Variegated 'snow queen' pothos

I like pothos (Epipremnum aureum), it is an ornamental climbing plant that survives through a lot of hostile conditions.  They are ornamental but they don't produce showy flowers, and they are not edible.  I used to have one growing  near me in office work back before they got rid of all the plants.  I really miss having office plants. 

I have read on monster fish keeping forums how some people use pothos to lower nitrates in fish tanks.  Their results are nothing short of remarkable.  I have also read a NASA experiment (and things written by people who greatly misunderstand that experiment and have misinterpreted its results) about pothos and purifying the air. 

I have seen snow queen pothos for sale online and really can't justify the money to buy one.  A while ago I found a small variegated pothos plant for sale in a shop that really isn't known for selling live plants.  It was a fraction of the prices I have seen online and I think it is 'snow queen' pothos.  It was a little banged up, but I figured it would come good in time.

Pothos plant not long after I got it

Over the next few months my plant declined badly.  It died back, leaves rotted, and died back some more.  

Eventually my little pothos plant was nothing but one sick looking leaf and a nub of a plant that was starting to turn to mush.  

I was worried that I would lose this one and repotted the plant.  It was originally potted in what looked like cocopeat.  I even went so far as to wash what was left of the roots before planting in soil.

Presumably my pothos did not like cocopeat because after repotting into soil it picked up, survived, and has grown slowly since then.  

My plant is healthy and strong now.

Pothos plant - looks fake but is real

I like the variegation in this plant, I particularly like how white the white is and how it has different shades of green.  The white is very white, which I quite like.  Some leaves can be almost entirely white while others can be mostly green.

Snow Queen pothos looks great, but for me is a relatively slow grower.  While it looks amazing I won't be able to use it in aquaponics as I don't think it will grow fast enough to make any difference to the water quality.

I grow this pothos in the bathroom, it gets indirect light

I recently got a cutting from an all green variety of pothos, it has larger leaves and a lot more area to photosynthesize so should be much faster growing.  

It hasn't started growing roots yet, but it should grow them in time.  All green plants tend to be a lot faster growing than variegated plants, so the all green pothos should be better to use in the filter of fish tanks to lower nitrates.  

Green pothos cutting

I hope my pothos cutting goes well, I only have the one so all my eggs are in one basket.  I am keeping it in water for now, once the little root shows any sign of growth I plan to plant this in a pot of soil.  Or maybe I will plant it in a pot of soil next weekend.

One day I would like to also get marble queen pothos, I think they look amazing.  I really can't justify the price of buying one as they are surprisingly expensive here, so will have to keep an eye out and see if anyone is willing to trade a cutting, or maybe I will be lucky enough to find a plant somewhere and be able to take a cutting for free.

Dwarf Snake Bean

I have grown snake beans (Vigna unguiculata subsp. sesquipedalis) in the past, green and red, but never a dwarf snake bean.  I had considered growing a dwarf variety, but had not bought any seeds.  It is difficult to justify the cost when I didn't need them.  Then someone kindly gave me some seeds of a dwarf snake bean.

These dwarf snake beans produced compact plants up to around a foot tall, each growing numerous long red bean pods.  I didn't get around to taking any photos until the pods were a little old.  

The pods didn't get quite as long as the snake beans I used to grow, but smaller plants were easier to fit into tight spaces, were a lot simpler to manage, and produced a really large crop.

I think the colour of the pods is pretty impressive, the yield was great, the flowers were pretty, and the plants did not take up much space.  

I saved plenty of seed and plan to grow these again.

I like the looks of these

Dwarf snake beans

Dwarf snake beans

Young snake beans are dark purple

Snake bean flowers

Breeding Better Tomatoes

I have been breeding tomatoes for a number of years, far more than I care to admit.  

I have a bunch of different breeding lines, each with a different end goal in mind, as well as a bunch of stable varieties that I have developed.  Some are named, some are not, some are better than others.  

If you read this blog you probably do a little backyard vegetable breeding, so you know what it is like.

Black on yellow skin, green flesh

I have been working with one line of tomatoes for a number of years now, and I think it is pretty close to a perfect salad tomato.  

It has all the traits I was after with these, and after the number of years I have been working on them I think they are stable enough for me to name them.  

These are probably the darkest true black tomatoes that you will ever see

They are a high anthocyanin line, meaning they are high in the same powerful antioxidant as blueberries and turn black where the sun hits them.  They carry more of this antioxidant than most other black tomatoes as they are intensely black.

The unripe fruit are purple like an eggplant, while the ripe fruit is incredibly black, which makes this variety ornamental as well as being productive and delicious. 

They are yellow underneath the black so you can easily tell when they are ripe without having to squeeze them.  They have green flesh, with an incredible taste.  They taste great raw in salads or on a sandwich, and are good cooked and in sauces.  

The fruit are round and smallish, but not too small to be useful on a sandwich.  They are very productive, and so far (heat, drought, smoke, and a mild wet summer) have not failed to crop well for me.

They are indeterminate and produce large crops from early in the season until killed by frosts.  They have regular leaf and in my garden do not appear overly bothered by any pest or disease.  The seeds are large enough that they have good germination, meaning seed saving is simple.

Black and yellow skin, green delicious flesh when ripe

I had a few lines and I was unsure which to continue with.  One tasted by far the best, but had green skin under the black so was difficult to see when it was ripe.  Another didn't taste quite as good, but had yellow skin under the black so was easier to see when it was ripe.  

Antioxidant rich and bursting with flavour

This variety has the best of both worlds.  It has the incredible taste that appears to be linked with green flesh, and has the yellow skin making it easier to see when it is ripe.  Where the sun hits the fruit it is darker black than any black tomato I have ever seen.

The richness of the black colour is incredible, only a few years ago this colour was unthinkable and all 'black' tomatoes were a muddy brown.  

Being so dark indicates incredibly concentrated anthocyanins.  Any part that is not hit by sunlight means you can tattoo them using stickers, much like what I did to my apples in the photo below.

Words and pictures can be stenciled onto apples using sunlight

these tomatoes are an incredible colour

Simple to tell when fruit is ripe

I have given these to a few people for a taste test, along with tomatoes from a dozen or so other varieties.  So far this has consistently been the favourite tasting larger fruiting tomato.  

I say they are consistently the favourite 'larger fruiting' tomato because so far everyone says that Verde Claro is their overall favourite tasting tomato.  Verde claro is a green when ripe cherry tomato, and has different uses to a slicing tomato, so you are not really comparing the same thing. 

Unripe tomatoes are purple like an eggplant

More unripe fruit

Tomato only turns black where hit by the sun

I am not good at naming things, but once they are named I will probably list seeds on my for sale page.  

While I am not certified organic (and have no interest in paying for certification) I have grown them organically since I started to breed them, and have selected for all the qualities that make them suited to backyard growing and delicious taste.

Rice Paddy Herb - Rau Om

I heard about rice paddy herb, aka Rau Om, years ago, and have wanted to try it ever since.  Rice Paddy Herb (Limnophila aromatica) is a perennial edible plant that is said to taste/smell like citrus and cumin.  Other places say it is similar to coriander seed.  Other places describe it as being  spicy, lively and reminiscent of citrus or curry.  Sounds intriguing.

Everyone says the best way to grow it is to get a bunch of rice paddy herb from the grocers and grow a cutting from there, unfortunately I have never seen rice paddy herb anywhere.  Very few online places sell live plants, and when you factor in postage, unless you also get other plants from there, it puts the price out of reach.  So it has taken me a few years to actually get one.

I recently got some rice paddy herb (and some other nice edible plants) from Midsummer Herbs, and was very impressed.  Firstly, there were several plants in my package, all were healthy and strong, and they were packaged well for postage.  

Secondly, and far more importantly, was the smell and taste of this plant.  Rice paddy herb really does smell spicy and lively like citrus and cumin, but far better.  This plant has already exceeded my expectations.  It smells incredible.

Rice paddy herb is commonly grown in Vietnam and other wet tropical places, it loves water and can be found in rice paddies or roadside ditches with water.  Some people grow this submerged in an aquarium as an ornamental plant.  For some inexplicable reason it is not commonly grown in Australia.  

Rice paddy herb loves water, humidity, and heat.  Apparently it can be difficult to grow in temperate areas.  Which makes me wonder why I got this plant going into winter instead of waiting until spring...hmmm...

Most references to over wintering this plant speak of wrapping the plant, pot and all, in a plastic bag.  This is meant to increase humidity and help reduce the severity of temperature swings. 

As Christina from Midsummer Herbs gave me several plants I am able to try growing it in a few different ways and hopefully at least one makes it through winter.

I have a cutting sitting in some water on the window sill.  I should probably take that to work and keep it on my desk as it is usually pretty warm in the office and it can get cold in my house over night.

Rice Paddy Herb

I have some rice paddy herb planted in pots, under the shelter of the north facing verandah, next to a brick wall.  They won't get any frost there, hopefully the brick wall helps keep them a little warmer.  They will get some direct sunlight first thing in the morning, as well as bright indirect sunlight during the day.  

I covered one in a plastic bottle with the bottom cut off, and the other with a plastic bag.  I plan to keep an eye on them and move them if they appear to be declining too badly.

Rice paddy herb with plastic bag covering it

Rice Paddy Herb with a plastic bottle for protection

I have grown some tropical plants over winter and had great success as long as there is no frost or ice on them.  I have tried to grow other species and they died quickly as soon as the temperature got too low even without frost or ice.  

I have no idea how rice paddy herb will cope over winter, so I am also growing a plant in a small pot on the kitchen window sill where it will be  a bit warmer over winter.  I have grown micro tomatoes there over winter, so there is a chance my rice paddy herb should be ok.  This pot is also sitting in water, and has a plastic bag over it to increase humidity.  I do fear that being close to the window may be too cold at night, or it may experience temperature swings that are too large for it to cope with.

Rice Paddy Herb on kitchen window sill

As well as these I also put two very small plants in a floating pot of herbs in my goldfish aquaponics barrel.  I have lower hopes of this surviving as it will likely get too cold out there, but it may be ok.  You need to look closely, one can be seen in the bottom left of the picture below.

Rice Paddy Herb in aquaponics - you need to look closely to see it

There is a chance that my rice paddy herb will survive in the aquaponics because the other plants may provide a microclimate to shelter them from the cold, the large volume of water should retain some heat, and the barrel is under the eves of the house next to a brick wall, so the whole thing may be able to retain enough heat for it to survive.  We have already had a couple of nights where the temperature has dropped below -6C and so far everything looks ok, but we will see what happens once this happens regularly over winter.

I think over summer when the weather is warm that growing rice paddy herb in aquaponics may be the way to go in my climate as it gets hot and dry here.  In aquaponics rice paddy herb would have unlimited water, constant humidity, and access to a stream of nutrients from the fish waste.  

If things go too poorly for all my plants I have a heat mat in the garage that I use to germinate seeds, I could move one or two plants onto this heat mat and put it under lights.  Hopefully I notice in time and am able to save this little plant.  I haven't started them on the heat mat because they may do just fine where I have them.

Hopefully at least one of my plants survives and I can give this a go over summer.  If not, given how much I like the smell and taste of this herb, I think I will have to try and buy another one.

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Update after one month:

Almost the opposite of what I had expected.  

The aquaponics one lost a few leaves from frost, but generally looks good.  It may still die once we get a lot more frosts, or it may power through.  I really think that once the weather warms aquaponics will be a good place to grow rice paddy herb.

The two growing outside near the brick wall both got a little cold damage, but also look like they should survive.

The one in a pot on the kitchen window sill is doing very poorly.  It has suffered a lot and has died back somewhat.  I moved it to another room as I thought being near a window the temperature swings may be too much, but it kept going down hill.  I have just moved it into the garage on a heat mat and will see how that goes.  Hopefully some bottom heat should help it pick up and get through the colder months.

The cutting I took and put in a glass of water is doing poorly.  I moved it to the heat mat too.  Hopefully a little heat should help it grow some roots.

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Update after two and a half months

The aquaponics rice paddy herb had some damage from frosts, but is still alive.  If it survives until spring I have a feeling it will do well in my little barrel.

The two outside near the brick wall are alive.  They both were damaged from cold.  Hopefully they survive.

The one that was in a pot on the kitchen window sill, then put on a heat mat, has died.  The cutting in water that I put on a hear mat also died.  This surprised me, I expected these to be the last ones alive if all else failed.

If all goes poorly I will have to buy another plant when the weather is warm because I really love rice paddy herb.  I think getting plants before winter was my downfall, and if I had established plants leading into winter that they may have fared a lot better.

African Violet

For years I have wanted an African Violet.  For some reason or another I have never bought one.  

Nowhere around here seems to sell them.  I thought about buying leaf cuttings, but only one place seems to sell them and they have minimum purchase numbers.  Also, I don't know how well I would go at growing them from a leaf cutting.

My daughter saw African violets on the internet and really wanted one.  Her birthday was coming up, so I looked on gumtree and found someone selling African violets locally.  

I went over to buy one and none of them were in bloom, most were very small plants.  I think this person had bought leaf cuttings and grew them out for sale.  

I still got one, but my daughter doesn't want a plant, she wants flowers.  I doubt this thing will be ready to flower for a long time, so rather than give it to my daughter ended up keeping it myself.  My daughter's birthday has been and gone, and the plant has not really grown, so I made the right choice not to give this to her.

Hopefully I can keep this African violet alive, and hopefully it flowers for me when it is large enough.  If it flowers maybe I can give it to my daughter then.

African violet in self watering pot

African Violet - too small to flower yet

I got this plant in May, as of January 6 it started flowering.  Which means it would not have made a good birthday present for a little girl, and I am glad I grew it out rather than giving it to my daughter.  

I'm not sure if I would call this 'light blue' but I still like it.

African Violet in bloom

Goldfish Barrelponics - mini aquaponics in a barrel

A few years ago I had a small aquarium that had no filter and was cleaned using aquaponics.  It was a tiny system with Endler's livebearers, and it worked incredibly well.  

I recently tried a tinier aquaponics in a jar, which failed miserably.  I have a few ideas which could possibly make it successful.  I need to write a post on that.  

I would love to try a larger aquaponics system with edible fish some day, but fish food is so expensive that I just can't see how it could ever be financially viable.  So for now I will focus on ornamental fish which I already have and am already buying food for them, rather than trying to grow and harvest edible fish.

I currently have a barrel full of goldfish.  I have only had them for a few months, but so far they are growing well and looking healthy.  I decided to make my barrel into a little barrel aquaponics system. 

Various herbs in a floating pot, growing well

 

Winter is coming, and I know some plants will only grow well over summer while others will do better over winter.  I only have room for one little floating pot at the moment so I decided to plant a mix of herbs and other edible things.  

I planted silverbeet, Vietnamese coriander, water celery, spearmint, and have recently added native river mint.

The native river mint has not been in long enough for me to comment on its growth.  It is growing larger and I have high hopes for it to perform well in here.

I had expected the silverbeet to perform the best out of all these plants in the cooler weather.  So far it has performed poorly, it is alive but not really growing and certainly not thriving.  I am not sure what the problem is, maybe it needs a larger pot volume for the roots, or maybe it just needs more time.  I don't think its roots have grown into the water yet.

Spear mint is a garden thug and loves damp places, so should perform well.  So far it has not fared too well, I think this is due to the cooler weather.  It is growing slowly, and is dropping leaves.  Mint tends to go partly dormant over winter here, so I am not expecting to see a lot of growth from it until things warm up a little.

Water celery has done well, it survives pretty much anything.  Hot, cold, wet, dry, blasting sun, part shade, it always survives.  I had a feeling it would do well in a floating pot, and it has.  Over winter it usually does not grow a lot.  It gets nice colours when the temperature drops.  So far it has done well and is getting larger.

The real stand out so far is the Vietnamese coriander.  This herb generally does not like cooler weather, but has grown like crazy since I put an unrooted cutting in this floating pot.  I suspect most of the roots in the water are from this plant.  Perhaps over winter it will die back somewhat, or maybe it will be protected enough to keep growing, time will tell.  I am confident it will survive and be one of the first to spring into growth when spring hits.  If it grows this well over autumn I can hardly wait to see what it can do over spring and summer!

The roots are growing longer, maybe I won't need a spawning mop in spring

Initially the fish were eating the plant roots as soon as they protruded from the pot.  Now the roots are growing faster than they are being eaten.  This is good as it means the plants have more access to nitrates etc in the water.  I took the above photo a week or two ago, the roots are probably triple that length now, which is a good sign.

I had planned on putting a spawning mop in the barrel in spring, if the roots grow long enough this may not be needed.  Time will tell, perhaps once the fish are larger and the weather is warmer they may devour the roots.

Very simple set up

The barrel only has a small air water interface, it is deep and holds a lot of water, and very little of the water is exposed to the air for gas exchange.  

I have a pot of plants floating on the surface which is reducing the surface area.  I also tend to have some azolla and duckweed on the surface, this is eaten by the fish but while it lasts it reduces the surface area even more.  

The fish are all using oxygen from the water, as are the plant roots, this combined with such a small surface area could be problematic.  I could try to grow some oxygenator plants in the water, but the goldfish eat them out too fast for them to make any noticeable difference to dissolved oxygen levels.

Goldfish are pretty hardy, and can gulp air if needed, but I like my fish.  If I don't want to be cruel to my little fish I needed to put in a pump to oxygenate the water.

I have a small solar pump which brings water from the bottom of the barrel to the surface where is gets oxygenated.  I was originally pumping it straight back into the barrel.  This was not oxygenating as well as I had hoped as it was just a continuous stream of water.  It was increasing the surface area and circulating the water, which is fine in cooler weather, but it needed something better if it is to work well on warmer days.

I then tried pumping the water through a small pot full of gravel, which was working much better.  This pot of gravel breaks up the stream of water and makes it splash and bubble into the barrel.  Much more oxygen plus the fish seem to enjoy swimming through the stream of splashing water.

water pumped through a tiny pot of gravel

azolla and duckweed are eaten by the fish

The little pot of gravel did a great job at breaking the flow of water, but did little for housing the nitrifying bacteria and improving water quality.  Now I have a milk bottle of gravel that I pump the water through.  

The milk bottle provides more gravel and housing sites for the good bacteria, and should slightly lower nitrates in the water column.  The water splashes out of the milk bottle and oxygenates the barrel water.  I haven't planted anything in it yet but it is large enough that I will be able to grow a few plants in there.

I have some wire on top of the barrel to prevent birds from stealing the fish.  At the moment I sit the milk bottle on top of that.  It is easy enough to lift this off whenever I want to feed the fish or whatever.  The fish are really interactive, so it is nice to lift off the wire and be able to see them better.

Milk bottle of gravel to be used as a small grow bed

The barrel full of fish

I know what you are thinking, and you are correct.  That tiny pot of herbs along with a milk bottle of gravel is not enough to clean an entire barrel's worth of water.  

At the moment the weather is cooling and the fish are not eating much, they not producing much waste, so the small floating pot of herbs along with the azolla and duckweed is going ok.  I am also doing small water changes each week, and putting the nutrient rich water on fruit trees and on the vegetable garden.  At this point in time this is keeping the nitrates low enough.

Hopefully my little fish all survive the winter.  Once the weather warms the fish will eat more, and grow more, and they will produce significantly more waste.  

I have plans for a small flood and drain grow bed to put on top of the barrel.  I plan to pump the water through the grow bed instead of the milk bottle of gravel.  I would love to grow some nutrient hungry vegetables up there including tomatoes and kangkong (I love kangkong).  I don't want to do that until after winter has ended.

Strawberry Raspberry hybrids - test results

I attempted to hybridise a strawberry with a raspberry, and I wrote numerous blog posts along the way documenting the progress. 

I produced a few F1 plants, and from them some F2 plants.  These plants displayed various morphological differences from both parent species.  The plants looked superficially similar to a strawberry, and a lot of aggressive people said this cross was impossible, so I could not be certain that they were true hybrids without getting them independently tested.  

The CSIRO offered to test some leaf samples for me to determine if they were hybrids.  Long story short, based on protein and peptide level evidence it appears that the F1 and F2 plants are intergeneric strawberry raspberry hybrids.  

No one has ever achieved this cross before.  This means my plants are the first ever documented intergeneric hybrids between strawberry (Fragaria sp) and raspberry (Rubus sp). 

The results can be seen below.  The set size represents the number of peptides detected from the samples (multiple peptides make a protein at the end).  The number on top of each column represents the peptides detected from each sample type.  You can see that the HF2 is completely different from each parent species and HF1. 

Strawberry Raspberry Hybrid - proteomics results

 The below chart represents the top 20 peptide functional classes associated with the four sample type.  These results also show the similarity and dissimilarity between the sample types based on their measured peptides.

My first F1 plants germinated in 2017 and the F2 in 2019.  It has been such a long process that I was starting to worry that I would never have these tested, or that the results would be inconclusive.  It is great to have such definitive results. 

My strawberry raspberry hybrids are vigorous and set a lot of fruit.  The taste of these strawberry x raspberry hybrids varies from plant to plant from sour to bland to really incredible.  

While there is a naming convention for binomial nomenclature, giving them a common name may be more difficult.  My daughter wants to call them "Stinkleberries".  I kind of love that name, but don't think people would want to eat them.

Below are some pictures of the leaf samples.  I have described many of the morphological differences in previous blog posts.

F1 above, strawberry and raspberry parents below

F1 above, strawberry parent below

F2 on left, F1 on right

Leaf samples that I sent

I'm not sure what to do from here.  These F1 and F2 plants could potentially be crossed with other species or other hybrids.  This holds a lot of potential for breeding new plants with increased disease resistance and/or novel tasting berries without using genetic engineering. 

It is amazing to think that this was thought to be impossible yet was achieved in my back yard, in my spare time, with no specialised equipment, and extremely limited access to germplasm.  Imagine what could be done if I had more time and money to invest in projects like this.  

If you want to help me in my plant breeding projects such as this feel free to buy something through my for sale page or even donate a few dollars to me through my PayPal.

Leaf insects

I bought my son some spiny leaf insects for Christmas.  They were rather small when we got them.  They have grown so much!

My son wants to hatch the eggs when the time comes.  We ended up getting three females and one male.  They are parthenocarpic so can produce viable eggs without a male, but having a male should make the offspring a little stronger and healthier. 

Female

Male

The female is fat and spiny

The male is smoother and skinnier

Female spiny leaf insect on the left, male on the right

They eat eucalyptus leaves, don't make much sound, and look pretty cool.  Other than that I don't have much to say about them.