings looked much the same, some had a few stolons, others did not.  At this tiny size neither is unexpected.  One of my seedlings is producing tiny little tubers.

I can hardly wait to see what these turn into.

Potato seedling with tiny tubers

I didn't break this off, there is soil covering the stolon

This little seedling really wants to live!  It had 3 tiny little tubers (not all of them are in my photos) and a few other stolons.  It has since been planted in its own pot so I can evaluate it at the end of the season.

I mostly try to grow diploid potatoes as I find they taste better.  Unfortunately they tend to yield lower than tetraploids.  

These seedlings are from tetraploid potatoes, their parentage is far superior to anything you can get from the shops so I decided to try a few seedlings and see what I could produce.  It is far too early to tell, but hopefully something great comes out of this line.

I sell a small number of seed potatoes each year through my for sale page.  These are from lines that I have developed myself and grown from true potato seeds.  I can only do this in their correct season, some lines harvest several times per year, other lines only harvest once per year.  If you are interested keep an eye on my for sale page.

Pink dandelion - Taraxacum pseudoroseum

There are a few different species of dandelion, the one that is common in lawns is Taraxacum officionale.  It grows pretty yellow flowers, and is edible and useful in many ways.  For some reason people often dislike this lovely and useful plant.

One of the other species of dandelion is the pink dandelion, Taraxacum pseudoroseum, it is still edible and useful, but it grows delightful pink flowers instead of the usual bright yellow ones.  

A pink dandelion, how incredible! 

Pink dandelion in bloom

Pink dandelion flower

Pink dandelion

Strangely enough, there are very few web pages that talk about pink dandelions.  Most of those are copied from one another, so there is little information on how to grow them or what to expect from pink dandelion plants.  I am growing pink dandelions, so I figured I would write a little about them.

Pink dandelion flowering 

Pink dandelions, just like regular dandelions, are perennial vegetables.  Dandelions have a great many uses in a permaculture garden, basically every animal eats them and they are far more nutritious than most vegetables.  The leaves of pink dandelion taste much like regular dandelions, and while I am yet to taste the roots I am told they taste pretty similar to regular yellow dandelions too.

Pink dandelion flowers start out yellow and the outside goes white then turns pink over a few days.  They are very rarely entirely pink, most of the time the center remains yellow.  The outside gets rather dark pink on its last day, which looks great with the yellow center.

Pink dandelion seeds ready for planting

The plant itself looks much like a regular dandelion, to be honest I am not sure that I could tell them apart when not in bloom.  Much like regular dandelions they do prefer a lot of water and do not cope if it is too dry.  Full sun to part shade seems to do these plants well.  It takes very little effort to grow pink dandelion plants.

I am happy to say that frosts do not bother pink dandelions.  Mine were also hit with hail more times than I care to mention.  Not surprisingly, none of this was a big deal for these plants because they are very hardy.

Sadly pink dandelions are not as hardy or as vigorous as regular dandelions, so the chances of this finding its way into your lawn are pretty low.

The leaves look and taste similar to a regular dandelion

Pink dandelions are yellow when they first open

The center stays yellow

The white part will turn pink

One thing I have noticed is that pink dandelion flowers open in the mornings and close in the afternoons.  It means that they are not the greatest of cut flowers as they tend to close up each night.  They do reopen each day, so it isn't a great loss.

Pink dandelion starting to close for the day

I think dandelions are great in general, and I think that pink dandelions are just delightful.  As soon as I am able I plan to try and save seed from these and grow some more of these plants.  

My plants are still relatively young, and have only had half a dozen or so blooms.  More flowers are on their way, and seeds are ripening.  

Once the seeds are ready, if they don't float away on the breeze, I will try to plant them and grow more of these pink dandelions.

Pink dandelion seeds

If I ever have extra pink dandelion plants, or pink dandelion seeds, I will list them on my for sale page so others can also enjoy growing these lovely plants.

Growing white asparagus at home

You have probably seen, or at least heard of, white asparagus.  There are no varieties of white asparagus, but the good news is that you can make any variety of asparagus grow some white spears at home easily. 

Normally to make asparagus white the grower will blanch the asparagus by putting a bucket or something over the emerging spear.  As it grows it has no sunlight, meaning it stays white.  This is simple to do at home if you are growing asparagus.  The end result is a much sweeter asparagus spear.

Often people use any of the green varieties to make white asparagus.  This works well.

Purple varieties of asparagus are much sweeter than green to begin with.  Which means white asparagus made from a purple variety is very sweet, it's quite remarkable.

Making white asparagus at home

This year I decided to make white asparagus using a purple variety.  The end result is asparagus that is incredibly sweet and very tender.

One of the spears grew a little large and started to lift the bucket.  This bent the largest spear and let in a little light, resulting in white asparagus with a tinge of colour.  

Not to worry, this was still very sweet and unlike anything you can buy from the shops.

If you grow asparagus give making some white asparagus a try.   Just put a bucket over the soil where the spears will emerge, and remember to check it every few days.

I only do a few spears per plant so as not to weaken the plants too much, but I am probably being overly cautious.  I am sure commercial farms make a lot more white asparagus per plant and have no problems.

Lawn daisy (Bellis perennis)

Lawn daisies (Bellis perennis)  are a small edible perennial plant.  I am told that they grow as a weed in the lawn, I wish they grew as a weed in my lawn!

The leaves can be eaten as a vegetable either cooked or raw, the flowers and flower buds can be eaten, apparently a tea can be made from the flowers too.  I am told that the leaves are rather nutritious, but being so small they don't produce a huge amount of them so you would need a lot to be able to make a meal.

Unfortunately I don't find them to taste overly nice, but they sure look pretty.

My daughter's lawn daisies in a vase

When TV or books speak of children  making 'daisy chains' apparently this is the plant they are talking about.  I have only seen them growing in lawns in Tasmania, other than that I have never seen them growing by themselves anywhere. 

I took my daughter for a walk to get her out of the house one day before her birthday so the other kids could make presents and things.  We ended up a shop that had seedlings for sale.  I bought her a small punnet of them, and she planted them in her garden after we got home.  They sat through winter frosts, slowing growing larger.

Once the weather warmed they started to bloom.  Below are some of the flowers from my daughter's little plants.  

Someone has put a lot of time and effort into breeding these improved plants, they have much more showy flowers than the lawn ones.  I think my daughter is doing a great job in growing these fluffy little flowers and I am proud of her.

Bellis perennis - lawn daisy flowers

I also bought some seeds of lawn daisies that I planted recently.  I imagine that the seedlings won't be anywhere near as impressive as my daughter's flowers.  I think they will be smaller plants and have simpler flowers.  

I plan to grow some in pots of soil and some in the veggie garden.  Being simpler more wild like plants they should be more hardy, hopefully they drop seed and somehow find a niche in my garden where they can grow wild.  I would love lawn daisies in my lawn.

I also plan to try and collect seed from my daughter's plants.  I dare say these will never grow in the lawn, and will always need to be cared for and pampered.  I am happy to do that as they are worth it.

Mixed lawn daisies and other flowers in a vase

Lawn daisy flowers only come in white, pink, and red.  I am not sure which I like the most and think a mix is lovely. 

Some are really fluffy, they look almost like something you would find in a Dr Seuss book.  Some much are fluffier than others, and with a little work I think it would be simple to make a strain that is super fluffy.

We have eaten a few of the leaves, and while they don't taste bad they also aren't that inspiring.  I think there real use is in their flowers.  They look nice in the garden where they attract bees and other pollinators, and they are good as cut flowers.

Kangkong - perennial vegetable from South East Asia

A number of years ago I heard of a perennial leaf vegetable called kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica and/or Ipomoea reptans) that is not very common here but is extremely popular in south east Asia. 

It has heaps of common names including ong choy, Chinese spinach, Chinese watercress, Chinese convolvulus, swamp cabbage, water spinach, river spinach, water morning glory, and water convolvulus.  I am sure kangkong has a lot of other names too.

Kangkong was reputed to be fast growing (~10cm per day), high yielding, undemanding to grow, and tastes good.  Kangkong is absurdly healthy to eat, it is high in many vitamins, high in various minerals such as iron, high in essential amino acids, and has reasonable amounts of fiber.  It also has few calories and almost not fat.  Kang kong is said to reduce cholesterol and has blood sugar stabilising effects (which I need).  To me kangkong sounded intriguing and well worth trying.

Kangkong was said to grow in water and do very well in aquaponics.  I keep hearing how this is sold in bunches at the markets and that it is simple to grow from cuttings, but have never actually seen it for sale in a market anywhere.  

I occasionally see kangkong plants for sale online, but not very often.  So I tracked down some seed and grew some myself.  Back then kangkong seed was difficult to find anywhere, so I think I was lucky to be able to get it.

Kangkong

The seedlings produced rather distinctive forked cotyledons as they germinated, and seemed to germinate in soil better than they did in water.  The ones in water rotted, the ones in soil all germinated quickly for me.

I have since heard that kang kong is very difficult to germinate, but I didn’t do anything overly special and they germinated just fine for me.  The pot below I planted five seeds and had five seedlings germinate.  Maybe I was just lucky.

Kangkong seedlings germinating

Kangkong leaves and spent flowers

My kangkong seedlings grew reasonably slow at the start and after germination seemed to sit there doing nothing for some time, eventually they got large enough to eat a little.  It felt like they took a long time to reach a reasonable size, after that they grew very fast.  I grew most of them crowded in small pots of soil, where they did surprisingly well.  

I thought that kangkong didn't taste very strong, it certainly never tasted bitter.  To me kangkong was good raw or cooked briefly in a stir fry.  My kids happily ate raw kangkong leaves that they picked as they walked in the garden.  The fact that my kids would graze on this says a lot about it.  Our chickens and guinea pigs also liked to eat kangkong leaves and stems. 

I also grew one kang kong plant in a floating pot in a classroom aquarium, this plant did extremely well.  From what I have seen kangkong is well suited to aquaponics.  I have read a few academic papers that demonstrated that kangkong is vastly superior in reducing nitrates and phosphates in water than fast growing brassicas.  It seems to have potential in cleansing water and for soil stability in wet tropical areas.

I doubt I grew my kangkong properly.  I gave them next to no attention, they were crwded in a tiny pot of soil, and they were not in very fertile soil, but they still produced a reasonable amount of leaves pretty much constantly over the warmer months.  Some flowered towards the end of the season, but I never saw any sign of them producing seed pods.  This lack of seed setting may be due to my short growing season, but I have a feeling it may have been due to the lack of attention that I paid them and the poor growing conditions.  The pots were far too small, the soil too poor, and they did not get enough sunlight. 

Like many other vegetables that we commonly grow, kangkong are tropical perennial plants that do great over summer and tend to die over winter in cooler climates.  I didn’t want to grow from seed so I protected some plants over winter by keeping them out of the frosts.  They suffered badly through winter, but they survived.  Temperatures below 12C made them lose leaves and die back to depressing little stumps.  Any frost killed the plants completely, but keeping a pot of kangkong out of the frost was simple enough to do.

Kangkong struggles over winter

Once spring came I had a pot of sad little stumps with no leaves and a lot of dead bits, I doubted that these would recover so I also planted some more seed.  These sad little stumps took off and flourished as soon as the weather warmed, and considerably out grew any seeds I planted that spring.  

There was no comparison in growth rates, the overwintered plants were larger and produced far more leaves earlier in the season.  Again they flowered but did not set seed, I never cared about seed from them as I still had some seed in my packet, plus they are true perennials that were simple enough to get through winter in that climate.  In hind sight I regret not valuing these vegetables enough.   

Even though my climate was not ideal for them, I grew the same kangkong plants for a number of years then moved house and brought some of my plants with me, they kept producing leaves for me to eat which I really appreciated.  At the time due to work I was living away from home during the week, and coming back on weekends where I would eat handfuls of the stuff.  

As I had my garden in pots of soil sitting on concrete, kangkong was one of the few things that produced anything edible for me over this time.  Having a few hand fulls of kangkong as well as Vietnamese coriander, really helped me during this time as I was producing nothing else edible at the time.

A few months later I moved house again.  I don’t remember what happened to my kang kong because I had a lot  going on during that time, but I somehow lost them all, and I haven’t grown any kangkong since. 

Kangkong growing in a 10cm pot (in an ice cream container) and flowering

It has been a few years since I last grew this, but I keep thinking of growing kangkong again.  It was so simple to grow, was so productive, very undemanding, kangkong is meant to be really healthy, and it actually tasted alright.  Much like many other great vegetables I can’t buy this in the markets, meaning if I want to eat it I have to grow it myself. 

I found some of my very old seed (from 2013) and have planted some to see if any germinates for me.  I also bought some new seed just in case the old ones are no longer viable and have planted some of that.  I didn't know if they can germinate with the temperatures so low, so I planted them with bottom heat.  Some are already germinating.  I didn't plant much of the seed, I will plant more in spring if these sprout and die off due to the cold or something.  

Kang kong flower bud

Last time I grew some kangkong in soil as well as some in a floating pot of gravel in a fish tank.  This time I will try the soil again, but I would also like to grow some using aquaponics as I think that is the only way for it to reach its potential in my climate.  I have heard of it exploding in growth in aquaponics and being too productive - that's what I want!

The floating pot of gravel performed incredibly well last time, but I have plans to pump aquarium water through a bed of gravel and I think kangkong may do even better in a set up like that.  I am kind of excited to see what kang kong can do in my goldfish barrelponics as I think kangkong may be perfectly suited to that kind of growing.  Being outside in full sun, having constant access to a stream of nutrient rich water, it should really take off over summer. 

I enjoy vegetable breeding and (as well as many failures) I have produced some incredible plants.  A large part of me wants to buy seeds of as many different varieties of kangkong as I can find, cross them all, and see if I can produce a superior variety.  Being a perennial means that if I do stumble upon an exceptional plant I don’t have to breed it for generations to stabilize the superior traits, I can simply take cuttings and clone the thing.  

Another part of me does not want to do this as regular kangkong is already pretty great, I have no experience in collecting kangkong seed, I don’t have a lot of space or water to use on yet another vegetable breeding project, and this sounds like a lot of work.  I guess time will tell, it sounds like something I will eventually do but I may not invest a lot of effort into it just yet.

Kangkong flowering - this plant needed more nitrogen and more sun

I will probably sell kangkong through my for sale page at some stage in summer.  I am interested in getting a few more kangkong varieties and would love to track down the red stemmed kangkong.  If you have some red kang kong in Australia and are willing to sell or trade it let me know.  Or if you are overseas and are willing to post me some seed of red kangkong I would also love to hear from you.

Breeding Better Tomatoes

I have been breeding tomatoes for a number of years, far more than I care to admit.  

I have a bunch of different breeding lines, each with a different end goal in mind, as well as a bunch of stable varieties that I have developed.  Some are named, some are not, some are better than others.  

If you read this blog you probably do a little backyard vegetable breeding, so you know what it is like.

Black on yellow skin, green flesh

I have been working with one line of tomatoes for a number of years now, and I think it is pretty close to a perfect salad tomato.  

It has all the traits I was after with these, and after the number of years I have been working on them I think they are stable enough for me to name them.  

These are probably the darkest true black tomatoes that you will ever see

They are a high anthocyanin line, meaning they are high in the same powerful antioxidant as blueberries and turn black where the sun hits them.  They carry more of this antioxidant than most other black tomatoes as they are intensely black.

The unripe fruit are purple like an eggplant, while the ripe fruit is incredibly black, which makes this variety ornamental as well as being productive and delicious. 

They are yellow underneath the black so you can easily tell when they are ripe without having to squeeze them.  They have green flesh, with an incredible taste.  They taste great raw in salads or on a sandwich, and are good cooked and in sauces.  

The fruit are round and smallish, but not too small to be useful on a sandwich.  They are very productive, and so far (heat, drought, smoke, and a mild wet summer) have not failed to crop well for me.

They are indeterminate and produce large crops from early in the season until killed by frosts.  They have regular leaf and in my garden do not appear overly bothered by any pest or disease.  The seeds are large enough that they have good germination, meaning seed saving is simple.

Black and yellow skin, green delicious flesh when ripe

I had a few lines and I was unsure which to continue with.  One tasted by far the best, but had green skin under the black so was difficult to see when it was ripe.  Another didn't taste quite as good, but had yellow skin under the black so was easier to see when it was ripe.  

Antioxidant rich and bursting with flavour

This variety has the best of both worlds.  It has the incredible taste that appears to be linked with green flesh, and has the yellow skin making it easier to see when it is ripe.  Where the sun hits the fruit it is darker black than any black tomato I have ever seen.

The richness of the black colour is incredible, only a few years ago this colour was unthinkable and all 'black' tomatoes were a muddy brown.  

Being so dark indicates incredibly concentrated anthocyanins.  Any part that is not hit by sunlight means you can tattoo them using stickers, much like what I did to my apples in the photo below.

Words and pictures can be stenciled onto apples using sunlight

these tomatoes are an incredible colour

Simple to tell when fruit is ripe

I have given these to a few people for a taste test, along with tomatoes from a dozen or so other varieties.  So far this has consistently been the favourite tasting larger fruiting tomato.  

I say they are consistently the favourite 'larger fruiting' tomato because so far everyone says that Verde Claro is their overall favourite tasting tomato.  Verde claro is a green when ripe cherry tomato, and has different uses to a slicing tomato, so you are not really comparing the same thing. 

Unripe tomatoes are purple like an eggplant

More unripe fruit

Tomato only turns black where hit by the sun

I am not good at naming things, but once they are named I will probably list seeds on my for sale page.  

While I am not certified organic (and have no interest in paying for certification) I have grown them organically since I started to breed them, and have selected for all the qualities that make them suited to backyard growing and delicious taste.