Sunday 20 September 2015

Benefit Cost analysis of growing vegetables in the backyard

People often tell me that growing vegetables costs too much, or that they are cheaper to buy from the shops, my reply to them is "you are doing it wrong".

Growing vegetables will save you money.  If you are spending more than you save you are doing something wrong.  Grow some food, it will save you money. 

If you have a back yard you should grow some vegetables.  I grow and eat plenty of things that I could never afford to buy.  It is simple and it will save you some money.  I will tell you how I used to grow vegetables cheaply in suburbia with limited space and give you an idea of how much money it saved us.
Heirloom tomatoes - one day's harvest

Growing Vegetables in the backyard to save money

When we first bought a house with a small yard I put in a small vegetable garden, I sat and thought before each purchase as I wanted to save money.  I tried to make sure that everything I bought would return the investment in 3 or less years, if anything would not return that investment I asked myself if I really wanted it.  Sometimes the answer was still yes.  Why did I choose 3 years, I can't remember, it is just the rule that I go by when making purchases.

When I was about to start that garden I looked for something to make it from for free.  We had a sandpit in the lawn left behind by the previous owner, I dug out the sleepers and used them as the vegetable garden edging.  I dug over a section of lawn that was out of the way, put in the sleepers as edging, and included some of the old sandpit sand to improve the drainage.  It cost me time which I otherwise would have spent in front of the television, and I bought a cheap spade and wheelbarrow (which I needed to buy for other projects), but other than that it was free up to this point.

I needed to buy some vegetable seeds or seedlings to plant, this was my first real cost.  I decided seeds were cheaper than seedlings and offer the best return on my investment.  A packet of tomato seedlings costs about the same as a single tomato plant and can be used to grow many tomato plants over several years.  I also decided that any seeds I bought must be of things that I could grow out and save seed from each year or of something perennial that would not need replacing each year.  This makes seed buying a once off expenditure so even if they never break even they will still be providing me food for years to come.  At that stage I had no intention of ever selling seeds or breeding my own superior varieties, I was only planning on saving a little money by growing vegetables in my spare time.  Saving seeds lowers costs dramatically, you should save some seeds for yourself.

I normally don't include costs and things in blog posts as they vary from place to place, but to demonstrate how growing vegetables in the backyard is far cheaper than buying them from a shop I am going to include some dollar amounts here.  I am also going to try and be realistic and include things where you may lose money.
Yellow pear tomato, seeds are cheap and yields are high

Benefit/Cost comparisons of growing vegetables in the backyard versus buying vegetables

I payed $3 for a packet of tomato seeds so I wanted to get at least $3 of tomatoes in less than 3 years.  That was my goal, everything had to break even within 3 years.  I can't remember how much each plant produced, or how many plants I grew that first year, but all together they returned about 12 kg of fresh tomatoes.  According to this site one kilogram of tomatoes costs about $5.  Not surprisingly one single tomato plant returned a lot more than $3 worth of tomatoes in a single season.  I am not talking organic gourmet tomato prices (even though I grow everything organically and I probably have what is considered gourmet varieties), I always calculate using the cheapest vegetable I can find.  I then saved seeds from those tomatoes and actually still have that variety today.  That was 12kg of tomatoes the first year for $3.  Already, with that one purchase of tomato seeds, I had lowered the costs of my fruit/vegetables a tiny bit.  I was already ahead.  We were already saving money by growing vegetables.

If you are not breaking even in under 3 years you are doing something wrong, perhaps you are growing the wrong variety or perhaps tomatoes or whatever it is are not suited to your climate and you should grow something else.

When I payed $7.50 for a kilogram of seed potato that first year I wanted to get at least $7.50 worth of potatoes in under 3 years.  The first year that 1kg of seed potatoes returned 20kg of good sized potatoes plus a few kg of smaller ones that I saved to plant the following year, the second year they only grew 15kg of large potatoes plus some to save, the third year they yield 8kg.  That's right, I keep pointlessly accurate records of things like this.  So for an initial $7 investment I got 43kg of potatoes over 3 years, not too bad.  Again, if you are not at least breaking even you are doing something wrong.  The average price of potatoes is around $3.78 per kg, so around 2kg breaks even.  The $7.50 for seed potatoes was well worth the investment especially considering the 20kg return the first year.  It is not difficult to save money by growing your own food in a small backyard garden.

That first year we spent $10.50 on tomato seeds and seed potatoes and ate around  $135.60 worth of fresh produce.  It is not difficult to see how much money can be saved by growing a few vegetables at home.
Perennial leeks, plant once harvest forever
We grew a few other things that first year, almost all of them returned far more than I payed for them.  Beans and snow peas grew tremendously well that year and I saved seed to grow in following years.  As well as providing a delicious crop, being legumes they also sequestered nitrogen from the air and made the soil more fertile and productive which was an added bonus.

Some seeds I bought did not provide great yields in that tiny vegetable garden.  It is important to know that this is going to happen too.

I bought multi coloured carrot seed, they grew well but when carrots cost $0.65 per kg I did not get $3 worth of carrots out of them that first year due to lack of space.  I probably got about 50 cents worth of carrots.  I saved some of their seed and planted the following years, to be honest I don't think I ever got $3 worth of carrots from them and should have probably stopped growing them.  You need to grow a lot to break even when they cost so little from the shops.  Space was the limiting factor there.  I was not saving money by growing carrots so I stopped growing them and used the garden space for more productive and worthwhile crops.

I bought an apple tree in our second year to plant by the fence, after counting and weighing the apples that we ate from that tree (I can't help but to weigh, measure and record certain things) and factoring in the cost of apples of the same variety from the shops I found that I broke even part way through the second year.  There is no point using the cost of organic apples as I would not buy them, I would buy the cheaper ones.  

I was also given some strawberry plants which performed wonderfully, it is difficult to work out how much they saved us as I would never buy strawberries because they are too expensive and do not taste very good.  These plants did replace other "afternoon tea" and "dessert" type foods so actually did save us a decent amount of money.  Considering that they cost me nothing to begin with I was more than pleased.
Herbs are worth growing, but they probably don't save you money
I also bought some herbs, this is where costing got even trickier.  Normally I would never buy fresh herbs as they are too expensive, so no matter how productive the plants were they would never truly break even.  This is ok when you factor it in with other things that actually did lower costs.  It is good to know that there will be things that are worth growing that will never break even, it is wise to make informed decisions about such things.  Lets be honest here, growing ornamental flowers never breaks even yet they are a multi-million dollar industry in Australia.  I think growing a few herbs is a great idea as they taste great, it should be a once off purchase as many herbs are perennial and it is simple to save seed from most annual herbs.

Then I bought some things that I had never seen in the shops, things like yacon.  I figured this was dead money as it was not replacing anything I would (or even could) buy.  I was willing to proceed as everything else had grown so well and lowered costs.  The trick here is not to ensure that each individual plant breaks even, but to make sure if something will lose money that you are aware of it before hand and have accounted for it somewhere else.  

The yacon grew amazingly well, the kids and I love to eat it.  It had saved us no money as it was not even replacing some other fruit or vegetable.  Yacon roots secrete sugars into the soil and attract and feed beneficial soil life such as earth worms.  Everything that grows near yacon seems to be larger and healthier, so it probably does save us money in some way that is too difficult to calculate.  Yacon is a perennial vegetable and I still have that same yacon growing today, it is one of my all time favourite vegetables.  I believe it was money well spent.


Production costs of growing vegetables in a small suburban backyard

People often complain about all the 'hidden' costs which I have conveniently ignored so far, what about fertilisers, pesticides, herbicides, water and most importantly time?  Again I say if you are not saving money by growing vegetables then you are doing it wrong.  Lets look at these hidden costs.

Fertiliser
People often complain about the cost of fertilisers when growing their own food, I have never used them.  You don't need to use them in a backyard, it is cheaper not to.

When we lived in town I would compost the lawn clippings as well as tea bags, egg shells and whatever vegetable scraps we had and use that as fertiliser.  It was virtually free as we were using an otherwise wasted resource and the vegetables grew tremendously well with that as the only fertiliser. The soil got richer and more fertile each year, this cost us nothing.

After a while we got chickens and also used their manure and bedding as fertiliser.  Someone gave us their old guinea pig, this little guy worked tirelessly eating weeds/grass and turning that into manure.  He lived a long life with us, reaching a ripe old age of about 7 eating nothing but grass and weeds and producing high quality fertiliser for us.  I miss him, he was a hard worker and a placid friend for my children.

There is no need to spend money on fertiliser as you will have something around that you can use for free.  I can understand large acreage buying fertilisers, but if you are spending money on fertiliser in town you are doing it wrong.
Chickens, a great source of manure (don't worry they did not live like this for more than a few minutes, we were only carrying them from the incubator to the brooder and this tiny box was the safest and easiest way)
Pesticides
People often complain about pesticide costs, again I have never used them.  If a plant gets hammered by insects then perhaps I should grow something else.  There is no point beating a dead horse, sometimes it is wiser to cut your losses and grow something else. 

Some pests can be beaten using other means, others sadly can not.  Cabbage white butterflies for example do not like to like to lay eggs where there are a lot of other white butterflies.  I tie some string running along the length of the bed next to the brassicas.  I then cut white plastic bags into small rectangles and tie them in their middle along the string.  The end result looks like a heap of butterflies fluttering along the crop in the wind.  Don't be fooled,  this does not eliminate the pests, but it does reduce them to a sensible number.  We went from several dozen caterpillars per leaf of every plant, which I was removing each day, to only 1 or 2 per entire row of plants.  This cost me a little time, an old plastic bag and a length of old string that I found in the garage. 

I keep slugs and snails away from seedlings by surrounding them with crushed egg shells.  Apparently the slugs/snails find them too sharp and do not go over them.  This has to be reapplied every now and again as birds or something steal the pieces of shell.  Egg shell is virtually free, my chickens and ducks lay eggs which we eat or hatch and I use the shells either in compost or to protect seedlings.
Crushed egg shells protect seedlings from slugs and snails

Herbicides
People ask me "what about weeds and weed control?".  In a back yard you should not have weed trouble that you can not dig out easily enough.  Large scale broad acre farms may be different, but in a back yard if you can not dig out a weed something has gone wrong.

If you have chickens or guinea pigs they can be put on a vegetable plot between crops to eat out weeds and fertilise the soil for you.  Chickens can be very destructive in the vegetable garden so I would only use them between crops and I would be careful they do not scratch all the soil out of your garden.

I don't see the point of using a herbicide in a small backyard vegetable garden.  If you do not have chickens or guinea pigs then pull out the weeds yourself, don't spray them.  If you can not pull out the weeds yourself due to ill health or something consider mulching heavily with newspaper or something.  People will give you piles of newspaper for free if you ask.

Water 
People often drone on and on about how much they will spend in water if they grow vegetables, in a small backyard this is not the case.  When we lived in town water cost $0.55 per kiloliter, I don't know how many thousand liters I would have used watering my tiny patch but all up it would have added up to maybe a few dollars each year.

The cost of water is undoubtedly a lot higher these days and would certainly vary from town to town, even so you would probably be looking at the cost over an entire year in single digits.  This is not a large cost and can easily be factored in to a productive vegetable garden.  There is certainly no point complaining about such a small cost each year when the financial benefits are so great.
Duck potatoes growing in a bucket.  Water is cheap, duck potatoes are expensive
Time
I can not put a dollar amount on your time, I also can't tell you how long you will spend gardening each week or total over a year.  This will depend on how much time you are willing to spend out there.

People often talk about how gardening is great exercise and excellent for good health.  Others tell me that they find gardening therapeutic.  Some people claim that the clean, organic, nutrient dense food they produce will save them medical costs, doctor visits and give them greater quality of life when they are older and less sick.  I don't know about this so can not comment.

I can't tell you the benefit/cost ratio regarding time in growing your own food in the backyard.  I don't know anything about that, but I do often think perhaps my time is better spent growing my own food rather than working so that I can pay someone else to grow it for me.  When we lived in town the time I spent in the garden was just time I otherwise would have spent in front of the TV.

I can grow a lot of things that I can not buy in the shops, and I can grow other things that are best fresh.  Some things such as sweet corn only taste their best when eaten within 15 minutes of being picked.  After that the sugars convert to starch and you lose a great deal of quality.  The time it takes to drive home with your 'fresh' corn from the shops is enough to stop it tasting its best.  I find that the small amount of time required to grow corn is more than worth it when it tastes so good.
Sorrel, you don't find this at the shops
Yacon, more than worth a little time to grow this at home

How much food can you produce in an average backyard?

Back in the old days most people grew most of what they ate, but back then life was easier and the world was a vastly different place.  House blocks were generally a lot larger and people had a great deal more spare time, it was quite rare for both husband and wife to have payed employment outside of the house.  Producing meat in your backyard was seen as pretty normal back then, today if you even consider butchering a chicken you would be frowned upon.  Back then people rarely bought much food, unfortunately times have changed.

If you wanted to you could probably produce all of your fruit and vegetables in your yard, but few of us have the time, the space or the inclination to do that.  Your yard would no longer be useful for anything other than producing food.  You are better off just growing some things that you like, still having a pretty normal looking yard that is still functional, and saving a heap of money along the way.  A 1m by 4m plot along the fence can be tremendously productive.
When we were in town we had two vegetable plots which were just under 2m x 2m, about 7.5 square meters together.  That small amount of land produced about 10% of our vegetables.  For 5 weeks each year we did not buy vegetables at all, then we got a few handfuls of vegetables throughout the rest of the year.  You can see how such a small amount of land can save you rather a lot of money.

I personally think that if you are not saving money by growing food then you are doing it wrong!  If you have tried and things are not going well talk to someone who may be able to help.  Just like the carrot example above you may need to change your plant choices.


Where to get heirloom vegetable seeds and perennial vegetables

There are many places that sell seeds and perennial vegetables.  Whenever buying please look at things that will either be perennial and grow for multiple years, or things that you may be able to save seeds from.  By doing this you will lower your costs as they will be a once off purchase.  Some things will be too difficult or time consuming to save seeds, that is ok too as long as you are aware of it and are saving seeds from other things.  Try to pick varieties that are different from what you can buy, many varieties that are available in shops are excellent for large scale farming and distributing over large distances but are not great for home gardens.  The aims of a home vegetable garden are different to that of a broad acre monoculture.

I sell some perennial vegetables and heirloom vegetable seeds through my for sale page and can post at cost to most of mainland Australia (not Tasmania or WA).  There are many other good small home seed sellers, as well as some larger ones that are good.  If you deal with the smaller family run seed sellers they are more likely to offer advice if something goes wrong as well as give you fresher seeds.  One of the largest and most well known heirloom seed sellers in Australia is dreadful, and ebay is very hit and miss, so do some research prior to buying anything.

You have little to lose and a lot to gain, grow some vegetables and save some money.



1 Thessalonians 4:11 and to make it your ambition to lead a quiet life: You should mind your own business and work with your hands, just as we told you,

Sunday 30 August 2015

Why Save Seeds?


I grow mostly perennial vegetables at the moment.  They have a lot of benefits when compared to annuals as well as some negatives.  I also grow some annual vegetables and save seed from the very best each season.  

I am slowly starting to realise that I should sell some seeds each year as the varieties I am growing are amazing in one way or another.  Some are rare, some I have bred myself, others are extremely common, but they are all worth growing and saving seed from each year.  I have also taught people how to save seeds, a skill that I taught myself over many years through trial and error.
Purple mustard, very HOT

How I started to save seeds
Recently my mother came to visit with my kids and saw me fermenting tomato seeds, she asked what I was doing and I told her that I was saving seeds to grow next year.  She asked why I bothered as I could buy seedlings next year.  Not wanting to get into a discussion over it and knowing full well that she would not understand I replied with "Oh ok" and then continued what I was doing.  That got me thinking about how I started saving seeds.

When I was a preschool aged child I remember spitting out a tomato seed, then carefully putting it somewhere safe to plant.  From memory I did this several times a year and I never once planted the seeds or even remember finding them again after they had been put "somewhere safe".  My mum would purchase vegetable seedlings each year to plant out when the weather warmed up, I often asked why we did not just keep some seeds from the tomato or other things we grew and plant them the following year, I was told that it just didn't work that way.  Being so little I just accepted what I was told.

I distinctly remember my mother growing radishes when I was very young, then some flowered and she began to pull them out and throw them away.  I asked why she was killing them and was told that they go woody and are no good to eat when they flower.  I asked why she did not let them flower and plant their seeds (even before reaching school age I had a good understanding that plants flower to produce seeds, and that seeds would grow into plants) and was told that it just didn't work that way.  I convinced her to leave a few to go to seed, I remember carefully collecting the seeds and happily scattering them in the garden.  I have no idea if they grew or not, or if they spouted and were weeded out, I was just too young and my memory is not all that clear.  I am pretty sure that for one reason or another nothing came of them.
5 year old Nanuq carefully collecting mini blue popcorn seeds
Now that I have young children myself, I save seeds of heirloom vegetables (as well as saving seed from new varieties I am breeding myself) and I teach my children to save seeds.  They all help in one way or another, even my one year old helps collect hardy seeds such as broad beans.  I save these seeds for quite a lot of reasons including cost, variety selection, genetic drift, preserving rare varieties, having control over what I eat, breeding new varieties, improving existing varieties to suit my needs, and so on.  I have some varieties which I purchased as seeds prior to having kids, other things I planted the first seed with my first born in one arm when he was a few days old and I have saved seeds each year since then so I save them partly for sentimental reasons.  

I have a few varieties of vegetables which are not currently grown or saved by anyone else in Australia, I need to grow them to save their seed and distribute it otherwise they will go extinct here.  Some of these are great varieties, others have unique genes that could be well used in breeding programs to create improved varieties.  I am growing them for conservation reasons, as soon as I have enough seed I plan to distribute it.  Some heirloom varieties have been given to me on the provision that I do not distribute them to anyone until the person who gave it to me has died.  I will follow these wishes and conserve these varieties until I am allowed to distribute them.  Hopefully you can begin to see why saving seed is important.
Micro Tomatoes don't get any larger than this and are virtually unheard of in Australia
As I teach my kids or anyone else about saving seeds I can't help but to think back to my mum telling me that "it just doesn't work that way".  Now that I am older and have greater experience and education I now understand what she was getting at with that phrase.  She was not referring to cytoplasmic male sterility, she was not referring to F1 plants not producing true to type offspring, she was not referring to problems associated with producing accidental crossing of varieties, she was not referring to inbreeding depression resulting from small gene pools and tight genetic bottlenecks, or any other reasonable explanation, she was simply referring to the fact that one is told to buy seeds or seedlings each year and that is the way things are done.  It really is very sad.
Speckled Roman tomato
I find that view of "it just doesn't work that way" interesting as it is the prominent view when regarding vegetable seed even among many who grow heirloom vegetables.  It is limiting, it is controlling, it is enslaving, it reduces the variety we have avialable to us, it makes good varieties go extinct and many people have made their fortune from people who hold this view.  Even people I know who have been growing vegetables for decades hold that view close and are wary of anyone who attempts to stray from it.  

I even hear new gardeners complain that they grew some amazing variety last year and now they can not find it for sale anywhere.  I used to ask them if the variety was so good why they did not save seeds themselves, after a blank stare they usually reply with that mantra of "it just doesn't work that way". I no longer bother to ask any questions.

If you are confused let me tell you, it most certainly can work that way and it will work that way if you can be bothered. 
Skirret - delicious and practically extinct

Saving seeds is for everyone

I am not suggesting that you should save seed from everything that you grow.  Not everyone has the time or space to save seed from everything they they grow.  That is just a simple fact of life and there is no way around it.  

Some things are just easier to buy each year.  When we move into town I will not be able to save all our own seeds, or I may find a way to make it work.  If it is not practical then I will only save seed from some things and I will probably buy others.

Leaving a biennial plant such as beetroot in the bed for 2 years so that it can go to seed, ensuring that it does not cross with any other type of beetroot or silverbeet in your neighbourhood, and ensuring that you keep enough plants to reduce the impacts of inbreeding impression, is not for everyone.  It takes a lot of time, space and a few difficult techniques if you happen to have neighbours over the fence who are doing the same thing with a different variety. When we move to town I seriously doubt that I will ever save beetroot seed again.
Crimson flowered broadbean, this would be extinct if not for ONE lady who saved seed
Crimson Flowered Broadbean seeds

Saving seed from other things is far simpler.  Other things can take almost no time, no effort, no cost (in fact they save you money as you never buy seeds or seedlings of that plant ever again), and end up giving you a superior variety that is better suited to your purposes.  I want to encourage people to save seed from these easy things.
Reisetomate tomatoes, difficult to find anywhere but simple to save seeds once you have found them
Saving seed from a coriander plant for example is simple.  You grow your coriander as normal, you eat the leaves as normal, when it flowers and goes to seed you rip out any substandard plants (or at least kill the plants that flower first) and allow the rest to do their thing.  Then you can let them self seed and you are done, no real effort on your behalf other than ripping out some plants which you were going to do anyway.  Or you could collect and store the seeds somewhere until you are ready to plant again, and that is all.  That wasn't too hard and didn't take much time and certainly didn't cost anything.  

By killing off the first plants to flower you are selecting for plants that will be slow bolting and produce over a longer period in your garden.  If you buy seeds or seedlings each year you can rest assured that they have been selected for fast bolting and high seed yields, those are the traits that make money for the commercial seed farms, they do not care about the quantity or quality of the leaves.  You may have to be careful if you grow more than one variety or you have a close neighbour who is growing a different variety, you may eventually run into issues with inbreeding depression if you save seeds from too few plants over too many generations (there are a few ways around this though), but if you grow coriander and are happy with a variety I think you should save the seeds for next year.
Tomatillo
In my opinion, if you are the type who wants to grow something, and has the space to grow something, then you should save some seeds from something.  While you may not save seed from everything you grow you should at least save seeds from one or two things.  Many balcony farmers can easily save seed from an annual herb such as coriander or basil if nothing else.


Are home grown seeds as good?

People often ask me if seeds you save yourself are as good as "the ones you can buy".  The short answer is yes.  Any seeds you save yourself are just as good as any seeds you can buy.  

The longer answer is that seeds you can buy the seeds that I save, but seeds that you save yourself are likely to be far superior to anything you can buy anywhere for quite a number of reasons. 
OSU Blue tomato - you don't see these at the supermarket
If you save seeds you should get higher germination rates, this is due partly to the fact that the seeds will be fresher, seeds that you buy may be a few years old before you purchase them.  I write the year the seeds were collected on seed packets, I know of no one else who does this, they mostly write an arbitrary date of expiration or the date that they were repackaged.  I dislike companies who write the repackage date as who knows how old the seeds were before they were repackaged and sold.  I dislike the arbitrary best before dates for a number of reasons.  I want to know the year they they were grown, that is why I write that on my packets.

Your home grown seeds will have been stored in reasonably stable conditions in the cupboard or wherever it is that you store seeds, anything you buy may have been stored in variable conditions as it goes on trucks, gets stored in warehouses, hangs on the wall of the shop in direct sunlight etc. The seeds I sell are the same ones that I will plant if they are not sold, so I take as much care as possible with them and store them as best I can
Freckles lettuce and purple mustard
If you save seeds you know that they are clean, at very worst they will only have diseases and pests that are already in your garden, you will certainly not be introducing any new horror.  Many heirloom seed companies import seeds from overseas.  One well known heirloom seed company which sells a range of 'organic' seeds imports almost all of their seeds, they try to trick customers into thinking that they grow their own seeds by pointing to the fact that they are an Australian owned and run company.  The only seeds that they sell which were grown in Australia are the ones that they are no longer allowed to import.

Ever seen white tomatoes in the shops?  You must save seeds if you want to grow and eat them
If you are growing vegetables to reduce your carbon footprint or lower food miles then it does not make sense to buy seed each year that was grown in Mexico, shipped to somewhere in the USA, shipped to Sydney, transported to Melbourne where it is stored in bulk and repackaged (stamped with the repackage date) and stored again, then posted to you.  Producing and saving your own seed each year makes far more sense.
More importantly than any of this, each time you save seeds you are adding selective pressure for plants that are suited to YOUR garden's climate and have the traits that YOU want.  If a plant is not suited to your climate it will not survive to produce much seed, if you buy seed it is likely that it has been grown in conditions that are not at all like yours.  It is also likely that seeds you buy will have been selected to produce seed, home grown plants are selected to produce large crops, crops over an extended period, delicious crops, disease resistance etc.  

Most seed companies spray crops many times throughout the growing season, even organically certified farms tend to spray with all kinds of horrible "organic" chemicals.  Many of these organic poisons are highly residual.  All of this is selecting for plants with lowered resistance to whatever it is that will attack them in your garden.  

In my garden we do not use poisons, if a plant get attacked by pests or diseases I pull it out and do not save seed from it, in this way I am selecting for pest and disease resistance.  You can easily do the same in your garden when you save seeds.
Golden podded snowpea seeds - it is simple to save pea seeds
This year I grew over 2 dozen different types of tomato, all seeds were planted on the same day, all seedlings were planted out in the vegetable garden on the same day, and all of them have been given the same conditions.  One variety, my yellow pear tomato, has been with us for many years now and we have saved seed from the best plants each year.  

My climate, just like everywhere in Australia, can be rather hostile.  Out of all the varieties I am growing the yellow pear plant is about 4 times the size of the next largest, it is absolutely covered in flowers and is setting fruit long before everything else.  Many of the other varieties are meant to be far more vigorous, many are meant to fruit several weeks earlier, and many are meant to grow larger plants than the yellow pear.  Given ideal conditions the yellow pear should not be anywhere near as large or fast or have as many flowers as many of the other varieties.

But my garden does not have ideal conditions nor does yours.  This strain of yellow pear tomatoes will produce fruit until the frosts kill the plants, then I will collect any green fruit that is still on the dead plants and ripen it indoors.  Clearly over the years I have been selecting for plants that not just survive but thrive in arid hostile environments as well as growing large quickly and producing early crops.
Yellow Pear tomatoes

You should save some seeds

I do sell heirloom vegetable seeds as well as perennial vegetables and a few other things through my for sale page.  While I will happily sell you seeds each year and profit from doing so it is in your best interests to save at least some seed yourself after growing out some plants.  After all, you have little to lose and very much to gain.  There is no reason to buy seed each year, buy once and save seed if you like that particular variety.
Immali Corn, I am developing this variety myself
Start with something simple, do NOT start with beetroot or corn.  Start with peas or tomatoes or some annual herb that you enjoy.  Every time you save seeds that variety will be slightly different from the last time, even if you make it your desire to keep the strain exactly how it was it will still be slightly different, it will be slightly better.  By saving seeds you will also be saving money.

There is no way to stop these slight changes, you can slow them considerably but these changes will never actually stop so you may as well have the variety change for the better.  Add some deliberate selective pressure, kill off the undesirable plants and only save seed from the ones that do best for you.  Perhaps you want compact plants to utilise space better, then only save seeds from your most compact plants.  Perhaps you want tomatoes that have more uniform shape, then only save seed from these plants.  Save seeds from the fruit and plants that you want to see more of.  The difference you will make in a few years is amazing.
Heirloom tomatoes, many rare and delicious varieties in this basket
If you do not know how to save seeds and are worried about doing it wrong, read some books, ask some people, or talk to me and I can offer some advice.  You certainly do not need anything too high tech and do not need botanical or horticultural training in order to be successful.  Lets face it, people were saving seeds back before we knew anything about genetics, they have done so all over the world for many generations, if they could do it then so can you.   

These vegetable seeds are gifts from the ancestors who developed them, preserving at least some of these varieties and improving them is the only sensible thing to do.


1 Peter 4:10  Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms

Saturday 1 August 2015

The effects of static magnetic fields on seed germination and plant growth

I have heard anecdotal evidence from people who claim exposing seeds to a static magnetic field increases germination rates and makes seeds germinate a lot faster.  I have heard other people claim that exposing seedlings to a magnetic field increases health of young seedlings.  To be honest I had no idea if this was accurate or not.  If this is true then I want to use magnets in germinating some seeds.

I did some research on the internet and found various papers that have been written on the subject, they appear to have conflicting results and many of the tests were often run is sub optimal conditions (often funded by companies that have a conflict of interest) with far too many variables often in completely non-scientific ways that can not be used to provide unbiased results.  Most (ie all) of the people who I know of that have tried this have not included a control, which in my mind is a waste of time.  I often read statements such as "try this and you will be amazed by the results", so I decided to try it.

To find out for myself if there is truth in this my children and I decided to run a small experiment.  If static magnets do increase the germination rates of seeds (which would be great for old seeds with low germination rates), or decrease the amount of time it takes for seeds to germinate (which would stop weaker seeds from rotting), or increases the vigor of young seedlings (which can die in the first few days while they are tiny) they could be extremely useful for me in germinating difficult seeds or very old seeds of rare varieties.  Lets face it, if this works I have a lot to gain and nothing to lose.
Magnet and seed germination experiment
The three pots, unfortunately one was a different colour
The Experiment
I will probably try to write this up properly some time in the future, include some graphs of the results, but I don't have time right now.  For now I will write it up very simply so that you can see what happened and possibly repeat it with your own kids.

This experiment was conducted to determine if a static magnetic field would affect seed germination or the early growth of seedlings.

This study divided wheat (Triticum spp) seeds into three groups.  Each group was comprised of 100 wheat seeds randomly chosen from a sack of feed wheat.  The first group was to germinate in the presence of a strong static magnet field delivered from an n52  Neodymium magnet (approximately 0.6751 tesla or 6751 gauss).  The second group was to germinate in the presence of a weak static magnet field delivered from a small refrigerator magnet of unknown strength.  The third grew was to germinate in the absence of any added magnetic field to act as a control. 

Several growth parameters were observed throughout the experiment including the germination rate, leaf length, and root length.  In addition the health status of seedlings was measured through observation of leaf color, spots, visual presence of disease, stem curvature, and seedling mortality.  Plant growth was observed continuously for the duration of the experiment.

Three square 10cm plastic pots were filled with potting soil from the same bag to the same depth.  The three pots were watered by submerging the pots in water until the soil was thoroughly soaked.  Each pot was then surface sowed with 100 wheat seeds.  For the duration of the experiment each pot was watered from below once a week so as not to disturb the magnets or the emerging seedlings.  Each magnet was wrapped in a single sheet or 3 ply toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag and placed on top of the seeds.  This was done to protect the magnets from corrosion as well as obscure which magnet was in which group.  To reduce the presence of any variables the control had a small non magnetic stone of similar weight to the magnets, wrapped in toilet paper inside a small plastic zip lock bag.  The three bags were then shuffled and chosen at random to be placed on the seeded pots of soil to ensure a blind test.

The magnets were placed on their side so that some seeds would be close to the North pole, some close to the South pole and others along the edge.  This was intended to show if either pole had a positive or negative effect on germination of the seeds.

After 5 days seeds in all three pots began to germinate.  It appeared as if seeds from all parts of all pots were germinating at the same rate.  It appeared that all three pots had similar germination in terms of the number of seeds germinating, progression of root growth, progression of leaf growth, as well as angle of root or leaf growth.

After 14 days seedlings from all three pots were counted and measured.  Seedlings from all three groups had similar height, similar health as indicated by colour, lack of spots, and visual stem curvature.  All three groups had no seedling mortality throughout the duration of the experiment.

The high magnetic group had 98% germination.
The low magnetic group had 100% germination.
The control group had 99% germination.
The time to germination from all three pots was identical which indicates that magnets have no noticeable effect on germination time.

In addition to the germination rates being similar (98% to 100%), the leaf length, root length and health of seedlings from each batch appeared to be identical.  I had planned on weighing the seedlings from each group to determine fresh biomass but discovered that separating the roots from the potting mix was not possible.
A blind test, I didn't know which pot has the magnet or stone


The results from this small experiment indicate that there is no noticeable effect on the germination of seeds in terms of germination time or germination rate due to either strong or weak static magnetic fields.  It appears that a static magnetic field has no noticeable effect on the vigor/health of young seedlings.  The pots with magnets had similar looking seedlings growing on all areas of the pot which indicates that the polarity of the magnet also had no noticeable effect on germination or early growth.

This was a blind test and it was not until after the seedlings were counted and measured that I opened the little zip lock bags to discover which pot had which magnet.  I figure if this was worth doing it was worth doing properly.


My thoughts
While I was kind of disappointed by this result in hindsight it is not overly surprising.  If any positive difference would be seen then seed magnetisation would be used by commercial farmers.  Farmers have tight profit margins and often grow in hostile environments, they are willing to do whatever it takes to make their crops thrive and magnetisation would be reasonably cheap and simple to apply.  The fact that seed magnetisers are only seen being sold by a few sketchy online sellers and are not seen in rural stores or used by many commercial farmers hints that it may not be all that useful.  It was still worth testing to see for myself.

I have already started to run a similar experiment again and changed some of the parameters, the use of sand instead of soil will allow me to weigh the fresh or dry biomass and see if there is any difference there.  An extra 100 seeds in each group is only going to make the data better.

I am using seeds from a dicot instead of a monocot to see if that makes any noticeable difference.  Doing this experiment using seeds with naturally high germination rates as I did possibly obscures the results as germination rates could not really get any higher.  The seeds in the second test are older and have lower germination rates so I should be able to see if the magnets make any noticeable difference on germination rates that are not close to 100%.

I am also planning to grow seedlings for a longer time to see if any noticeable difference is made as they get larger, in the future I may even grow them to maturity to determine if any difference is made to overall yield or time to maturity (Micro Tom tomatoes seem like a great choice for this).  There are also a few other things that I may considering trying in the future that may make the experiment a little more robust.
Micro Tom tomatoes, tiny plants with a short lifecycle makes them ideal for experiments
When I conclude this second experiment I plan to post the results (or a link to the results) here.

If you also try this little experiment please ensure you are removing as many variables as possible and do it as a blind test with a control so that the results are accurate.  Feel free to let me know your results.  Not just the results you wanted, but the results that you actually had.  

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I repeated the experiment using some old cress (Lepidium sativum) seeds that would have a lower percentage of germination and I grew them out for a bit longer.  Again I used 100 seeds per group but this time all of the pots were exactly the same.  

The time to germination was identical in all groups.  The plants in all groups looked similar in terms of height, number of leaves, colour, angle of leaf growth etc.  The motality rate was identical in all three groups (4 seedlings germinated then died in each group).  I did not weigh the seedlings as I assume they would weigh less than 1 gram collectively and my scales are not accurate enough to record any differences.  Due to less than ideal conditions all 3 groups then started to grow mould which infected all seedlings similarly and all plants are succumbing at a similar rate.  I am going to let this continue to see if there is any noticeable difference in the groups but at this stage that looks unlikely.

The percentage germination was the only area where I could see even a slight difference.  The control group had 24 seeds germinate, the strong magnet had 22 seeds germinate and the weak magnet had 30 seeds germinate.  

This is certainly not the miracle difference in growth and/or germination that I had hoped for, it is not going to be the magic bullet to help germinate tricky or weak seeds.  The difference between 24% germination of the control and 30% germination for the weak magnet is not enough for me to think that the magnets are creating a difference of any kind.

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If it is worth doing it is worth doing right.

Some people have asked me why I only have 100 seeds in each group.  The answer is because if I have any more seeds they are too far from the magnet to experience the magnetic field.  I agree this test would be more valid with larger numbers, to help overcome this I have run the experiment several times using several different species to see if I obtain any significant difference.

I repeated this again with some older garlic chive (Allium tuberosum) seeds that I had left in a paper bag.  As the seeds were aging I had expected germination rates to be low.

I used 100 randomly chosen seeds in each pot and used three identical pots filled with sand.  Again I used the strong magnet, the weak magnet and the non magnetic stone as a control.  As before I did not know which group was which until after I had counted the seedlings.

The time to germination was identical in each pot, the health and size of seedlings in each pot was also identical.  The early growth rates of the seedlings was identical.  I tried to weigh the seedlings after the experiment but my scales were not accurate enough to record any differences.

The control group had 64 seeds germinate, the weak magnet had 61 seeds germinate and the strong magnet had 65 seeds germinate.

Just like the previous experiments I am far from amazed by these results.  Their seems to be little to no effect of a static magnetic field, either strong or weak, on seed germination and early plant growth.

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From here I want to run this little experiment again using the Micro tomatoes from planting the seeds until maturity so I can count and weigh the fruit to see if there is any improvement in crop yield.  I will probably only be able to grow 3 seeds of each in this experiment as I do not have enough magnets to grow larger numbers.

Due to moving etc I may not get around to this for some time though, if I do I plan to post the results here or if the results are interesting I may write another post and link to it from here.

Sunday 21 June 2015

Skirret harvest 2015

The other weekend I dug up my dormant skirret plants to harvest some delicious roots as well as divide the crowns.  Being Winter in Australia means that the skirret has died down and the roots are conveniently stored in the soil.  I have had a lot of people email me questions about skirret  (my email details are on my for sale page)so thought I should write another post about the harvest.
Dormant skirret plant
I wrote an earlier post on growing skirret from seed.  Skirret is a terrific perennial vegetable that desperately deserves someone to put in some dedicated breeding effort and bring it back into popularity.

Over the year the plants grew from tiny seeds into flowering size small plants, each year they will grow larger and stronger.  Unlike many perennial vegetables, skirret grew from seed, flowered and set more viable seed in a year, as well as that each plant produced a few offsets which can be divided and replanted.
Skirret plants ready for harvest
The Skirret Harvest
To harvest I waited until they had finished flowering, then collected the seeds and store them safely, then I cut off the flower stalk and waited for the plants to die down.  The skirret eventually died down leaving nothing but some dead leaves to show where they had been, I then was busy and didn't do anything for a few weeks.  We eventually had some frosts, but I was still busy so did nothing with the skirret plants.  I am told like many winter vegetables that frost makes skirret sweeter and richer in taste, I have never eaten non-frosted skirret so can not comment on this.  Then when I had time I dug up the plants, removed the larger roots, divided the offsets, and replanted everything.

Upon digging the skirret plants I got to see how they had grown, they looked a lot like asparagus crowns.  Each plant grew a small handful of edible roots, the roots were only about 15cm long as this year were as thin as a pencil.  Being first year plants that is not too bad, older plants should grow longer and slightly thicker roots.  The plants were over crowded into a pot which was too small for one plant to grow well, which also would have lowered the yield.  I allowed the plants to flower and set seed, all of this takes a lot of energy and reduces the crop significantly.
Skirret plants in a pot starting to flower
Skirret Flowers attract beneficial insects
What Does Skirret Taste Like
We did not get a large crop this year so I dug the roots, scrubbed the dirt off them, sliced them and ate them raw.  My kids loved skirret even more than I do, they could not get enough.

I forgot how much I like skirret, it tastes very sweet.  It is the sweetest thing that I grow, which is saying a lot considering I grow so many different fruit trees, herbs (including stevia the so called 'sweet herb") and vegetables (including yacon).  The skin tastes a lot like carrot, if scrubbed off you lose a lot of the carrot taste and are left with the sweetness.  It has another taste to it which I really like, I don't know how to describe it.  It is very mild and subtle, but it adds something nice to the sweetness.

Skirret crowns
How to store skirret
Skirret, like many winter root crops, stores best in the soil to be dug when it is needed.  It can also be stored well in the fridge in a plastic bag.  I have no idea if it can be frozen but I assume it can, if frozen I guess it would be no good for eating raw but should be good for cooking.  I have never tried freezing it myself, so you may need to use caution here.

I left some on the kitchen bench for a few days, it does not store well like this at all.  They lost their crispness very fast and became pretty inedible and droopy.  I did not want to lose any skirret as it is so delicious so I put those limp roots in a cup of water to see if they would rehydrate and become edible once again.  It appears that they do, they are not as good as the ones that were stored properly, but they are still nice to eat again.
Seed grown skirret, some are better than others
How To Grow Skirret
Skirret can be started from seeds, first year plants are smaller and often have a woody core.  Skirret grown from seed often exhibits a lot of genetic variability, this can be a great thing resulting in improved plants, or it can result in substandard plants.  They should all taste similar, but the yield will be different.  Seeds are tiny and do not have excellent germination, my fresh seeds are only showing about 70% germination and the tiny seedlings are inviting to slugs and snails.  Seeds are reasonably cheap and I am told that skirret seeds remain viable for about 10 years.  When buying a packet of 20 seeds it is not difficult to end up with well over a dozen plants which is more than most people will have room for.
Tiny skirret seedlings ready to be transplanted
The seeds are tiny, in spring I sprinkle the seeds on top of soil in a punnet and water them.  I wait until the seedlings have grown a bit before I plant them in their final spot as I find I can protect a punnet a bit easier.

Skirret offset ready to be planted
Most people who have the option grow skirret from offsets.  These offsets are essentially tiny cuttings that the plant makes itself, each one is genetically identical to the parent.  These tiny offsets sit dormant over winter, then when the time is right they start to grow and get a head start on seed grown plants.  They will grow a larger crop with less woody cores than first year seed grown plants.  Offsets are more expensive, and you get one plant per offset the first year.  Each year after that your skirret will divide and flower.

I plant the offsets so that the growing tip is just beneath the soil surface, if you get heavy frost you way want to plant them a bit deeper or mulch the tiny offset over winter.  If you live somewhere without frost you can plant the offset so that the tip of the leaves are just poking out of the soil.  You will need to protect them from slugs and snails while they are little.  The offsets are pretty small, they usually will have no roots at this stage, this is normal and they will grow well from this when the weather is right.
Skirret offsets, they are small but they all will grow
Where to buy skirret in Australia
I sell packets of skirret seeds, they are a great way to grow a decent number of skirret plants.  I also sell offsets or small plants from my better plants on my for sale page, they are a great way to grow known performing plants that should grow larger than from seed reasonably fast.  I only sell offsets from the better plants.

I will sell offsets over winter, but they will be dormant and not do much until spring, if I have any left I plan to sell small plants over the warmer months.  Above is a picture of some skirret offsets next to a measuring tape for scale so that you can tell exactly what you will get if you buy them.

Sunday 14 June 2015

Micro Tom tomatoes


I wrote an earlier post on my experience with some old Micro Tom tomato seeds and growing them out for the first time.  Then I forgot to publish that post...oops.

As it turns out I got some very old seeds to germinate, grow, flower, set fruit and then saved all of its seeds.  I have since posted some of those seeds to other seed savers in the hope that this variety never goes extinct in Australia.  I thought I would write about just how close Micro Tom came to disaster.
Micro Tom starting to die, the stick is 5cm tall
Micro Tom faced a lot of danger

First the seeds were very old and I was not sure that they would germinate.  I planted three seeds and one germinated and grew for me.  That was great, but I need more experience growing old seeds.  I now have some 20 year old and 25 year old tomato seeds (that are not rare varieties) that I am now planning on experimenting with to find ways to increase germination rates in extremely old seeds.  If you have any older tomato seeds that you do not want I would love you to send them to me so that I can experiment some more.

Secondly I did not have many of these old seeds (only 9) so could not play around too much with them.  To this end I planted three seeds and saved the other six for Spring.  I think this was a wise choice as it gave me the best of both worlds.  In Spring I plan on planting the remaining old seeds and see if I can get any of them to grow.  Having such a low number of old seeds and so little experience germinating them could easily have ended this experiment right there.

Once one germinated and started to grow, the weather cooled down and early frosts were a danger as were low daytime temperatures which could prevent fruit set or ripening.  I grew the plants in the laundry over night to help combat this but did not have high hopes that the micro tomatoes would work at this time of year.

Then the Micro Tom plant got a disease, it looked like late blight, you can see it in the picture above.  This disease caused leaf, flower and fruit drop and eventually killed my precious little plant.  Luckily the tiny plant ripened a few fruits before this happened so it only ended up causing me to save less seeds rather than be a total disaster.

I decided to let the fruit hang on the plant for a long time to ensure the seeds and the best chance of being ripe and viable.  Being outside at this time of year is asking for trouble as birds would steal the late fruit so I kept the plant in the laundry which protected it from birds, but this actually caused the next problem.

Our baby almost ate the Micro Tom tomatoes!!!  One day Tracey was doing laundry, she walked out of the laundry and when she returned the baby had stolen all the tomatoes off the tiny plant.  She had one tomato in her hand and a funny grin on her face.  Tracey rescued the tomato from the baby's hand, then she noticed the odd grin.  Apparently the baby had put tomatoes in her mouth but as yet had not bitten down on them.  Luckily Tracey also saved those tomatoes.  In the end the baby did not end up eating any Micro Tom tomatoes and we were able to save them all for seed.

I was also growing another variety of micro tomato from some equally old seeds in a pot next to Micro Tom.  Luckily the baby only picked tomatoes from one plant and not the other, she did not eat them, and she did not mix up fruit from both plants.  Had the tomatoes been mixed up it would not be worth saving seeds from them as I would not have known which variety they were.  If that happened I would only have saved seed to use for breeding as I would not know which variety of micro tomato it was.
Micro Tom tomatoes
What does Micro Tom taste like

Micro Tom is a cherry tomato, they taste ok as far as cherry tomatoes go.  Nothing particularly special unfortunately.  They are better than any cherry tomatoes that I can buy at this time of year, which is a bonus.  They tasted better than the other micro tomato that I grew at the same time, which is another bonus.  They also taste a lot better than an unnamed cherry tomato that I grew in the vegetable garden this year too so overall I can't complain about the taste.  They were not terribly sweet and did not have any great depth of taste, but they were not at all bad.

Perhaps they would be sweeter if grown with proper conditions rather than in the beginning of Winter and more sunlight (and more leaves, the poor little plant was defoliated by disease) should equate to higher fruit sugar levels.  I plan to grow some in Spring and see if they taste better.

I also saved every seed and only ate the flesh of the tomatoes, perhaps eating the seeds in the tomato would have made it nicer.  It is difficult to say for sure, in Spring I will grow more plants and taste them properly now that fresh seeds have been saved.
Micro Tom tomatoes
How does Micro Tom grow

I have only grown the one little plant, I hope to grow a lot more of them to get a better idea of how they perform.  The tiny plant grew less than 7cm tall before it died.  It was difficult to measure its height exactly, probably 5cm to 6cm, and it was cute as a button.  It ended up producing about half a dozen ripe tomatoes but would have produced 20 to30 had it not been killed by disease.

This tiny plant grew in a small pot of soil that was barely 7cm across.  I had planned on growing it in a 10cm pot but could not find one until after it was planted and did not want to mess around repotting it.

I think that Micro Tom could be grown in a plastic cup of soil that has a drainage hole.  I plan to grow some like that and see how it goes, I think the outcome will be positive.  I also have sowed some seeds to see if I can grow them over Winter on the kitchen window and with successive planting provide some tomatoes year round.  So far it looks like Micro Tom will do this quite well.
Micro Tom flowering nicely
What is the point of Micro Tom

Clearly Micro Tom would not be used to feed your entire family, other varieties are better suited for that task.  It is not really suitable to grow outside on acreage, again there are far more suitable tomato varieties for this task as a micro tomato would easily be over run by taller weeds.  While it tastes ok, it is far from the best tasting cherry tomato that I grew this year.  Somehow, even with all of that, Micro Tom will be grown by me for years to come.

Micro Tom is very well suited to growing where space is limited, it is ideal for balconies and window farming.  If it can be grown successfully over winter on the window it can be used to provide a small number of home grown tomatoes all year.

Micro Tom is perfect for children, lets face it they can grow it in a cup of soil and carry it around and pretend it is a little pet.  You can't do that with a 6 foot tall Giant Siberian Pink tomato plant that produces massive 20cm fruit!

Apparently Micro Tom is used overseas by research facilities in understanding genetics, due to its short life cycle and undemanding habits it is considered the mouse of the plant world.

As far as I am concerned Micro Tom is good, but its true potential is using it as breeding stock to create improved micro tomatoes that taste better, return larger crops, and perhaps even a few different colours.  I have great plans of using Micro Tom as one parent to breed superior micro tomatoes, to be honest I can see this being a fun and interesting breeding project and due to Micro Tom's short life cycle I should be able to achieve results relatively quickly. 
Micro Tom fruiting well