Utricularia sandersonii - rabbit ear bladderwort

Years ago when I first started to grow carnivorous plants I heard about Utricularia, the bladderworts.  

Bladderworts are a genus of carnivorous plants that can be roughly broken into two groups, aquatic bladderworts (which live in water), and terrestrial bladderworts (which live on land).  There are also epiphytic ones, and semi aquatic ones that live in the riparian zone, some aquatic ones that are free floating, and other aquatic ones that need to be anchored to the sediment, but to keep thinks simple I try to think of two groups.

The traps of Utricularia are the most fascinating and complex of all carnivorous plants.  They are more intricate and faster moving than Venus Flytraps.  Ironically the traps are on their roots (technically stems) so you tend not to see them work or to be able to feed them easily as they are under the soil level.  You can watch the traps of the aquatic ones, and some of the larger trapped aquatic ones make a popping noise if you lift them out of water, but watching the traps of terrestrial ones is a little more difficult.  Terrestrial Utricularia also tend to have rather tiny traps, which makes them even harder to watch. 

When I first growing carnivorous plants I had a book on carnivorous plants with a description of Utricularia sandersonii accompanied by one out of focus photo.  The description said words to the effect of: "the simplest to grow and most beautiful of terrestrial Utricularia".  I had never grown any Utricularia at that time so the next time I was ordering carnivorous plants I included one of these.

Utricularia sandersonii typical flowers

My plant arrived in the post, and was a small 2cm cube of peatmoss with a few tiny green leaves.  I planted it and waited.  It didn't take too long before my little pot was brimming with flowers.  This truly was an easy to grow carnivorous plant, and it had unique little flowers that I liked.

I grew this for years, and loved it.  Now that I am growing more carnivorous plants again I looked around for anyone selling Utricularia sandersonii.  Strangely enough nowhere listed it for sale.  

I find this odd because this is incredibly simple to grow, it is not weedy, it flowers freely for most of the year, and it looks nice.

Small Utricularia sandersonii flowering

I kept looking and eventually found someone with a plant that was willing to send me a piece.  This person sent me a part that was already flowering.  Over the next few weeks it grew a few leaves and more and more flowers.

The white flowers have distinct 'rabbit ears', and my daughters say the flowers look a little like ballerinas or princess dresses.  I think this plant is lovely, and my daughters really love it.

Rabbit ear bladderwort growing near sundews

I find that Utricularia sandersonii does not like frost, nor does it like to freeze solid.  It is pretty hardy though, and tends to survive winters if given a little protection.

I grow them in either pure peatmoss, or peatmoss mixed with sand.  I grow them in a pot that is standing in a few cm of water.  I grow most of my carnivorous plants with the tray method like this, so I can either grow this in a pot with a larger species, or can grow it in a pot beside other carnivorous plants.  They like to be occasionally flooded, and seem to eat all kinds of tiny soil microbiota.

They seem to flower for most of the year, only having a break when it is really hot or really cold.  Most years they will flower continuously as long as they don't get too crowded.

As long as water is covering the drainage holes they seem to thrive.  I have also seen these grow happily in a mug or tea cup with no drainage holes.  They can look really pretty growing in the right mug.

I tend to give them dappled shade, but am told that they can withstand full sun.  I hope to divide my plant in spring and grow some in different locations to see what they can tolerate.  These are simple to divide, just pull off a little part, plant it, and it will grow.  I find they do best if they have roots, but if they do not have roots they still grow, it just takes them a little longer to get started.

These tend to spread underground and pop up new leaves here and there over their pot, as well as popping out of the drainage hole.  Once they fill a pot they don't flower too well, and it is time to divide the plant.  Simple.

Bladderwort still flowering

Dividing these is simple, either carefully dig out a part, or just tear a piece off, and plant it.  If you put a few small pieces in a pot they seem to grow larger pretty fast.  I don't know the best way to do this, but I just use tweezers.  Give them lots of water and they are good to go.

From what I have seen, this species does not set seed.  Or at least it does not set seed under my conditions.  Perhaps it needs certain temperature, or lighting, a certain pollinator, or even two clones to produce viable seed.  

It grows so simply that a lack of seed is not an issue.  Not producing seed may even be a good thing, as it prevents this species from being a weed throughout my carnivorous plant collection.

The leaves of this plant are small, green, and unimpressive.  Unless they are flowering they are really not much to look at.  Luckily they flower for most months of the year.

My plant is still small, but it is pumping out flowers.  Seeing a more mature clump in full bloom is really impressive.  I can hardly wait for my plant to fill out a bit more.

Utricularia sandersonii and sundews

To the best of my knowledge there are two clones in Australia.  The typical one which I have, and a 'blue' flowered clone.  

The 'blue' one looks much the same as the typical one, except the ears are shorter and the flower is wider.  The photos I have seen don't look all that blue.  I am told that the blue clone can be reluctant to flower under less than ideal conditions.  I have never grown it, or seen it in real life, so can't really comment.

My typical clone flowers like mad, and does not stop just because the conditions are less than ideal, so I am more than happy with it.  It slows down flowering over winter, but that is ok.  I am really glad that I was able to track down this species again.

My plant is still flowering in winter, and is slowly growing and filling out its pot.  In spring if I have any extra plant I will offer them through my for sale page.  They handle postage really well 'bare rooted' (with minimal peatmoss).  I may also be keen to swap for other carnivorous plants if you have anything that I am after. 

Black Nebula Purple Carrots

I have never been overly good at growing carrots (Daucus carota sativus).  For me they always take a long time to produce decent sized roots, they take up a lot of room for the small crop I normally get, and I am not all that fond of them.  I don't really like raw carrots, but I do like them roasted. 

Years ago I grew mixed colours of carrots.  I liked the yellow ones and found them to be sweeter than orange.  I found white to be bland.  There were some purple skinned ones with orange cores, they were a little more spicey and also quite nice.  

Black nebula carrots

Organic Black Nebula Carrots

I considered trying to breed carrots that were purple the whole way through.  I started this project but didn't make much headway due to competing priorities.

This year I grew "Black Nebula Carrots".  I had read about these and seen a few pictures, but nothing compared to what these beauties did in my garden.  These carrots were purple from the skin right to the core.  

These carrots are the darkest of the dark.  They are so dark I would almost call them black.  They really are incredible to see.

Black Nebula Carrot can have a slightly white core

Purple carrots staining the cutting board

The intense purple colour of black nebula carrots comes from anthocyanins.  Anthocyanins are powerful antioxidants that are found in things like blackberries and blueberries.  Given how dark these carrots are, they extremely rich in antioxidants and are incredibly healthy to eat, far healthier than regular orange carrots.  If you are growing food at home, you may as well grow something that is healthier than you can get from the markets!

All of the carrots I grew have some amount of white, I believe this is largely influenced by environmental factors.  Other than a small amount of white they have dark purple skin and flesh.  The leaves are green and usually have purple leaf stalks.

I found mine did not produce overly long roots, but that may have been the growing conditions.   I won't ever give them perfect growing conditions, so I assume this is how they will always grow for me.  The roots were fat at the top and got skinny pretty quickly lower down.  

The tap root had a lot of tiny side roots, making them appear a little hairy.  This 'hair' looked weird but came off easily just by washing the dirt off the main tap root.

Black carrots cut and ready for roasting

Organic black nebula carrots

I grow everything organically and found black nebula carrots grew easily with no real effort.  We had no pests or diseases in my little patch.  They grew like any other carrot, which I find to be a bit slow but really isn't too bad in the scheme of things.  They weren't overly fussed by much of anything.  

Some of my carrots got a bit dry over summer, then the rains came and made them split a little.  They didn't split too much, so it didn't bother me.  This happens with many crops and was not unexpected given the amount of rain we had.

These dark purple carrots are an heirloom variety that breed true to type, so buying seed once and then saving seed for future crops is the best way to grow them.  Carrots tend to produce enormous amounts of seed, and carrot tops can be replanted and allowed to flower, so it won't take long to select for the best performers in my garden.  The flowers were white and slightly purple, and fed a lot of beneficial insect pollinators.

Black nebula carrots are dark purple

Black Nebula carrots with potatoes

I am told that these have undertones of berry taste.  I can't taste berries at all.  I found them to taste like a mix of carrot and beetroot, I really liked it.  I don't like the taste of raw orange carrot, but I did like the taste of raw black nebula carrots.  Roasted they tasted like roast carrot mixed with roast beetroot.

When we cut the carrots they stained things with their incredible purple juice.  I am told that the juice can be used as a dye, and if you add some acidity that it will turn bright pink.  I will have to try this out one day and see for myself!

These carrots hold their intense colour when cooked.  We roasted the carrots, the roots turned an even darker black.  They looked burned to a crisp as they were coal black, yet they were tender and delicious.  They also stained potatoes that they were touching in the baking tray, making them interestingly purple too.  What fun!

I have seen pictures of carrot juice made from black nebula carrots, and I have seen pictures of carrot cakes made with them.  They look incredible.  I am not a fan of carrot juice but will have to try to make the carrot cake one day as it is crazy dark purple.

Black nebula carrots are the darkest

These black carrots are so high in antioxidants that my son ended up with black lips, teeth, and tongue, much like if he is eating mulberries.  I put them on a white plate which was also stained with a purple berry like stain, again much like mulberries.  Unlike a mulberry, the staining washed off easily.  

I am planting all of the tops from the better carrots in order to let them regrow a little and collect some seed from them.  While I don't expect them to grow another tap root, they can and should flowers and produce seed from a regrown carrot top.  I have planted them in my greenhouse to ensure purity of seed as I assume people in the area may also grow carrots and I do not want cross pollination.  

If I have some spare seed I plan to list it through my for sale page along with various other heirloom vegetable seeds, perennial vegetables, and interesting culinary herbs.  If you are interested please take a look.

Praying mantis

I like praying mantis, they are formidable predators killing and eating many pest insects in my vegetable garden.  They are also fascinating to watch.

I don't use any sprays, not even the certified organic ones, so I largely rely on predators to keep pest numbers low.  This is Integrated Pest Management, it is far safer than using certified organic poisons.

In autumn we saw a few different species of praying mantis.  Each species has a different preferred food, so I am happy to see their diversity as it means that more pests are being eaten.

Praying mantis eating a harlequin bug

A different species hatched on my deck.  There were a lot of baby mantids.  

Baby praying mantis 

Sadly they began to cannibalised each other, so we gently moved some to the garden where they would have shelter and be able to hunt for food. 

While autumn isn't really the time of year I would expect to see them hatch, I'm sure they know what they are doing.  Other than moving some off the deck into the garden I leave them to do their thing.

Hopefully some survive winter and help to keep pests under control in spring.

Blood Sorrel - Rumex sanguineus

I have grown garden sorrel (Rumex acetosa) for years. I originally had a variety that never flowered, which was pretty great as it always had a lot of leaves. After moving house too many times I lost it. I now have a few seed grown plants, they are all pretty productive.

Garden sorrel is a highly productive perennial leaf vegetable that takes next to no effort to grow. My kids like eating sorrel raw, we also add small leaves to dishes in small amounts instead of silverbeet or spinach. My chickens appreciate being fed sorrel when there are not many other options in the garden. Sorrel leaves are great in the compost, people refer to them as being good compost activators. What that means is these leaves have a lot of minerals that compost microbes need to eat. 

Sorrel is great, but it does not cope with storage or transport. This means you will never see sorrel for sale in the shops, and if you want to eat it you will need to grow it for yourself. This plant is very productive, it produces copious amounts of large leaves. Being a perennial vegetable means you plant once and harvest forever. I don’t find it to be invasive at all, and I dig and move clumps at any time of year as they are not finicky. I find my plants tend to divide a few times each year even under pretty hostile conditions. If I hack a piece of plant off and accidentally do not get any roots they still seem to survive for me, it just takes them a little longer to grow.

I have always considered also growing a related perennial vegetable known as blood sorrel, or red veined sorrel (Rumex sanguineus). This is a very similar plant in every way, except it has green leaves with strikingly red veining. 

 

Blood sorrel is so pretty that people grow this as an ornamental in garden borders.

My daughter holding blood sorrel leaves

I am interested in perennial vegetables, especially things that are low maintenance and highly productive, and I am fond of garden sorrel which is similar. I have also read papers on how blood sorrel is an underutilised food crop, and how it could be used in developing countries to enhance food security. Anything that is being researched as a low input highly productive food crop that may help enhance food security interests me. So I bought some seeds and gave this a try.

There appear to be people selling varieties called ‘raspberry dressing’ or ‘blood spinach’, but as far as I can determine these people are just growing unnamed seed grown plants and the fun names are referring to the species rather than an improved cultivar. There seems to be a little genetic diversity among my plants, and these are simple to propagate by division, meaning it should not be too difficult to breed an improved cultivar if wanted.

Each leaf looks different 

Blood sorrel is said to be very high in vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, potassium, and a few other vitamins and minerals. The leaves and roots have been used for centuries for various healing purposes. I don’t know how well they work, but I do know if someone get hurt by stinging nettle that I can rub and smush a leaf on the site and their pain goes almost immediately. It is easy for my kids, when they are in a panic from pain and blinded by excessive tears, to find this plant in the garden as it is so distinctive. As well as all of this, each leaf has truly beautiful markings.

Leaves with unique markings 

Like most vegetables blood sorrel grows well in full sun or a little shade. It is not bothered by my winters and frosts do not seem to be any issue. It gets a bit hot and dry over summer without any damage, above 40C and some leaves get burned, presumably too dry would also be a problem. I grow in poor soil, but it grows faster and leaves get larger in better soil. No pests or diseases appear to bother it, but poultry will eat it to the ground, and kids will graze on it every day until it is just a leafless stump.

Leaves can be eaten raw or cooked. Just like French sorrel there are numerous recipes that use this plant as the hero of the dish, as well as many that use this as a side dish. The colour is pretty amazing in a garden salad, people often pick the smaller leaves for this purpose so as not to diminish from how pretty it is. Like many other leaf vegetables it is high in oxalic acid, it is safe to eat but you probably don’t want a diet that consists solely of this.

Seedlings looking good 

Blood sorrel is a perennial vegetable that is just as edible and nutritious as garden sorrel, except the red colouration is a little healthier for you. The taste of blood sorrel seems pretty much the same as regular sorrel but less acidic. Young leaves are tender and mild in taste, as leaves grow larger they become more lemony.  I find garden sorrel to be a bit too sour, but blood sorrel is less sour.

I only have younger plants, so my blood sorrel has not grown as large as my several year old garden sorrel. I am told they will be much the same size, and should divide with much the same vigour. Even the shape of the leaves is pretty similar. 

My daughter sees hearts in the markings 

At this stage I have no idea if these two species can cross to produce intergeneric hybrid plants. If they can I assume they would display hybrid vigour and hope that the resultant plants would be massive. The flowers are a bit small and difficult to work with for a few reasons, and I am not sure how compatible these species are or if this cross is possible under any circumstances, so I may not ever get around to attempting to make this cross. If you have ever tried to make this cross or can send me a link of a peer reviewed paper where this has been attempted please let me know as I would love to learn more.

I have seen photos of people growing blood sorrel as an ornamental, and they do look incredible. I think growing a row of alternating green garden sorrel with green and intensely red blood sorrel would look amazing. Being so ornamental, if times get tough and you need to grow food from a survival garden I think most people would overlook these.

If you have a little extra space in your garden I think blood sorrel are well worth growing. They are nutritious, simple to grow, healthy to eat, possibly medicinal, and high yielding. If nothing else, they are very ornamental and would draw comments from visiting gardeners as they oooh and aaah over your amazingly ornamental vegetables.

Blood sorrel divides readily, and grows easily from seed.  If I have any extra plants I will list them on my for sale page along with other perennial vegetables and interesting edible plants/seeds.

Zea diploperennis cobs Australia

This past summer I grew a perennial corn.  This one is Zea diploperennis x Zea mays, I believe it has been back crossed and contains roughly 85% diploperennis genes.   

I am told that pure diploperennis flowers under certain light conditions that are difficult to achieve in my climate, and that this cross means that it should flower at roughly the same time as domestic corn.  I am also told that crossing pure diploperennis with domestic corn is difficult, whereas crossing diploperennis with a percentage of domestic genes is much simpler.

This should mean that it should be possible to cross it with domestic corn and produce a perennial popcorn, or introduce other genes it has for disease resistance or cold tolerance etc into domestic corn.

Zea diploperennis

I had plans of crossing this with the very colourful glass gem corn, and hopefully produce a perennial multicoloured popcorn.  Unfortunately that did not happen this year.

This year the weather was odd, and many things in my garden didn't flower until very late.  The ears are not as large as they normally would be, but they still produced some seed and gave me an idea of what this plant can do.

Most of the ears were only about an inch or two long, and produced ten or so seeds.  My plants were grown in small pots of poor soil so I think double to triple this would be possible, which is still very small compared to domestic corn!

Zea diploperennis cob size

Zea diploperennis

Zea diploperennis flowers like domestic corn and appears to produce tiny little corn cobs about an inch or so long.  These have a few (sometimes only one) husk leaves that are easily peeled back, much like domestic corn.  

Unlike domestic corn, Zea diploperennis cobs are made of kernels only.  There is no woody ring or pith underneath the kernels.  Which means once you remove the husk, everything else can be crumbled into seed which is pretty cool.

I have no idea about the genetics of Zea diploperennis other than it being diploid.  The colour of the kernels seems to show some variation from white to yellow to brown.  I only started with a very small number if seeds, yet they seem to display a lot of genetic variation.

The plants themselves tiller somewhat, they are meant to be more cold tolerant than domestic corn yet are still frost sensitive, so I planted them in pots and moved them into an unheated greenhouse for the winter.  I have a feeling that this tillering habit should make it possible to divide any surviving plants in spring and hopefully share them around.

I am trying to send some seed to other growers in Australia to ensure that this interesting germplasm is not lost if something happens to my plants.

Perennial corn cob size

While I would love to cross Zea diploperennis with domestic popcorn I may never be able to achieve this as my climate is all wrong for perennial corn.  Or I may be able to lift the plants and overwinter in a frost free position.  Or I may be able to cover with mulch to protect them from freeze injury.  I really have no idea.  

I don't know how well these plants will overwinter in my climate even in my greenhouse, but I hope that they survive and are able to be divided into more plants in spring.  I don't have any extra seed this year as I plan to send all of my spare seeds to other growers who I know in different climates.  Perhaps one of them will be in the right climate and breeding something a little more useful from this will be simple.

Zea diploperennis size

I am told that the seeds from this can be popped like popcorn, or can be ground into flour pretty easily.  I am told that it makes a decent corn porridge.  I haven't tried any of this yet as I have so few plants and so few seeds.  I have no idea what it tastes like, or what the 'mouth feel' is like, as I am yet to eat any.

Given how simple it is to remove the husk, It would be easy either to leave it as is to store, or crumble it into seed.  From there feeding it to animals would be a simple matter of just feeding it out.  

If I lived somewhere with warmer winters I would like to grow a patch of this to feed to poultry.  I think this would function mt would be much like wheat or oats, but would be perennial.  Each winter the tops could be cut down for straw, but it would never need replanting.  This has potential to be a really useful permaculture crop.  Hopefully someone in a warmer climate grows this and can comment rather than me hypothesizing about it.

At this stage I think that this is more of a novelty rather than a productive vegetable.  Given that it can cross with domestic corn it has potential to use as a parent and breed some interesting things from it.  If I do have spare plants, or extra seed at some stage, I plan to list it on my for sale page.  

My kids are stronger than you

I have always been skinny.  Sometimes I was skinny and strong, other times I was skinny fat.  Skinny fat sounds like an oxymoron, but it is a real thing.  Most people who put on weight gain subcutaneous fat, which is fat under the skin.  As this is very common in this society it is what we think of when we hear the term 'fat'.  'Skinny fat' is where I had little muscle and too much visceral fat - fat around my organs.  Skinny fat is far less common in our society of extravagant lavish excess.  

I am getting older, so any form of exercise is more difficult.  I also have a job, and have kids, so I have little time for exercise.  I've had a few accidents over the years and have been told by specialists that my body will degrade to the point where I will have to retire by the age of 50 due to pain.  Retiring early due to pain sounds like a dreadful existence, so I decided that I needed to do something about it.  

I figured getting strong should help slow this degradation, and getting strong while I am young(er) should be a whole lot easier than waiting until I am older and in more pain before trying to build strength.  Hopefully getting stronger now will help me stay more able for longer, there is only one way to find out, and that is by getting in and trying.  

A few years ago I started a form of strength training known as prochnost.  Prochnost is a Slavic word meaning something along the lines of strength, durability, toughness, stability, hardness, solidity etc.  It is pronounced proach-nests, and in Cyrillic is written прочность.  This type of training uses mostly body weight exercises, often training several muscle groups (or whole body) at the same time, and focusses on training for strength and ability rather than size.

Since beginning prochnost training a few years ago I have become vastly stronger, I am stronger now than I have been in the past decade, and am possibly almost as strong as I have ever been.  That's not too shabby considering my age and how little time I put into training.  I am also in less pain now than I was before prochnost training, so if nothing else it has been worth it to be in less pain.  

I have started a fitness blog to record my progress, as well as the progress of my kids.  I plan to keep this blog going, but they are about very different things so I figured they would be better as separate blogs.  If you are interested in having a look, the new blog can be found here:  https://skinny-fat-fitness.blogspot.com/  

I wanted to call the new blog Old Man Strength, but there is a company with that name, and that company does 'fitness' things very differently than I do, in some ways it is almost the opposite.  So I needed to think of another name.  I am skinny, I have been skinny fat, and the blog is about fitness.  Skinny fat people must train differently to achieve results, which is what the skinny-fat-fitness blog is about.

My kids also do a little prochnost training with me as they think it is fun, they are skinny and incredibly strong.  Body weight exercises are safer for kids to train rather than using free weights.  Some of these exercises also look rather impressive.  

When I take my kids for a walk they tend to do a little training, often young fit men see this, and give it a go themselves, and they usually fail.  There is something about watching a fit man in his mid 20's being out done by a ten year old that puts a smile on my face.

My twelve year old is stronger than you.

Bent arm planche

Elbow lever off a park bench

Elbow lever off a rock

My ten year old is stronger than you

Elbow lever off a bench

Playgrounds are great for strength training

It is simply incredible just how strong my kids are.  They are stronger and more capable than most adults in this country.  The best part of this is my kids assume that everyone can do this.

To be very clear, this isn't about losing weight, or bulking up to look pretty, or competing against someone else -  for my kids all of this is for fun.  This is not serious training, if they want to stop and go play then that's fine.  They stop and go play something else.  If they want to come join me train then that's fine too.  I want strength training to be fun for my kids.

Being fit and strong have been normalised for my kids as they don't know any other way.  As they grow older they will think that being healthy is normal, and for them being unhealthy will be abnormal.  My kids have eaten a wide range of healthy foods over their entire lives.  That is a great start to life!

So far the skinny fat fitness blog is still new and only has half a dozen or so posts, but I am adding to it and it is growing over time.  If you are interested you should have a look.  Perhaps it will inspire you to do a personal 30 day exercise challenge, or train to do the human flag, or even aim to do 1,000 push ups per day for an entire week.  

Growing Sarracenia from seed

Growing Sarracenia pitcher plants from seed is a little more difficult than growing something like a tomato from seed.  Sarracenia seeds need to be cold wet stratified prior to germination.  It also takes time to get a good looking plant. 

Below are some examples of Sarracenia that I have grown from seed.  They don't have perfect conditions, and could almost certainly grow faster than this, but it is how they grow for me in my yard so may give people an idea of what to expect if they try to grow pitcher plants from seed. 

Sarracenia rosea

Sarracenia rosea are truly an amazing pitcher plant.  Fat pitchers, curly lids, burgundy coloration, faint veining, and is low growing.  Flowers are pink in color, look like an upside down umbrella, and bloom in late spring.  A real show stopper.  It takes about three or four years to get a flowering plant from seed.

The first year seedlings are down below, they are tiny.  If I grow them cramped together like this or if I divide them into individual pots they always seem to stay this size in their first year.  While they are clearly pitcher plants, they look little like their adult form.

The plants directly below are in their second year.  They will likely be large enough to flower in their third of fourth year.  They have genetic diversity, some produce fat pitchers, while others produce skinny pitchers.  

Sarracenia rosea second year plants

Unfortunately a caterpillar got in and ate the plant with the fat pitchers, but the plant will survive this and grow larger.

The colours of the pitchers are lovely.  They range from light pink in low light, to dark red in higher light.  

These are very cold hardy so have no issues with the winters here.

First year the seedlings look like pitcher plants, but don't look like rosea.  To be honest, I don't know if I could tell them apart from seedlings of any of the taller sarracenia species.

Believe it or not, these are first year plants of Sarracenia rosea

Sarracenia flava

Sarracenia flava, also known as the 'yellow pitcher plant' produce lovely tall pitchers.  Most of the seeds were lost in a storm last year.  This year I have plenty of first year seedlings.

You can see the plant below is dark part way up the pitchers, this is from all the tiny insects it is trapping.  These are insect killing machines!  

This is a second year plant, It grew larger over summer than it is in this photo and will likely be large enough to flower in its third or fourth year.

Sarracenia flava second year plant

The first year plants are below.  These look a little more like the parent plant.  It's difficult to tell the difference between species at this size so I make sure they are labelled.

Once again I don't find that keeping them crowded in their first year stunts their growth.  The plant above was in its own pot in its first year and looked much the same as the plants below.

Sarracenia flava first year plants in the foreground

If you plan to grow Sarracenia from seed, keep in mind that it does take some time before you get a decent sized plant.  This is largely why they are often more expensive than sundews which can grow from a seed to flowering size within a year.

I sell some different types of carnivorous plants though my for sale page.  I don't currently sell pitcher plant seeds, but may do so in the future.  I do sell sundew seeds of some of the easier to grow species.  If you are interested they are listed on my for sale page.

Growing ferns from spores at home

Years ago, back when I was in high school, I used to grow ferns from spores.  I am not really sure what varieties I grew as most I collected the spores from the bush when I was out collecting fire wood and grew them in my house as houseplants. 

Back then I found growing ferns from spores easy.  They just worked.  I think I accidentally stumbled on their preferred conditions back then.  

Bird nest fern sori contains millions of spores

Since then I have tried to grow fern spores a few times with mixed results.  Mostly I ran into issues either with spores never germinating, or contaminants overgrowing and killing the prothallus.

This year I am trying to grow ferns from spores again.  I have bird nest fern, maidenhair fern, and variegated maidenhair fern spores that I have collected from my plants.  

When I get a chance I plan to collect some tree fern spores and maybe a few other types of ferns to give them a try too.  If anyone wants to send me some fern spores, particularly from a stag horn fern, I would love to try to grow them.

Variegated maidenhair fern sori containing spores

I collected my spores on different days to prevent accidental contamination with the wrong spores.  I left the spores in paper somewhere dry and safe for a week.  

During this time I got everything ready.  

I used glass jars.  Why jars you ask, it is because I have them.  Containers with larger opening would be easier to get the young ferns out of.  While glass jars are not ideal I didn't have anything else on hand.

I poured boiling water in the jars and closed the lids, then left the to cool.  The boiling water sterilised the jars, and may have been an unnecessary step.  Sterilising the jars before putting in anything else doesn't hurt, so that's what I do.

Jars with peat moss, perlite, and fern spores

 

Once cool, I tipped out the water from the jar, put in a layer of perlite, added some damp peatmoss on top, and tipped in more boiling water.  I put the lids on and left them to cool overnight.  The boiling water sterilised everything in the jars.  

The next day (or a few days) later when everything was cool I removed a lid from a jar, sprinkled fern spores over the peatmoss, and put the lid back on tightly.  Fern spores are tiny and dust like so you can't plant them like seeds, you have to sprinkle them carefully.  I did one type of spore per jar, and did different jars on different days to reduce the risk of the wrong type of spore from floating in.

Spores need light to germinate, but direct sunlight will kill them.  It also takes anywhere from a few weeks to a several months for them to germinate.  I placed the fern spore jars in my greenhouse on a low shelf where they would receive bright indirect light.  

The jars were placed in a plastic ice cream container that had a bit of water in the bottom.  This step wasn't really needed, but the temperatures in my greenhouse fluctuate too rapidly for my liking.  The jars are sealed so no water can get in or out, which means the only thing the water in the ice cream container did was to help the temperatures remain a bit more stable.  

From here it is just a waiting game.  

It can take weeks to months for fern spores to germinate, so each jar was labelled to help me remember what is in each one.  There should be enough free water in the jars for the spores to germinate and do their thing. 

I also tried growing fern spores just using damp potting mix.  That seemed to work well, but it did have a lot more issues with moss, fungi, and other contaminates as you can see below.

Fern prothallus 

Sending up the first fronds

I plan to grow them all where they are for now.  Over winter their growth will go pretty slow.  In spring I will try to divide the survivors into their own little pots.  

I want to keep some of the baby ferns, and give some as gifts, any extra ferns will be listed on my for sale page.