Obscure salad vegetables: Mache and Miner's lettuce

There are a heap of common salad vegetables, many are bland or bitter.  As well as the common vegetables there are a large number of less common ones.  Two obscure salad vegetables that I particularly like are Mache corn salad, and Miner's lettuce.

Mache (Valerianella locusta) also goes by the names corn salad, lamb's lettuce, field salad, nut lettuce, and a long list of other common names.  This is a cool season crop that grows well over winter and will often self seed once the heat hits and return in your garden when the weather cools.

Mache is a small plant that is dreadfully low yielding and does not like to grow in the heat.  What is lacks in yield it makes up for in ease of growing (did I mention that it self seeds and returns each year), being highly nutritious, and a surprisingly delicious taste for a salad green.  Mache is never bitter, even when it is flowering.  While I have never seen it for sale I am told that mache commands high prices at markets and is an expensive specialty crop that is adored by chefs.

I think mache is too small, but the taste and texture of this plant are excellent so I keep growing it.  Mache is far superior to any lettuce I have eaten.  There are a few varieties around, and it crosses and sets seed readily, someone should mass cross them and select for larger, faster growing plants.

Mache corn salad - surprisingly delicious for a salad plant

Miner's lettuce (Claytonia perfoliata) is also known as Indian lettuce and according to the internet even sometimes it is called 'spring beauty'.  It is not closely related to lettuce, it is used in similar ways to lettuce which is why it shares part of the common name. 

I used to read descriptions of this vegetable on the internet that made it sound like the poor cousin to lettuce, so I didn't bother growing it for many years.  One day I got some seeds and gave it a try, and I am glad I did.  Miner's lettuce is superior to lettuce in many ways.

Much like mache, miner's lettuce is cold hardy, tastes great, and is exponentially more nutritious than lettuce.  It is never bitter, even when flowering.  It does well in full sun and does ok in part shade, meaning it grows well under taller vegetables.

This is another salad plant that will happily self seed if given the chance.  This is great as it means no seed saving, just don't allow undesirable plants to flower and the superior plants will return the following year.

Miner's lettuce looks interesting, and is simple to grow, but its appeal lies in its taste.  Much like mache, Miner's lettuce is superior to any lettuce I have eaten.  Unlike mache this can grow a little larger and provides a better yield. 

I don't think there are any named varieties, but given how readily this self seeds and the apparent genetic diversity I don't think it would be overly difficult to breed a superior variety of Miner's lettuce.

Miner's lettuce starting to flower

Miner's lettuce - young plants

If they don't have good conditions they still flower and set seed!

Miner's lettuce is never bitter

Raspberry x Strawberry Hybrid - F2 seed attempt

I wrote a few posts about attempting to create a hybrid of raspberry and strawberry through cross pollination. 

The berries themselves taste amazing and the plants are very vigorous.  Without genetic testing I can not be certain that they are hybrids or if they are just weird strawberry plants that differ from the parent species. 

Most produce lumpy red berries, some produce yellow/white berries, and one is producing pink berries which I have never seen before.  There are a lot of odd morphological differences from the strawberry parent, plus they take a lot longer to reach maturity, they are larger, more vigorous, and more productive than the strawberry parent.  While I am not yet certain if they are hybrids, I know is that they differ from the parent strawberry species in quite a lot of ways.

To be clear, this is not 'funberry' (also called "strawberry raspberry") which is not a hybrid but is a species Rubus illecebrosus that looks superficially similar to a strawberry and a raspberry.  This is not a 'strassberry', which is just a variety of strawberry.  This is not a Genetically Modified plant.  This is a true hybrid between strawberry and raspberry that I created using simple cross pollination in my yard.

If I have created a fruiting hybrid of a strawberry and a raspberry the next logical step is to attempt to grow seed and produce some F2 seedlings.  These seedlings could have any of a myriad of genetic combinations and would range from plants that contain mostly raspberry genes, to some that were half raspberry half strawberry like the parent, to some that contained mostly strawberry genes.  This is an oversimplification of what could happen, but I can't go into that here.

When the hybrid started fruiting I began collecting seeds from it.  I am unsure if they were the result of self-pollination, or raspberry pollen, or strawberry pollen, as there were many things flowering at the time and many insect pollinators around.  I did not exclude the flowers in any way as I wanted to give them the best chance of being successfully pollinated and setting viable seed. 

As no one has successfully created this hybrid and had it set fruit before there is much to be learned. More importantly, this plant if it is a true intergeneric hybrid holds a lot of breeding potential for disease resistant berries as well as amazing new tastes, but only if it either sets viable seed or if it produces viable pollen.  Given that both parents were diploid and have the same chromosome count I figured that this shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

I decided if I collected 2 or 3 seeds from each berry we would still be able to eat all the berries and I would slowly get a large number of seeds.  It was a rather productive little plant so it did not take me too long before I had a reasonable amount of seed to play with.  The seeds were not hollow, they were plump and full, they ranged in size from tiny strawberry seed size to extra-large strawberry seed size, so I collected a mixture of all the seeds.

I usually have some success germinating raspberry seeds and often 100% success with strawberry seeds.  I usually put strawberry or raspberry seeds in cold wet stratification to get them to germinate, if I leave them for too long they tend to germinate in the fridge.  I also sent some of these F2 seeds to a grower friend, hopefully they get some decent results from growing them.

I put the seeds through cold wet stratification because this method works well for both parent species.  Sunlight can trigger some seeds to germinate, and makes no noticeable difference to the germination of others, so I did both.  Some of the seeds were left in the fridge for a longer cold wet stratification while others were planted on damp soil on the window sill where I usually germinate strawberry and raspberry seeds.

I started with many hundreds of seeds.  The results were as follows:

03/03/2019 strawberry x raspberry F2 seeds put in cold wet stratification
10/06/2019 three (3) seeds germinated


No other seeds have germinated at all, only these three, which is odd.  I expected a lot more seeds to germinate considering the numbers that I stratified. 

None of the seedlings displayed any albinism.  All three looked like small strawberry plants.

None of them have produced any runners.  The strawberry line this is from produces a lot of runners in two to three months when grown from seed.  These three plants are now over a year old and none have flowered while the strawberry line produces flowers in five months when grown from seed.  At this stage the F2 plants are small, smaller than the F1 and smaller than the strawberry parent.  I am unsure if they will stay small or if they will get larger once they mature.  Given that they are well over a year old I would have expected them to reach full size by now.

From here I plan to do my best with the three that have already germinated, hopefully one of them turns into something interesting.  I also plan to save some more seed and try to germinate it, I would also like to use raspberry pollen and see if that produces viable seed.

It will be interesting if any of these F2 seedlings survive to maturity to see what their fruit is like.  At this stage they have survived winter and look much like strawberry plants only smaller.  The strawberry parent flowers around five months when grown from seed, this plant is sixteen months old and is still not flowering.  The F1 plants flower earlier in the season and more profusely than the strawberry parent, the F2 has still not flowered. 

Leaf comparison: F2 hybrid on the left, F1 hybrid on the right

While none of this actually proves anything and there is a chance that they are not hyrbids, it all lends weight to the possibility that the parent may be a true intergeneric hybrid.  If it is not a hybrid, then it is a mutant with rather frustrating timing.  I sent samples of these plants for testing, so should hopefully have some answers very soon.

Edit to add: early/05/2021 flowering - over two years from seed to maturity!!!  Given the parent strawberry flowers in about 5 months this is remarkable and indicative that it is a hybrid.

Edit to add: this was tested by the CSIRO.  The results are on this blog post. 

Strawberry Raspberry hybrid leaves being tested soon

I have written a few posts about my attempt at creating a strawberry raspberry hybrid using cross pollination.  While the resultant plants display several morphological differences to the parent species, and are far more vigorous than the strawberry parent, the plants do look remarkably like a strawberry. 

I made every effort to ensure a hybrid was produced (emasculating flowers, bagging flowers, etc), and while this would exclude flying insects such as flies or bees this attempt was produced in the field.  As such there is a chance that some tiny ant was able to crawl under my bag and pollinate the flowers with pollen from who knows where. 

For this reason I have been trying for quite some time to have these plants tested by a lab to determine if they are hybrids or something else (perhaps they are polyploid, perhaps a mutation).  For various reasons I have not yet been able to have these plants tested, which has been rather frustrating.

Recently someone contacted me who knows someone in the CSIRO who may be able to test my plants.  I contacted the CSIRO, we had a discussion, and they are willing to test my plants.  I have sent the CSIRO sample leaves of several F1 hybrids, one F2 hybrid, and samples of both parent plants for analysis. 

If all goes well I will know before Christmas if they are hybrids.  Regardless of the outcome I will post the results on this blog.  Exciting times!

Hybrid leaves top, strawberry parent leaf lower left, raspberry parent leaves lower right

F1 hybrid leaves on right, F2 hybrid leaves on left

Hybrid leaf - long petiolules not quite opposite

Hybrid leaf at top, parent strawberry lower

Hybrid - inconsistent flowers and a lot more flowers per set

Chufa varieties

Chufa (Cyperus esculentus) is an underrated crop.  Chufa tastes nice and can yield very well.  I have only ever eaten them raw but to me the little tubers taste sweet and a lot like almonds when raw. 
I have only ever eaten the 'regular' chufa, but I really like them.  The taste and the texture are very appealing to me.  If I could buy these in the shops I would eat them every day.

It is difficult to find any chufa to grow.  Some places sell unnamed varieties, others sell seeds, but over all chufa is difficult to find for some reason.

A very generous person sent me five different varieties of chufa to grow.  I soaked them prior to planting them and hope to be able to compare them after a season.

Chufa grows much like water chestnuts, but without needing to be under water.  There is even a weedy version that produces tiny tubers and numerous seeds which is a bit of a nuisance in crops and lawns.  Most of the improved named varieties do not produce seed.  Hopefully they grow well for me and produce a lot of fat little tubers at the end of the season.

This blog post is mostly for me to be able to compare things more easily later.  The postcode boxes can be used for scale, but in hind sight I should have taken pictures of each variety next to a ruler or something.  I will have to try and remember that at the end of the season.

Chufa - Ale

Chufa - Jumbo

Chufa - Black Tiger

Chufa - Spanish

Chufa - regular

Rendering bees wax the easy way

Bees wax is rather useful for a variety of purposes.  If you have a bee hive you eventually end up with extra wax.  This doesn't tend to store very well unless it has been rendered.  I also can't imagine using it for anything other than eating before it was rendered.  So rendering beeswax is an important skill to have.

I have read some descriptions of how people render bees wax.  Quite often they are difficult, time consuming, and sometimes even sound rather dangerous. 

Below is how I render bee wax the easy way.

To be clear:  I am not an expert.  I am self taught.  This is almost certainly not the best way to render wax.  This method is fast, it is simple, it is safe, it is cheap, and it uses things I have in the home. 

I don't know for sure, but I think once something has wax on it there will always be wax on it and I would hate to ruin pans that we use for cooking.  My kids have a play kitchen in the back yard with old pots and pans and things, so instead of ruining pots and pans that we use I 'borrowed' these from the kids (just don't tell them).

I got a pan and another pan with holes in it that fit on top.  The bottom pan needs to hold a few cm of water so there needs to be a gap between the two pans.  If the pans are the right size they maintain a gap nicely, but I was using things that were never meant to fit together and were old and bent out of shape so I think I used an old metal cup or something to maintain this gap between the two pans.

Two pans, the bottom one is half filled with water

I put a sheet of paper towel on top.  Once the wax melts it drips through this paper towel onto the water.  Dust, dirt, debris, propolis, parts of dead bees, and other impurities get caught in the paper towel.

One sheet of paper towel on top

I then put my old dirty wax on top.  Feel free to stack it high, it will melt down considerably.  We don't tend to have a lot of spare wax.  I collect it and keep it in an old ice cream container until I have enough to bother rendering wax.  My kids eat little bits of this wax throughout the day for some reason. 

I think I ended up with around 150 grams of wax at the end of this, which isn't too bad.

Pile the old wax on top of the paper towel

I then put all of this in the oven.  I set the oven to 200C and left it to melt.  In hind sight I should have set the temperature lower.  The flashpoint of beeswax is 204.4C, so I cam close to disaster!  I think as the wax heated it melted and dripped through to the water, which could have kept it slightly cooler.  The beeswax only needs to reach 62 to 64 to melt, and anything over 85C causes discolouration.

The more wax you have the longer it takes to melt.  This lot was small so only took half an hour while I took the kids for a walk, but it can take a few hours if you have more wax.

Wax melts quickly, it looks and smells kind of appetising at the start

The wax melts and drips through the paper towel

Once it is finished the wax will have dripped through the paper towel and is floating on top of the water.  The paper towel will have strained out most of the impurities.  My kitchen smells a little like honey and baking at this stage.

The paper towel strained out most of the impurities

This part is very important: when everything is still warm remove the paper towel from the tray.  If it cools too much it will be stuck to your pan and can't be removed.  If this happens, don't worry, just pop it back in the oven for a minute to warm slightly and then try again.

I am told that the paper towel can be cut up and used to light camp fires etc as the wax etc burns long.  I haven't tried this myself.  I would not use it to light the fire at home because it would likely not burn completely and the smoke may clog up the chimney.

Melted wax floating on the water, let it cool!

Rendered wax ready to be used or cut and stored

If you want the wax really clean you can render it again, or even render it several times to get it even cleaner.  Each time it should come out a little cleaner.  I only render once and it comes out a lovely yellow colour, but it really depends on what you want use you have in mind for the wax.

Once the wax has cooled it will solidify.  It has been floating on water so put it somewhere to dry, then cut it up, put in a container or zip lock bag, and then it is ready to do whatever you want to do with beeswax.  Rendered wax should last a very long time and possibly never go bad.

As I said at the start of this post, I am not an expert and this is likely not the best way to render wax.  This method is incredibly simple, very safe, low cost, and yields decent results.  If you know of a better way to render bee wax, or have any hints and tips that may be useful, please leave a comment as I would love to hear it!

Daffodils

This year we grew a few different daffodils.  I really like them.  As last summer was extremely harsh not all of our daffodils flowered this year, but the ones that did flower were lovely, so I decided to take pictures of a few of them.  

 

Below are pictures of some of the named daffodil varieties.

 

Daffodil: Ice King 

Ice King Daffodils

Daffodil: Replete

Replete Daffodil - white and orange

Replete Daffodil next to Marieke

Replete Daffodil and Marieke - side on

Replete Daffodil - turns a pinky/orange as it ages

Daffodil: White Ideal

White Ideal Daffodil

White Ideal Daffodil

White Ideal and Marieke

White Ideal Daffodil next to Marieke

White Ideal and Marieke

White Ideal and Marieke

Daffodil: Marieke (the larger of the two, the smaller and less impressive 'King Alfred' is included as a comparison)

Marieke Daffodil

Marieke Daffodil

  Daffodil: Bell Song

Bell Song Daffodil

Bell Song Daffodil

Bell Song Daffodils - they get slightly pink as they age

Mixed daffodils and tulips

There are a few places that sell these daffodil varieties so if you want some you should be able to find them if you look around a bit.  I have never sold flower bulbs, if I ever do sell any they will be listed on my for sale page. 

Honey Bees foraging close to the hive

There have been many studies conducted on the maximum distance from their hive that honey bees will forage.  Honey bees are fascinating and have a lot of financial implications, so they have been studied rather extensively.  To the best of my knowledge there have been no peer reviewed studies on how close to their hive honey bees will forage.

I am often told by beekeepers that honey bees don't forage closer than 30 feet [or some other precise distance] from their hive.  The theory goes that they don't have a waggle dance for such short distances, therefore they can't find flowers very close.  I have never believed this.

Some beekeepers tell stories of seeing bees on flowers next to their hives and cite that as evidence of bees foraging over short distances.  They are often scoffed at because these bees are probably from some other hive.  Let's be honest, most honey bees look alike.  Seeing bees foraging near a hive proves nothing.

I have a bee hive in the chicken run under some fruit trees, the other day I stood for some time and watched the bees.  The honey bees foraged in the flowers, then they went into my hive.  I watched for a while and saw dozens of bees forage in the fruit trees and then fly into that hive.  This shows that bees can and do forage very close to their hive.

I have never seen bees fly from the hive to these close flowers so I can't know if they unsuccessfully attempted to forage further afield and visited these flowers on their return trip, or if they flew directly to them, but it doesn't matter.  What matters is that the bees were foraging on flowers this close to their hive.

Even though I watched quite a lot of bees go from that tree into my hive I don't know if after they return to their hive and have some way to communicate about the location of these close resources.  Perhaps they have a different waggle dance for short distances, perhaps they have some pheromone or other way to communicate this, or perhaps communication is not needed as scouting bees will forage close to the hive rather than go further looking for forage.  I don't really know, what I do know is that honey bees do forage within a few feet of their hive, so any close flowers are not wasted.

Bee hive under fruit trees in chicken run

You can't see them in this picture, but this tree is full of honey bees

Honey bees forage within a few feet of their hive, this tree had almost finished flowering

Spring flowering bulbs

Spring came early this year, some of my spring flowers began to bloom the first week of August.  Some have already finished flowering, others are not going to flower this year after barely surviving last summer, while others are not even starting to emerge from dormancy yet.  I haven't seen a spring like this before, it is all over the place.

I got a bunch of different daffodils and had planned on mass crossing them and planting out the seeds in the hopes of producing something nice.  One daffodil variety I grow is called 'Marieke'.  It is said to be the best yellow daffodil.  Large flowers are almost double the size of my other yellows, good colour, lovely shape, strong stems, flowers last a surprisingly long time, to be honest I don't think I can breed anything better.

Daffodil 'Marieke' - said to be the best of yellow daffodils

Crocus 'pickwick' produces lovely stripey flowers that last well in the garden.  I like crocus, but don't grow many types.  For some reason I don't see many in people's gardens around here even though they are simple to grow in this area.  I quite like pickwick, they are one of my favourite crocus.

Crocus 'Pickwick'

Crocus 'Pickwick'

Grape hyacinths smell lovely, attract and feed honey bees early in the season, are small so take up next to no room, reliably flower even in the harshest years, divide well, can be grown from seed, and generally look after them selves.  I only grow the common blue ones, and some seed grown blue ones.  I keep saying that I should try to get a few more varieties, but never get around to it.  I think they are very under rated spring flowering bulbs.

Muscari grape hyacinth

Dwarf iris 'harmony' is said to be the best of the blue dwarf iris.  I like these little ones, hopefully I can divide them somewhat and have more next year.  I would like to grow some from seed but have had little luck in getting them to set much seed.

Dwarf iris 'Harmony'

Hyacinth - smell lovely and look nice but only some flowered well this year.  Notice the pink one on the left has a lot of flowers, the one on the right has disappointingly few flowers.  They have a bad habit of only lasting a few years and then not returning, so I will need to look after them and lift them at the end of this season.

Pink Hyacinth

Blue hyacinth

Snowflake - these were here before we moved in.  They are mostly in places I would prefer to grow other things.  I don't love them, so each year I dig some up and give them away, every year there are more to replace them.

A honey bee investigating the flower