Solanum acroscopicum - wild potato relative

I sometimes grow potatoes from true seeds, each seed grown potato is unique and can create a completely new potato variety.  I do a little potato breeding, and have developed some nice varieties that taste better than anything you can buy from the markets and better than any variety you have grown at home.  

Supermarket potatoes, and most heirloom potatoes, are tetraploids.  I grow some tetraploids, which yield high but lack any great flavour (I grow some tetraploids which taste almost as good as a diploid).  

I grow some diploid potatoes, which taste incredible and often have remarkable colouration, but often tend to have lower yields and smaller tubers (some of my lines are yielding higher than some tetraploids).  

As well as these, I also grow a wild potato, Solanum acroscopicum.  I don't think it has a common name.  This potato is very rare, and not many people in Australia grow Solanum acroscopicum.

Solanum acroscopicum flower 

Solanum acroscopicum produces tubers with white skin and white flesh, mostly round or oblong, and small to medium size.  The skin is smooth and simple to clean (or simple to peel, if you are so inclined).  The taste is good but about as uninteresting as regular potatoes.  

Small yields of unimpressive tasting potatoes that don't have vivid colours makes it sound like it is not worth growing.  Even so, this variety has a few features that make it well worth growing.  It is great in smaller spaces, the plant looks nice, and its certainly worth considering in breeding projects due to its disease resistance.  

Solanum acroscopicum grows large, pretty flowers.  This plant would not look out of place in a flower garden.  I keep forgetting to take photos when it is covered in blooms (or when there are other flowers I can hold next to it for comparison).  Growing food in a flower garden is a good idea.  

Solanum acroscopicum flowers

The plant looks like a potato plant, but with pointier leaves.  The leaves mostly point upwards, which helps keep the plant looking compact.  It grows rather short, neat/compact plants that do not tend to sprawl unless they are shaded.  Being such a compact and neat plant also makes it look good in a flower garden even when not in flower.  

It dumps all of the tubers very closely together directly under the plant, and very close to the soil surface.  It is a good idea to hill soil around them as they grow to prevent light getting to the tubers.  You don't have to search for the tubers, they are all together rather neatly.  Unlike most potato varieties where you always miss some when harvesting, it is simple to get every tuber as they are all so close together.  

Solanum acroscopicum - tubers get a little larger than this

Being such a compact plant, and dumping the tubers so close together and close to the soil surface, make it better suited to growing in pots than any potato variety I have ever grown.  Even growing in soil in the vegetable patch, there is far less digging as the tubers are all right there, all bunched together.

I am told that this species is much lower in toxic alkaloids than regular potatoes.  I have never eaten them when green, and do not encourage people to do this.  I only include the next sentence for informational purposes.  I have been told that it is so low in solanine that this can be eaten when green, when regular potatoes are highly toxic and would cause severe stomach cramps and intense vomiting.  This is important: if you try eating them green please be careful, please only eat a little at first to see how you go, and if it tastes bitter stop eating.  I don't eat them green, and I don't encourage other people to eat them green, but if you are going to do this please be careful.

Solanum acroscopicum growing in a pot of soil

Solanum acroscopicum has genetic resistance to many potato diseases and tolerates light frost better than many other potato varieties.  From what I have read, this species seems unaffected by things that would destroy regular potatoes.  If you are into potato breeding, this variety would be useful to consider due to its disease resistance.  

I grow everything organically, so am interesting in plants that are resistant to pests and diseases.  This makes it suitable to breeding, or for growing in the flower garden where you may not look after it all that well.  

Wild potato

I have grown these for a few years and have tried to share them with some enthusiasts who I have encouraged to share them further.  Hopefully they don't go locally extinct in Australia.  

I have reached a point where I will sell some seed tubers for growing (not true seed) through my for sale page when they are in season.  I am not sure what the rules are in each state for sending potatoes from NSW for growing, so you may need to look this up if you want any.  If you are in a state that does not allow them, I may be able to send ware potatoes for eating.  Again, not really sure about this so you would need to look up what is allowable in your state.

How tall does asparagus grow

Asparagus grows much larger than you probably think.  Unless you grow asparagus yourself, you probably can't imagine how tall it can get.

I remember years ago reading about asparagus and being surprised to see the stated heights it reaches as being much shorter than what I have seen.  

Many places on the internet, including wikipedia, state it can reach 1.5 m (about 5 feet) tall, other places (such as Better Homes and Gardens) say it reaches 12 inches tall.  Asparagus grows far taller than this.  

I found this rather perplexing.  At the time we had orchards, and in them some asparagus grew that was much taller than any of those.  This asparagus had been there since before we moved in, given its location, presumably seed had been deposited by a bird.  We eventually moved from there and left the asparagus behind.  

Since moving to town I have started growing asparagus again.  I grow a few types of asparagus now.  The most delicious also happens to be the largest and most vigorous variety.  It is an heirloom variety called Precoce d'Argenteuil.  From seed it only takes about 6 months to reach 1 meter tall, and it produces the best tasting spears of any asparagus variety I have eaten.  

After harvesting some spears this year, I left a few spears to feather out so they can feed the crown for the following year.  I could not help but notice how tall this asparagus was.  I wanted to measure it and photograph it, but didn't want to take another frond so I let it grow for the remainder of the season.

Now that winter is upon us my asparagus plants have gone dormant.  This year they have gone dormant nice and early.  I was removing the old growth and decided to measure a frond.  There were a number of fronds on my plants that were around this tall.  

Asparagus frond and tape measure

The one in the photo reached around 282cm, or about 9 feet 2 inches.  That is pretty big for asparagus.  Certainly a lot larger than most places say they will grow.  

I don't look after my asparagus anywhere near as much as I should.  My plants are not pampered, they have competition from other plants, and I have not made any attempt to make them larger.  I certainly haven't done any breeding work with them.  

The strange thing is, I don't think this is the tallest asparagus I have seen.  I am pretty sure some of the ones we had at the orchard were much larger than this.     

Asparagus frond reached over 280cm

Not a great photo

It makes me wonder why so many garden books etc say the height of asparagus is so much shorter than they will actually reach.  As a gardener, these wildly inaccurate estimates can cause problems when planning what to grow where.  

Presumably the person writing about it does not have much experience growing asparagus.  Perhaps (as I suspect is the case with Better Homes and Gardens) the author has never grown asparagus themselves, and has probably never even seen asparagus plants growing.  This kind of thing is very common with gardening books and permaculture books, and the misinformation is often repeated by companies who sell plants (that have been grown by a contractor), and I find it rather frustrating.  When gardening books make up nonsense, or re-spout these inaccuracies, what else have they gotten wrong?

Some of my 6 month old asparagus plants

I only sell plants and seeds that I have grown and propagated myself.  While the information I provide is vastly different than you will find in books, it is based on actual experience.  I can tell you what does or does not work for me in my garden.  

Asparagus plants are dioecious, meaning that some plants are male while other plants are females.  Female asparagus plants tend to produce larger yields than male.  Female asparagus plants also tend to produce fatter, longer, higher quality spears.  Commercial asparagus farms only grow male plants (or super male plants) so they don't have to worry about seeds falling and choking the beds with volunteer seedlings.  Commercial asparagus farms usually grow low quality asparagus varieties, they really can't compare to the delicious asparagus varieties you can grow at home.  

New asparagus fronds already over 6 feet tall

I grow a few different varieties of asparagus.  Some are purple, some are green, all can produce tender white asparagus.  At this stage they are all seed grown, from seed purchased from reputable businesses to ensure the correct variety rather than a mystery cross.  

Late winter each year if I have any extra asparagus crowns I will offer them through my for sale page.  I sell a few different perennial vegetable plants, some berry plants, as well as some heirloom vegetable seeds.

Semi Aquatic Vegetables

A few years ago we bought a 'self watering' pot.  I put a nice fern in it.  After a short while I needed to transplant the fern into something else as it started to die.

Unlike other self watering pots that we have which work perfectly, this one was poorly designed and does not work.  The soil gets all swampy and wet, which rots and kills most plants.  There is no little gap for air/drainage, and is essentially a pot with no drainage.

Instead of throwing away this pot, I decided to try and grow some water loving herbs and vegetables.  Perhaps they would like to grow in this pot.

I have some things such as Vietnamese coriander, water celery, fish mint, and various types of mint that I know would do well in here.  I also suspect that water chestnuts would do well in there.  I didn't want to grow any of these as they are doing so well under other conditions.

I also have a few other edible plants that do ok where I currently grow them, but I think may thrive in this pot.  Hopefully I will stumble across a better way to grow these plants.  

I decided to try willowherb (Epilobium parviflorum), Watercress (Nasturtium officinale), Gotu Kola (Centella asiatica), Brahmi (Bacopa monnieri), and Kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica).  All of these plants are known for loving water and growing on the edge of ponds or even growing submerged with their leaves out of the water.  I hope one or more of these will be well suited to this bog garden life.

Other than kangkong which were transplanted seedlings, all the others were cutting grown.  The first photos were taken 23 December.  Everything is looking limp after being transplanted the previous day.

Willowherb, Watercress, Gotu kola, Brahmi, and Kangkong

Everything was pretty small

The next photos were taken 04 January.  In under two weeks the plants have grown very fast!  

The willowherb is slowly growing, and the Gotu Kola hasn't done a great deal yet.  You can't really tell from the photo but the Brahmi has done a lot of growing over the two weeks.  Both Watercress and Kang Kong appear to be loving this new pot and their growth is rocketing along.

Less then two weeks of growth

Willowherb, Watercress, Gotu kola, Brahmi, and Kangkong

For soil I just used what I cleaned out of a drain that is in front of the garage.  It is mostly made up of soil and leaf litter that has been broken into small pieces.  This soil has weed seeds in it so I remove grass etc as it germinates.  Other than that it seems ideal for this purpose.  It holds water well, seems pretty fertile, and has plenty of organic matter that will break down to release further nutrients over time.

I am growing this little pot of herbs and vegetables in my greenhouse.  It is pretty warm in there over summer but also has some shade from the sun.  

The photos below were taken 13 January after three weeks of growth.  

The water cress is the standout and is growing like mad, it is flowering, and spilling over the sides of the pot.  Before I took these photos I had already been removing some of the watercress.  

The kangkong seems to be growing well and has large fat leaves but not much stem length.  Hopefully I get to eat some kangkong this year as well as grow the plants large enough to over winter in the greenhouse.

Brahmi seems to be growing well and has almost covered the surface of the soil.  I'm surprised that it is not flowering yet.  I quite like brahmi but it doesn't grow fast enough for my liking.

Willowherb is getting longer leaves and is larger overall.  This plant seems to be dividing, which is what I was hoping for.  

Gotu kola seems to have disappeared.  I think the runner I used was too tiny and may not have had enough roots, so I may put in another plant to see how it goes.    

Three weeks of growth

Kangkong growing larger, water cress spilling over the sides

Watercress flowering

After seven weeks I took the pictures below.  

Kangkong is looking healthy and getting bigger, but growing far slower than I would like.  I had hoped that my kangkong would be large enough to harvest by now, but it isn't.  I can pick a few leaves here and there, but not enough.  If it is going to have any chance of survival the kangkong will need to get larger before winter.

The watercress is spilling over the sides, flowering, and dropping seed.  I have allowed some of the seed to drop into the pot.  I have also harvested some of the watercress.  Water cress seems to be well suited to life in this pot.

Gotu Kola is in there, and appears to be alive, but isn't doing a great deal of anything.  I really should have tried this using a larger plant with more established root system.

The brahmi is in there, and flowering, but it is not all that huge and its growth is not at all rampant.  I have a feeling that brahmi needs a little more shade than this pot is getting.

The willow herb is getting big.  It has grown a bit of a stem and is reaching over the side of the pot, it now has long leaves, and appears to be dividing.  I think willowherb is well suited to life in this pot.

After seven weeks

Willow herb on left, kangkong on right 

This pot constantly has wet soil and there is water in the reservoir.  Unlike good self-watering pots this one has no space for air/drainage, so it functions more like a pot with no drainage hole.  If plants work well in here I can replicate the setup by getting a pot of soil and putting it in an ice cream container or something with a little water in it.

From this early progress it appears that some of these plants should flourish in this pot.  Hopefully this proves true over the longer term and is not just things doing well in the short term.  

From here I plan to keep it growing, harvest what I want, and see what survives winter.  

Litchi tomato Solanum sisymbriifolium

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

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

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

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

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

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

Litchi tomatoes flowering

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

Litchi tomato leaf

Leaves look soft, but have prickles

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

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

I grow several plants in the same hole

Litchi tomato stems are prickly

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

Litchi tomato flower

Prickle tomato flowers

Flowers vary slightly from plant to plant

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

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

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

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

Litchi tomato truss

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

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

Ripe Litchi Tomatoes

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

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

Litchi tomato fruit with seeds

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

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

Litchi tomato - so thorny

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

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

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

Variegated water parsley Oenanthe javanica (flamingo)

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

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

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

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

Variegated water parsley

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

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

Variegated water parsley leaves

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

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

Variegated water celery loves to spread

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

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

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

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

Variegated water celery leaves

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

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

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

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

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

Perennial corn survived winter

Last summer I grew some perennial corn Zea diploperennis.  I am very excited to say that some of my perennial corn plants survived winter and now that the weather is warming are happily growing!  

Zea diploperennis is a perennial undomesticated ancestor of our modern corn.  I am not sure if this particular species was used in breeding modern corn, or if it is just closely related to the species that were used in breeding domestic corn.  What I do know is that it crosses with modern corn and with various undomesticated teosinte corn species.  

My understanding is that perennial corn is pretty uncommon, and it is incredibly rare in Australia.  I had never grown, or even seen, perennial corn plants before so this was somewhat of an adventure and a learning curve.

The cobs from diploperennis were small and contain far fewer seeds than domestic corn.  I don't know if first year cobs are smaller than subsequent year cobs, but have a feeling that they are never large and never contain huge amounts of seed.  

All modern corn varieties are annual which is great for large scale chemical dependent monocropping.  A perennial corn would be wonderful for home growers, permaculture farming, and low input polyculture food forests.  Perennial corn plants are simple to grow and resistant to may pests and diseases that affect modern corn, which makes them useful in breeding something that is better suited to backyard growers who don't want to spray anything.  

I am told that this corn contains roughly 85% diploperennis genetics and about 15% domestic corn genetics.  Having a small percentage of domestic corn genetics should mean that this will flower around the same time as other corn varieties, making it easier to cross breed and produce a perennial popcorn or perennial dent corn.

Z diploperennis divided into two plants - red stems

I'm not sure how perennial corn would grow in a warmer climate, but where I am it dies back to rhizomes over winter.  Some plants have robust rhizomes that appear to have divided a lot, while others had weaker rhizomes that did not divide at all.

Perennial corn is not well suited to my climate, the frosts are just too harsh here.  It would be well suited to conditions with milder winters.  I was uncertain if it could survive winter here but I did not want to grow it from seed each year and have yet another perennial vegetable that I treat as an annual.

To give it the best chance of surviving I grew it in pots which I moved to an unheated greenhouse over winter.  This meant that it was still very cold, but the soil would not freeze.  I learned a lot from this, and by in large it was successful.  I believe that this would probably survive in the field if it was mulched.

Zea diploperennis divided into two - green stems

Some plants did not survive the winter.  These were no great loss, they were not cold tolerant and did not contain the genes required to build a perennial corn landrace that could stand up in my climate.  

A few plants survived and started to sprout in spring, then were eaten by slaters and the plant died.  This is regrettable as the plants were good and would probably survive in the field if mulched well.  They clearly had some of the required genetics and their loss represents a loss of diversity that may have been useful in some other genetic combination.  They did not divide enough, which meant that they only had one growing point and they died once this had been eaten by pests. 

Some plants divided a little, as can be seen in the above pictures they had two growing points that had not been killed by pests.  As can be seen above there is considerable diversity among these survivors.  Some have green stems, others have more red on the stems.  This diversity carries over the the colour of the seeds and cobs and is likely present in all of their genetics.  

Perennial corn flowering 

Genetic diversity is great as it means we should be able to cross things and hopefully end up with the right combination of genetics.  One of my plants started to flower as it was breaking dormancy.  We will see if anything comes of that flower and if that plant is worth keeping.

You may be able to tell in the photos, but I did not remove the previous year growth.  This was partly because the leaves stayed green and alive for much of winter, and partly because I thought they would help protect the growing points slightly.  Now that they are actively growing again it is time to remove the old growth.

Zea diploperennis dividing into many plants

One of my plants divided into several plants, I am not sure how many but it is a decent number.  This plant also had several stalks in its first year, and was the only of my plants to do this.  This is a trait that I want to keep when I try to breed perennial popcorn.  

I certainly don't want to reduce genetic diversity in the population at this stage so will not be only breeding from this dividing plant.  Given that it does produce multiple stems I assume it will produce a lot of pollen and will likely incorporate its genes into a lot of the seeds produced by my plants.

From careful poking around in the soil it appears that this plant produced several rhizomes which probably could have been split off from one another and transplanted.  These second year plants are certainly larger than seed grown at this stage, (especially considering that I have not yet planted corn seed for the year) so it will be interesting to see if they are more productive than first year plants.

Even if I never successfully cross this with modern corn this vigorously dividing trait would still be useful and highly desirable.  Even if I simply breed a population of dividing plants they can be used similar to other cereals such as wheat o oats, but with much larger seeds that are more nutritious and are far simpler to thresh at home.

Zea diploperennis cob

I have not divided anything yet as I have so few plants to play with and would hate to accidentally kill one.  Instead I am leaving all of these surviving plants as they are to see how they perform in their second year and hopefully produce far more cobs per plant.  

As you can see in the photo, the first year cobs were tiny.  I have a feeling that they could double or triple this size.  In other words I think that they will always be really small unless it is crossed with domestic corn.

Zea diploperennis cob size

I wonder if a clumping plant like this would be more productive or less work than a plant with a single stem as it may produce numerous little cobs.  It would be nice to be able to plant a perennial corn rhizome and then leave it to form an expanding clump that was increasingly productive each year.  The only way for me to find out if this is possible is for me to leave it and see what happens.

This year I don't have any spare plants or seed to share.  Hopefully all goes well and in autumn I will have spare seed and hopefully even some rhizome divisions from my more vigorous plants.  

If you are in Australia and interested in growing perennial corn feel free to get in touch with me around autumn/winter to see if I have any seeds to spare.  You can either leave a comment below or my contact details can be found on my for sale page.   

Purple asparagus spears

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

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

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

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

Purple asparagus next to a green one for comparison

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

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

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

Purple asparagus 

Purple asparagus spears

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

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

Vietnamese coriander flowering

Vietnamese coriander (Persicaria odorata) is an edible perennial herb from south east Asia.  I wrote an earlier post with Vietnamese coriander growing notes.  This is a very simple to grow, productive, and great tasting edible herb.  This is not related to coriander in any way, but can often be used in a similar way.

Vietnamese coriander loves heat, humidity, water, yet strangely does not appear to like full sun all day (although this may just be in my climate where humidity is too low).  For me leaf production is best when it gets part shade.  This is easy to provide by growing it next to something taller.  

I often grow it in a container with no drainage holes, I have soil or leaf litter in the bottom, and a few cm of water on top of the soil.  I have grown it in a pot of soil, where it does well.  I have also seen people grow this in their vegetable garden.

I have always been told that this plant will not flower outside the tropics, but that is not true.

I first got Vietnamese coriander when I lived in semi-arid central west NSW, and it flowered there.  Now that I live near Canberra with its hot dry summers and cold winters (cold by Australian standards) it still flowers.  Most years I don't get many flowers from this plant.

This past year the weather was odd, it was mild and wet all summer.  My Vietnamese coriander flowered more than it ever has before!

Vietnamese coriander flowers

The flowers appear at the end of the growing stalks.  Many flowers are on each stem, they open sequentially from the base up to the tip.  The flowers don't really smell, or if they do I could not smell them over the foliage.  Flowers last a few days before dropping off.

Unlike many other herbs, the leaves do not appear to turn bitter or have any off flavours when flowering.  I haven't tried eating the flowers so don't know what they taste like.

Vietnamese coriander flowering

I have never seen any seed set.  I m not sure if it needs another clone to be able to cross pollinate, or if it in unable to set seed, or if my climate is all wrong for seed production, or if we do not have the right pollinators, or if there is some other issue at play.

I have had this plant for many years now, it grows so easily from cuttings.  Vietnamese coriander always grows prolifically for me, and produces many large leaves.  As such I don't need any true seed to be formed.

For me these grow best in spring, summer, and autumn.  My plants don't love frost, and growth slows during cold weather.  

I am growing some outside where it gets lighter frosts, these plants have reddish leaves over winter that are small, bitter, and not really worth eating until the warmer weather returns.  Once the weather warms they grow greener leaves that have no bitterness.

I grow some in my unheated greenhouse, the leaves of these are green and lush all winter and all year.   At this time of year they lose the arrow shaped markings on their leaves as the sun is not strong enough.  That doesn't bother me, they still taste great.

I also have some growing outside in my goldfish barrelponics, this is lush productive all year long.  The ones in the barrelponics has by far the most explosive growth and is not even slightly bothered by winter as the barrel water must keep it slightly warmer.  Over summer it can suffer slightly from direct sun, but there is always some that gets enough shade that it is still fast growing and great to eat.  Between this and water cress the goldfish water stays clear and clean.

If you don't grow Vietnamese coriander you should.  Sometimes plant nurseries carry them, but it seems to be a bit hit and miss.  I also sell organically grown plants of these through my for sale page.