Breeding new black tomatoes

I have started to mess around with breeding new black tomato varieties.  I mean true black tomatoes, the ones that are high in a powerful antioxidant called anthocyanin, not the muddy brown tomatoes that often are called 'black'. 

I have some lines that are segregating and if they are any good will try to stabilise them over the next few years, and other lines are almost stable.  The deep black colour of some of my crosses are incredible.

Some of my ripe black tomatoes - their colour is incredible

When they are unripe, the tomato fruits take on an amazing purple colour.  The black is only on the skin, the colour of the flesh underneath the skin changes the colour of the ripe fruit.  To get the darkest black a clear epidermis appears to work well.

If the tomato fruit is red underneath, the colour of ripe fruit are not overly impressive.  If the tomato is yellow or green underneath it allows the fruit to take on an incredibly dark black colour when ripe.

These ones had black skin and green flesh

The ones that are green under the black taste the best so far.  Unfortunately they are far too difficult to tell when they are ripe, I can't tell if they are ripe unless I gently squeeze them, so I will likely not continue with those lines. 

Unripe fruit displays stunning purple colours when unripe

Some of these black lines are also heterozygous for the woolly gene, others are dwarf, some indeterminate, and others determinate.  I certainly want to keep the high anthocyanin fruit but have a few options with various other traits.

I will see what other traits pop out before I decide which lines to keep. 

The fruits get darker as they ripe

Interesting black/purple unripe tomatoes

I grow things very close as I lack garden space

These tomatoes are incredibly black

I am not intending to release any lines that are not stable varieties.  I may change my mind in the future, or I may eventually sell seeds of lines that I have stabilised.  If this happens they will be listed on my for sale page with other vegetable seeds, perennial vegetables, herbs, and other interesting plants that I sell.

Update: this variety has been stabilised, I call them "Tracey".

Giant Parsley

A few years ago I decided that parsley (Petroselinum crispum) was too small to be very useful.  Even the larger varieties such as 'Giant of Italy' are a bit piddly.  I figured parsley would be better as a leaf vegetable rather than a garnish.  So I bred parsley to have larger leaves.

I may have gotten a bit carried away.  My parsley is now so large that the leaves can now easily be used as a vegetable.

Normally you add parsley at the end of cooking, but my larger parsley holds up reasonably well to heat and can be added earlier during cooking.  The roots are large enough to be roasted, and the leaf petioles can be used similar to celery - but taste far nicer.

My parsley gets even larger than this

My parsley is not a stable variety yet, as a population it still shows some genetic diversity.  Some plants have leaves that are absolutely massive.  Some plants have very large leaves.  A small number of plants have reasonably large leaves.  People who see it often comment that they have never seen anything like it.

I only allow the larger plants to flower, and only collect seed from the absolute largest, that way any seedlings have a solid genetic base but still retain at least some degree of genetic diversity.

Each of the leaflets grow huge

They get larger than this

There are a few varieties of 'giant' leaf parsley around.  My parsley dwarfs any 'giant' varieties that I have ever seen.  In fact, all of the 'giant' varieties are rather puny and insignificant in comparison to my parsley.

The craziest part of this story is that this isn't as large as parsley can get.  With a little more selective pressure it will be even larger than this.  I don't have the time or space to do anything too seriously, but even with modest selective pressure my plants are still getting larger every year.

"Giant Italian parsley" at the top, my parsley underneath

At the moment my parsley is not a stable variety, and my plants seem to get larger each year.  If you plant a bunch of seeds most grow into huge, and some are very large, and the occasional one is regular sized.  It is not difficult to cull the smaller plants and only save seed from the huge ones to end up with a size that works well for you.

If you are interested in growing ridiculously large parsley I will probably offer seed for sale through my for sale page.  Just keep in mind if you do buy this seed that it does not grow true to type and a very small percentage will be large but not all that impressively sized.

Purple and Green Tomatillo

The variety of tomatillo (Physalis ixocarpa) I grow has purple and purple/green fruit, I keep thinking I should get a dark purple variety but don’t seem able to find a source for them.  I also think about getting one with larger fruit as tomatilloes are a bit small.

The variety I grow are great, they are high yielding, pest and disease free, and relatively sweet, plus I have grown this variety and saved its seeds for so many years that I find getting rid of them to be a rather daunting concept.

Tomatillo

Around ten years ago I bought some purple tomatillos from a market, they weren’t dark purple, more of a purple/green. Back then tomatillo were pretty rare, seeds were difficult to find, you never saw seedlings for sale, and very few home gardeners around here had even heard of them.

I put a few of these fruit in a paper bag and took them home, we ate some and I kept the larger and darker ones to save seed. This is how/when I got my variety, they were an un-named variety that I found at a market stall.

At that time I had never grown tomatillo before that, I had never seen a plant, I wasn’t sure they could survive in my climate, I didn’t know how to save their seed, and I didn't know anyone who had seen or grown one. Luckily it was all really simple.

Every time I grow tomatillo now I save some seeds for future years, if you ever grow tomatillo you should also save some of the seeds.

If you only wanted a few seeds you could just pick them out of the fruit and dry them somewhere. The way I save tomatillo seed is to crush up the fruit in a container of water, for larger numbers I use a potato masher to crush them.

Viable seeds sink, I remove the large parts of the flesh by hand, I tip off some of the water along with anything that floats, and then tip whatever is left through a strainer. I put the seeds on some baking paper (which has been labelled with the name and date) and leave them somewhere safe to dry. Once dry I store the seeds as normal, apparently they can remain viable for many years.

Honey bees appear to like tomatillo flowers

Growing tomatillo from seed is also simple. Much like tomatoes they don’t like frost. In spring I get a punnet of soil and sprinkle on some seeds, I water this. I don’t bury the seeds, I just sprinkle them and water them in. I don’t know if they need sunlight to germinate, or if burying them is fine, but I get good results just sprinkling and watering. From here I water them and protect them from snails etc. Not surprisingly, they seem to like warm soil and plenty of sunlight.

Tomatillo grow reasonably fast and tall, they can reach 5 foot tall in a season without too much trouble. They can be left to sprawl wherever they want but to make harvest easier, and to save garden space, it is best to stake them. I water tomatillo plants the same as I would water tomato plants, nothing overly special needs to be done.

Tomatillo appear to be only partially self-fertile, so to get a crop it is best to plant several plants. You can save space by planting two or more plants in the same hole and treating them as one plant. They are very productive when grown like this so try not to overdo it. Two or three plants is often more than productive enough for a family.

I only grow one variety of tomatillo, and none of the neighbours grow tomatillo, so I don’t need to worry about isolating to keep my strain pure.  If I grow a second variety I will either bag the flowers or grow them alternate years. By the looks of the flowers, and the number of insects that visit them, I assume they cross pollinate readily. 

Tomatillo produce ample flowers

For me tomatillo always start to flower early in the season, and the early flowers always abort. It may be different for you, but they always do this for me. They keep flowering, honey bees and native insects appear to like the yellow flowers, but the flowers keep aborting. This goes on for what seems like an eternity, and then one day they produce fruit. Once they start, they produce large amounts of fruit until the frosts kill them.

Much like tomatoes or chillies, tomatillo are perennial and can be grown for several years if protected from frost. I allow frost to kill them and plant new seed each year because it is simple and I doubt I would get an earlier crop anyway.

When the husk starts to dry and split that is when I pick them. Usually they fall from the plant when ripe, but sometimes they need to be picked. The papery husk seems to protect tomatillo from fruit fly even in heavily infested areas.

Once picked you can eat the fruit or store them or save their seed for next year. Tomatillo plants produce an abundance of fruit over the season, so mashing a few to save seeds from is not an issue.

If the stems are slightly damaged they produce roots.  It is interesting, and a little creepy.  If a bug damages a stem it starts to grow roots, if a stem brushes against something and gets bruised it grows roots, if this touches the soil it gains nutrients and water the same as any roots.

tomatillo stem producing roots

When I first got my tomatilloes no one had them.  These days a few places sell tomatillo seeds, and there are even a few different varieties around.  There are no blue tomatilloes, they don't exist, don't waste your money on them.  There are varieties of green, purple, yellow, and orange tomatillo. 

I sell seeds from my purple and green tomatillo through my for sale page.

Dahlia from seed - the second year

My daughter grew a dahlia from seed last year, she was very proud of herself and I was proud of her too.

The seed was planted in spring, it grew into a small and healthy plant which flowered nicely over summer and autumn, and then it went dormant over winter.  I was impressed that it flowered in its first year.

Growing dahlia from seed isn't overly difficult, yet I don't know many people who have ever attempted it.  I like how they produce flowers in their first year, and then a lot more flowers the following year.

We left the plant in the soil where it was over winter, and in spring it sprouted and grew again.  This year the dahlia grew much larger and produced many more beautiful yellow flowers. 

Dahlias covered in flowers in their second year from seed

Dahlia the first year from seed - small plant with few flowers

The honey bees seemed to enjoy the flowers for quite some time, then the bees stopped going near them.  Presumably the dahlia was the best thing flowering earlier in the season, then something else was flowering in the area that the bees enjoy more.

It is good to have multiple different things flowering across the season, that way my bees have more options and can choose what suits them best when they are out foraging.

The bees seemed to enjoy these dahlias early in the season

We may try to divide this plant over winter if it looks large and healthy enough.  I am sure my daughter would like to plant several of these around the place. 

If we can divide it into enough plants that we have any spare my daughter may sell some through my for sale page to earn herself some more flower money.

Onion chives - the smallest edible onion

Years ago I bought some seedlings of Allium schoenoprasum. These are a tiny perennial vegetable that is often called 'chives' or 'onion chives', I am sure they also have a few other common names.

I grow some very rare vegetables, but onion chives are extremely common. They are easy to grow, and have many uses in the kitchen. Onion chives are edible, perennial, and reputed to be the smallest edible onion species, which is fun.

I originally planted mine in a pot, was impressed by how cute they were, then generally neglected and ignored them for years.  I harvested their leaves for use in meals, occasionally I watered them but not nearly often enough, and I never truly valued them. Even though I didn’t take good care of them, and the conditions were downright hostile at times, these onions chives survived and performed really well for me.

Onion chives - flower

After sitting in their little pot of soil for close to a decade and moving house with me I recently planted my chives into the garden and water them more often. Now they have a bit of space and water they are really taking off.

The leaves of chives are elongated green tubes that are hollow in cross section, these leaves are the main crop that can be eaten raw, cooked, or dried. The flowers are small, reasonably pretty, enjoyed by bees as well as other pollinating insects, and are also edible.

Onion chives can die down to bulbs which look like tiny onions. I assume you can eat the bulbs but they are so small that I have never bothered trying. 

Onion chives - growing happily near asparagus

Chive leaves taste much like onion, but not as pungent. It is easy to snip the leaves with scissors and use them in all kinds of meals and garnishes. They don’t blow you away in terms of taste, or yield, but chives really take no effort to grow, they don’t need much space, they look nice, and are simple to harvest.

Being perennial vegetables means I planted them once about ten years ago and have been harvesting ever since. Chives can easily be grown from seed, but I usually just allow plants to divide.

Most people recommend replacing chive plants with seedlings every year or two to refresh them. As they are perennial vegetables I don’t really see the point. Many people recommend removing the flower stalks as soon as noticed so the plant puts more energy into leaf growth. While this is probably best practice you don’t have to remove them, they should do just fine if you allow them to flower and set seed. You could collect the seeds, or allow them to drop, to produce more plants for free.

Perennial onion chives are easy to grow organically

I grow everything organically, I don't even use the organic poisons that many people use. Even though I give them no special treatment I have never had any issues with pests or diseases with onion chives. This means you will find them simple to grow too.

Even though they are so small, onion chives are survivors. Mine have survived blasting heat a touch below 50C as well as frosts down to around -10C. I never water mine often enough, I don’t divide them regularly, or top dress the soil, or anything that I should, and they not only survive but they produce an edible crop and continue to increase in numbers.

If you want to get the best yield then water them, divide them, remove flower stalks as they appear, keep them well weeded, and keep the soil fertile. If you want an edible plant that can be grown in a pot on your kitchen window sill and look great, then chives are for you. If you are lazy and want a plant that will produce a small crop with next to no effort, put them in the garden and try to keep the weeds to a minimum. Onion chives really are quite versatile.

I grow an unnamed variety that is not overly spectacular. I have often wondered if there are improved varieties of chives and if any of these are noticeably different to the ones I have.

I have occasionally considered breeding an improved variety of chives, or crossing with another onion species. While interspecific hybrids look like fun and according to research are achievable I don’t see a lot of improvement that can be made to chives as chives are already pretty great. Who knows, maybe one day I will have an epiphany about some way chives can be improved and use them to create something better.Until then I will continue to enjoy the ones I have.

Onion chives clumping up nicely

I assume part of chives continuing popularity is how simple they are to grow and how useful they are in the kitchen. I quite like chives but they are not as useful or as high yielding as some of my other perennial onions. Hopefully one day some of the rarer perennial onions such as everlasting onions and perennial leeks become more commonly available.

Overall I am happy with these little chives, they are pretty enough to be in a flower garden, they basically look after themselves, they don’t pose a weed threat, and they are useful in the kitchen.

I sell onion chives plants and various other perennial onions and perennial vegetables which I can post to much of Australia. If you are interested in buying perennial vegetables in Australia they are listed on my for sale page. Onion chive seeds only have a short viability, when I have fresh seed I also list them for sale.

Mulberry tree fruiting in Autumn

I grew a white mulberry from a tiny cutting a while ago.  It has grown into a lovely little tree that I am rather fond of.

Most mulberries in Australia are white mulberries (Morus alba), and the vast majority of these are NOT white fruited.  They produce delicious fruit that is dark and stains everything.  While many people claim to grow black mulberries, I am yet to see or hear of a black mulberry (Morus nigra) anywhere in Australia.

I like mulberries in general and I rather like this tree.  I live in town so can only grow a mulberry if it is not going to stain things.  This winter when my tree was dormant I planted it outside my fence.  This is risky as we don't mow there so it could get slashed by council, or people could steal it.  But it is a great spot for a mulberry tree so I am risking it and hoping for the best.

This past summer we had weeks of intense thick smoke, and heat, and it was incredibly dry, but my water tank was low so I had very little water to spare for my mulberry tree.  I felt bad that my tree was outside the fence in the blasting sun with no water to get established, but it is a survivor and kept growing.  The mulberry tree produced a huge amount of fruit, but it all aborted as it was too dry this year. 

Normally mulberries ripen in December and early January here.  Once the smoke cleared it was still very dry, when the rains eventually came my little tree put on a lot of growth.  Then it started to produce fruit, in April! 

My mulberries are ripening in April

I have never seen a mulberry fruit this late in Autumn, the frosts could be here any day.  But this tree was determined to produce a crop this year no matter how difficult the situation.

Most of the fruit was stolen by birds and other animals.  Then a few started to ripen.  They weren't exactly white, but they were sweet and delicious and non-staining.

I kind of forgot to take pictures of the mulberries until we had eaten most of them.  Some were more white than this, others were slightly more of an even lavender colour.  None of them were dark.

Most got more lavender coloured than this when fully ripe

White mulberries are a great tree: they are low maintenance, they are very hardy, they are productive, the leaves can be used as silkworm food or high protein stock feed, the leaves can be used as a vegetable or a herbal tea.  Mulberries like this one that won't stain the footpath, or the washing, or the kid's faces, are excellent.

If my little tree makes it through winter without being run over by a slasher or stolen or something horrible like that I should try to take a few cuttings in spring.  I will eventually try to offer some for sale through my for sale page over winter when they are dormant.

Japanese Black Trifele Tomato Australia

I have a few dozen varieties of tomatoes (as well as some I am breeding) that I grow and save seed from. I don’t have enough space/water/time to grow all of them every year, so each year I grow some tomato varieties to eat and save seed and the following year I grow different varieties.

It is a bit of a rotation, everything gets grown every few years so I can save fresh seed and not lose that variety. I never buy tomato seedlings as it is difficult to find decent varieties, and I certainly wouldn’t waste my time growing bland varieties such as 'Roma' or 'Black Russian' when there are so many better varieties that I could grow instead.

Currently, out of the dozens of varieties I have, there are only three tomato varieties that I grow every year. "Japanese Black Trifele", "Verde Claro", and "Micro Tom". I grow the first two as they taste utterly amazing but very different from one another, and I grow micro tom because it is tiny and fun and I am always trying to increase its seeds.

All the other tomato varieties I grow are great, I don’t save their seed if they are not impressive, but none of the others are good enough to secure a space in my garden every year.

Japanese Black Trifele tomatoes are not uniform in size or shape

Japanese Black Trifele (spelled a few different ways), known in Russian as Yaponskiy Trufel Chernyyi Японский трюфель is probably my all-time favourite tasting tomato. Despite its name this variety is an Old Russian heirloom variety. I am told that in Russia it is still grown by many home gardeners as well as being grown commercially where it is often canned.

I am also told that ‘Japanese’ was most likely added to its name to make it sound more exotic and exclusive. This is an old heirloom Russian variety, and like many of the older Russian tomato varieties this is easy to grow and has a rich tomato taste.

Japanese black trifele has potato leaf foliage, meaning that the leaves are less serrated and look similar to leaves of a potato plant. There is a lot of debate about if this is a good or a bad trait, I personally don’t think it makes much difference in my climate other than looking nice. It may be an issue in humid climates where increasing ventilation is critical.

Potato leaf is a recessive trait so can be useful in breeding or seed saving by knowing early if seedlings have crossed.

Japanese Black Trifele has potato leaf foliage

The fruit are not uniform in size or shape, they vary a bit even on the same truss. They are mostly pear shaped with some that are rounder than others. This variety is a great producer for me. While I have never weighed all the fruit produced from one plant it is a reliable producer for me even in bad years. Quite often they are one of the first to ripen in my garden, and they keep producing more delicious tomatoes for me until the frosts come.

Japanese black trifele is an indeterminate variety that ripens early in the season for me and continues producing fruit until killed by frosts. Like any other indeterminate tomato variety you can over winter them if protected from frosts and grow them as a perennial. I usually grow them from seed each year rather than overwintering even though they produce fruit around two months earlier when overwintered.

While Japanese Black Trifele is called a 'black' tomato, it is an old variety and not one of the newer high anthocyanin varieties, so it is never truly black. The fruit would probably better be described as mahogany brown rather than black. The fruit is a nice rich brown inside and out, and they often have green shoulders.

"OSU Blue" tomato really is black, unlike Japanese Black Trifele which is brown

You may wonder why people care if tomatoes have green shoulders, it is all to do with taste!

Green shoulders in a tomato means that it is lacking the uniform ripening gene mutation (u). This gene mutation is carried by practically all supermarket tomatoes, and it is associated with bland taste. The presence of this mutation is one of the reasons why many modern tomatoes look nice but are so bland. There are not many good tomatoes that carry this u mutation.

The uniform ripening gene is great for harvesting at the breaker stage, cold storage, long distance transport, ethylene ripening, resulting in pretty looking fruits that you would never guess had been harvested several months ago. The uniform ripening gene is not desirable for home growers who want better tasting tomatoes that they can pick when perfectly ripe and eat when fresh. Tomatoes that lack the uniform ripening mutation, such as most heirloom tomatoes including Japanese Black Trifele, quite often taste much nicer.

As well as tasting amazing fresh in salads or on sandwiches, Japanese black trifele is suitable for cooking or drying. We tend to eat them raw, but have frozen some to use in cooking where they performed well. They are really quite versatile, but tomato season only comes around once a year so I enjoy them fresh when they are a seasonal delicacy.

Japanese Black Trifele in the middle, Woolly Kate on the right, Mint Julep above, unnamed on the left

Japanese black trifele tomatoes are not perfect and they do have some issues. The plants can grow reasonably large, in the modern world of patio gardens and postage stamp sized backyards they would probably be better if they were a dwarf plant. The plant grows large and the fruit is too small for my liking, I would prefer the fruit to be a bit larger. This isn’t much of an issue, it just means I might use 2 or 3 for my tomato sandwiches instead of just 1. The rich and complex tomato taste of Japanese Black Trifele more than makes up for these shortcomings.

Japanese black trifele tomatoes have interesting looking potato leaf foliage, I think the mahogany coloured pear shaped fruit looks good, they have large and reliable yields spread over a long season, and most importantly they have a rich tomato taste. You can see why it is one of the few varieties that I grow every year rather than on rotation with all the other varieties I like to grow.

It used to be impossible to find Japanese Black Trifele tomato seeds for sale in Australia, I am happy to say that is no longer the case! Several places now sell seed which is a great thing. I sometimes sell seed from organically grown Japanese black trifele tomatoes or seed of some of the other heirloom tomatoes I grow through my for sale page.

What Does Parsley Root Taste Like

A while ago I was removing some self-seeded parsley from my vegetable garden to make space to plant other things, and I noticed how long parsley's root is. This is large enough that it could be eaten as a root vegetable.

They varied considerably, the largest were about a foot long, and 2 or so inches wide, smaller ones were pencil thin and not very long. Most plants had a single tap root like a white skinny carrot, while a few plants had roots that were a little forked.

To be clear, I am not talking about the plant bred for root production known as ‘Hamburg parsley’, or ‘Dutch parsley’, or ‘turnip-rooted parsley’. I am talking about the roots of regular parsley whose leaves I use as a herb (I know in some countries it is acceptable to say “an herb” but I just can’t bring myself to do that as it sounds so absurd unless you mispronounce the word herb. I have also been told that it is correct to use the term “a herb” here in Australia).

Parsley roots

I tried to grow Hamburg root parsley once in the past, but the seeds I bought were too old to germinate by the time they arrived in the mail. I complained to Diggers that when they posted them to me the seeds were already a year past their expiry date. I was initially given excuses, when I pushed my point they begrudgingly sent replacement seeds.

These replacement seeds that Diggers sent me only had 1 month until the expiry date that was printed on the packet. Needless to say none of those seeds germinated either, and my distrust of Diggers club and their dodgy shameful practices started to grow...

Parsley leaf

Another parsley leaf - my plants grow large

As I had some parsley plants that I had already dug up I decided to eat their roots, but I wanted to know what they tasted like. I looked on the internet to know what to expect the parsley root to taste like.

I read that the odour is warm-woody, spicy, somewhat sweet herbaceous. Or they taste sweet, earthy and herbaceous. I have also seen it described as a taste between celery and carrots with a little parsley leaf and turnip. I found mention that parsley root has a more delicate, sweeter and more herbal taste than a parsnip. Confusingly I have read that “parsnip is sweet; parsley root is not”.

None of these descriptions were overly useful, some were contradictory, so I decided to taste some parsley root raw as well as roasted.

Parsley leaves: flat parsley at the top, my improved parsley underneath

I am really bad at describing taste. To me the raw parsley root was herbaceous, earthy, and spicy. It was kind of carroty, certainly not without its charm but not the greatest. I don’t think I would be able to eat very much raw before it would overpower me. That being said, once I ate some I wanted more not long afterwards. Just thinking about the taste of raw parsley root makes me want to eat more right now, which is odd because it wasn't all that remarkable when raw.

While raw parsley root tasted ok, roasted it was a completely different story!

I don’t really enjoy raw carrot, but I love roasted carrot. I kind of like raw skirret, but I adore roast skirret. In the same light, raw parsley root was ok, roasted parsley root was far superior.

Roasted parsley root tasted similar to roast carrot, or roast parsnip, but better, and herby. Parsley root kind of tasted similar to skirret, but not quite as good. If you have ever eaten skirret you will understand that this is extremely high praise!

The parsley roots I ate were all rather long, and fat enough, but they all had an inedible woody core that was even difficult to cut with a knife. I used my teeth to scrape off the soft flesh and I discarded the core. The roots I ate were all from volunteer plants that had self-seeded, so they had been through times of no water and other times where I harvested their leaves. Some were flowering while others were one year old plants. Most had a lot of competition and were crowded by nearby plants.

I don’t know if the woody core was caused by neglect or if they always have the woody core. I also don’t know how they compare to the varieties bred for root production such as Hamburg rooted parsley as I have never eaten one.

Parsley plants with long tap root

Earlier I grew a remarkable plant that may have been a parsley x skirret hybrid, or it may have been a massive leaf parsley. I don’t actually know yet but I suspect it is just a really impressive parsley. If it was just a massive leaf parsley, then its seedlings should also grow tremendously long and fat roots. I am growing out some of its seedlings, and I have let seed fall for its seedlings to volunteer, so we will see what happens.

So there you have it, to me raw parsley root tastes ok, and roasted parsley root tastes great.  I have been sent some seeds of a variety of root parsley, I plan to grow them out and see what they are like.  If all goes well I will have another great tasting vegetable that I can't buy at the markets, and self seeds readily in my garden.

Woolly leaf black tomatoes in Australia

This summer I grew a woolly leaf tomato called 'Woolly Kate'.  It is unlike anything else I have grown.

Woolly Kate tomato is not an F1 hybrid, it is not GM, it is a stable variety that was conventionally bred, open pollinated, and is simple to save seed from each year to be able to grow it again in the future.

Woolly Kate carries the woolly allele that causes the leaves, stems, and fruits to be covered in fuzz.  It also has black/blue fruit wherever the sun hits it and is yellow underneath and yellow anywhere the sun does not hit.

This is an indeterminate tomato plant, and it appears to be dwarf.  I like dwarf indeterminate tomatoes.  They have all the benefits of indeterminate tomatoes while staying relatively small.

All in all Woolly Kate tomato has a lot of interesting genes!

Woolly Kate tomato - black where the sun hits the fruit and yellow underneath

Woolly Kate tomato - look how black they get in full sun

Some of the tomatoes, like the one above are almost all black because they received a lot of sunlight.  Some, like the one below had more shade and are mostly yellow with only a little black.

Most of the high anthocyanin tomatoes are red underneath, meaning that they look incredible when not ripe but as they ripen the red starts to show through and they don't look as amazing.  Woolly Kate is yellow instead of red, meaning that when it is ripe it still looks pretty amazing ad the colours are intense.

Anthocyanin is a dark antioxidant, it is the same one that is found in blueberries.  As Woolly Kate is high in anthocyanin it is very healthy for you.

Woolly Kate - you can see where this one was shaded

I think that the most interesting trait of Woolly Kate is its woolly foliage.  The leaves and stems are covered in fine white hairs.

In the right light the plant shimmers and shines.  The leaves look amazing, and they feel incredibly soft.  When walking past I can't help but to touch these soft leaves.  My kids also can't help but to touch the soft leaves.

Woolly tomato leaves look incredible

The hairs can be rather dense, sometimes they look like they are covered in thick frost, other times they look like they are covered in soft down.

I am not sure if this fuzzy foliage would cause increased issues with tiny insects or if it would deter them, I don't really have problems with mites here so can't really comment either way.

I am told that the hairs reflect the heat and help this plant to be more water wise and to cope better in extreme heat.  To be completely honest I am not sure if this is true or not.  What I do know is that this summer when many of my plants failed in the heat/dry/smoke Woolly Kate powered through and fruited well.

I am also told that the hairs can help protect against mild frosts.  I highly doubt this claim but we will see what happens as winter approaches.

The stems and leaves are quite fuzzy

Another interesting feature of Woolly Kate tomatoes is the colour of the fruit.  They start out green, then they turn dark blue black where ever the sun hits them.  Eventually you have a shimmering white plant with black orbs hanging from it, which looks incredible.

Eventually the green parts of the fruit ripen and turn yellow.  I have never seen anything like it.  This tomato has been a real conversation starter with everyone who has seen it in my garden.

The fruit is black or blue where the sun hits them

Woolly Kate unripe fruits getting dark in the sun

The leaves are very fluffy

They turn black where sunlight hits them

Unripe fruit

The leaves are very fluffy

The fruit of Woolly Kate tastes good.  They are nicely sweet and sour, and when eaten raw I think they are improved by a little salt.  The fruit are small, but not too small to cut of and use on sandwiches.  I have not tried to cook with them or sundry them so don't know how they perform.

At first I was not sure if fuzzy tomatoes would be nice to eat raw.  Even though the fruits of Woolly Kate are fuzzy it isn't bad.  It is a soft fuzz, similar to a peach, and doesn't feel bad in your mouth. 

The fruit is covered in soft peach like fuzz

The down side to woolly kate is that the fruits haven't produced many seeds for me.  I am not sure if this is characteristic of this variety, or if the extreme conditions this year caused low seed set.

I hope to have some extra seed and be able to offer it for sale.  When this happens they will be listed on my for sale page.  Like all of my tomatoes and other vegetables, I grow them completely organically.

Mongolian Blue Chives - Allium nutans

Recently I obtained a tiny plant of Allium nutans. These plants have several common names including "blue chives", "Siberian chives", "Mongolian blue chives", etc.

Apparently these perennial onions grow wild in Siberia, Mongolia, parts of China, and several surrounding places where they are collected and used as food. They are said to be extremely hardy and easy to grow. For some reason Mongolian blue chives are rare in Australia and very few people have even heard of them. 

Blue chives are an edible plant that have flat leaves which look similar to garlic chives (Allium tuberosum) except blue chives are more of a blue green. This perennial onion tastes much like regular onion chives (Allium schoenoprasum) and can be used as a substitute for onion chives. The flowers are meant to be edible but I haven’t tried them so can’t comment.

Mongolian Blue Chives

Various different forms of blue chives exist, some are meant to be better than others, the one I have is an unnamed variety that seems pretty good so far. I don't think any of the named forms are grown in Australia, finding this species at all was very difficult as it is so rarely grown here.

Several interspecific hybrids with Allium nutans also exist, some have large flat leaves and others having interesting flowers, I am not sure if any hybrids are in Australia at the moment. 

Blue chives divide into several plants throughout their growing season, these can be separated and planted out or allowed to naturalise and form a clump. Mine sare yet to flower, the flowers I have seen on the internet are very pretty and are said to attract insect pollinators.

Apparently blue chives set viable seed easily and I am told they are simple to grow from seed. Nowhere seems to sell seed but I am not sure of the reason behind this. Once my plants flower I plan to grow out as many seeds as it produces so I can build up its numbers.

Blue chives

While several interspecific hybrids currently exist, I have no idea how difficult blue chives would be to cross with other allium species. I would love to try hybridising this in the future, but may never get around to it for a number of reasons. 

Much like all my perennial onions, I grow blue chives organically and don’t have any issues with pests or diseases. I imagine there are probably a few things that could kill them but I am lucky enough that they are not in my garden. 

Like most other vegetables I grow them in full sun, and I water them often if I can.  I ran out of water over summer and didn't water them very much.  So far they have coped really well with frosts as well as summer heat.

If you want to grow a unique perennial vegetable that looks like garlic chives, tastes like onion chives, and no one else is growing, then blue chives are for you.

Mine have divided a little since the above pictures, but I still don't have very many of them.  When I have built up their numbers and have a few plants to spare, or if my plants produce seed and I have some extra, I will list them on my for sale page.