Mentha australis - native river mint

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

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

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

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

Typical stems of native river mint

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

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

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

Native river mint leaves - front and back

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

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

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

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

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

Mentha australis cuttings ready to plant

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

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

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

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

Golden Orb Weaver Spider

A few years ago a Golden orb weaver (Nephila edulis) spider made her web on our deck.  She grew huge.  Her web was largely out of the way so we left her where she was, it was too high for the kids to accidentally hurt her but close enough that they could watch her doing her thing.

My kids liked watching the spider and the way she neatly organised her pretty yellow web.  Our baby was fascinated with that spider, when he was grizzly I would take him outside and he would look at the spider and calm down.

Golden orb weavers have a remarkably short life for such a large spider.  They hatch in spring, live through summer, then they lay eggs and die in the autumn.

Once or twice she disappeared and when she returned she was skinny, I assumed she had laid eggs somewhere safe.  Eventually autumn came and it was time for that beautiful spider to die.  One day she was simply gone, and we never saw her again.

The following spring a golden orb weaver made a web in our chicken run.  Given its location and the timing I imagine she was the daughter of the original spider. 

Female golden orb weaver

From time to time I would see male golden orb weaver spiders in her web.  They never lasted very long, male golden orb weaver spiders are tiny and the females tend to eat the males.

As you can see above she grew rather large and fat, this meant she was full of eggs.  Her time to lay eggs was close.

Then one day she was skinny, which meant she laid her eggs somewhere in a protective golden nest.  I looked around until I found the egg sack, it is made of golden silk.

Golden orb weaver after laying eggs

Look how skinny she was!

Golden orb weaver egg sack

I like the colour of their silk

Egg sack protected from rain etc

Golden orb weaver - everything is neat in her web

Then the spider grew large and fat again.  I hoped she may survive long enough to lay more eggs but time was against her.  Autumn was upon us and it was almost her time to die.  If frosts came early she would die, if frosts held off she would be able to lay her remaining eggs before she died.

I checked on her one day and I actually got to watch her lay her eggs!  I took some pictures towards the end of the experience, by this stage she was exhausted.

Two egg sacks

The spider died not long after laying her second egg sack.  Her time had come to an end, she climbed up over the roof and died there that afternoon.  With time her beautiful web eventually fell apart and the only reminder we have of her are her two golden egg sacks.

Now spring is here again I eagerly look at the egg sacks for signs of spiderlings hatching.  So far there has been no activity, but hatching day can't be far away.  I would love to see one hatch, but the chances are that I won't know about it until it is over.

I really hope one of her daughters takes up residence in our yard somewhere.  In order to grow so large so fast golden orb weavers catch and eat a lot of insects.  Even though they grow so large they really pose no threat to my kids, and they are a generally lovely spider.

It is almost time to hatch little spiderlings, I can hardly wait.

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Update 23/11/2019 - the baby spiders are hatching today!  Even though they were laid weeks apart both egg sacks are hatching at the same time.  There are hundreds, if not thousands, of tiny fat baby golden orb weaver spiders.  It is both really exciting and kind of creepy.  I hope at least one of them decides to stay in my yard.
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Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 "There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens: a time to be born and a time to die".

Parsley as a vegetable rather than a herb

Parsley (Petroselinum crispum) is a great plant that is highly nutritious, undervalued, and underutilised. It should be grown and used as a leafy vegetable. Like many people I grew parsley on and off for years. Like many people we initially used it as a garnish/herb so we didn’t really value this plant.

Parsley is usually biennial, meaning it grows leaves one year, then the second year it flowers and dies. This is frustrating because it means alternating years of feast and famine. Every second year is great for leaf production, and the alternate years are pretty light as the plants are flowering.

I say 'usually biennial' because it varies. Eventually some seed germinates late, or a plant flowers early, and you end up with a self-sustaining patch of parsley that always has some plants in their first year as well as some that are flowering.

Like many people I used to grow curly varieties of parsley, which demands reasonably high levels of attention for a small reward. Many varieties of curly parsley (there are many but most are unnamed) look pretty and have a relatively mild flavour. What they lack in productivity and taste they make up for in fancy looks. Hmmm, not a great trade off.

Parsley is relatively hardy though, and they drop a lot of seed, so while the first years you plant them and tend them and put in a lot of work to keep them going, eventually seed falls somewhere just right and they take care of themselves from there. Low productivity but no work is an ok trade off, so I kept growing parsley while never getting the most out of it or ever really appreciating it.

Eventually I grew some flat leaf parsley, I don’t recall when or why, and it changed the way I view parsley. The flat leaf varieties (again, there are many but they are usually unnamed) often grows much larger than the curly parsley, it produces far more leaf from the same amount of soil/water, and it has a stronger taste. We started using parsley in bread rolls and things as we had more of it.

Then we started using parsley as a vegetable rather than a herb, and began to value its highly nutritious leaves more highly. I am talking about using its leaves as a vegetable here, not the roots.

Regular flat leaf parsley on top, my parsley lower, 30cm ruler for scale

Somehow this became a slippery slope, and when we had enough parsley growing we would use its leaves as a spinach substitute in all kinds of meals. In my mind, this is how parsley should be used. Parsley should be a leaf vegetable.

The common inclination to grow fancy varieties that are low yielding, rather than highly productive flat leaf forms appears to be the only factor that is limiting this use. Many common plants that are grown as ornamentals were once important vegetables, I guess parsley is part way through this transformation from being a useful and nutritious vegetable to being just another pretty ornamental.

As we started using parsley as a leaf vegetable I started to breed bigger and better plants. I have never seen the point in growing food that doesn't suit me, I prefer to grow superior plants, if superior varieties don't exist then I will breed them myself. This has gone surprisingly well, it appears that flat leaf parsley still has the genes required to be a productive leaf vegetable. 

My larger parsley is not stable and seed grown plants still throw a mix of large, extra large, and huge leaf plants. Most of the giant leaf parsley varieties such as 'Giant of Italy' are puny compared to my improved plants.

My parsley is a monster compared to regular flat leaf parsley

As well as these improved plants I grew one plant that had massive leaves. At this stage I don’t know if it is a hybrid with skirret or if it is just the perfect parsley, but I suspect it is the latter. The plant had large leaves comprised of massive rounded leaflets, it flowered in its first year and produced copious amounts of seed. Even if this is not a hybrid it is displaying all the traits I want from parsley.

At this stage I don’t know what percentage of its seedlings, if any, will display the massive leaf and flowering in the first year traits. I allowed most of it to open pollinate and have sown a lot of that seed. I bagged a small number of flowers before they opened so they would be self-pollinated to see if many of them retain the massive leaf trait. I am yet to plant the self pollinated seed.

Massive Leaf Parsley - just a seedling

Perhaps one day I will start selling seed for my mixed giant parsley and my massive leaf parsley. When they are ready they will be listed on my for sale page along with various other interesting vegetables.

Stencils on Apples Using Sunlight

Have you ever looked closely at the skin of a red apple?  Have you ever noticed how it is red where the sun hit and green where it was shaded by a leaf or something?  I have.

Noticing this made me wonder if I could put shapes or even words on apples using nothing other than sunlight and shade.  It would be pretty cool if this was possible.  So I gave it a try.

As it turns out, it is possible, and I can put words or shapes on an apple using nothing other than sunlight and shade.

I had high hopes of how they might turn out, and they were even better than I had even imagined!  These apples were picked from my tree looking like this.  Aren't they remarkable...

Love hearts and other shapes can be put on apples using sunlight

 
I don't know what you would call this, a "stenciled apple" perhaps?  An "apple tattoo" maybe?  I have no idea.

I don't seem to be able to google this because I can't google anything containing the word "apple" without returning nonsense about the computer brand.  Including the search term 'stencil' or 'tattoo' made things even worse.

That meant that I had to teach myself how to do this and can't learn from other people's experience.  I think I did OK for a first try, I had fun, and I certainly learned a lot.

Stenciling and apple, or tattooing an apple, or whatever it is called is a bit fiddly, and it takes time, these took about two months from start to finish, but I did it and I am really happy with the results.

I have some big ideas to try this year.

What does azolla taste like

Azolla is a free floating fern that has a symbiotic relationship with a filamentous cyanobacteria called Anabaena.  This symbiotic relationship allows azolla to sequester atmospheric nitrogen and makes azolla a valuable little plant.

Azolla doesn't look much like a fern, but it is a fern.  I can't think of many free floating ferns, there are a few species of Azolla, and a few species of Salvinia.  Salvinia also doesn't look much like a fern.

Azolla is useful for many different things.  It is excellent high protein animal feed, it can be used to clean water, it has been proven to reduce mosquito survival, it is high in nitrogen and great in composts.  I keep some containers with azolla so my bees can collect water without drowning.  Azolla is even edible by people.  I have eaten azolla.

A bee collecting water from azolla

How do you describe the taste of fresh Azolla?  I read on the internet that azolla “has a crisp texture, smells a bit like moss and has a slightly tart taste, that is somehow earthy and reminiscent of forest”.  Yep, that just about sums it up.  I am not sure I agree with the 'tart taste' part, but the rest is spot on.

Azolla isn't the most amazing thing you will eat, but it isn't too bad.  The taste is underwhelming but I don't particularly like the texture.  When I eat azolla it breaks into tiny pieces that feel bad in my mouth.  I guess you could mix in in with a salad and it would be pretty good.

If you eat anything that grows in water you must take care that it was grown in water that was not polluted, and that it is free from snails.  Water snails carry a bunch of parasites that are best not to eat raw.

Over summer bees collect water without drowning

Azolla is easy enough to grow and will double in size very quicky under ideal conditions.  I put water in a container, put in a piece of azolla, and it takes care of itself from there.  All I need to do is scoop it out to feed the poultry or to add to compost or whatever. 

As azolla sequesters nitrogen from the atmosphere I grow it with Chinese water chestnuts, duck potatoes, and other water vegetables where it reduces issues with mosquitoes and fertilises these plants. 

I have heard that overseas Azolla is often grown among rice paddies to fertilise the crops and feed fish.  Interestingly enough azolla is only grown on a large scale in Communist countries.  I am not sure what to think about that?

I sell azolla through my for sale page along with various perennial vegetables, heirloom vegetable seeds, edible herb plants etc.

Intergeneric hybrids

The other day someone linked to my post on strawberry x raspberry hybrids on Reddit and my blog post got a lot of views.  While this was really nice, I made the mistake of reading some of the comments in Reddit.  My opinion of humanity dropped somewhat when I noticed that many of the people arguing had little to no understanding of what they were saying.  Their claims were based on aggression and making up a guess on the spot, rather than any form of evidence or research.

One person claimed that intergeneric hybrids (hybrids between two different genera) cannot exist.  This person likened the possibility of a strawberry raspberry hybrid to crossing a human with a goat.  Initially I was tempted to make nasty comments about this person's lack of basic knowledge.

Then I thought about it some more and decided rather than chastise them for their ignorance and belittle them for making claims that they clearly have never researched, maybe this could be used as an educational activity.

Bumpy irregular strawberry x raspberry hybrid

Intergeneric hybrids do occur in nature.  They have been seen in plants as well as animals.

Some closely related genera are possible to hybridise, while others will never hybridise.  The ones that are possible are always closely related genera.  Strawberry (Fragaria) and raspberry (Rubus) are relatively closely related.  Human and goat are not.  Even with this knowledge trying to compare the possible cross between Rubus and Fragaria to a goat/human hybrid is completely absurd.

Intergeneric hybrids occur in animals as well as plants.  Intergeneric hybrids can be found among mammals (they are strangely common in cetaceans), birds, and reptiles as can be seen in the examples below:

Mammals: Tursiops Delphinus hybrid: https://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/z03-150#.XVeMDEdS_IU

Birds: Cairina Anas hybrid: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/proceedings-of-the-royal-society-of-edinburgh/article/xivgenetical-and-cytological-studies-of-the-intergeneric-hybrid-of-cairina-moschata-and-anas-platyrhyncha-platyrhyncha/F7FE7498CE0DA4A1641EA75E13882A3F

Reptiles:  Pituophis Pantherophis hybrid: https://bioone.org/journals/Journal-of-Herpetology/volume-46/issue-2/10-260/Two-Naturally-Occurring-Intergeneric-Hybrid-Snakes-Pituophis-catenifer-sayi-/10.1670/10-260.short

Plants and animals are biologically very different.  Many things that are common in plants are extremely rare or impossible in animals.

Proving the existence of intergeneric hybrids in animals quickly rules out the human cross goat argument, but does not do anything to back up the possibility of a strawberry x raspberry hybrid, so let's move onto plants.

Leaf edges curl - I am unsure if the cause is genetic or environmental

Intergeneric hybrids among plants:
Most people with a basic understanding of agriculture can tell you that triticale is a wheat rye hybrid.  It is common and grown on commercial scale.  Australia produces around 800,000 tonnes of triticale grain per year.  This alone proves that intergeneric hybrids among plants are possible .

Fifteen seconds on a search engine returns many thousands of intergeneric hybrids among plants, below are a few examples:

Triticum Secale hybrid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triticale

Citrus Citropsis hybrid: http://era.daf.qld.gov.au/id/eprint/4475/

Citrus Fortunella hybrid: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/51b9/124a3d04b4479dbab065b7bc58088a86dbfa.pdf

Maleae intergeneric hybrids:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maleae

Malus Pyrus (commonly known as Zwintz-scher’s Hybrid) hybrid: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Stefan_Martens/publication/261771797_F1_hybrid_of_cultivated_apple_Malus_domestica_and_European_pear_Pyrus_communis_with_fertile_F2_offspring/links/02e7e53577214e7655000000/F1-hybrid-of-cultivated-apple-Malus-domestica-and-European-pear-Pyrus-communis-with-fertile-F2-offspring.pdf

Sorbus Pyrus hybrid: https://www.actahort.org/books/918/918_123.htm

To add more weight to the possibility of a strawberry raspberry hybrid, there are intergeneric hybrids between strawberries and Potentilla:

Fragaria Potentilla hybrid: https://www.actahort.org/books/348/348_19.htm

Now that we have demonstrated intergeneric hybrids do occur in plants (and animals), and that Fragaria are known to hybridise with closely related genera, I guess the next step it to look at my strawberry raspberry hybrid and answer some questions I have received over them.

Elongated petiolule - this is not seen in the parent species

Are you 100% certain this is a strawberry raspberry hybrid?
When attempting this cross I emasculated the flowers and bagged them prior to hand pollination.  I attempted reciprocal crosses between plants of the same ploidy to increase chances of success.  A a control I emasculated and bagged some flowers but didn't pollinate them, all aborted early and none produced seed.  I tried many crosses, planted many seeds and very few germinated, out of those most died early.  The leaves, flowers, and fruits of the surviving plant are different from the parent varieties.  Strawberry seeds planted at the same time as the hybrid seeds began flowering around 5 months old, this hybrid plant took around 10 months and then the first few sets of flowers aborted without setting fruit.  The parent strawberry throws a lot of runners from a very young age, this plant is over a year old and has not yet thrown any runners.  I have saved seed from this plant and they seem to have less than 5% germination rate, while the strawberry parent's seeds usually have over 95% germination.  Even with all of this, there is still an incredibly small chance that some tiny ant crawled in under the bag and pollinated the flower, so without genetic testing I cannot be completely certain it is a hybrid.  To answer the question: I am not certain that this is a hybrid.

Has this been independently tested and proven to be a strawberry raspberry hybrid? 
Not yet.  I would love someone to test this genetically to conclusively determine if it is a hybrid.  I don't know how to get this done in Australia.  If you are able to help please let me know.  Edit to add: I sent samples of these plants to the CSIRO who have since tested them.  They are true intergeneric strawberry raspberry hybrids.  The results can be seen here.

Unripe berry - lumpy and forked at the end

It can't be a hybrid because the berry is bumpy and ugly.  

If anything its unique looks add to the possibility that it may be a true hybrid.  This is just one of the morphological abnormalities that can be observed between this plant and the strawberry parent.  Other morphological abnormalities include the length of petiolules, flowers always being subtended by a leaf, inconsistent flower structure (such as extra petals and fewer stamens), and the absence of runners.  Germination time/percentage, early death of large numbers of seedlings, and the greatly extended time from germination to maturity are among the other factors that suggest this plant may not just be a strawberry.

This looks like a strawberry, why doesn’t it look more like an equal mix of raspberry and strawberry?  

In wide crosses there is often, but not always, asymmetric expression patterns and phenotypic similarity with the seed parent.  I am not sure why it happens in some crosses but not others.  Most of the papers I have read on this phenomenon appear to be based on interspecific crosses rather than intergeneric crosses, but there are a few papers written on triticale that suggest this strong maternal effect in intergeneric hybrids is relatively common (www.fao.org/3/a-y5553e.pdf).  So while I don't know why this happens, I know that it does happen often.

Flowers always subtended by a leaf

Some poorly worded question about fruit types eg strawberry produce achenes on a fleshy receptacle while raspberry produce drupes.

I am not quite sure what the question is here, or how this would ever support or disprove this possibly being a hybrid, so I will take a stab and try to guess what they are asking.  Usually several genes interact to create what we see in a plant or animal.  Some genes are dominant over others and if both genes are present you often only see the effects from one (ie one is dominant and the other is recessive).  The fruiting structure that we see is due to the genes present in the plant and how the genes interact with each other.  This is unexplored territory, we have little understanding of what phenotype a plant will display when it is heterozygous for fruiting in drupes and producing achenes on a receptacle.  Both parents were diploid (2n = 2x = 14) so if this is a true hybrid it and any seedlings it produces could shed light on genetic interactions that are as yet unknown.

If these are possible why hasn’t anyone done this before?  

This is one of the most common questions, it makes little sense and appears to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Our collective scientific knowledge in any given area isn’t as far along as people think it is.  There are plenty of things we have never attempted and all areas of science break new ground all the time.  As no one ever attempts to do this cross you assume it can’t be done.  Wouldn’t it be better if it was attempted, then proven to be possible or not to be possible?  In the past this hybrid was created using somatic fusion and the resultant plant was apparently viable, I am unsure if it fruited and have not seen any pictures of the plant.  My attempt at crossing strawberry and raspberry involved cross pollination (similar to Burbank's attempt) rather than somatic protoplast fusion.  Unlike Burbank’s attempt, I used plants of the same ploidy to increase the chance of success.  Not all that long ago crossing plum and apricot was thought impossible because no one had attempted it, today you can buy plumcots from the shops!  

 

Edit to add: I sent samples of these plants to the CSIRO who tested them and determined that they are true intergeneric strawberry raspberry hybrids.  The results can be seen here. 

Pineapple sage

Years ago we bought a small plant called Pineapple Sage (Salvia elegans).  It was amazing, my kids loved it, I loved it, and it grew well for us.

Pineapple sage really smells like sweet pineapple.  Unlike many other herbs this one did not disappoint.  It was good in herbal 'tea', it was good in cooking, it looked nice, the flowers are pretty, there was nothing bad about this plant.

For a few years I took cuttings,  we harvested the leaves, and I protected it over winter as it dislikes frosts.  It can take a few light frosts, but repeated hard frosts can kill it.

Then we moved house, and a few months later moved house again, then my wife gave birth to our youngest son.  Somehow in all the chaos we lost our pineapple sage plant.

My son loves pineapple sage tea, so I searched for another plant.  I bought one that was labelled as 'golden pineapple sage'.  It was meant to have yellow leaves, but it didn't.  It looked just like my old plant, but didn't grow very fast, and the pineapple smell was surprisingly weak.  My son adores pineapple sage tea, but he didn't bother making tea from this weak plant.  There was no point, it was too mild that it was like drinking hot water.

The plant itself was also weak, even though I protected it the thing died over winter.  It was no great loss, that plant was inferior.

Then we got another pineapple sage plant.  This one was strong and green and vigorous.  It grew fast and smelled even stronger than our first plant.  All the pineapple sage pictures on this blog page are of this stronger plant.  It was an amazing plant, I really liked it.  Look how lush it is.

Pineapple sage growing well

Eventually autumn came, so I took some cuttings to over winter away from the frosts.  I also left the plant where it stood figuring winter would kill it.  When I got around to it I would remove the twigs.  I picked a lot of the leaves and dried them to use over winter.  It was actually pretty good dried.

Frosts were hard that winter, we had snow and hail and many frosts.  All the leaves and branches died.  I had a heap of cuttings growing happily out of the frosts so wasn't terribly bothered.

Then something incredible happened:

Can you see it in the middle of that mess?

Take a closer look:

The pineapple sage is sprouting, it survived winter!

The pineapple sage plant started to sprout from its roots.  It had survived the frosts!  That was unexpected.

From there the plant grew, and grew, and grew.  I took more cuttings and grew more pineapple sage plants in other parts of the garden.  This plant just kept getting larger and providing more and more leaves. 

Look at it grow!

Pineapple sage is delightful

Pineapple sage - it grew far larger than this

Eventually autumn came again.  I meant to dry some leaves again but forgot until too late.  I took cuttings to grow somewhere safe as I never want to lose this plant.  I also covered the plant in straw to see if it would survive another winter.

This winter has been the warmest I have ever heard of in this region, so my plant is doing just fine.  The branches have dropped most leaves, but some are still hanging in there and are green.  Not surprisingly all the cuttings are looking great too.

I sell small bare rooted plants over summer, if you are interested they will be listed on my for sale page along with other perennial vegetables for sale in Australia.  I can post to most states, but do have some domestic quarantine restrictions.

The best culinary thyme variety: Jekka's Thyme

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

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

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

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

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

Jekka's thyme forming a dense carpet

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

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

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

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

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

Jekka's Thyme Flowers

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

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

Jekka's thyme in the frost

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

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

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

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

Tomato Breeding

One of my favourite tomatoes is Japanese Black Trifele (spelled a few different ways).  They taste amazing, they usually crop heavily for me, they taste great, they are reasonably quick to mature, and did I mention they taste great?  They are one of the varieties I grow every year.  I really like them, but find they they are a bit small for my liking.

I can't grow every tomato variety I have every year so I have a bit of a rotation to refresh my seeds.  Some varieties are very good, but not good enough to be grown every year.  Another great tomato variety I grow some years are a much larger fruited tomato, they taste great, they usually crop well, but the tomatoes are a bit too large for my liking so don't get grown every year.

• Question: What would happen if you cross one of the best tasting tomatoes that is a touch too small (such as Japanese Black Trifele) with a great tasting tomato that is much larger? 
• Answer: You get an amazing tasting tomato that is just the right size (as well as a whole heap of other tomatoes of different sizes, some taste better than others).

This new tomato has an interesting colour, this year it had regular leaf but it may or may not still have recessive potato leaf genes because I have been selecting taste/size of fruit and ignoring all other traits.  Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of it sliced, the colour inside was dark and amazing.  I hope when I have stabilized this variety it retains this rich colour.

This year was a dreadful year for tomatoes in my garden.  Many varieties did not crop at all, some only provided 1 or 2 tomatoes, some gave very small crops.

This new tomato was one of the first to ripen, being so early in the season I thought nothing of eating them as I figured that I would save seed later in the season.  Then the heat or something hit and I only saved seed from one or two fruit.  I wish I had more seeds, but I have what I have.  This isn't great, but it will have to do.

Great tasting tomato - top

Great tasting tomato - side

Great tasting tomato - bottom

Assuming all goes well, it will be a few years before this is a stable variety.  Stabilising a tomato variety usually takes 7 to 10 generations, sometimes more.

Stablising a variety can be done in a year or two if you play around with double haploids, but I don't think I will do that for this variety.  I plan to grow a few of them next year and continue to select the best ones.

My aim is to produce tomatoes that fruit like this one.  They are the right size, they look nice, they are soft, they smell nice, they crop well, and most importantly they are absolutely delicious.  Everything else, such as fruit colour, leaf shape etc, are not really important.

I sell seeds of a few heirloom tomatoes through my for sale page.  I likely won't offer seeds of this one for a long time as they are not even close to being stable.