Monday 30 June 2014
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.
Wednesday 25 June 2014
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.
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.
How I grow duck potatoes or arrowhead in a bucket
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.
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 |
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.
Saturday 21 June 2014
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 |
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.
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 |
Ripe Reisetomate tomatoes |
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.
Labels:
farming,
For Sale,
permaculture vegetables,
sustainability,
Vegetables
Location:
Australia
Saturday 14 June 2014
Everlasting Onions
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.
Location:
Australia
Saturday 24 May 2014
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday 14 May 2014
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 |
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 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.
Saturday 8 March 2014
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.
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.
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