Time to maturity grape hyacinth Muscari armeniacum from seed

I wrote an earlier post explaining how to grow muscari grape hyacinths (Muscari armeniacum) from seeds.  Muscari grow very easily from seed, but they will NOT flower in their first year.  Growing them from seed is simple, but I thought I should record some timeframes to provide an indication of what to expect.   

Germination was inconsistent, but almost every seed germinated if they were left in the fridge for long enough.  After they germinated I planted them in a little punnet with soil and watered them occasionally.  Eventually I planted them in a larger pot of soil, and they pretty much just looked after them selves. 

Muscari grape hyacinth flowering

Unfortunately I grew my seedlings in a cup of soil for far too long and they were somewhat stunted, and when planted out I had them in poor soil, so they have not grown to their potential.  Few people are going to give them perfect conditions so I think it still shows the rough time frames that can be expected when growing muscari grape hyacinth from seed.


Days to maturity Grape Hyacinth (Muscari armeniacum)

Seeds in the fridge     02/12/2018                           Day 0
Seeds germinating    31/01/2019 to 11/03/2019     Two to Three months
Flowering                  Late August 2020                 Around twenty one months

Muscari seedlings flowering in under 2 years

Some of my seed grown plants are flowering now, meaning it took them a little under two years from seed to maturity. 

Some plants are far larger than others.  Some are not flowering this year, these will most likely be large enough to flower next spring.  Considering how little effort and how many new plants I now have, just under two years from seed to flower is a really good outcome.

It took less than two years for muscari to flower when grown from seed.  I have read in gardening books that muscari take up to six years to flower from seed, other places claim 3 to 5 years from seed, there seems to be unilateral agreement not to bother.  I guess these people never actually tried to grow muscari from seed themselves.

Very few places in Australia sell muscari grape hyacinth seeds.  When I have fresh seeds I list them on my for sale page.  I don't know how long the seeds remain viable, when the next lot are ready for harvest I plant out all of my remaining seeds.  This way the seeds are always fresh.  I really should keep some aside and see how long it takes for germination rates to decline.

Hot & Spicy oregano

I have grown oregano on an off for years. They are a common and readily available herb, so every time I move hose I leave it behind and get another. Most of the time I grow unnamed varieties, some claim to be ‘Greek’, others claim to be ‘Italian’, while some have been far better than others, none are ever bad.

No oregano I had grown has ever really impressed me, their leaves are too small, the plants are not compact enough, the taste is not strong enough, some don't cope with winter, and so on. So I started to consider breeding an improved oregano. I enjoy breeding improved things, and my success rate in breeding improved varieties of vegetables is reasonably high, so I gave it a go. I got a few oregano varieties, planted them very close together, allowed insects to open pollinate them, and planted lots of seed.

Right from cotyledon stage the seedlings displayed a wide array of diversity. I really liked some and wanted to see how they performed, most were grown out for a while before being culled, while others were culled really early. I knew what I wanted, I had heaps of seedlings, so I culled hard.

One seedling was rather unique and I think it had a lot of potential. Instead of growing leaves in pairs along the stem it grows leaves in sets of three. This looked interesting, and provided more leaf than the others. It got larger than the others pretty quickly. I was really excited to see what this plant would become.

Then last summer all of my oregano seedlings died.

Not long after I started my quest for improved oregano I heard of a variety called 'hot and spicy oregano'. This variety was said to have a much larger leaf than regular oregano, it was meant to grow more leaves and be more vigorous than other varieties, and it was meant to have a bolder and more impressive taste that almost borders on mild heat.

I started looking for "hot and spicy" oregano, several places stocked but they were either out of stock or they were on the other side of the country, and none would post.

I eventually found a hot and spicy oregano plant and bought it. While the plant was only tiny it had a lot of rather large leaves. I tasted a leaf and was underwhelmed, it was neither hot nor spicy. I wasn’t even sure I could taste oregano at all. I crushed a leaf and the smell was only noticeable if I used my imagination. I assumed the plant had been pampered too much or was stressed and it may taste better after I had grown it for a while, but I didn’t like my chances. I planted it in the garden and watered it well.

Hot and Spicy Oregano

This plant grew fast, it continued to grow reasonably large leaves, and due to its short internodes there were plenty of leaves per stem. If nothing else these traits could be useful in breeding something better. Then I crushed and smelled a leaf, the scent was bold and imposing, this was rather impressive. I tasted a tiny leaf, and it was so spicy that it almost felt like mild heat.

Hot and Spicy oregano is what oregano should taste like.

I have started to use hot and spicy oregano in meals, it is certainly a keeper. If you prefer bold taste then this is for you, if you prefer mild you simply use less.

I may not bother to keep trying to breed improved oregano as this one is great. If I do continue to breed an improved oregano I would like to use this as one of the parents as it has a lot of desirable traits. The leaves of hot & spicy oregano are pretty large for oregano, it produces a lot of leaves, and the plant is pretty compact, so the only improvement I can think of is if the leaves were even larger or if it produced more stems.

My plant has grown a lot since the photo above, it has since flowered, and died back a bit over winter, and started to grow larger again. The flowers attracted honey bees and a host of other beneficial insects.  I collected some seed and am attempting to grow it out.  Over winter it dies back somewhat as oregano does in my climate, but kept a surprising amount of leaves.I really need to take another photo, but I keep forgetting and the weather is not going to allow such things today.

I will likely sell hot and spicy oregano plants when I have enough to spare.  When I do they will be listed on my for sale page along with perennial vegetables, heirloom vegetable seeds, edible herbs etc.

Dwarf Iris (Iris reticulata) 'Harmony'

Dwarf iris (Iris reticulata) are lovely little spring flowering bulbs.  It is late winter here, but winter has been so mild this year that some plants are flowering out of season and other plants never went dormant at all.  I have never seen a winter like this before.  My dwarf iris are just starting to flower.

The pictures below are of Iris reticulata 'Harmony'.  Harmony is meant to be the best blue dwarf iris.  It is nice, but is it more purple than blue?

I enjoy plant breeding and growing things from seed.  Dwarf iris are simple to grow from seed, they just take a while until they are large enough to flower.  Regardless of its parentage, every seed will grow into a unique plant.

I am hoping to save some seed from the flowers below and grow out some interesting new dwarf iris.  None of the seeds will produce 'harmony', some may look very similar, others may look different, but each should be nice.  Next year I wouldn't mind getting a few different colours and crossing them like crazy in the hope of increasing my chances of growing a really nice new variety.

Only time will tell if I can grow anything worth keeping.

Iris reticulata 'Harmony'

 

Bee feeder - inverted jar feeder

I have had a few people ask me about feeding my honey bees.  I thought I would write a post showing how I do it.

Before I go on, let me clear up a few things before I confuse anyone.

You should not feed in an attempt to 'save the bees', you would be far better growing flowers if that was your intention.  Honey bees are not native to Australia, they won't die out here any time soon.  You don't need to save them, if you want to help honey bees then grow a garden organically.

Please never feed honey to bees unless it is feeding honey back to the hive that you harvested it from.  Feeding honey spreads some really devastating diseases and does all kinds of damage.  Feeding honey back to the hive it was taken from is ok as they already have whatever disease that may be present in it.  Feeding honey anywhere else is not ok.

Please don't just put out bee feeders to feed whatever bees are around or to encourage bees into your yard.  I don't want my bees making 'honey' using sugar syrup that they have collected from some well meaning person's yard.

Again let me stress that if you want to feed random bees or encourage bees into your yard it is far better to grow some flowers.  Many herbs are adored by honey bees.  Fruit trees and fruiting vegetables are also great for bees.  There are also a lot of ornamental flowers and trees that honey bees like, so you have a lot of options if you wish to 'save the bees'.

When I speak of feeding bees I am only talking about feeding my honey bees from my hives at specific times for a specific purpose.

inverted jar feeder with sugar syrup

Some people never feed their bees.  That is fine and I am not telling you that you should ever feed your bees. 

Some people take all the honey in autumn and feed the bees sugar syrup so they don't starve over winter.  I don't like that because nectar and the honey they make from it is far better for bees in many ways than sugar syrup.

As far as possible I like to leave enough honey that they will be ok over winter.  Sometimes things go awry and the bees don't have enough stores to get through winter, this is when I prefer to feed them sugar syrup.  I prefer to have them eat low quality sugar syrup and survive than to have them die over winter.

I feed my bees if I think they need it, I am probably a little over cautious, but I try not to feed very much.  I never feed if I have a super on as I don't want sugar syrup in with my honey.  Honey made with sugar syrup is a poor substitute for real honey made from nectar.

The bees did not return from foraging during the weeks of thick smoke and dust storms

I didn't harvest any honey at all this past summer, I left it all for my bees, but it wasn't enough.  Last summer was extremely harsh.

This last year we have had the worst drought in recorded history for this region and the hottest summer ever recorded in this region.  There were water restrictions so home gardens didn't have many flowers and my water tank was almost empty so my garden suffered badly.  Local farmers did not grow the crops of lucerne or canola that they usually have.  The drought and the excessive heat meant there was very little forage for the bees to collect.

We also experienced many weeks of thick choking smoke.  This prevented the bees from leaving the hive to forage.  When they did leave to forage they rarely returned to the hive as the smoke would blow in and disorient them.  There were days that were clear and half an hour later I could not see my fence through the smoke, the foraging bees didn't have a chance.

Over summer we also had several large dust storms on otherwise clear days.  Many bees left the hive to forage, then the dust came in fast and they never returned home.

inverted jar feeder - the bees glue it down with propolis

My bees also swarmed in spring when I was away, this was my fault.  The swarm took a lot of workers and all of the stored honey.  It meant that my bees had few workers, no stores, and a nightmare summer with very little resources around to try and replenish them. 

All of the above meant that leading into winter my bees had very little honey stored even though I did not harvest any.

Due to their lack of stored food I decided to feed them this winter to keep them alive. 

There are a lot of different types of bee feeders that you can buy, and a few that you can make.  I am fond of inverted jar feeders.

I just use an old jar.  I clean it out, use a thumb tack to push a few holes in the lid, I invert the jar and place it over the hole in my inner cover.  Unless the sun shines on it the thing doesn't drip, the bees drink the liquid, and all works well.  I have an empty box on top of the inner cover, this keeps the feeder out of the sun and prevents it from dripping on the brood.

Inverted jar over the hole in the inner cover

You will notice the box I used is an ideal super.  It was used previously for that hive.  I also insulate the box above the inner cover.

This roof insulation helps the bees regulate the hive temperature over winter.  More importantly it prevents water dripping from the inner cover on the brood.

The hive roof is insulated so water does not condense on it, the hive walls are not insulated so water condenses on them.  The bees can drink some of this water or it just trickles down the walls and runs out the bottom of the hive.  The important part is there is no dripping on the brood or cluster.

It doesn't really matter how cold it gets as long as there is no dripping.

I have insulated the top box above the inner cover, if the jar is not in there I plug the hole

More insulation over the top, a single piece would be better but this works well enough

The roof goes over the top of the insulation and the jar feeder

I strap the roof down, the wind gets strong here

With an inverted jar feeder no bees ever drown, being inside the roof above the top cover means I am only ever feeding my bees, I am not encouraging robbing, there is no increase spread of disease, and the bees can use the feeder in cold or wet weather when they usually couldn't leave the hive.  Every day or every few days I can replace the jar with a full one, I don't need to use a smoker, I don't need to open the hive, and I don't need to wear any protective gear.  It is very simple.

Other types of feeder are good, but for backyard hobbyists like who don't want to spend money these inverted jars are free to make and simple to use.  I can use whatever size jar I want, and I can put in as much or as little sugar syrup as I want.  I also don't have to replace it when it is empty unless I want to.  It is very versatile and leaves me with a lot of options.

Beneficial Hover Flies and Wasabi Herb

I think it is no surprise that I like wasabi salad herb (Diplotaxis erucoides).  It is not true wasabi, it is a small, edible salad plant that when eaten raw has a similar nose tingling feel and taste of wasabi, but with far less heat.  Wasabi salad herb is often called an annual, but in my garden it is more often a short lived perennial.

I grow this because it tastes great and it pretty much looks after itself.  It self seeds easily and pretty much does its own thing.  I sprinkle seeds in new places I would like it to grow.  Other than that I don't do anything to look after it, I just harvest the leaves or pull it out if it is growing somewhere I don't want it to.  It grows fast and flowers a lot, so I let it grow anywhere I have removed vegetables and dig it in as a green manure prior to planting the following crop.

Hover flies love organic wasabi salad herb!!!

Another bonus of this plant is when the weather is warm enough it is adored by honey bees.  They work these flowers for nectar and pollen, and they chase away any other insect that tries to use the flowers.  It is interesting to watch honey bees chase off other honey bees from these flowers, apparently competition is fierce for resources.  I see other beneficial insects on these flowers, but they are never there long as the honey bees chase them away in warm weather.

Hover Fly (family Syrphidae) is a beneficial pollinator that is native and relatively common here.  When I was a child people would often try to tell me they were stingless native bees, but they aren't.  They are true flies.  Don't let the fact that they are flies put you off, they are great insects to have around.  They are excellent pollinators, they don't bite or sting or annoy people, and their larvae eat aphids and scale insects.  What is not to like! 

Hover flies, along with pretty much every other beneficial pollinator insect, also the flowers of love wasabi salad herb.  When the weather is warm they try to work the flowers and collect nectar.  Often large numbers are seen darting among the flowers.  They don't stay on a flower long because honey bees often chase them away.  I guess the little amount of nectar they collect before being chased away is worth it as they are always close by.

Wasabi herb flowering and setting seed, also borage in the background

When the weather is cooler the honey bees don't forage.  This is when the hover flies have free range over the wasabi herb flowers.

I keep trying to take a picture, but they are so fast and wary that they tend to dart off as soon as I try.  The pictures on this blog page show these amazing hover flies on some wasabi herb flowers that had self seeded in my yard.  I scared some away, then more came, so I was able to get a couple of pictures.  Sometimes there can be over 20 of these amazing creatures all foraging on the one flower head!

Wasabi herb flowers - a pollinator's paradise

When I have a large stand of wasabi salad herb in cooler weather it hums with all the hover flies and other beneficial insects.  When the weather is warmer larger stands hum with the familiar sound of honey bees.  When the weather is just right, not too hot not too cold, it hums with a mix of native insect pollinators along with some honey bees.  It really is a great little plant to have growing in the garden.

Wasabi salad herb self seeded in my yard and attracts beneficial insects

It appears that growing wasabi salad herb organically is one way to help a host of beneficial insects.  Over summer I often see different species of native solitary bees foraging upon it, this summer I should try to count how many species.  It is good for honey bees, it is good for native pollinators, it is good for many different beneficial insects.

I wish more people in my area would grow it so the local populations of beneficial insects would have more resources, and my honey bees would have more high quality plants to forage upon.

Cold days mean hover flies are slower and easier to photograph

 

I am told that this plant is not allowed in Western Australia.  I can't sell seeds or plants to WA due to domestic quarantine, but if you live over there you should probably steer clear of this plant altogether.

I grow everything organically, and so should you.  By growing organically you can encourage beneficial insects such as hover flies which are excellent pollinators and help to control (but not eliminate) several pests.

I sell seeds of wasabi salad herb.  If you are interested it is listed on my for sale page along with other seeds and perennial vegetables.

I scared the hover flies away by accident, and more came to replace them

Strawberry Raspberry Hybrid - other plants

I wrote several previous posts on attempting to create true intergeneric strawberry x raspberry hybrids.  I also wrote a post on how while intergeneric hybrids are sometimes possible and all signs point to my attempt being successful I am not certain if I succeeded.  I can't be certain that it is a hybrid unless the plant is tested genetically.  I contacted a genetics lab before Christmas, had a bit of email exchange with them, but they are yet to tell me a price to have my plant tested. 

Over summer my original strawberry raspberry hybrid plant suffered badly.  It does not look good and hopefully it survives winter.  If this plant does survive there is a good chance it will grow and fruit again in spring.

As well as my first plant I had a lot of seed left over from that first attempt, so I planted more of this seed and ended up with a few more plants. Some are much like the original attempt, others are a bit different.  The differences are rather interesting.

Yellow white berries and elongated petiolules

Again there was a low germination rate, lots of albinism, and a lot of mysterious early seedling deaths.  Most of the plants display the same sorts of morphological oddities as the first hybrid.  These have taken over ten months to flower, as opposed to the five months of the strawberry parent.  The flowers tend to be irregular and inconsistent.  Leaf shape is variable and usually displays greatly elongated petiolules which is uncharacteristic for the strawberry parent species.

All of this suggests that they may be true hybrids.  To be clear, I can not be certain unless they are genetically tested.

Six petals and a stamen in the wrong place

They all look much like strawberry plants.  Most produce red berries much like the initial hybrid.  One thing that surprised me is some of them produce yellow/white fruit.  Which is remarkable considering that the strawberry parent has red fruit.

I have never had a red fruited strawberry produce a yellow or white fruited seedling, which indicates that red is probably dominant and the parent is likely homozygous for red fruiting genes.  If the parent plants were heterozygous for the yellow/white gene I would have seen a lot of other yellow fruited plants before now.

Strawberry x raspberry hybrid can be quit lump

One plant even produces light coloured berries that are a little bit pink!  Unfortunately there were very few berries.  I will have to take more pictures of this in spring when they start producing fruit again.  As they are flowering in cold weather not all of the flowers are setting fruit. 

I left the berries in the pictures below to over ripen to see if they would turn more red.  They stayed pink no matter how long I left them on the plant.  I left one to the point of rotting, and it still stayed pink and did not turn red.  Considering the parent strawberry has only ever produced red fruited seedlings this pink fruited plant came as quite a surprise.

I am quite fond of the pink berry plant.  These produced rather pretty pink berries that smell nice and taste nicely sweet, so I hope they turn out to be productive in warmer weather and I can somehow divide it.  

Pink strawberry raspberry hybrid

Only time till tell which of these plants, if any, are worth keeping. 

I also planted some seeds from the original hybrid and currently have three F2 plants that I am growing out.  So far they are about ten months old and none of them have flowered and none have produced any runners.  I will be interested to see what they turn into.

Extra petals, flowers subtended by a leaf

Only 5 petals on this one, this plant never sets fruit

Yellow/white strawberry raspberry hybrid

Unlike the original hybrid or the pink fruited plant, the plant that is producing yellow or white berries is a bit bland, they also aren't very fragrant.  This may be due to the berries ripening in cooler weather.  In spring when it starts to fruit again hopefully they taste a bit nicer.

Similar to the original hybrid, these yellow/white ones have achenes on the outside, and can be a bit lumpy and bumpy.  Even though the strawberry parent produces a huge number of runners from a young age this yellow fruiting one has not produces any runners as yet.  It will be interesting to see what happens.

I sent samples of these plants to the CSIRO who tested them and determined that they are true hybrids.  The results can be seen here.

While I don't sell these, I do sell some strawberry plants when I have enough to spare.  If you are interested they are listed on my for sale page.

strawberry raspberry hybrid plants

It is time for another update on my strawberry raspberry hybrid. The plant still looks like a strawberry plant. While I took every precaution to prevent stray pollen I can’t ever be truly certain it is a hybrid unless it is independently tested by a lab, I will provide an update on that later in this post.

While the strawberry parent grows runners from a few months old this plant has never produced any runners.  I unsuccessfully attempted to divide the crown in early spring, for a while it looked promising has since died.  Unfortunately this means that all my eggs are in one basket.  I find this rather stressful.  I do have some other plants, but I really like this first one.

Note the greatly elongated petiolules and bumpy berry

The plant itself is still producing flowers that are subtended by a leaf, and they often have extra petals.  It is still producing leaves which usually have greatly elongated petiolules and the leaflets are sometimes oddly shaped.

It fruited a few weeks earlier in spring than the strawberry parent, and it produces more flower stalks and more flowers per stalk than the strawberry parent, making it a productive plant.  The strawberry parent produces up to 8 flowers per stalk with 5 to 6 being average while the hybrid is averaging 10 flowers per stalk.

Lumpy hybrid berry

The first few berries produced in spring tasted horrible, very sour, and not fragrant.  The first berries also looked different to last year, they were rounder and had very deeply set achenes.  As the season has progressed they started getting longer and tasting better much nicer like the previous year.  Most of the berries have all of the achenes on the outside just like a strawberry.

Three of the berries had achenes on the outside like a strawberry but also contained a small number of seeds internally within the flesh like a raspberry.  I am not sure why this was happening, it may be a genetic thing or may be a result of insect damage?  I have not taken a photo of this as it happens so infrequently.

In spring the plant was considerably larger than any of the parent strawberry species.  The petioles are much longer and thicker, while the leaflets are considerably longer and wider.  Petiolules are virtually absent in the parent species, but are often elongated in this hybrid.  Leaf size varies with the season so I try to compare it to the strawberry parent, and so far it is much larger.  I had a lot of plants of the parent species, and none of them was even close in size to the hybrid. 

The berries are white inside

I collected seed from the hybrid as well as from the parent strawberry.  It was not until I had two little bags of seed side by side that I noticed the hybrid achenes are larger than the strawberry achenes.  They weren’t all larger, some were the same size, but on average they were noticeably larger.

I had started to wonder if perhaps this plant was not a hybrid but was a result of spontaneous polyploidy.  Polyploidy can cause larger leaves and fruit, it can cause more vigorous growth and more flowering, it can cause odd flower structures and other morphological abnormalities, often polyploids taste comparatively insipid but sometimes they can taste good, and it could explain all of the difference I have seen.  I wanted to see if it was polyploid.  I took a sample of pollen from this plant as well as both parent species and observed them under a microscope.  Polyploid pollen is often larger than diploid pollen.  Surprisingly they were indistinguishable and none of the pollen was noticeably different.

I emasculated and bagged some flowers and attempted to pollinate them by hand.  I missed blackberry season last year and attempted to pollinate some with youngberry pollen and others with raspberry pollen.  Flowers that were not pollinated or were pollinated with youngberry aborted early, indicating that fruit set is caused by effective pollination and not through apomixis.

I want to try youngberry pollen or any of the blackberry aggregate this year as I have a feeling it may be possible.  Some of the raspberry pollinated flowers aborted late, and some appear to have been successful and were forming fruit until they were eaten by something in my garden.  If these were a hybrid then these seeds would carry three quarter raspberry genes and I would love to have seen what the resultant seedlings looked like.

Most have weird bumps and lumps for some reason

So far, everything indicates that this probably is a true intergeneric strawberry raspberry hybrid, but I can’t be certain.  I contacted a lab to get this plant tested to determine if it is a true hybrid.

After several attempts and being told that my request had been passed on and must have fallen through the cracks the lab eventually replied.  They said this specific testing has never been conducted, but it may be possible. They also warned me that as this type of analysis has not previously been performed it is unknown if there will be enough variation between the parental strains to determine if the hybrid is a true hybrid.  A brief literature search indicates that both parent species have been extensively studied, meaning that there is a high chance of this test being conclusive.

I provided them with further details, twice, and am still waiting for them to reply with pricing and further details.  Hopefully this is within budget and they are able to conclusively determine if this is a hybrid or just an interesting mutant strawberry.  I have no idea what a test like this would cost but I really want to know for sure if this is a mutant or is the first ever fruiting strawberry raspberry hybrid.  Who knows, I may turn to some form of crowd funding in order to cover the cost.

Below are some pictures of the berries, most have weird bumps or lumps, a small number look like the strawberry parent.  I have some other exciting news about strawberry raspberry hybrids, but that will wait for another blog post.

Edit to add: I sent samples of these plants to the CSIRO who tested them and determined that they are true intergeneric strawberry raspberry hybrids.  The results can be seen here.