Guinea pigs to mow the lawn

I broke my spine a few years ago.  I can walk which is lovely and I appreciate the time I have had being able to walk.  I have known people to break their spine in a similar way to me and never walk again, so I count myself lucky.

My back is degrading, every day seems to be worse than the previous one.  Each time I mow the lawn I wonder how many more times I will be able to mow.  My kids are getting older and more capable, but none of them are able to safely use a lawn mower.  I am struggling to even use the ride on mower lately.  I got rid of some lawn and replaced it with vegetable beds, but I still have some lawn for the kids to play on.

This got me thinking, why mow the lawn at all?  Why not get something that eats grass to mow the lawn for me?

We are not on acreage any more so my options are limited.  Large livestock such as sheep or goats or cattle or alpacas are no good here as they would eat the fruit trees, they would eat the vegetables, and due to the size of my block eventually we would be left with nothing but dust and poo.

Sheep are great on acreage, not great for a backyard

Aji Amarillo

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

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

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

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

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

Aji amarillo - many were longer than this

Raised Vegetable Beds

What is more useful, this odd shaped piece of grass on a gentle slope which fits a guinea pig house nicely and takes time to mow every now and again?  Or a jungle of many different organically grown fresh herbs and vegetables?

The odd shaped piece of lawn before was not very useful

Raised vegetable beds, they look great plus they produce organic food

Let's take a look from another angle.  Here is the odd shaped piece of lawn again.  It was wasted space that took time and effort to mow.  The lawn clippings were useful in the compost and the weeds that grew in there attract beneficial insects, but other than that it had little use.  I took a photo before vegetable beds, then I stood in much the same spot and took a photo after the raised vegetable beds were installed.

A piece of wasted land

That same small patch of land overflowing with fresh organic vegetables

Let's have one last look, I stood in much the same spot to take both pictures for comparison purposes.

Guinea pig house protecting vegetable seedlings from birds on the odd shaped plot of lawn

The same plot with lawn killed, guinea pig house moved, and raised vegetable beds installed

Don't make any mistake here, it took some work filling the beds with soil, planting seeds and seedlings, watering etc.  All of that work is more than worth it.  The raised vegetable beds became very productive very fast.  Being raised beds means I don't have to bend as much, which is easier on my back.

If you read my blog you will see that I grow many rare vegetables as well as dabble in vegetable breeding.  I can still do this because we converted a wasted lawn into a reasonable sized vegetable garden.  These raised vegetable beds are great, they mean far less bending, less digging, less weeds and less work.

Planting seeds and seedlings

Look how neat and tidy they all look

Even at this early stage they were productive

It didn't take long before that worthless piece of lawn became a jungle of delicious organic vegetables, amazing berries, fresh herbs, and a few pretty flowers for the kids.

Many people have never eaten fresh food.  Some foods are too soft to transport, so they are picked not yet ripe and can never taste their best.  The sugars in sweet corn convert to starch noticeably within 15 minutes of being picked.  If you want fresh food you must grow it yourself.  Food from the markets is not fresh and it will never be as good as food you can grow on an otherwise useless piece of lawn.

All of this fresh organic food had zero food miles, it was watered from the water tank which collected water from the roof, it was fertilised with compost made from lawn clippings and chicken manure from my property.  Does it get any better than this, yes it does!

To make things better my kids know where food comes from as they help me plant seeds and tend the vegetables, they help harvest and eat the food, and they help me save seeds (and dabble in a little plant breeding) each year.  Most adults I know have no idea how to save seeds. 

My kids have grown and eaten many fruit and vegetables that most people have never heard of.  They have eaten delicate and tender foods that could never survive transport.  All of this is possible because we destroyed our lawn and made it into something better.

Many vegetables are growing here

Raised vegetable beds - far more productive than lawn

String of pearls - real and fake

I love string of pearls plants (Senecio rowleyanus), I think they look amazing.  I grow a few and find them delightful.  There are a few different types.

Unfortunately, ebay thieves sell fake seeds of string of pearl plants that do not exist.  They sell thousands of dollars worth of fake seeds and keep getting away with it.

First, let me show you what types of string of pearls plants exist, then let me show you some of the fake seeds that thieves are selling through ebay.  Hopefully I can prevent at least one person from being stolen from.

All of the following pictures were found on actual online ads.  They are not my pictures. 


String of pearls plants that DO exist
Healthy string of pearls comes in green.  There is a variegated form (green and white), there is a giant form (also green), and that is all.  String of pearls ONLY come in green.

As string of pearls can be grown from seed, there are likely some forms that are slightly more pointy, and others that are slightly more round, but they are all green (or green and white).

If string of pearls is about to die or has some nutrient deficiency it may turn black, not a glossy nice black, more of a sickly about to die kind of black.  Mine get a slight purple tinge over winter when struggling through the cold, but they still look decidedly green.

 String of pearls giant form next to normal one - not my photo

How to prune raspberries

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

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

Floricane blackberry will not fruit well if pruned like this

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

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

Raspberries

Primocane vs Floricane
All brambleberries can be roughly divided into two artificially imposed and sometimes slightly overlapping groups.  One group can only flower and fruit on old growth, we call them floricane (or summer fruiting)  The other group can flower and fruit on new growth, we call them primocane (or autumn fruiting or everbearing).  It is important to which about them as the way each group can be pruned can be slightly different.

All brambleberries have the ability to flower and fruit on a floricane, or second year growth.   This is how most of the wild brambleberries work.  Most varieties of cultivated brambleberries will only ever flower and fruit on floricanes.  This means if you prune your plant to the ground each winter, or if animals get in and damage the canes, the plants will be nice and healthy but you will never get any fruit.

My golden raspberries are floricane flowering

Pruning Floricane Raspberries
Most people prune floricane varieties by leaving new growth and cutting out canes that have fruited the previous year. They also cut out the tip growth to encourage branching which means they produce more flowers.  It can be difficult to know which canes are which and there is extra time and care required to prune them.   Some people put tape or something around a cane that has fruited to show that it should be pruned out in winter, this takes time and effort.

Some canes die after fruiting, others will fruit again the following year.  Some people only prune in spring when the plants are breaking dormancy by removing any dead canes.  Again, it takes a little time and effort to achieve this.

One benefit of floricane varieties is that there are a lot of varieties to choose from, some do better in different climates and some fruit earlier or later than others.  Don’t ever buy an un-named variety, accept them if they are free, but don’t buy them.

Some brambleberries fruit on floricanes as mentioned above, but they also flower and fruit on first year growth, these varieties are referred to as primocane.  There are several ways to prune primocane varieties, there are benefits to each way.

Dormant raspberries, these are thornless primocane

How to prune Primocane raspberries to get one crop per year
The way that most people are encouraged to prune primocane varieties is each winter to cut it to the ground, this can be done quickly and easily if you run over the plant with the lawnmower.   The results are that the plant will throw up new growth in spring and fruit late summer/early autumn.

Many commercial producers prune in this way, it is fast, it is simple, and it is cost effective.  Different varieties fruit earlier or later so you can extend your harvest by planting a few named varieties.   Instead of the lawnmower you could carefully cut out each cane and use it as a cutting to grow more plants.   You have options depending on how much time and effort you have to spend on them.


How to prune Primocane raspberries for two crops per year
Another way to prune primocane varieties is to treat them as if they were floricanes.  Each year don’t cut them to the ground, instead leave that growth to flower and fruit next year.   Only remove dead canes, and possibly remove the tips of the floricanes.  Removing the tips encourages the plant to branch, thus producing more flowers and more fruit.  The plant still puts up new growth in spring, it still flowers and fruits on this new growth in autumn, but it will also produce an earlier crop on each of the floricanes.

Pruning like this gives you a second crop, an early crop from the floricanes and a late crop from the primocanes.  I have heard gardeners say that removing the floricanes helps the plant produce a larger crop on the primocanes, this seems logical enough, unfortunately every study I have seen on this tends to indicate this is not the case.

Brambleberries store a lot of energy in the roots, getting two crops each year does not appear to decrease the primocane crop in any way.

Thornless raspberries

Can you get a second crop from a floricane variety
I mentioned earlier that there is some overlap between floricane varieties and primocane varieties, this is where things get interesting.  I currently grow a thornless raspberry that is referred to as a floricane variety.  It usually only produces one large crop in summer on old growth.  Sometimes it will produce also produce a small autumn crop on each of the primocanes.  This second crop is not guaranteed, and is usually based on the weather, but it is still a primocane crop from a floricane variety.

Just like above, I prune them as if they are floricane, otherwise there is a chance that I will not get any crop from them that year.

There are a lot more floricane varieties than primocane varieties, this is simply because they are more prevalent in the wild and it took us a while to find good primocane varieties and breed from them.  I grow both primocane and floricane raspberry varieties, but I prune them both as if they were floricane and sometimes get two crops from both. 
 

Raspberry plants for sale in Australia
I grow several different varieties, some are thornless, some are primocane flowering, I grow black raspberries, I am one of the few people in Australia who sell a yellow fruiting golden raspberry.  I sometimes sell raspberry canes on my for sale page over winter when they are dormant.

Edible mushrooms for beginners

People often tell me how they tried to grow edible mushrooms from a kit and either failed or the yield was disappointingly low.  Other people tell me that growing edible mushrooms is extremely difficult and you have to do their expensive courses to be able to even have a chance to succeed.  Depending on the type of mushroom, and your climate, growing edible mushrooms can be pretty simple.

Some types of edible mushrooms are simple to grow, others are complex.  If you are a beginner I suggest starting with one of the simpler types.

I grew some oyster mushrooms on newspaper logs and some others just on damp cardboard.  I recorded the days from inoculation to harvest here and here.  It was remarkably simple and turned waste into food.  It was actually heaps of fun.  One thing I have noticed is that many beginners don't understand the words that people use when talking about mushrooms, so any advice they read tends not to make much sense.

Oyster Mushroom

Fungi are not plants and they are not animals, treating them like either may result in failure.  I have read many places say that fungi are plants without chlorophyll, this is incorrect.  Fungi are more similar to animals than they are to plants, even when growing them I think they tend to react more like animals.

When trying to understand the terms people use when describing fungi it is sometimes useful to compare them to plants or animals.  This is simply for comparison.  Like any analogy you reach a point where the comparison doesn't quite work.

In order to successfully cultivate edible mushrooms there are a few simple things and a few terms you need to understand.  Here are some useful terms that will enable you to understand what people are trying to explain. 

How to cold stratify seeds

Seeds from different species have different requirements before they will germinate, some are simple, others are rather complex.  All seeds need moisture to germinate.  All seeds have a preferred temperature range within which they will germinate, for some this temperature range is rather narrow while for others this range is very wide.

Some seeds require cold stratification in order to germinate, some will even need to be cold stratified several times.  Some need the seed coat damaged in some way, in nature this is usually achieved when it passes through the digestive system of an animal.  Some seeds need light in order to germinate, others need dark, and most don’t really care.  Some seeds, particularly tiny seeds such as orchids, require complex mycorrhizal interactions in order to germinate.  Some plants, particularly parasitic plants, need various chemical stimuli in order to germinate.

I have heard people say how they incorrectly cold stratify seeds and then have dreadful results, so thought I would write a post on how I cold stratify seeds.  This may not be the best method, but it has worked for me and has returned excellent results and allowed me to grow some things from seed that otherwise I wouldn't be able.

Strawberry and raspberry seeds germinate better after cold stratification

Frost in the vegetable garden

We have had some heavy frosts this winter.  I keep meaning to sneak out and take pictures.  Unfortunately I only remembered to take pictures on mornings when it wasn't overly cold.  The frost is still very pretty though.

Frost on the remains of spent plants

How to prevent thornless berries reverting to thorny

Thornlessness in brambleberries appears to be influenced by at least three different factors.  Scientists and plant breeders have understood these factors reasonably well for quite some time.  Each of them has different advantages and disadvantages.   But how do you keep a thornless berry thornless, and how do you prevent a brambleberry from reverting to being thorny?

First, let me tell you about my experience growing a "thornless youngberry", then let me explain the three different ways that brambleberries can be thornless, then I will explain what you do about each of the three types.

Thornless youngberry starting to ripen

Kombucha Continuous Brew

We have been keeping various ancient cultures for years.  We started with milk kefir, then went on to things such as water kefir and sour dough.  Some cultures we have kept going for years, others we have lost, and others we decided to stop doing for now due to various reasons.  One of the cultures we have at the moment that I really enjoy is kombucha.

Unfortunately the origin of kombucha has been lost to history.  Several romantic theories have been made about the origins of kombucha, none appear to be based on anything other than dramatic story telling, and these stories eventually merged to the one that is often told today.  The truth is that we know roughly where kombucha originated, we know vaguely when it started to become popular, but it doesn’t make one ounce of difference.  The drink tastes good, it is simple to make, and it reportedly has several health benefits.  Who really cares when or how it was discovered.

I thought I would write a blog post to share the down sides of continuous brew kombucha, and test some of the health claims.  I think you may be surprised by the results.

Continuous brew kombucha

How to store water chestnuts over winter

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

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

Organic home grown water chestnuts

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

Growing potatoes from True Potato Seed

Usually in Australia potatoes are grown from clones.  Sometimes these are pieces of existing potatoes or small potatoes.  Confusingly people sell 'seed potatoes' which are just small potatoes that are used for planting.  Every plant that is grown from 'seed potatoes' are genetically identical clones.

True Potato Seed is different, they are actual botanical seeds.  These are made in the same way that any plant makes seeds.  Every plant that arises from true potato seed is genetically different.  If you plant a dozen true potato seeds you will get a dozen different varieties of potato.  If you find one you like you can grow them vegetatively from there.  This is how plant breeders have come up with the different varieties of potatoes you can buy.

This year I got some True Potato Seed and grew some potatoes from those true botanical seeds.  Each and every plant that grows from true potato seed is genetically unique.

This year the ones I grew were diploid potatoes, which are different from the usual tetraploid potatoes.  They are more of a wild variety of potato and have not had polyploidy induced in them.  They also had a huge amount of genetic diversity which I love.  The seed grown potato plants looked nice and on some plants the flowers were stunningly beautiful.

Yield from one true potato seed grown plant, not huge the first year

Variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' in Australia

I don't grow many ornamental plants but I love maidenhair ferns, I think that they are beautiful.  I have some on my desk at work to help my day be less dreary.

Years ago I heard of variegated maidenhair ferns, they sounded really nice.  I looked for them and no one seems to sell them.  For some reason there are very few pictures of variegated maidenhair ferns anywhere on the internet.  Considering how few images I found, I started to wonder if they actually existed, or if they were just photoshopped images.

I searched for a variegated maidenhair fern (Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata') for years.  For some reason very few people own variegated maidenhair ferns in Australia.  I found a few people who used to have one, and some places that used to sell them but no longer do, but getting one myself proved difficult.  I spoke to a few fern collectors, all of which had fond memories of once seeing this plant, but none who currently had one.  All of this convinced me that they did exist.  Then I eventually tracked one down, and I bought it.

Variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata'

My variegated maidenhair fern was tiny when I got it.  The little fern is growing nicely and I hope to be able to divide it and when it is larger I would love to grow some spores from it.  I will be curious to see if spore grown plants are all variegated, or if only a percentage are variegated, or if none of them will display variegation.  I have asked a few fern collectors and none of them seem to know.

I looked on the internet and there are only about half a dozen pictures of these elusive and enigmatic plants.  This makes it difficult to decide if you really want to get one.  If these things are so great why have so few people posted pictures of them on the internet?  The lack of pictures made it difficult to know if they really exist.  I am happy to say that variegated maidenhair ferns do exist, and they are very pretty.  I think the lack of pictures is due to their rarity.  I don't know why they are rare.

As you can see my fern displays diversity in its variegation.  Some fronds have more white than others.  Even on one frond it shows a lot of variation, some pinnules are entirely white, others are entirely green, and most will be green with splashes and stripes of green.

As so few people have ever seen these delightful ferns I took some pictures of my variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata' to show the world how pretty variegated maidenhair ferns are. 

Variegated maidenhair fern Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata'

Variegated maidenhair fronds Adiantum raddianum 'Variegata'

Variegated maidenhair fern frond - some pinnules are entirely white

Variegated maidenhair fern pinnules range from entirely white to almost entirely green.

Variegated maidenhair fern needs repotting

Variegated maidenhair fern in a larger pot

At this stage I only have the one small variegated maidenhair fern.  I really like it.  I can hardly wait for my plant to grow larger.  I hope in spring to be able to divide my fern so I have more of them, even if I can split it into two I would be happy.

Eventually I hope to be able to sell variegated maidenhair ferns through my for sale page, but that will not be for a while yet as my plant is too small to divide yet.

Strawberry x Raspberry hybrid plant photos

I have been messing around with plant breeding for as long as I can remember.  Some simple things, others more complicated.  I mentioned in an earlier post that I have recently crossed a strawberry with a raspberry.  I am very excited about this.

I wasn't planning on putting up any pictures until Spring once I know what will survive winter and the plants will be a lot larger and more worth looking at.  But I have had some people email and ask for photos, so I made this post to put up the first few pictures.

They aren't great pictures, and the surviving plants have grown a fair bit since the pictures were taken.  It takes me a while to get photos from the camera to the computer and I hadn't noticed how small they were when I took the last pictures, but they are the first pictures of strawberry raspberry hybrids that have been taken in one hundred years.

Horseradish seeds

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

Horseradish Plant - flowering size plant

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

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