Fun with strawberry phyllody

My little boy Nanuq grew some strawberries.  At first they were normal strawberries, then they changed.  Just like Nanuq these strawberries are a little odd, kind of complicated, and more than a little bit crazy.   I think that they (both Nanuq and the strawberries) are a bit cute.

I like the look of these strawberries, they are all covered in tiny little bracts instead of tiny flowers and fruits (the part people refer to as seeds).  This condition is known as "phyllody".  I hope that they keep doing this.  We have taken the following pictures.

I am certainly no expert in strawberries so asked a few people who breed them.  I have tried to find out what has caused this and if it is a bad thing, there seem to be three different possibilities that have not been completely ruled out at this stage.

First is "green petal disease".  This is caused by a mycoplasma like organism (often confused with a virus) which is spread by leaf hoppers.  It is a disease which can infect clover.  It can cause phyllody to be expressed in the flowers/fruit.  If this is the cause then the plants should be removed and burned as they will not recover and may infect other plants.  I certainly don't want to infect other plants as I like to eat regular strawberries.  I doubt green petal disease is the cause as the petals are white and it is not showing some of the other symptoms.

The second is a genetic weakness.  This is often seen in varieties such as "malwina" or in some varieties when the runners have been cold stored.  From what I have read they sometimes recover, sometimes don't.  There is a variety of strawberry called the "plymouth strawberry" which showed this trait many years ago and has never recovered.  It only reproduces via runners as it can produce no seeds as it forms no true flowers.  There is a chance that this is part of the cause even though I don't believe that phyllody has been observed in this particular variety before.

The third possibility is the weather.  The plants grew through the hottest and longest summer I have ever experienced, somehow missed out on Autumn, and are now in a weird winter with mostly warm/hot days and cool/cold nights.  If this is the case the plants should recover and produce normal strawberries.

My best guess is a combination of the last two, weird weather combined with a genetic weakness.  If this is the case then we may see some normal strawberries soon or it may keep doing this. I kind of hope they continue to make these crazy strawberries but do not infect any other strawberry plants.  If this is the case then I will try to distribute the plants to interested people.

I do sell some heirloom and perennial vegetables as well as herbs on my for sale page, at this stage I do not sell strawberries but may do so in the future.

Duck potato or arrowhead

I became interested in aquatic vegetables when watering plants in the morning and afternoon over summer was not enough.  The soil gets so dry here that no amount of water seems to be enough.

Planting in pots and sitting the pot in water works, but growing in the soil is difficult as the water gets sucked away from the plants into the subsoil.  Deep rooted plants such as comfrey are meant to be drought proof but they do poorly here as most of the soil moisture is in the upper layers of the soil and deep down is very dry. That is kind of the opposite of how things should be, but the climate here is semi-arid so all the rules are different.

Aquaponics sounds like a good idea, my small scale proof of concept tanks both work rather well, but the set up costs for a proper system are prohibitive.  Growing things in a bucket of soil covered in water sounded like a feasible idea so I decided to try some aquatic vegetables.  I have tried a few water vegetables and they have all worked well.

One of the best things about duck potatoes is that they look amazing.  They have cool leaves with arrow shapes.  People grow them on the edges of ponds purely for ornamental purposes.  I wish I had taken pictures of the leaves.  Next year hopefully I will remember to take more pictures while they are growing.

Duck potato tuber straight out of the mud, they are good looking little guys

How I heard of duck potatoes

I first heard of something similar to these when I was in the Arctic.  I stayed in a small village and the elders spoke of a water vegetable they traditionally used to eat but the young people have all but forgotten about, the english name was "Eskimo potato".  They said it grew in the mud under the water in a certain place, they described it to me and I did my best to understand.  As they did not speak much english and I did not understand much Inuktitut we did our best.

The next day I went out to the spot that was described to me.  It was a spot that was reputedly good fishing but some people said to never go to as large bears live there and they would kill and eat me.  I had a few close calls with angry bears earlier so knew they were not telling tall tales.  I went out and was followed by one of the town dogs who decided to follow me and protect me, he had protected me from a bear before so I figured I would be safe enough.  When I got there I saw lots of bear prints and bear poo, some of the bear prints were huge so I knew that large bears were around.  I wore board shorts and waded into the frigid arctic water and started to dig in the mud for something which I hoped was the word for 'tuber' and not the word for 'musk rat' or anything else that would bite me.  After a short time I found what I hoped was the correct thing, it looked a bit small but it is the arctic after all, then I found hundreds more.  I dug them up and threw them to shore.  I had planned on getting more but was too cold so took what I had back to the village and dried off and got dressed.

I was told never to eat these raw and did not know how to cook them so I did not try any of them, instead I divided them up and distributed them to several houses of the elders.  I figured if I did this without telling anyone the next time I saw an elder they would smile at me, something they only did rarely with me and never to any other outsider that I had seen.  The next day I was given some baked tubers, they were delicious.  I collected these tubers several times, most times the dog followed me and made me feel safe.  Each time I divided them between the elders and occasionally they gave me some cooked ones in return.

I have been searching for these "Eskimo Potatoes' in Australia but can not find them, the nearest thing I can find are these duck potato. If eskimo potatoes exist in Australia I would love to grow them and eat them.

Duck potatoes growing in a bucket

How I grow duck potatoes or arrowhead in a bucket

I grew these duck potatoes in a similar way to water chestnuts.  I planted each duck potato at the beginning of spring about 5cm deep in a punnet of moist soil, it was no damper than any seed raising soil.  The plants then sprouted nicely.  When the plants grew a leaf I put the punnets in a container with some water, kind of like how you grow carnivorous plants.  The water level was kept below the tubers at this stage to prevent them from rotting.  When the plants were 10cm or more tall and the roots were coming out of the bottom of the punnet I planted each of them into a separate bucket where it would spend the season. 

The bucket had manure, clay and subsoil mixed into it and had been filled to 5cm from the rim.  This bucket had been filled with water for a few weeks so the nitrogen cycle could work its magic as fresh manure would burn and kill plants.  I had duckweed growing over the surface of the water.  From here I pretty much just kept the buckets topped up with water.

The little duck potatoes grew very well at the start, each getting several new leaves and looking great.  We had a few late frosts, the duck potato is meant to be ok with this but mine fared worse than the water chestnuts and had all of their leaves burned off, but they grew back.  They grew well until the heat of summer hit, so I moved the buckets into the shade of a tree and they picked up.  I let them grow there in the shade until winter came, doing nothing other than topping up the water when I was out watering the other vegetables.  It really was rather simple, there are no weed issues as the weeds can not survive being submerged all the time.

Duck potatoes growing in a 10L bucket with duckweed starting to cover the surface

The yield

Harvesting duck potatoes is simple.  The plants are allowed to grow Spring, Summer and Autumn, when the leaves die off they are ready to be harvested.  Growing in soft mud makes it simple enough to feel around and pull them out by hand.

The yield when grown in a pond or a bathtub is meant to be rather high.  I do not have a pond and wanted to know if I could grow them in a 10L bucket like I did with the water chestnuts.  I planted one tuber per bucket and the first bucket returned 17 tubers, most of which were edible sized.  There may well have been a few more large tubers in there too but my hands got too cold searching through the mud for them and the kids were bugging me so I stopped.  I could have tipped the bucket out and searched through which would have made things easier but I was trying not to lose all of the duckweed.  The other buckets yield should be about the same, if not I will try to write a comment or blog post about it.

Yield from one 10L bucket, there may have been more but my hands got too cold looking for them

Using a larger container would have provided a larger yield.  Having the water deeper would have also been better for them too.  I think ideally the water needs to be 15 to 30 cm deep as the leaves get kind of tall and use the water to help support their weight.  They are a beautiful looking plant, one that could easily be grown in an ornamental pond.


Where to buy duck potatoes or arrowhead in Australia

I plan to grow these again.  Being perennial all I have to do is keep a few tubers each year to keep my little population going.  Next time I may try to find a larger bucket to see if that helps increase yield as much as I think it will.  I may also try to put a few fish into the water and see how they go.  I do sometimes sell duck potato tubers on my for sale page.

Reisetomate tomatoes in Australia

A while ago I heard of an ancient Peruvian heirloom tomato that did not grow round or oblong like most tomatoes, but grew segments that one could separate like a mandarin or an orange.  This tomato could be eaten one segment at a time without the use for a knife.  This sounded intriguing, I wanted to see a tomato like this.

After some research I found that it was called "Reisetomate".  I saw some pictures of it and it did indeed have segments like an orange.  The fruit looked amazing but I was concerned it may be just a novelty tomato.  I have no time for novelty vegetables so I wanted to know more.

Reisetomate tomato with some segments removed

Apparently it is an incredibly rare and ancient heirloom variety.  This variety may actually predate the Spanish conquistadors going to South America.  There are unsubstantiated stories of this variety being used by the Incas when they were traveling and tearing off a segment at a time to eat.  The name Reisetomate is apparently German and means "traveler tomato" eluding to the fact that this variety is carried on trips to be eaten without the use of a knife.  I also hear that this is one of the varieties of tomato that the Amish grow, if this is true then this variety is a no-nonsense productive variety.  I became more curious and wanted to grow one.

I wanted to try this variety, but they are so rare that it is difficult to find anyone who has seeds.  Tomato seeds can not be imported into Australia without huge trouble and expense so I had to find somewhere local to purchase seed.  After searching I found only one place which had Reisetomate seeds for sale in Australia.  There were not even any dodgy ebay sellers which I had hoped to see as they can drive the price down a little.  The one company that sold them was demanding an outrageous price for a small number of seeds and was a company which I have had a lot of trouble with in the past.  I rarely buy seeds anymore so there is a chance that company has lifted its game.  I did not know if the risk was worth it and was about to give up on trying to grow Reisetomate tomatoes.  

Luckily a friend of mine kindly bought me the seeds as he knew how excited I was about this variety.  I waited for weeks and the seeds never arrived.  Several weeks later my friend contacted the company and they then sent out the seeds.  I planted some seeds and kept some in case things went wrong.  Tomatoes are simple to grow from cuttings so I figured planting a small number of seeds would be ok as I could still get a large number of plants by taking cuttings.

The plants were growing well and were about to flower, then the heat of summer hit.  The flowers are not like an ordinary tomato flower, they an odd and multiply fasciated flower, some with exposed stamens and pistils.  Like many heirloom tomatoes this variety will cross pollinate with other tomatoes.  Apparently this variety is notorious for cross pollinating with other tomatoes so I was careful to plant it in a separate vegetable garden to my yellow pear tomatoes.  This is one of the positives to having two vegetable gardens spaced so far apart.

Reisetomate flowers

The plants all flowered and grew well, but the temperature was too high and the flowers withered and died.  Apparently temperatures in the mid 40's denatures tomato pollen and prevents fruit set.  Cooler nights may have helped overcome this, but the nights don't always cool down out here over summer.

The plants grew about 5 or 6 feet tall and probably would have grown a lot taller if they had more water, protection from the heat, and better soil.  Many of the stems are covered in small roots searching for soil and anywhere the stems touched the ground they firmly rooted.  After a little over 9 weeks of daytime temps in the 40's the weather cooled down (to the high 30's) and the plants started setting a lot of fruit.  The tiny green fruits looked very odd, kind of like weird little green brains, and gave me a good idea of what the fruit would look like when it ripened.

Unripe Reisetomate tomatoes - very productive plants

More unripe Reisetomate tomatoes

When the first fruits began to ripen I was perplexed.  Each fruit is like a cluster of small tomatoes fused together with many odd lobes.  The first set had one or two lobes on each fruit that looked like it was rotten so I did not know what to do.  After picking them I found out that the rotten looking lobes had been infected by fruit fly.  It was simple to remove and discard the infected lobes, then the rest of the fruit was unharmed and fine to eat.  After the first few I got on top of the fruit fly and all of the tomatoes were fine after that.

Ripe Reisetomate tomatoes

These tomatoes have provided large yields, far larger than any other variety I have grown.  I can not imagine how productive they would be in a more mild climate.  I have read some seed sellers claim they produce 1.1kg per plant and others claim over 25kg per plant, mine produced somewhere in the middle.  They are the highest yielding variety of tomato I have ever grown.  Perhaps next year I will weigh all the fruit from one plant to find out for sure.  They seem to survive through some light frosts with no issues but I am guessing the heavy frosts will kill them.  I am told in climates without frost they can be a short lived perennial which survive and produce for half a dozen years.  I am also told that without frost the stems can get as thick as your wrist after a few years and can only be cut down with a chainsaw.  After growing these under difficult circumstances and seeing how strong and determined they are I believe this is entirely possible. 

Reisetomate tomato, simple to pull apart segments

After tasting these tomatoes I want to grow them each year from here on.  The taste is amazing, they are by far the best tasting tomato I have ever eaten.  They have a deep and strong taste, they are not sweet or insipid like some cherry tomatoes. Sometimes they can be a bit too sour, a little salt reduces that and brings out their full flavour.  I love their intensity, just thinking about it makes my mouth water... 

We use these tomatoes fresh pulled apart in segments.  I love them like this and it is my favourite way to eat them.  We also use them cooked in any dish that requires tomato, they seem well suited to this and bring a depth of flavour and complexity to a dish that many tomatoes lack.  We slice them for sandwiches and the like, they taste amazing but their odd shape makes them less than ideal for this purpose.  They can be pulled apart and put into salads like a cherry tomato.  Being so intense and full of flavour I assume that they would make a decent sauce or paste but I have not tried this myself so can't be certain.

The question I keep asking myself is why these are so rare.  Many things are rare because they are not worth having or are too new.  Reisetomate tomatoes are older than any other variety of domesticated tomato that I know of, they taste amazing, yield tremendously high, apparently have disease resistance (I do not have tomato diseases so can only go off what I have read), and look great.  I can only assume their rarity is due to being unfit for mechanical harvest.

These plants show a lot of diversity of their fruit.  On one branch of a plant you will have some fruit that split into perfect segments as well as some fruit which does not split as perfectly.  Apparently this is mostly due to growing conditions rather than genetics.  I only save seed from the plants which have most of its fruit which splits cleanly and evenly into segments, I only save seed from the best fruits from those plants, I figure this is worth doing even though I don't know how heritable this trait is.

I do sell Reisetomate tomato seeds, I have them listed on my for sale page.

Everlasting Onions

Everlasting onions (Allium cepa perutile) are a rare perennial onion which is extremely productive and undemanding.  They do not appear to suffer pests or diseases, frost does not bother them, and if it gets too hot and dry they die down to bulbs.  I do not know why but I do not know of anyone else who has everlasting onions for sale in Australia.  They are one of the easiest and most productive vegetables to grow, just like all perennial vegetables you plant once and harvest forever.

I first heard about everlasting onions from someone who lives overseas.  They told me how great they were and said that they were extremely rare for some reason.  Importing onion plants/bulbs is more trouble/expense than I can deal with.  Importing onion seed is less difficult but everlasting onions never really set seed so this was also out of the question.  I then started to search for them in Australia.  No one seemed to sell them, it took me years to track them down in Australia.  Eventually I found someone who sold me some small plants.  She had these plants for well over 30 years and said that they flowered each year but had never set seed.  This sounded right so was worth a try.

Everlasting onion bulbs sprouting - normally they are far larger than these

At first I was skeptical that I had in fact got the right thing.  They looked like any spring onion or young onion plant before it bulbs up, but the plants were extremely uniform in size.  I planted them somewhere safe and waited.  In a few weeks most had split in half so I dug them up and divided them.  A few weeks later the rest had split in half so I divided again.  In another month or so they all divided again at least once, some of them divided a few times.  By this stage they were no longer uniform in size and I grew tired of digging them up and dividing them.  I now had a few dozen plants and was convinced that they were better than regular spring onions. 

Once winter hit these plants were not at all bothered by frost.  The growth slowed somewhat but other than that they looked happy and continued to divide.  Spring was great, they grew faster, divided faster and began to flower.  The flowers did not look complete and they did not even try to set seed.  They looked like Allium cepa flowers rather than Allium fistulosum, so I was then convinced that they were not ordinary spring onions and were most likely true everlasting onions. 

When summer rolled around some kept growing but most I let dry down to see if they produced bulbs.  They ended up growing small purple bulbs, a bit larger than a french shallot.  Being new to everlasting onions I decided not to eat the bulbs, instead I replanted them.  Each bulb divided into a dozen or more plants when it resprouted!  Over the past few years I have let some die to bulbs each year, if they are crowded they produce small bulbs, if they are given space the bulbs are much larger.

How everlasting onions are used

Once you grow everlasting onions you will never need to buy spring onions or shallot bulbs ever again.

We eat the green tops year round in place of spring onions.  Unlike spring onions they never get too thick and fibrous.  I have some spring onions that I planted as seed when we moved here, they are large and thick and a bit too fibrous to eat.  I do not have the heart to kill them, but do not know how to make them small and delicate again.  Cutting them to the ground helps but it does not take them long to turn into monsters again.

If we keep watering the everlasting onions over summer they keep growing, if we don't water they die down to nice little bulbs.  The bulbs can be used as salad onions, they are good for this purpose.  The bulbs seem to store forever, I don't know how long but it is at least several months.  We have fried the onion bulbs, they are nice but become very crunchy.  I think they must be reasonably high in sugars as they caramelise rather quickly.  Everlasting onion bulbs can be used in any recipe that calls for onion bulbs or french shallots.

Everlasting onion bulbs - they can be larger or smaller than this

How to increase your stock

Everlasting onions know what they are doing as far as reproduction goes.  They split in half numerous times throughout the year.  If they are divided each division will also multiply.  Neither heat nor frost bothers them.  It does not take long for a few to become a decent patch.  Like any other onion, if you plan to eat the bulb you do not have to kill the plant.  If you cut off the roots with a few mm of the base of the bulb this can be sprouted and replanted.  I have only done this once as I now have enough plants that they quickly replace any that we eat.

Everlasting onions are hardy, I planted one under a tree when I got them.  I do not water or weed this one after it was established, I had actually forgotten all about it.  This summer it was so hot and dry that we had no grass and I saw that it has divided into a substantial clump and is still hanging in there.  They are not as large or numerous as the ones that are well watered and weeded, but they are surviving and reproducing.  Planting an extra plant in an out of the way like this is a great way to increase your stock as you tend to forget about them for a while and when you find them again they tend to be rather numerous and in need of digging up and dividing.

The lady who I got the everlasting onions from had them flower each year for 30 odd years and had never seen any seed produced ever, the first few years I had similar results.  This year after they flowered I had a small number of seeds produced.  From several hundred flower heads I ended up with about 30 seeds.  I planted some of them and have a few seedlings appear.  I have no idea what they will turn into, perhaps exactly like their parent or perhaps something entirely different.

I have heard of someone who grew potato onion seeds and ending up with something very similar to my everlasting onions.  That makes me wonder if everlasting onions are another type of potato onion that was seed grown many years ago.  If so the results from the seed grown plants should be extremely interesting.

Where to find everlasting onions in Australia

To the best of my knowledge no one else is selling these other than me.  I am happy to be wrong on this as they are a great vegetable and more people should grow them.  I have everlasting onions for sale all year, they are listed on my for sale page along with some other perennial vegetables and heirloom vegetable seeds.

Chinese water chestnut yield

It is about time to harvest the water chestnuts.  This year I grew them in small 10 litre buckets, it was very cheap, simple and took up very little space.  This method could even be used on a balcony as it is not only productive but if you used nice looking buckets it looks good too.  I have put details of how I grew them here.

The buckets were cheap and easy to find, I filled them with clay and manure from the property, so it was also very cost effective.  They required no weeding, no pruning, no maintenance at all other than the initial planting and then filling up the buckets with water when I was out watering the rest of the vegetables.

Water Chestnuts growing in a bucket

Water Chestnut yield

One bucket was ready so I pulled the plant out and broke open the root ball in search of water chestnut corms.  There were a lot of corms in that bucket ranging from tiny to medium in size, unfortunately none of them were very large.  Most were too small to bother peeling and eating but about a dozen were edible size.  A dozen edible corms return per corm planted is not too bad considering how simple this was.

I ended up with around 127 corms from that first bucket (plus a heap that were too small to bother counting but are probably just as viable), all together they weighed around 365 grams.  That bucket also produced a decent amount of straw which I can use as mulch somewhere in the vegetable garden.

The bucket had a lot of corms squashed against the side as the plant tried to reach new ground, these corms will all grow and are genetically identical to the rest of the corms in the bucket so they can be used to grow next season's crop.  They are not easy to peel as larger and rounder corms so will not be eaten by us.

I am guessing that the other buckets will yield roughly the same in terms of weight.  I have high hopes that one bucket in particular will have less corms, but they will mostly be larger corms.  That bucket was not started off with planting a corm like the others, instead I had a spare bucket of soil so I broke off a runner from one of the other plants and put it in there.  I think that it will have produced less corms and they will all be a bit larger.  When I harvest that bucket if it is any different and I remember I will try to write a comment or another post.

All of those small corms are great as it means I have plenty of stock to plant next year and to feed to animals, but I would prefer to have a lot less corms all of which are much larger. 

Water Chestnut corm

How much did it cost me

Normally I don't do this but I thought I would write the cost of this little water chestnut growing experiment.  One water chestnut corm $2, one bucket $0.85, soil & fertiliser etc $0, water $probably a few cents.  

For a total expenditure of less than $3 I got about a dozen edible sized water chestnuts.  That means each of the larger edible sized water chestnut effectively cost me about $0.24 plus produced some straw and whatever added benefit of having insects and wrens hanging around due to the water.  

Next year I already have corms to plant and the buckets so each water chestnut will essentially cost a fraction of a cent.  I doubt the buckets will last more than a few years due to the sun, but we will see what happens.

Things I plan to do differently

One factor which may have made the corms so small is that we went away towards the end of the growing season and some of the buckets dried out which meant the plants died down early.  Some buckets are still actively growing as they did not dry out as much, so time will tell on this theory.  Perhaps if they had constant water in the late season, like they did throughout the rest of the season, they would have kept growing and the corms would have increased in size.

I think that I can make the plants produce larger corms in a few ways.  Firstly I think adding more manure and having less soil will help.  More manure will mean more fertility, hopefully this fertility will help the plants to produce larger corms. 

I will probably have the soil level slightly lower and the water level slightly higher, this will help prevent drying out on hot days as happened a few times here over summer.  During summer where the daytime temperatures were in the mid 40s for weeks on end meant I would fill the water container in the morning and by the afternoon they had dried out, having lower level of soil will mean that I can have slightly more water in the bucket.  Having a deeper and wider container would help, but that is not really an option right now so I am sticking to growing in buckets.  

Growing by splitting off shoots and planting them part way through the growing season should help to reduce the number of corms in each bucket and hopefully ensure that these corms are larger.  If this does not work I know that there are some improved varieties out there which grow larger corms, but getting my hands on them seems almost impossible.

I plan to grow them again

Overall I am happy with how this turned out, I got a good yield of edible corms from a tiny space with next to no work from me, a massive yield of propagation material (and/or animal feed), and a good amount of straw.  Considering that all this resulted from planting a single corm that was only the size of my thumb nail I count it as a win.  I have a few things to change for next year to hopefully ensure some larger corms.  

They taste nothing like the water chestnuts from a can, they taste a lot nicer.  They kind of taste like something familiar that I can not quite put my finger on, perhaps coconut.  I wish they tasted more like yacon or jicama as some people have suggested that they might, but they don't.

Being a perennial vegetable it means that if I decide that I want to I can continue to grow these for ever.  Considering that the largest cost in growing these is purchasing the corms, and given how simple they were to grow, having my own supply kicking over each year seems to be a sensible option.

Where to buy water chestnut corms in Australia

Like many of the other perennial vegetables I grow I do sell water chestnuts.  The corms that I sell are larger than the ones I initially bought, but they are not as large as they will get if you give them room.  If you are interested the details can be found on my for sale page.

Small scale home aquaponics

My fish tank started to get a bit stinky and I don't have a lot of water here so am hesitant to do a water change.  Being outside it gets a few hours sun in the early morning so the sides get covered in algae.  I used to scrape it off on the viewing side from time to time.  I used to leave it on the other three sides so that it helped suck some of the nutrients out of the tank.  I also always try to have duckweed growing on top to help improve water quality.  This works fine as long as some of the water is changed very now and again.

Then I considered turning my fish tank into a mini aquaponics type tank.  I have been interested in aquaponics for some time now.  After a lot of tyre kicking I am ready to give it a go, but we are planning on moving soon so I do not want to start anything too big so this works out well and helped me to learn how to do it properly on a larger scale.

I had a little bit of styrofoam in the yard.  That got me thinking.  I wanted to set up something that would work with my fish tank, something that was simple, something cheap, and hopefully something productive.  The more simple the better.

I bought two tiny bristlenose fish (Ancistrus sp, or as my kids call them "nibble fish") to eat some of the algae, but then I still had a lot of ammonia, nitrites and nitrates to deal with.  Adding extra fish only makes this problem worse.  Duckweed helps, but there are a lot of fish in my tank producing a lot of waste.

I then got a piece of styrofoam, punched a few holes in it, and inserted some herb cuttings which had tiny roots.  Within two weeks the cuttings had long roots, the water no longer smelled bad, the sides had noticeably less algae on them, and the water was a lot clearer.  I had no idea that it was not all that clear before, but the difference is remarkable.  This was fantastic, but I am not sure if this is due to the plants or the new 'nibble fish' or a combination of both, chances are this will only work short term as the plants may rot with the roots being in water all the time and oxygen levels not being high enough.

I then set up a small fish tank at work with a pair of Endler's who began to breed.  I planned on using this to do small scale aquaponics and try to be as productive as possible.  After the fish had been in for a few weeks and increased in number somewhat I removed the filter and started the small scale aquaponics set up with an eye to work out potential problems and see how productive a tiny tank could be.  This tank is far smaller than my tank at home, but this tank has a light on it.

Many aquaponic gardeners start with deep water culture to keep things simple.  The Aztec floating rafts, or "chinampas" was a way to farm using deep water culture on a large scale.  Clearly this approach can and does work, but there are a few things that one has to do right to make it work well and I needed to teach myself what these things were.

The timeline for my tank at work is as follows:
25/03/2014 - the cuttings were set up
28/03/2014 - first set of photos
10/04/2014 - 2nd set of photos
29/04/2014 - 3rd set of photos
12/05/2014 - plants grew far too large and were harvested

First I got some styrofoam, punched a few holes in it and inserted some herb cuttings, just like the tank at home.  I increased the oxygen levels in the tank to help prevent them rotting.  As expected, these grew like crazy.  I then included a pot of gravel with another cutting.  I "seeded" this pot with beneficial bacteria to break down ammonia and nitrites faster.  The herb in this pot also grew like crazy so a few days later I included a second gravel filled pot with a different type of herb.

small scale aquaponics, the fish are in there somewhere too

aquaponics 3 days in

herb cuttings 3 days after planting - note the tiny roots

I had great plans of taking pictures each 2 weeks to show the growth and development of the plants.  I originally planted basil, mint and pineapple sage.

aquaponisc 2 weeks on

root and leaf growth after 2 weeks

plants larger after 2 weeks

2 weeks of growth, all looks good

Then I went on holiday for 2 weeks, upon my return the plants were huge and crowded under the light.  The roots are spread nicely throughout the water giving the fry a place to hide.  I held off doing anything for a while but the plants got too large, so I cut them back pretty hard.  We made mint and basil lemonade with the herbs.

5 weeks of growth, ready for harvest

The herbs were larger than they look

I have learned a lot from doing this, many things I thought would happen have happened.  It is reassuring to see things growing in ways that I thought they logically should.  It is also nice to be able to work out any problems on a small scale before doing this on a larger scale with edible fish.  Regardless, I now know how to make this work for me simply and cheaply.

I also have started to grow some watercress in one of the pots, hopefully it does well in a floating pot but it is too early to tell yet.  I also have some seeds of kang kong which have just started to germinate, but I think it is a bit cold for them at the moment.

Front Pack Carriers the Truth

OK here it is. I am sick of seeing this photo being plastered around trying to make parents feel bad for wearing their baby close.

This is MY photo, and my intentions were education, not judgement. My intention was to show there is a better option. It has been two years since this photo was taken. The better options are more widely known now, I really don't think this photo is needed anymore.

If I had my chance to do this photo over again I would. I am ashamed of what this photo ended up becoming. I am not proud. I have stayed silent in the hope that one day it would stop. One day the judgement on others parenting choices would stop. I am truly sorry for anyone who has been hurt through this image.

Would I make this comparison photo again. Yes I would, but my slogan would be different. Maybe I would say love your baby anyway you can. Hold them close, kiss their head, smell in their beautiful scent. Maybe I would say: Has your child out grown their carrier? Want to still carry them? There are other options.

What are my thoughts on front pack carriers:

• Personally I would not use one. I have not found one that is comfortable for me.
• There is a history of hip dysplasia in my family. So I would not want to take the risk with my babies hips. The issue can be so mild it might not be diagnosed as a newborn, it is better for me to hold my baby in a position that creates a better environment for their hips to develop properly.
• There is a history of spinal problems in my family, so I will do everything in my power to help support the developing spine of my baby.
• And really up till about 3 months of age there is not a great deal of leg dangling going on in these front pack carriers. And even once there is, it really is not that big a deal.

 THEY ARE OK TO USE.

This is my Newborn (4.2kg at birth) in the Britax carrier. Her legs are not fully supported, but they are supported well enough. If I had no other choice I would use this carrier with my newborn. My biggest worry was her floppyness in the carrier, I just didn't find the head support as good as it is in other carriers.

Here is better head support

Next is how the Britax looks at 3 months. This is where I start thinking the carrier is no longer as supportive as I would like. Would I scream from the rooftops for everyone to burn their frontpack carriers? NO. They are still useful, and if there are no underlying medical issues that are known or not known they are perfectly safe to use.

PLEASE keep carrying your babies close. It is a marvelous thing for you to both share together. It is fantastic for bonding, for their brain and nervous system development. It gives you two hands to get stuff done. Holding/wearing your baby close is a special time, don't give it up just because you cannot afford a different carrier. Love your babies, squeeze them, hold them, kiss them, smell them and most of all enjoy them.

If you want to see other options, have a look at my series on carriers here.


And just for fun here is that same little boy still being worn.

Corn update

This has been an extremely long summer.  We have had week after week of temperatures in the 40's and no rain.  Many of my types of corn have not survived, or has had a lot of trouble and will not produce much seed.  All of the corn has purslane (Portulaca oleracea) growing as a living mulch to keep the soil cooler etc.  In some beds this living mulch is well over a foot deep, but it is still not enough when the temperature is so high day and night.  I thought I would write about the progress of a few of the more interesting varieties of corn.

Argent - white super sweet corn
I planted all 11 of the precious 'Argent' super sweet white corn seeds that I had.  Out of them only 4 grew.  As far as seed saving goes that is rather precarious and any small mishap could cause me to lose them all.  This has prevented me from eating any argent corn this year as I want as much diversity in the seeds as I can get from such a small number of plants.  These plants suffered a lot of damage from the heat but are still growing strong.  The plants grew to about 1.5m tall and all are producing several (from 2 to 4) cobs.  Unfortunately as I had so few plants these cobs seem to be poorly filled.  The timing of the flowering was such that they were shedding pollen when the temperature was over 40C, as a result much of the pollen was denatured by the heat, resulting in few seeds being formed.  Extreme heat combined with a low number of plants is not good for corn cob formation.  Hopefully things go well and I end up with enough seeds between them so that I can do a large growout of this variety next year.  With work I should be able to keep this strain going without too much inbreeding depression.  If I ever find anyone growing this strain I will try to swap some seeds with them so that I can broaden the gene pool a little.

Inca giant white corn
I planted a small number of these seeds (only about 25), and most grew.  I have been told that this variety is highly daylight sensitive and it may not produce cobs in my location.  Being a landrace corn there is a lot of genetic diversity.  This has grown very tall and thick, some up to 3 metres tall with stalks that are about as thick as my wrist, some are far thicker.  Some plants are short and spindly.  They seem to be growing roots up the stalk, sometimes 3 or 4 nodes up.  Normally this would not seem odd, but when stalks are this tall it means that roots are growing a foot or two above the soil.  It has only just started to produce tassels and shed pollen.  Unfortunately it has shown no sign of growing any silk and I do not know if it will even attempt to produce any cobs.  Even if it does begin to produce cobs I do not know if it will have time to ripen before the first frosts kill the plants.  These have also suffered a lot from the relentless heat with many of the higher leaves damaged.  This small population has displayed a lot of genetic diversity in terms of growth, hopefully this is enough for it to survive and produce cobs in my climate.

Giant Inca White Corn - very thick stalks.  Purslane just starting to grow as a living mulch

Giant Incan white corn - another older picture showing the diversity in this population

Glass bead corn
These guys pretty much know what they are doing here.  While they experienced a little damage from the heat they seem to do a lot better than the other corn varieties.  Hopefully it will not be long until this is a good multicoloured pop corn.

Mini blue popcorn
These suffered badly from the heat but are still growing.  They are small plants, maybe some of the taller plants have grown up to a meter, most are shorter than a meter.  They have also only just started to grow tassels and have not yet shown any signs of silk or cobs.  Many plants have multiple stems so if they do produce cobs there should be a good number of them.  Hopefully they have time to produce a crop before the first frost kills them as the kids are keen to pop some blue corn.

Blue sweet corn
I grew a decent number of these in the hope of eating most of the cobs as well as saving seed from a good number of plants.  They grew from about 1.5 meters with a few up to 2 meters tall.  Unfortunately the heat has also damaged these badly.  They too have been shedding pollen in 40+ heat and mostly have poorly filled out cobs.  It has been a long and hard summer, I am happy that they have even survived as it shows how resilient they are.  Some plants produced multiple cobs, but most only produced one.  Some of the plants grew multiple stems but this trait does not seem to be too common in this variety.  As far as sweet corn goes, this one seems to be a winner.  Even though my preference is for white super sweet corn I plan to grow this variety again if I save enough seed.  The naturally high level of antioxidants as seen by the blue colouration is a bonus.  There are not many varieties of coloured sweet corn in Australia so it kind of makes it more important to continue growing it.

When they are ready, if I have enough I will try to sell some of these corn varieties through my For Sale page.

Growing Water Chestnuts in Buckets

The water chestnut (Eleocharis dulcis) is a type of sedge that is found growing in tropical wetlands of the world.  They are simple to grow, highly productive, and nutritious.  As well as providing food for you, they yield a decent amount of straw as well as providing habitat for frogs and water insects, all in all they are an excellent permaculture vegetable.

I always wanted to grow water chestnuts, but was never able to find any to plant.  People often comment that they are cheap to buy from supermarkets so they are not worth growing, but I have never seen them for sale except in cans.  I have no idea what chemicals are used on the water chestnuts that I do buy in a can.  I do not know where they grow, how far they have traveled to reach me, how they are grown, or anything like that so growing my own water chestnuts organically seems like a sensible approach.

I have heard of a lot of different ways to grow water chestnuts, and I have heard a lot of people complain that they tried to grow them and failed miserably.  So I thought I would write a post about how I grow them, this is not necessarily the best way, but it works for me and requires very little time and effort.

Water chestnuts growing in buckets

How I grow water chestnuts

The first mistake people make is rotting the dormant water chestnut corms.  I plant the corms in a small pot or punnet and keep it reasonably damp until they sprout.  I used 10cm square pots that we had in the shed, I put the cheapest potting mix in and planted the corms so that they were not quite touching each other.  I do not make it any more damp than I would if I were germinating tomato seeds.  If you put the corms under water prior to them sprouting I believe that they will mostly rot and die.  I planted them in late winter/early spring and kept them away from frost.

I then watered like I would any seedling until they were about 5cm tall.  At this stage I put the pot in an ice cream container and filled water half way up the pot, a few days later I put water up to the top of the pot so that the soil level was at the water level.  I then left the water level there for a few weeks.  This gives the water chestnut a chance to grow roots and the leaves start to collect energy for the plant ready for the next step.

People make a few mistakes in the nest step, they make the water too deep and they do not use enough soil.  Water chestnuts grow in soil, that is where they produce their crop, so if there is not enough soil then they will produce a small crop or a crop of very small corms.  They are an emergent plant, which means that while the roots are below water, the top of the plant must be in the air otherwise they will die.  I then separate the corms and plant them in soil which had about 10cm of water on top of it.  In this way the little plants were just under the surface of the water and would grow out of the water in a few days.  You can make the water deeper, but not too deep, up to about 30cm should not harm the plants but any deeper than this and they may struggle.

In a perfect world they never experience any frost, unfortunately mine seem to see a few light frosts when they are young.  I try to make sure the frost they see is not too hard and they seem to do fine with it.  Interestingly they handled a light frost better than duck potatoes.  They even had some ice on top of the water a few times, while it is less than ideal they are hardy enough to cope with that.

The water chestnuts then grow during the warm weather and die down in autumn.  When they die down the water level is dropped and the corms are left to dry a bit in the soil.  When they have dried down a bit they are dug up and eaten or stored.  If they are ever completely dry they will die.

Water chestnuts growing in the shade of a plum tree

Where I grow water chestnuts

Ideally you would grow water chestnuts on the edge of a pond or slow flowing stream.  In a perfect world they would colonise this water edge and all you would do is go and collect them.  Many people, including myself, do not have access to a pond or stream so this method is unachievable.  

Many people who do not have access to a pond grow them in a bathtub, while this method sounds great it takes up space and you have to be able to find a free bathtub.  Finding free things where I live is almost impossible so I had to think of another way.  I have heard of people growing them in an icecream container filled with soil and submerged in a fish pond, they say they yield about 30 corms per container.  Again this sounds great but requires a fish pond which I do not have.

People often tell of growing them in styrofoam broccoli boxes that they get for free from the fruit and veg shop, out here we can not buy styrofoam boxes let alone convince a shop owner to give them away so I had to keep thinking.  

There are a lot of plastic tubs and boxes that I have seen used, but they all cost too much, I want to produce high quality food for cheap.

I found some cheap buckets for sale, buckets hold water, they look ok, they are easy to find in pretty much every town, they are large enough for one corm each, and they do not take up too much space.  If you only had a balcony this method would still work.  So I decided that buckets would be the containers I would use in which to grow water chestnuts.

I then dug up some subsoil clay, mixed it with animal manure, put it in the buckets to about 5cm from the top, and filled with water.  The soil settles a bit over the next little while so you end up with more water above the soil level.  

It is important to leave it for a few weeks because if you planted directly into this the water chestnuts would rot.  Any weed seeds germinate in the wet soil, the weeds can not survive being constantly under water so they die off reasonably quickly and pose no problems.  Over the next few weeks the water goes green, then crystal clear, then green a few times as algal blooms deal with excess nutrients.  This is good, do not worry when this happens as this is what you want.  The water seems to do this on and off throughout the entire growing season, again do not worry as this is normal.

People are often afraid of clay or subsoil, but they hold a lot of minerals.  Being underwater it makes the soil soft enough for plant roots to penetrate and renders these minerals available to the growing plants.  The only thing to watch for is that no rocks are in the mix.

Water chestnuts growing in a bucket with duckweed

Once the water has had a few weeks to work itself out I then plant the water chestnuts in the fertile mud.  They were not tall enough to reach the air yet, but that is ok.  By now they should be strong enough to grow a bit to reach out of the water.  I also put a bit of duckweed floating on the water surface.  The duckweed grows to cover the water surface and blocks light from the algae.  It also slows evaporation, cools the soil by providing shade and helps out in a bunch of other ways.  If you have access to azolla I would include that too as it fixes nitrogen from the soil and fertilises your water chestnuts.

As the water chestnuts grow to fill the bucket they send out rhizomes, I had a spare bucket of mud so broke off one of these rhizomes and planted it.  It did not take long before it grew so much that I could not tell which bucket had a corm planted and which one was from the rhizome.  From here I simply kept the water at the top of the bucket by filling it up each afternoon when watering other vegetables.

Everywhere you read and everyone you talk to will say that you must grow water chestnuts in direct sun and avoid shade at all costs.  At first this is what I did and it went well for me, but then summer came along and it got too hot.  Even though there was still water in the buckets the plants were suffering from the relentless heat.  Being in buckets made it simple to move the water chestnuts under the shade of a tree.  I moved 2 buckets at first to see if that helped, those plants started growing again while the ones in direct sun were still going poorly.  Now I grow all the water chestnuts under part shade, they seem to be growing fine there.


How I harvest water chestnuts

When the time is right the foliage of the water chestnuts starts to yellow off.  This is a signal to stop watering the buckets.  When they have dried off for a while you then dig through and collect the water chestnuts.  It is important not to let the corms freeze if you are planning on replanting them the next year as freezing will kill them.  If you plan on eating them freezing is fine.

I wrote another post here about the yield I got from a bucket of water chestnuts.


Where to find Water Chestnuts for sale in Australia

I sell water chestnuts for planting and growing on my For Sale page. As you can see above they are simple to grow and very productive.  Chinese water chestnuts are a great perennial vegetable and fit in well in a permaculture vegetable garden.