QLD arrowroot plants

Achira (Canna edulis) is also called 'Edible Canna' and is sometimes referred to as 'Queensland arrowroot' here in Australia.  Achira is an undemanding, versatile, easy to grow, high yielding perennial vegetable.  Like so many of the vegetables that we enjoy in Australia, achira originally comes from South America and was widely grown by the Incas.  It is sometimes referred to as one of the lost crops of the Incas.

It is a great looking plant that adds tropical looking, almost banana plant like leaves to the landscape.  It survives and produces well in cold areas with a short growing season, arid areas (if it is watered frequently or given shade), and I am told that it absolutely thrives in the tropics.

Achira plants growing under the shade of a tree

Achira is a variety of canna, and is very much related to the ornamental flowers that are in people’s gardens and planted in roundabouts all over the nation.  Being commonly planted in roundabouts means that they are very low maintenance plants.  

Many of the ornamental varieties are interspecific hybrids between various canna species, achira is likely also an interspecific hybrid but it has been given a binomial name to indicate that it is now considered to be a stable ‘species’ in itself.  All of the ornamental cannas are edible, but as they have been bred for showy flowers or pretty foliage they may not grow as fast or as large or taste as good as the so called ‘edible canna’.  

Achira was once grown commercially grown as a source of starch.  It boasts the largest starch grains of any plant, so large that they can be seen without the use of microscopes.  

I have had my plant for several years and grown it in two very different climates and it has never even attempted to flower for me.  I am not sure if it no longer has the ability to flower or if this is a day length sensitivity issue or if some other factor is at play here.  To propagate achira I wait until it has two growing points, then use a spade to chop the plant, separate them, and plant them somewhere.  

To be honest I have never treated this plant very well.  It has always been planted in marginal land or crammed into a small pot of soil, and never watered frequently.  This year is the first time I have planted achira into the vegetable garden bed.  Despite my mistreatment achira has always grown and reproduced rather well for me, it has produced large rhizomes and depending on the conditions it can grow rather tall with amazing looking leaves.  In years that had a lot of rain, or if I water it, it reproduces very fast.  One small plant tends to turn into a dozen large plants in a year, if it is in better soil and looked after this number can be a lot higher, if it is in poor dry soil it may only produce 3 or 4.  

Both the smaller rhizomes and the young leaves can be eaten, the older leaves and rhizomes are still edible but they tend to be a bit too fibrous to be enjoyable.  People use the leaves to wrap food they are cooking, similar to how people in the tropics use banana leaf to wrap food.  The leaves are high protein, reasonably palatable, and can be used as animal fodder.  My sheep, cattle, alpacas and guinea pig all ate achira leaves at times.  I am told that pigs love achira and while I have no experience with this myself it does look like the kind of thing that a pig would like to eat.  I have been told that the leaves can be dried and woven or used for other craft things, but have never actually seen anyone do this.  

Young QLD arrowroot plants in full sun

Some places sell achira plants to be grown as poultry food, but my chickens, ducks and guinea fowl were never fond of it and would only eat it as a last resort.  If your poultry is not free ranged and have absolutely no access to grass then achira is probably a great option to feed them, other than that I wouldn’t be surprised if they never actually touched it.  This is rather unfortunate as from all accounts achira would be very nutritious for them. 

Achira is often grown in orchards to be cut as a mulch.  It produces large amounts of leaves so I found it to be good for this purpose.  It is simple to cut and having no irritating hairs or thorns it is simple to carry arm loads of achira around the property to use as mulch or feed to stock.  Being so large and growing so fast means that it can be used to trap nutrients on a slope.  Given achira’s spreading nature it could potentially be used to stabilise eroding soil.  It grows happily in boggy soil and can even be grown in submerged soil as long as the leaves are not under water.  When grown like this it can be used to clean water and settle out solids.  Achira can be grown as a screen or a wind break, but this only works over warmer months as it tends to die down over winter.  I used to grow achira along the fence of the vegetable gardens to provide some late afternoon shade and slight wind protection. 

Achira seems to be reasonably flexible regarding how and where it grows, it is pretty determined to survive yet does not pose a weed threat.  When I grew achira in a cold temperate location it grew about 2 meters tall pretty fast and produced about a dozen large edible rhizomes.  When grown in full sun in extreme arid heat I struggled to get plants to grow over 2 feet tall and the leaves frequently got burned off by the heat.  These tiny plants still produced a decent size and number of rhizomes for me to eat though.  When I grew achira in the same garden but under dense shade of trees the plants reached about 3 meters tall and produced copious rhizomes.  I have also grown achira in a pot while I moved house several times in one year.  This plant shared the pot with Jerusalem artichoke, which is a very aggressive grower and supposedly rather allelopathic.  The pot was not watered anywhere near often enough, and was in shade sometimes and other times full sun on concrete, yet it survived and still divided into half a dozen plants which I have since divided and planted out. 

young Achira growing along a fence near asparagus

Achira does not really like frost, each year when winter comes along the leaves will be burned down.  You can dig up a part and store it in soil in a garage or something, or you can leave it in the soil as they normally survive hard frosts.  Sometimes a growing point is killed by frost, but as long as the plant has another growing point then it should spring back to life when the time is right.  I normally leave the dead leaves on to protect the plant and wait until spring before doing anything.  When the weather warms the plant starts to grow and that is when I either cut off the old leaves and divide the plant or leave them as they are and don’t worry about them.

As much as it will survive in soil that is relatively dry, achira performs much better with reasonable soil moisture.  In much the same way it produces a decent crop in marginal land that has low fertility, but it performs far better in fertile soil.  I have always thought that high amounts of nitrogen would help achira grow very large very fast but have never had the chance to test this theory.  

As well as being edible and useful for various things, achira also looks rather ornamental and most people in Australia would not even know it is edible.  It could quite happily be grown in an ornamental garden bed or even in the front yard with little chance of people either stealing or vandalising it as they tend to do with food plants.  Being ornamental and not commonly associated as a food plant means it would not attract attention of council if they have any ridiculous rules about not growing food plants in certain places.

Where to buy achira in Australia  
There are a few places that sell QLD arrowroot plants online, I sell it on my for sale page which can be found using the search button on the top right hand side of this page.  Everything I grow is completely organic, I don't even use any of the organic poisons.  I sell a section of rhizome with at least one growing point.  If the plants are not dormant the leaves must be removed prior to postage.  As they are a very hardy plant they cope well with postage and tend to regrow quickly and easily

It is too hot and dry for grass to grow, but achira is ok

Lacy Lady Pea Days to Maturity

Lacy Lady pea (Pisum sativum) - semi leafless pea.

I wrote a blog post about this semi leafless pea in October 2013.  The following are the days to maturity that I got from Lacy Lady peas in my garden this year.  Being in Australia the dates are written Day/Month/Year.

Seeds Planted   29/10/2016       Day 0
Germinated       03/11/2016       Day 5
Flowered          12/12/2016       Day  44
Start Harvest     28/12/2016       Day 60

Lacy Lady Pea leaf

Clearly the days to maturity could be changed by warmer or colder weather, better or worse soil, more or less sunlight or a bunch of other factors.  These were simply the days to maturity in my garden this year.

For a full list of vegetable days to maturity please click here.

Freckles lettuce days to maturity

The "days to maturity" which is often quoted on packets of seed is usually little more than an arbitrary number.  I have seen Freckles lettuce listed anywhere from 50 to 90 days, which is rather unhelpful.  I used to find it very difficult to plan when to plant things, so I keep records myself.

Below are the dates of when I planted seed of freckles lettuce this year, when the seed germinated, and when we began harvest.  If I keep any of these plants to go to seed I may try to remember to include date of flowering and when the seed is ripe, but who knows what the future brings.

Being in Australia the dates are written in the format of Day/Month/Year.

Freckles Lettuce (Lactuca sativa)

Planted                       23/10/2016                  day 0
Germinated                 28/10/2016                  day 5
Started harvesting        03/12/2016                 day 41
Seeds ready                17/02/2017                 

I probably could have started harvesting smaller leaves a few weeks earlier or larger leaves a few weeks later if I wanted.  Had I planted the lettuce seeds in different weather, or in different soil, or with more or less sunlight, or closer to nodulating legumes, or a bunch of other things, these days to maturity would be slightly different, but this is an indication of how Freckles lettuce actually performed for me this year.

For some reason all of the lettuce in my garden went bitter pretty quickly this year.  I am growing 4 different varieties this year, all of which were planted on the same day, and none of them performed very well.  I think it may be due to heat or abrupt change in weather.  I planted them later than I would have liked.  Freckles is the only one which is not currently flowering, some individual plants are not bitter but most are. 

For a full list of vegetable days to maturity please click here.

Freckles Lettuce

Can Dill and Fennel Cross Pollinate? No.

Dill (Anethum graveolens) and Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) are often quoted as cross pollinating easily if planted close.  Many reputable gardening books and publications as well as seasoned home gardeners also claim that dill and fennel will hybridise and produce "less than desirable" offspring.  Do dill and fennel really cross pollinate with one another?  The answer may surprise you.

At first glance dill and fennel appear to be similar in appearance, so one may assume that they could cross.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence that they do cross with each other.  Many reputable gardening books, online publications, as well as seed saver groups and organic gardening societies who claim that they cross easily.  Unfortunately they never show any pictures of these mysterious and supposedly common intergeneric hybrids.  I dislike gardening books as they are mostly written by people with little to no knowledge of gardening, as such they are often filled with inaccuracies.

Many home gardeners claim that dill and fennel cross easily.  The amount of nonsense ideas that are perpetuated by home gardeners who should know better is rather large and worrying.  Home gardeners also spout a lot of weird superstitions and counter-intuitive cultural taboos so it is not difficult to ignore their claims when they do not provide any proof.  I am yet to hear of any home gardener who saved seed from dill and had anything odd grow out of it, let alone anyone who has even attempted to grow it out for a few generations and try to stabilise it and create something great.  I have seen a few photos of fennel that has crossed with weedy feral fennel, and have the gardener claim that it is a cross with dill, but unfortunately it is not.

Dill and fennel are both members of Apiaceae (Umbelliferae) family, but they are not closely related.  They are from different genus and species.  Carrots, parsnip, coriander, skirret etc are all part of that family, all of them are from different genus, yet none of these will hybridise to produce intergeneric hybrids.

Sometimes different species do not cross, such as many Cucurbita species, sometimes different species cross easily, such Capsicum species, sometimes they can cross but not very easily and only with a great deal of intervention.  Intergeneric hybrids are reasonably uncommon, so one may assume that they would not cross, but some intergeneric hybrids in orchids or cacti are simple enough to achieve, so things get murky here.

There is no evidence in any peer reviewed journal, or anything written by any plant breeder anywhere in the world (that I can find) which claims that dill and fennel can cross.  There have been some attempts by universities to cross them using embryo rescue techniques etc to incorporate some of fennel's disease resistance into dill, but I am unable to find results of these attempts without paying for subscriptions to things I don't want to pay for.  Clearly they were not terribly successful as it is not possible to buy seeds of these plants.

If it were possible to cross dill and fennel people would do it.  Fennel is a true survivor (as can be seen on many roadsides across Australia), dill tastes great but is a bit weaker, a cross between them would be lovely.  The F1 plants would likely be dreadful, which is to be expected, after this they would begin to segregate into lines that are increasingly stable.  After careful selection, and perhaps a little back crossing to lock in desirable traits, it would not be long before these hybrids would be better than either original plants.  As no one appears to be doing this it is safe to assume that they do not cross as easily as all of those gardening books and seed saver groups and gardening societies say they will.

Both dill and fennel, like many herbs, change how they smell when they flower.  Often home gardeners confuse this for their plant somehow hybridising with something else.  Some herbs, such as coriander look different when they flower and many home gardeners will swear that it somehow crossed with dill, again this is not the case.

Wild, feral, weedy fennel is a rather common roadside weed in Australia and many other parts of the world.  It WILL cross with fennel from a great distance and the resultant plants are often of poor quality.  They do not look or smell overly like fennel and differ from the parent considerably.  The F1 fennel bulbs are greatly reduced and the smell is often odd and unpleasant.  None of this has anything to do with dill or any other plant, it is simply fennel crossing with fennel.

I have tried to track down seeds of these supposed dill/fennel hybrids, but no one has them.  I have also tried to cross dill and fennel myself many times, but have had no success, ever.  I have had success creating wide crosses with other plants in the past yet am unable to achieve this supposedly simple cross, so I am doubting that dill could hybridise with fennel.  Personally, I don't see how they could cross.  It is a rather wide cross to begin with, there would be many benefits from creating such a cross and breeding resistance and vigour into dill, yet no one (neither home breeders nor commercial plant breeders) seems to be attempting it successfully. 

When seed saving, Dill can and will easily cross pollinate with other varieties of dill.  Fennel can and will easily cross pollinate with other varieties of fennel.  They will not cross with one another.

As far as I can tell dill can not cross pollinate with fennel as I have seen absolutely no proof, but I am happy to be wrong about this!  If you believe that you have successfully (and/or accidentally) crossed dill and fennel, and you are absolutely certain that you saved seeds from dill, please send them to me and I will grow them out for a few years to try and put some of the hardiness of fennel into something that tastes like dill. 

I am only interested if dill was the female parent, if you collected seed from fennel I am not interested at all.  What you will most likely have is not just fennel, which I don't particularly like, but fennel that has crossed with poor quality weedy fennel, which I like even less.

Alternatively is you happen to know of some scientific peer reviewed paper (not just the web page of some seed saver group or a gardening book written by someone with no experience) that claims dill and fennel do cross easily I would love to read it.

Blue Roses do NOT exist and other fake rose seeds

After looking through ebay and finding pages of seeds that do not exist I thought I would write another post.  Hopefully this helps someone not be taken advantage of.

I am not a fan of roses and am far from an expert.  Even so, it annoys me that so many criminals are selling seeds of roses that do not exist.

While you will be sent seeds from these thieves, and they will probably grow, there is a possibility that they will send you rose seeds but they will mostly be white flowered.  By the time they flower it will be several years after your seed purchase, far too late to claim money back from paypal.

All of the following pictures were found on actual ads for things that don't exist.  They are not my pictures. 

Blue Roses
How amazing do blue roses look!  Too bad they do not exist.  Back when I was studying my first degree I completed a subject called 'Horticultural Science and Plant Biotechnology'.  During that my lecturer told me that $10 million had been spent every year over the previous 10 years trying to create a blue rose.  The closest we have ever come is a weird looking mauve, she showed me a picture, it was not at all blue in my opinion.  Apparently we do not have the technology to do it and it is unlikely that we will gain the technology any time soon.  Do NOT buy seed of blue roses.

Blue roses do NOT exist

The large photo on the left and the blue rose are the SAME photo!!!

Blue roses do NOT exist

Black Roses
Black Roses look amazing, but unfortunately do NOT exist.  Just like the blue roses there would be a massive market for them if they existed and a lot of money has been put into trying to create them.  If they are ever created you will hear about it as it will be a big deal.  Do NOT buy seeds for black roses.

Black roses do NOT exist

Black roses edged in different colours do NOT exist

Blue and Green Roses
This flower does not exist, they have simply changed the colours on a picture and not even done a very good job.  Blue roses do not exist, roses that are blue on one side and green on the other split by a perfectly straight line also do not exist.  The sellers even put their name on the photo as they are proud of their deception.  Please do NOT buy ANYTHING from these thieves EVER.  If they are happy to sell seeds of things that do not exist, what makes you think you will ever get what you paid for from them?  If you are one of the criminals responsible for the photograph below feel free to leave a comment and try to justify your deception.  Do NOT buy seeds of these.

Roses do NOT exist in this colour.  These thieves are apparently located in Queanbeyan NSW

Pokemon Roses
Seriously, why would anyone think this is real?  It even looks fake.  Strangely they have sold hundreds of dollars of these fake seeds.  It is too bad that people do not realise until a year or so afterwards when their rose plant flowers and the flowers are all white.  Do NOT buy seeds of pokemon roses.

Pokemon roses do NOT exist

Green Roses
Green roses like in this picture do NOT exist.  I have seen some roses that are probably considered to be green, but the colour is nothing like in this picture.  Do NOT buy seeds of green roses.

Green roses do NOT exist

Multi-coloured Blue Roses
You may have seen flowers like this, you can even buy roses like this from some florists, they cost a small fortune.  They can NOT be grown from seed EVER.

The reason they cost so much is the amount of work each flower takes.  The florists begin with white roses, they split the lower stem and put each part of stem into different colours.  The colour goes up the stem into the white petal staining it different colours.  It looks great.  The florist then cuts off the bottom of the stem so it is neat and sells the flower.  Feel free to buy these multicoloured rose flowers from a florist, or even make them with your kids, but do NOT buy SEEDS of multi-coloured blue roses ever.

Multi coloured roses, do NOT grow from seed

Mixed Seeds
Any time you see pictures like this where they have a mix of different seeds and they include anything that does not exist, do NOT buy from them.  If they use the same picture several times and change the colour, do NOT buy anything from them.  They are criminals and you should not be deliberately funding criminals.  Do NOT buy seeds from someone if anything they list does not exist.

Many of these do NOT exist and are the same picture with changed colours, which means the seller is not to be trusted

Many of these do NOT exist, plus they have used the same picture several times in the one ad and changed the colour!

Why does Ebay allow blue roses to be sold?
I know some people who claim to report each and every listing of blue rose seeds that they see.  They tell me that none of these reported ads has ever been removed.  Apparently they report some of these ads several times and still nothing has ever been done.  In some ads Ebay has deliberately inserted a broken link so it is impossible to report them.  Ebay makes tens of thousands of dollars each year by knowingly allowing and aiding criminals to sell seeds of things that do not exist.

Ebay even says on one of its pages that blue roses do not exist and black or blue strawberries do not exist, yet they still allow them to be sold:

• "Beware of scams. There are many sellers selling seeds of fake seeds such as blue, black or multicoloured roses (there are no real blue roses, those that are called 'blue' are actually mauve or purple) and black or blue  strawberries, these don't actually exist and by the time you have grown the plants and find out they are not as described it is much too late to be able to leave feedback."

I understand that ebay gets many new listings each day and can not look at them all.  Ebay have systems to prevent all kinds of other (mostly illegal) things being sold, it would not be difficult for them to use the same system to prevent thieves selling blue rose seeds.

Buyer Beware
I had a chat to someone the other day who had bought some seeds from ebay of things that don't exist.  Strangely his comment was "it only cost $1, what do I have to lose".  What an ignorant view!

Do NOT give money to thieves, ever.  While you are only losing $1, the thieves are making tens of thousands of dollars each year, honest people are unable to sell rare things, people are less willing to buy seeds of rare plants, rare plants are becoming extinct as fewer people are growing them, and the ebay thieves who sell seeds of things that don't exist have no reason to stop.

If you are one of these thieves, or an ebay representative, feel free to leave a comment to try and justify your dishonesty.

Comfrey - the "Emperor's New Clothes" of plants

Remember the story by Hans Christian Anderson about the two weavers who promise to make the Emperor a set of clothes that is exquisite to intelligent people but invisible to anyone who is stupid or ignorant.  The Emperor and pretty much everyone claimed that they could see this amazing garment, all the while the Emperor paraded around in nothing but his under garments.  Well, comfrey is to farmers what these invisible clothes were to the Emperor.

I know I am going to get frowned upon by many permaculturists, but it has to be said, comfrey just isn't all that great.  There is a lot of hype about comfrey, I have heard glowing reports of it my entire life.  I have grown comfrey on and off in many different situations for many different reasons for most of my life.  I have spoken to a bunch of other people who have grown it and they have all experienced similar things to myself.  I have also done some research on comfrey to see how well it actually stacks up.  

Lets begin by looking at some of the claims about the benefits of this plant to a permaculture or biodynamic garden and I will try to briefly explain my experiences.

Comfrey struggling in the heat and about to be over run by grass

11 amazing reasons why people grow comfrey, but probably shouldn't

Wonderful mulch material – while it is true that comfrey makes an acceptable mulch there are many better alternatives for mulch than comfrey.  Many plants produce more mulch material which is just as high if not higher in nutrients, but is easier to handle.  Some break down faster, others slower, but none of them have the irritating hairs that comfrey has on its leaves.  I dislike those hairs, they are the main reason I decided to try and see if any other plants could be used instead of comfrey.

Compost activator and general ingredient – again, far better alternatives exist both in terms of bulk as well as the ‘compost activator’ status.  Where I used to live comfrey does not produce much bulk at all even when watered, it was simply too dry and hot for comfrey to cope.  I have seen comfrey grow on the south coast where the climate is mild and lovely, again it did not produce very much bulk.  As far as compost activation goes I am hard pressed to find anything that works as well as dandelions.

Mineral and micro nutrient accumulator and fertilizer – very little research has been done on this unfortunately and the research that has been done indicates that comfrey is actually terribly bad at this task.  I have a feeling that dandelion is better at this than comfrey as it has higher levels of most nutrients.  Plants such as horseradish, sorrel and turnip all have me wondering if they are better at this than comfrey as they all have deep roots and grow so fast but I have found no unbiased data to confirm or deny this hunch.

Deep roots help break up compacted soil – comfrey has deep roots, but from a lot of experience I can honestly say that these roots have never broken up compacted soil effectively or efficiently in any of the gardens in which I have grown it.  Other plants such as horseradish, dandelion, sorrel, daikon, turnip all can have extremely long roots and lack the irritating hairs of comfrey.  I think this whole “breaks compacted soil” thing can be better attributed to improving the soil biota than deep roots.  All of the other plants listed increase soil biota and appear to decrease soil compaction in my garden far better than comfrey.

Comfrey tea as a foliar fertilizer – I do honestly wonder if sorrel would be better at this, but I have never heard of anyone doing a trial of the two to see which is better.  Sorrel, dandelion, horseradish and turnip all contain high levels of nutrients, have deep tap roots, accumulate minerals from subsoil, produce copious amounts of green material etc so could potentially be used for this purpose.  It would be nice if one of those permaculture research places put some effort into confirming or denying some of this.  Unfortunately they appear to be too taken with confrey's hype to look further into it.

Livestock feed – in my experience very few animals will eat comfrey unless it has been wilted and none of them will touch it if it has been over wilted.  I don’t want a plant like this where I have such a fine line to walk, I have to do extra work to wilt it but if I wilt too much the animals may not even touch the stuff.  Our chickens, guineafowl, sheep, alpacas, cattle, and guinea pigs were all extremely reluctant to ever eat comfrey unless they had nothing else green to eat.  That's right, I have tried to feed it to many different animals many times.  Occasionally muscovy ducks would eat the comfrey plants to the ground, then they will not touch it again for months.  People often go on and on about how great an animal feed comfrey is, and on paper it sounds remarkable, but if I can not convince the animals to actually ingest it then it is pretty useless for this purpose.  If I was making pelleted feed I assume that comfrey would be a good ingredient, but I don't make pellets, I feed plants as they are.

Slug trap – surely there are better ways to control slugs than attracting them to live under leaves with irritating hairs.  I have only tried to collect the slugs under comfrey once, after getting covered by these hairs I decided to run the ducks in the yard instead.

Water cleanser (when growing in standing water) – comfrey is poorly suited to this as far as I can tell.  I have tried it twice and it has failed miserably both times as the plants rotted and died fast.  Many other plants are far better suited to this purpose.  Duck weed, azolla, QLD arrowroot, water chestnuts, duck potato, water cress, water celery, Vietnamese coriander and many others seem to out perform comfrey in this task.

Poultices and other medicinal uses – assuming that it works (which I think it does) and assuming it is safe then comfrey is reputedly great for these purposes, I am yet to find any substitutable plant.  This is actually the only reason why I would consider to grow comfrey again.

Nutrient trap at the bottom of a slope – comfrey is probably good for this if it is not too dry or too wet, but then I have to cut and carry the leaves which irritate my skin.  Many other plants are far better suited to this, QLD arrowroot is rather tall and is often used for this purpose, I can cut it easily, carry it easily, use it as mulch or compost and my animals actually ate it.  Sorrel out grew comfrey on my old property, lacks the irritating hairs, tastes nice, is hardier with heat/cold/dry/wet, and is actively growing all year, so I much prefer sorrel.

Grass barrier – I am yet to see this actually work with any plant, anywhere, ever.  Many people love to make this claim with comfrey and a few other plants but I will believe it when I see it.  I have seen running grasses such as kikuyu easily cross a large established comfrey barrier on a few different properties, they didn’t appear to even slow down at all.  Most of the time I try to weed comfrey to give it an advantage, yet it still fails at this task.  That being said I do not know any other plant that achieves this purpose better, perhaps the concept of a plant used as a grass barrier is a pipe dream?

Comfrey patch not really thriving despite being watered each day

After growing several varieties of comfrey (including the famous and well hyped Bocking 14) and have it never live up to its reputation so many times over so many years in several different climates, and seeing that there are better alternatives for almost every use, I have started to wonder why people grow the stuff.  The only reasons I can come up with are they grow it due to wishful thinking (similar to a placebo effect) or for some nostalgic reason.  I used to grow it for the medicinal qualities but did not bring any with us when we moved to town and don't plan to get any more now that I have moved again and settled.

I find that comfrey dies off completely during dry years if not watered, not just dies down but needs to be replaced as it does not return the following years.  Perhaps in climates less dry this is not the case, but I have lost most of my clumps the last two years of living at our property due to not watering them enough.  That's right, I watered them, just not enough water to keep them alive.  I also find that if it is too wet for too long it tends to rot and again die off completely and need replacement.  

Sorrel surviving the heat better than comfrey

In my property there were several established clumps of comfrey which I divided when we moved there.  Most of those died off completely in the few years we lived there and I tried to plant comfrey in places where they were more sheltered and easier to water.  I also had a small clump which appeared to be a slightly different type that a friend gave us, I had to nurture this each year otherwise I fear it would also die off completely just like the established clumps that were already there did.

Comfrey research
As well as the anecdotal evidence above (ie years of personal experience in several different climates) I have also done a little research on comfrey to compare it to turnip.  As you can see, turnips were much more consistent than comfrey.  While better results for comfrey were obtained in ideal conditions, worse results were obtained for comfrey in less than perfect conditions.  I have to note that my property does not have ideal conditions.  I need plants that perform well for me consistently under harsh conditions.

Turnip vs Comfrey

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/turnip.html
http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/afcm/comfrey.html

Use as a dietary supplements for people 
According to the research 85g of dried turnip leaves, in comparison to 567g of dried comfrey, supply adults with the total daily requirement of all essential amino acids, except for methionine.  That is a huge difference!  Eating half a kilogram of dried comfrey is possibly going to be bad for you due to the amount of pyrrolizidine alkaloids you would also be consuming.

Protein
Turnip - above-ground parts normally contain 20 to 25% crude protein, 65 to 80% in vitro digestible dry matter, about 20% neutral detergent fiber and about 23% acid detergent fiber . The roots contain 10 to 14% crude protein and 80 to 85% in vitro digestible dry matter.
 
Comfrey – above ground parts contain 13 to 31% protein.  Comfrey was found in one study to be high in crude protein (21 to 31%), which increased from the first to last harvest. Research trials conducted by USDA scientists found crude protein contents only ranged from 13 to 17% for comfrey.
 
As far as protein goes I would choose turnips as they have consistently high protein.  Comfrey may have higher protein at some stages, but how am I as a home gardener *without access to a food lab) to determine when that is?

Yield
Turnip - 3 to 4 tons of dry matter/acre when harvested or grazed about 90 days after planting. Up to 1,000 grazing days/acre for 900 lb steers and 2,300 grazing days/acre for 90 lb lambs.  These are pretty decent statistics.

Comfrey – extremely variable 1.7 to 10.7 tons of dry matter/acre depending on the country tested.

As far as yield goes I would again choose turnips.  Comfrey can out perform turnips in specific situations but it performs poorly here.  I want to grow something that provides reasonable yields even under adverse conditions in bad years, not just when it is pampered or if I happen to grow it in its perfect climate.

Negatives of each plant
 
Turnip - The high levels of glucosinolates (which can cause thyroid enlargement in young growing sheep and cattle) can be a problem if turnip forage is fed for long enough.  Glucosinolates are higher in older forage compared to younger forage.  Slashing it seems to bring on a flush of new growth which makes it simple to avoid this problem.
 
Livestock should not feed on turnip during the breeding season or after the plants have begun to flower. Nitrate nitrogen toxicity can be a problem, especially if ruminants are allowed to graze on immature crops or if soil nitrogen levels are high.  The risk may remain for a longer period of time in autumn than in summer. Dairy cows should not be fed more than 50 lb turnip/head/day and should not be milked immediately after feeding on turnip to avoid milk tainting.  Cattle have reportedly choked on large turnips when fed the whole plant.


Turnip is also not perennial, so there is the added hassle of growing from seed time and time again.

Comfrey – Extremely low palatability, irritating hairs which I hate, potential health risks due to pyrrolizidine alkaloids if consumed in large quantity or over a long period of time (although I think that the actual risk of this is very low).  The leaves die off over winter, wet soil seems to rot and kill the plant, and the plant does NOT like hot dry weather.

Should you grow comfrey
Sure, go for it, you have little to lose by trying.  A few dollars and a little bit of garden space is not a great ask and you can find out if comfrey is worth growing.  You may be in its perfect climate and it may produce well for you.  Just don't be surprised if it happens to fall short of the hype.

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T Chilli

This year I am growing a few different varieties of chilli, ranging from sweet and mild to extremely and pointlessly hot, I am growing a mix of both remarkably rare and the extremely common.

I plan to isolate them all with bags and save seed.  I have some super rare varieties that were collected in remote villages and the like, very exciting.  The hottest variety of chilli that I am growing is Trinidad Scorpion Butch T (Capsicum chinese). This is a remarkable variety that I thought was worthy of a blog post, I will have to find the pictures of its fruit and add them to this post later.

A few years ago I heard of Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chilli.  At the time they were the world record hottest chilli with 1,463,700 Scoville Heat Units (SHU).  To put that in perspective, capsicum are 0 SHU, jalapeno chilli are under 10,000 SHU, tobasco chilli are under 50,000 SHU and a very hot habanero or a birds eye chilli are under 350,000 SHU.

At just shy of 1.5 million SHU the Trinidad Scorpion Butch T sounded like fun to grow with the kids!

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T

At the time the seeds were ridiculously expensive, I bought a few from a reputable seller.  There are so many dodgy thieves on ebay and the like and I was scared to pay so much and not get the real deal.  I didn't want to waste a year growing something else so spent more than I would have liked to be sure of getting the real thing.

They were not particularly difficult to germinate but, like any other chilli, they grew very slowly.  The plants were nothing spectacular to look at but had no issues with pests or diseases.  I grew them in a pot that was far too small and it was late in the season so I did not repot them or plant them in the soil as I was hoping to overwinter the plants.

That first year, even being planted late in the season, the plants flowered and produced one pod.  There were a few more but the cold weather made them abort.  That single lonely fruit was ripening slowly due to cool weather, I was very excited to try it, then one day it was gone!  I found parts of it ripped up and put in pots of other plants.  As far as we can gather one of the kids took this chilli, bit it, decided that it was not good to eat so tore it up, and then hid the evidence.

I wanted to eat it but didn't want to risk it as I didn't know where it had been or what had happened to it.  I tried dabbing a bit on my tongue and it was massively hot, hotter than anything I had ever eaten.  Considering that I only dabbed it on my tongue and did not actually eat any, that was a bit amazing.  I rubbed a little on my arm and felt the heat through my skin.

I was a bit disappointed that I did not get to eat any that year.  I have heard that they taste great, to quote the internet, Trinidad scorpion Butch t chilli tastes "refreshingly unique and stands out whereas most super hot chilli’s lack considerable flavor".  They sound delightful.  As I missed out on trying them I really wanted to overwinter and give them a try the following year.

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T after being overwintered

Overwintering Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chilli plants

That winter I over wintered my plants and had plans of repotting them in warmer weather.  Chilli are perennial vegetables and often produce poorly in their first year and a lot more in subsequent years.  Even highly productive varieties tend to produce even better in their second year.  People keep telling me that it is not possible to over winter chilli plants in frosty areas, fortunately they are wrong and it is simple to do.

If protected from frost chilli plants generally over winter well.  In my limited experience they do not suffer from chill injury, only freezing injury, so if you can keep the frost off they should be ok.  They will lose their leaves and look dreadful, but they generally survive if you keep the temperatures above freezing.  I have heard that they don't always survive no matter what you do, but the percentage is pretty high as I am yet to lose any.

My Trinidad Scorpion Butch T chilli plants overwintered nicely and grew like crazy in spring.  They flowered while my seed grown chilli were only an inch tall.  Much like overwintered tomato plants, overwintering chillli plants gets a crop a lot sooner than seed grown plants.

Due to health issues we sold our property and moved to town bringing the Trinidad scorpion butch t plants in their little pot.  As luck would have it I was offered a job somewhere else and had to move again, leaving my poor chilli plants overcrowded in that original pot but bringing them with us.

The plants flowered well, but in the move etc lost most of the fruit.  I ended up with about 3 good looking pods all ripening at different times.  The first one may not have been fully ripe when I picked it.

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T mid winter

What do I think Trinidad Scorpion Butch T taste like?

The Trinidad scorpion Butch T pods smell amazing!  Extremely fruity, if they had no heat they would do well in a salad.  I have heard of Trinidad Perfume which is meant to be similar with low heat.  Perhaps one year I should grow one of them.

I have heard that Trinidad scorpion Butch T chilli are agonisingly hot, I have heard that they are so hot that at first you fear you will die, then you fear that you won't.

A warning here: if you ever cut up and eat a Trinidad scorpion Butch t chilli make sure you are careful to wash your hands afterwards.  You don't want to rub your eye or go to the toilet with any residual capsaicin on your hands.

I am a bit of a chilli wuss, I am not terribly resistant to their heat, so their effect on me may not be normal.

At first the sweet and delicious taste hit me, it tasted a lot like it smelled, truly amazing.  It tasted, in those brief seconds prior to the heat coming through, like nothing I have ever tasted before.  If they had no heat I would gladly snack on these amazing delicious beauties.  Then the heat hit.

I have never eaten anything so hot in my life.  It hurt more than I have ever been hurt and burned more than I have ever been burned.  It was extreme, it was paradigm shifting, it was an emotional life experience that is difficult to describe.  It was so incredibly hot that at one stage I think I may have been able to see through time.

The heat stuck around for what felt like a long time, then it gradually eased.  After that I wanted more so I ate a little more and the process started again.  It was a nasty cycle that was difficult to stop.

They are so hot that I can't imagine really using them in food.  I have added tiny parts to food to add heat, which it did very well, but being so dilute much of the smell and taste was lost.  Why would anyone have ever thought it wise to breed such an extremely hot chilli?  Probably for the same reason that I plan to grow them again and eat them again.  I wish I could buy these stupid things, now I have tried one I want more!

I overwintered the plants again.  They have survived a few nights with temperatures of -5 but protected from the worst of the frost so have survived.  They have since been planted into the garden and have small flower buds on them.  I dare say that this will be their final year as I may not remember to dig them up in Autumn before they are killed by frost.  If I remember I will try to overwinter them again.

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T

Other people's reactions to Trinidad scorpion Butch T chilli

I decided to ask some people if they wanted to try Trinidad scorpion Butch t chilli explaining that recently they were (but no longer are) the world record holder for heat.  I had a few takers and they all had similar and interesting reactions.

One young bloke was a self professed chilli head so I asked if he wanted to try some.  No chilli is too hot for him, he will eat any chilli and has never broken a sweat, he is so brave etc etc etc.  Perfect!  He had been warned, everything was disclosed, and he decided to try this anyway.

At first he smelled the chilli and commented on how fruity and delightfully floral it was.  They really do smell amazing.

He then cut off the tiniest piece imaginable, smaller than a match head, and tried it.  I tried a larger piece and I am a chilli wuss.  At first he commented on how this could not be the world record holder and that he had tried far hotter.  He was part way through another smug sentence when the heat hit him...  He was silent...  The heat hit him so hard, at the most perfect time, just when he was at the start of an arrogant rant.  He then left the room.

After he returned to the room, with sweat on his forehead and read teary eyes, he asked how long the heat would last.  I couldn't help but say I was surprised he felt any heat after eating such a tiny piece (sorry for being a jerk, I couldn't help myself).  I suggested he drink milk to take away the burn and he said he was drinking it.  Extremely funny!  Just like myself, the heat eventually subsided.  Unlike myself he refused to eat any more.

I offered some to a friend who was another self professed chilli head.  He had much the same reaction.  At first he loved the taste and the smell, then the heat hit.  Again the heat eventually went away, he was also not willing to try any more.


Where to get Trinidad scorpion Butch T chilli seeds

They seem to be reasonably common and available at most chilli seller websites, they tend to be very expensive and sell ridiculously small numbers of seed, but you will get what you paid for.  I would keep clear of ebay as they could sell you any chilli seed and you would not know until it is too late to do anything about it.  There are probably a few other places to buy them too.

I may save seeds this summer and sell them through my for sale page, but I did not isolate plants last summer so can not sell seeds yet as I am not sure if they have crossed or not.  If you are into pointlessly hot chilli, then this one is for you.

Skirret and leek companion planting

Skirret (Sium sisarum) is a rare perennial vegetable that has been grown and eaten by people for many hundreds of years.  Skirret is very simple to grow but is very rare as the roots tend to be a bit thin and it is in no way appropriate for mechanical harvest.  Strangely there is very little information on skirret and even less information on how it interacts with other plants.

I have grown skirret plants in pots for far too long, it should be growing in the soil.  Skirret grows ok in pots, but the lack of space is rather limiting, it needs more soil than I can give it.  This year I have planted it into the garden to see what it can really do.  I have high hopes that the skirret will return a larger crop in soil.

Earlier this year, around January 2016, one Babingtom leek bulbil fell into a pot that was growing skirret.  I decided to leave it there as I did not have time to get it out and then I kind of forgot about it.  The skirret was over crowded badly so I had low expectations for the leek, I kind of expected it to be choked out and die.  As I was moving house I did not have time to worry about it.

Now we have moved and I have garden space again so I planted all of my skirret in the garden.  As I removed it from the pot I noticed the Babington leek plant was still growing in that pot among the skirret plants.  Not only this, but this Babington leek is far larger, healthier and stronger than the others of the same age.

The stem is about 5 times as thick as the same aged Babington leeks that were grown in their own pot and were far less crowded.  The plant was a lot taller than the other Babington leeks of the same age, while the others are all about 10cm tall and thinking of going dormant for summer, this one from the skirret pot is about 25cm tall and was sending up a flower stalk.  Babington's leek rarely flowers in its first year when grown from bulbils.  Unfortunately I broke the flower stem when I was removing the skirret from the pot so can not see how many bulbils it would have produced.  This one Babington leek also had produced three tiny bulbs from its roots which again normally does not happen until the second year.  So even without flowering it has reproduced for me.

All in all this one plant was very impressive, it is far larger than any other of the first year plants but a bit smaller than most of the two year old plants.

In theory each Babington leek bulbil will be a genetic clone of the parent and exactly the same as each of its siblings.  So they should all grow more or less the same if they have the same growing conditions.  The only difference is that this one plant grew in a crowded pot filled with skirret.

I think perhaps the skirret exudes sugars or something from the roots that help leeks to grow.  I have planted a leek among the skirret bed to see if it grows larger and faster in there.  Maybe I have stumbled onto something good here?  Or maybe it was just good luck?  I will keep an eye on this and see what happens.

I sell both Babington leeks and Skirret, if you are interested please search for my for sale page in the 'Search This Blog' button on the top right hand corner of the blog.

Blue watermelon seeds do NOT exist

Blue fleshed watermelons look delicious and amazing and are for sale all over ebay for very little money with free postage.  Many of these listing have sold thousands of these seeds, are located locally in Australia, and have 100% positive reviews.  It is unfortunate that blue watermelons do NOT exist.

I wrote a post on blue and black strawberries and how ebay sellers get positive reviews, you can search for that post using the search function at the top right of this page.

Selling things that do not exist is illegal.  Ebay has reporting facilities, I know people who report these fraudulent seed listings to ebay every time they see them, but nothing ever happens.  Hopefully this post will help someone not get taken advantage of by criminals.

Watermelons come in a handful of different flesh colours including red, yellow, orange and white, some taste better than others.  Unfortunately there are a bunch of thieves out there who have decided to steal from people with photoshop images of red watermelons.

All of the following pictures were found on actual ads for things that don't exist.  They are not my pictures. 

Blue Watermelon Seeds
Blue watermelons do NOT exist.  They look amazing in these pictures, but unfortunately it is a picture of a red watermelon that has been photo shopped.  There was even a well known hoax about 'Japanese Moon Watermelons'.  Don't be fooled by criminals, they do not exist.  Watermelons have never looked like this and unless there are massive leaps forward in GM technology watermelons will never look like this.  Do NOT buy seeds of blue watermelons.

Blue watermelons do NOT exist

Blue watermelon looks delicious but do NOT exist

Purple Watermelon Seeds
They look great don't they, it is too bad that they do NOT exist.  There are no varieties of purple fleshed watermelons.  Yellow, orange, white and red all exist, but not purple.  If you look closely you may notice that the purple wedge is the exact same photo (with a different colour) to the blue watermelon wedge.  Do NOT buy seeds for purple watermelons.

Purple watermelons look great, but do NOT exist

Purple watermelons do NOT exist, I dare say they are selling all red watermelon seeds

Green Watermelon Seeds
It seems reasonably that they may exist as we have other green fleshed melons such as honey dew.  Unfortunately there are no green when ripe watermelons available to home growers.  Do NOT buy seeds of green watermelons.

Edit to add: I was wrong on green watermelons.  I have heard that there are a few US breeders working towards green flesh watermelons.  I am not sure if they have stabilised any lines yet, and from what I gather they are not available to home growers.  These are not currently available in Australia, and possibly never will be.  Even knowing this, you should not buy green watermelon seeds from ebay.  

Green fleshed watermelon - don't by seeds for these

Mixed coloured watermelon seeds
Any time you see pictures like this where they have a mix of different seeds and they include anything that does not exist, do NOT buy from them.  While white watermelons and the orange/yellow ones do exist why would you think they will send them to you?  If the seller is happy to lie about the others existing to get a sale why would they not simply just send you seed of red watermelons from a supermarket?  Do NOT buy seeds from someone if anything they list does not exist.

Blue and Green do not exist

Square Watermelon Seeds
Wow, where do I even begin... Square watermelons do kind of exist, if you go to Japan you will see them for sale in the markets.  But watermelons don't grow square without intervention.  Let me explain briefly.

As the tiny fruit grows you can place a special box around it, as it grows the fruit will mold to that shape.  You can even buy molds that are heart shaped or shaped like faces or mice etc.  Feel free to buy watermelon seeds from someone who is not a thief and use these molds to create square watermelons, but do NOT fund these ebay thieves as it encourages them to steal from other people.  If you want seeds of an unknown variety of watermelon why not just buy a watermelon from the market and use its seeds?

Some thieves are outright claiming that they are selling "square watermelon" seeds.  Others, like the one below, are implying that you will grow square watermelons but are not explicitly saying it in the ad.  Nowhere in their ad do they say that the watermelon will grow round unless molded properly.  At no point in the ad do they mention molds or where to buy them.  It is still theft as they are intentionally misleading people, it is still just as immoral and just as illegal.

If you are the criminal responsible for this ad, feel free to write a comment below and try to justify your deception.

They may have free postage and be based in Australia but that doesn't mean they are not thieves.  Let's face it, even people in Australia lock their door when they leave the house.  Who would have thought, we have thieves in Australia too!  Do NOT buy seeds of square watermelons.

Our friendly Australian thieves are implying their seeds will grow square fruit

Watermelon molds, pretty cool

Tiny Watermelons
This is another half truth designed to trick people and steal their money.  The picture in the hand is not of a watermelon but instead is Melothria scabra.  It is commonly called 'Mexican Sour Gherkin' or 'mouse melon' or 'cucamelon'.  They are green inside and taste nothing like a watermelon.

The picture inset on the lower right is of a large watermelon cut open.  They are implying that if you cut open the Melothria scabra that it will look like a watermelon.  Who knows what seeds you will get sent if you were to send money to these ebay thieves.

While you can buy seeds of Melothria scabra please only do so from a genuine seller and not from someone dodgy like this and try to avoid buying seeds from ebay ever.  Do NOT buy seeds of mini watermelons.

The fruit in the hand is a Melothria scabra, they are NOT red inside

These mini melons are no more real than these kiwifruit kiwi birds (no you can NOT buy seeds of them)

Multi coloured watermelons
Multi coloured watermelons do NOT exist.  Please don't waste your money by buying anything from anyone who tries to sell you such things.

Buyer Beware
Do NOT fund these criminals and encourage them to steal from other people.  Do NOT buy from them and hope to get something good with the ridiculous notion that you will at least get watermelon seeds.  These ebay thieves will send you watermelon seed, and they will likely grow,  but they will all be red fleshed.  This kind of thing is legally known as theft by deception.

If you want un-named watermelon seeds for cheap go to the market, buy a watermelon, and sow those seeds.  That way you will get cheap seeds and be able to eat the watermelon.

There are other fake watermelon seeds for sale on ebay.  Just because I have not listed the fake colour does not mean I am implying that it does exist.  Please research anything you buy BEFORE you give anyone your money.

The picture below shows a decent representation of the different colours that watermelons come in.  Feel free to buy these colours, but please try not to buy them from Ebay if you can find them somewhere else.  If people can sell things on ebay that don't exist, they can also sell things that do exist that they don't actually have.

Watermelons, all of these colours DO exist

Stock images on ebay
If you see seeds for sale on ebay that uses stock images, do NOT buy from them.

Perhaps, like the above examples, the thing that they are selling does not even exist.  There are literally dozens of different fake seeds for sale on ebay, many use stock images, very few bother to manipulate the image themselves.  I heard a story of one person who bought fake seed in bulk and were on-selling it.  They probably meant no harm, but the fact that they used a stock image should have warned buyers to keep clear.

If they are using a stock image there is a chance they have bought actual seeds in bulk of something they have never grown and are on-selling that.  You should not be funding these people either.  Even if they are selling real seeds, the fact that they have not grown them means that you do not want to be funding them.