Are the seeds from bay trees poisonous

On the 5th of February 2016 Viktoria Vukics left me a comment/question in the original bay leaf post from September 7th, 2010:

"Hello there! Thanks for this interesting article. Its so good that someone has cleared up this pseudo-myth on a scientific basis. Theres so often confusion about the uses and safety of herbs. I also heard the bay seeds to be poisonous. Do you think its true? One even sais that its unsafe to crush or press the berries to obtain the fixed oil. I would appreciate your opinion on the matter, Victoria"

I am quite busy these days; it took me a while to be able to find reliable documentation supporting an answer. Here is what I could find with some solid scientific basis.

The bay tree contains small fragrant black (when ripen) shiny olive-like berries of about 1.3 cm long. These are apparently edible as there are anecdotal reports that birds actually love them. Even though historically the berries have been used mainly for medicinal purposes, a lot of the information available on the web regarding how edible or toxic these berries are, comes from popular knowledge. But two very good articles point towards their safety.

The berries of Bay Laurel contain among other essential oils, eugenol, acetyl eugenol, methyl eugenol, terpineol, cineol, geraniol and 1-8-cineole [1] [3]. These are responsible for the attractive spicy aroma in them. Some people report that infusion containing such berries relieve flatulence and can soothe gastric problems. I personally could not find any scientific suggestions on the flatulence part. However, these berries are quite substantially used in the food industry as seasoning and coloring agents for soups, meat, fish, beverages, etc, and even as food preservatives due to their proven antimicrobial potency (capable of inactivating for instance E. coli, S. typhimurium and S. aureus [3]) and also showing some potential as insecticide [2].  

In conclusion, the Laurus nobilis berries are a good natural source of anthocyanins; these are non-toxic water-soluble vacuolar pigments that change color depending on pH, and have antioxidant properties. 

With my online research I could not find any documents reporting toxicity associated to the fruits/berries of the Bay laurel tree/plant. If any of you find literature on the toxic/poisonous potential of the L. nobilis berries, please share with us.

[1] Laurus Nobilis, Floridata Plant Encyclopaedia, [http://www.floridata.com/Plants/Lauraceae/Laurus%20nobilis/733], last visited on the 29th of February 2016, last updated on the 24th of February 2005.

[2] Longo, L and Vasapollo, G. (2005). "Anthocyanins from Bay (Laurus nobilis L.) Berries". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 53, pp. 8063-8067. 

[3] Dadalioglu, I. and Evrendilek, G. A. (2004). "Chemical compositions and antibacterial effects of essential oils of Turkish oregano (Origanum minutiflorum), Bay Laurel (Laurus nobilis), Spanish Lavender (Lavandula stoechas L.), and Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare) on common  foodborne pathogens". Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, 52, pp. 8255-8260.

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Purple asparagus

I bought and planted some seeds of purple asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) before we moved here.  I think I got about 10 seeds in all, which is not many but at that time purple asparagus could only be bought from one place so I didnt have a great deal of choice if I wanted to grow it.

The seeds were small, black and unremarkable.  I soaked them in water overnight and planted them, then waited for something to happen.  From those seeds only 3 germinated, it was very exciting.  At that time I knew of no one who had ever grown asparagus from seed so was pretty much on my own to figure how to grow them.  I have grown many things over the years which people have told me are impossible to grow, so this didnt daunt me.

Out of those 3 tiny seedlings grew, then slugs or snails killed 2 of them one night.  After noticing the loss I quickly put crushed eggshell all around the last survivor to help protect it.  That one seedling was not killed but did sustain some snail damage from time to time and needed the crushed egg shell placed around it pretty often.

This one tiny seedling grew slowly, it died down each winter as asparagus must, and grew back larger each Spring.  Each Spring the snails would hammer it and I would protect it with egg shells.

Then it was dug up and moved here with us.  Considering that we moved in the height of summer the plant did not enjoy this move and its growth was slowed but it did not die.  I planted it into the soil at the edge of the vegetable garden near the fence.  Asparagus dies each winter and sprouts again each spring.  I am told it takes 3 years from seed to get a crop, but this plant had such a difficult start that it took a bit longer.

Purple asparagus spear emerging in early spring

Asparagus plants are either male or female.  Female asparagus tends to be a bit thinner than the male plants as they put energy into seeds and fruit, male plants grow thick and fat spears.  Most people kill off the female plants and only grow the male ones.  I had no idea if this plant was a male or a female, I didnt particularly care as I planned on keeping it regardless.

Purple asparagus spear

Last year (or the year before, I cant remember) this plant flowered for the first time, it is a female plant.  It grew a handful of red berries, most of which were eaten by birds and the seeds deposited who knows where.  I kept some berries and extracted the seeds.  I am yet to grow them, if I do they will most likely not grow true to type as many wild asparagus plants grow here and would have donated pollen to my plant.


What purple asparagus looks like

One question that I had when buying purple asparagus seed is what the plants would look like.  After searching the internet I found many pictures of purple asparagus spears, which looked amazing, but no pictures of the plant once the spears matured.  I wondered if they stayed purple or if they grew green like normal asparagus.

As it turns out, the spears are nice deep purple, then they turn green as the fronds emerge more.  The fronds of purple asparagus look much like regular asparagus, green and fluffy and beautiful.

While I am disappointed that it is not purple for its entire life it is still a beautiful plant.  Tiny birds like to hide in the fronds, some of them make nests in some of the other green asparagus plants that grow here and I hope that they decide to nest in the purple one some day too.

Purple asparagus starting to frond up, note the immature female flowers

What purple asparagus tastes like

Home grown asparagus, like many home grown vegetables, tastes far superior to store bought asparagus.  This is probably due to the freshness, it can be picked minutes before being eaten instead of being picked weeks earlier and stored/transported/stored again before being eaten.  We have a lot of green asparagus growing here, most of it is from seed that birds have kindly deposited under apple trees, along fence lines, and under electrical wires.  While it often grows in unsuitable places this does not stop it from being delicious.

Strangely I have only eaten purple asparagus a few times over these years.  I like this plant so find it difficult to eat it, I would hate to eat too many spears and leave the plant depleted of energy.  I find that it tastes much like the green asparagus that is growing on this property, only sweeter.  If you like fresh asparagus you will love purple asparagus.

I find it disappointing that I can not buy this in the shops as it is nicer than the green type.  Hopefully one day someone will remedy this and grow purple asparagus commercially.  Unfortunately that someone wont be me.  Due to health issues any form of large scale farming is not in my future.

One can cover the spears as they grow to produce white asparagus, these white spear are more tender and sweeter again. 

Purple asparagus, each frond gets green as it grows

Why grow asparagus from seed

Most people think asparagus can not be grown from seed.  I have even had people try to argue with me over this point.  The fact that asparagus are flowering plants that produces seed, and that I have planted seeds and grown asparagus from those seeds, seems almost to be moot points as they have their minds already made up and no amount of logic and evidence will convince them otherwise.

Very few people grow asparagus from seed due to the time it takes to obtain a crop.  I can understand that, it takes a few years to get a large enough plant and by then you may be too attached to it to be able to eat much of it.  Asparagus is a long lived perennial so the effort will be payed off by years of asparagus crops.  You need to be aware that growing from seed has disadvantages, but there are a few reasons that may make you consider growing asparagus from seed.

Asparagus can accumulate virus load and not grow as well.  There are currently no certified virus free sellers in Australia so growing from seed to remove the virus load is currently the only way around this.  Virus load is probably not a huge problem for asparagus around here though. 

Growing from seed would also ensure an amount of genetic diversity which, assuming that you grew several seeds, would make your crop a bit better able to cope with problems that arise. Some seed grown plants will out perform others in your garden even if they came from the same parent.

Some varieties are not for sale as plants anywhere and only available as seed.  You will not be able to grow these unless you grow from seed.  Some of these are excellent varieties and I dont know why they are rare, others are rare because they are not all that great.

I grew purple asparagus from seed as I could not find crowns or plants.  Some places sell purple asparagus plants now.  To be honest I would not bother to grow asparagus from seed if plants or crowns are available.  That being said I would NOT buy tiny seedlings in a punnet though, growing from seed would result in healthier plants than buying these stunted plants that have grown in less than ideal conditions and not being repotted for who knows how long.


Where to get purple asparagus

If you want to eat purple asparagus you will have to grow it yourself.  A few places sell seeds and plants these days.  I may grow some of the seeds from my plant, if any of them are purple I may offer crowns or plants on my for sale page.  If you are keen to grow out some of my seed I may be able to send you some but be aware that it may not grow true to type.

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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.  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 days 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 cant 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 dont 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 cant 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.  Thats 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 dont 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 cant 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 dont 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 dont 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 (dont 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.  Dont 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 dont 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, dont 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 dont 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 cant 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 dont know about this so can not comment.

I cant tell you the benefit/cost ratio regarding time in growing your own food in the backyard.  I dont 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 dont 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,

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Skirret a forgotten perennial vegetable

I have never met a person who dislikes Skirret (Sium sisarum) and I dont expect this to change.  Very few people in Australia grow skirret or have even heard of this remarkable vegetable, but those that have tried it all seem to like it.

Skirret seedlings still with their juvenile leaves

What is skirret

Skirret is primarily an ancient root vegetable, but the leaves, stems and seeds are also edible and tasty enough in their own way.  This perennial root crop was grown and eaten across most of Europe for centuries prior to the Spanish conquest of South America.  After this time potatoes largely replaced skirret for a number of reasons.

Skirret is a perennial vegetable which, unlike many other perennial vegetables, also freely sets viable seed each year.  Most people who grow skirret reproduce it by breaking the plant into many smaller plants after harvest and replanting them.  Similar to yacon, the part you eat of skirret is different to the part you plant so you can increase the number of plants each year easily while still being able to enjoy the full harvest.

Seed grown skirret displays a lot of genetic diversity, I assume this is because no real breeding work has ever been done on it and it is mostly propagated by division rather than seeds.  Serious breeding of vegetables often results in highly inbred strains which contain all the desired traits but have little to no genetic diversity.  Sometimes this deliberate selection goes a little too far and the plants become highly susceptible to inbreeding depression (such as has happened to carrots and corn), other times it does not appear to bother the plants too much (such as tomatoes or beans).

The same skirret seedlings getting larger

What does skirret taste like

I am bad at trying to describe what things taste like and it has been a while since I last ate skirret but I will give it a go.  Skirret tastes kind of like carrot or parsnip or even a little like sweet potato or potato, but is sweeter than any of them.  That is probably not a great description as carrot and potato taste nothing alike.  Many people use skirret in the same dishes that potato, sweet potato, parsnip or carrot would be used.

Skirret also used to be used for deserts and the like, but I am not exactly sure how/what they do with it in these meals.  As mentioned earlier, most of Europe grew and ate skirret until the potato came along so it has a long history behind it as a food plant.

Skirret contains reasonably high levels of sugars and tastes rather sweet.  When the Germans were searching for alternative plants to sugar cane they reported that skirret ranked below the white sugar beet but above red beetroot.  Some of the common names for skirret translate into things like sweet root, water parsnip and sweet water root.  From these names you get the impression that skirret is sweet and likes to grow near water.

At this point I perhaps should have re-potted the plants separately

You can see the plant in the middle is already starting to divide

Problems with skirret and how to overcome them

Skirret can have thin roots, these can be a pain to prepare for a meal.  The roots are always long and there are always copious amounts of them, but if they are too fiddly to prepare no one will bother to grow or eat this remarkable plant.

Skirret can have woody cores to the roots.  Some people do not mind this, they cook the skirret and strip the roots with their teeth and discard the core.  I cant be bothered doing this and wont eat a vegetable which requires this kind of treatment.  First year plants grown from seed tend to have the woody core, as they age the core gets smaller or apparently even disappears in improved strains.  Lots of water seems to help prevent any woodyness at all.  Considering that this plant grows in marshes in the wild it makes sense that soil moisture would be beneficial.

Skirret loves cooler weather, I dont think it matters how cold it gets the skirret is never bothered.  It goes dormant over winter and is dug/harvested/divided during that time.  It does not love the heat.  As I currently live in an arid climate, lots of heat and very little water, growing skirret takes a bit of work.  Growing in part shade, or in a styrofoam box to help insulate the soil can help this plant to grow in less than ideal climates.  I have it growing in a pot which I can submerge in water on hot windy days.

Skirret is a plant that would benefit from some serious breeding work.  Pretty much every problem it has should be simple enough to overcome if someone puts the time and resources into breeding improved skirret varieties.  I honestly think if someone was serious about breeding skirret that it would only take 3 or 4 years to turn skirret from its current form into something truly remarkable.  If you ever do this breeding and grow improved varieties of skirret let me know as I would love to buy your plants or seeds.

Strong and healthy skirret

Everything looks good

Breeding potential of skirret

One of the great things about skirret is how happily it sets seed each year and it produces many seeds even if only one plant is growing.  Being in the Apiaceae family they produce copious amounts of seed if allowed, similar to a carrot, but in skirret the seed seems to display a lot of genetic diversity even if obtained from a single plant.

Most people who grow skirret do not grow from seed, instead they find a plant and do not let it flower so that all the energy is put into root development.  I think this is a mistake as it is not difficult to find a nice skirret plant, divide it and let one of the divisions go to seed so that you can continuously improve your stock.  Leaving a single plant in your patch to flower is not that great an imposition.  While letting several plants flower would be best, a single plant flowering and setting seed would still give a crop of diverse seedlings from which to cull and only keep the best ones.  The flowers attract a lot of beneficial insects so leaving a single plant in the back corner to flower is of benefit to the rest of your vegetables.

Skirret grows many edible roots which are nice and long, so there are no issues with root length or number, the problem comes from them being too thin and often having a woody core.  It should be possible to breed for superior varieties with fatter and less woody roots.  First year plants are more likely to have woody cores and plants that do not get enough moisture will also have a woody core so selecting for lack of fiber can be a bit tricky.  That being said, many people who have selected for improved plants overseas only do so for about 2 generations and then have plants that they are happy with.

I do wonder if skirret was grown using aquaponics or wicking bed if the woody core issue would be completely resolved due to constant access to water.  If this were to be the case then skirret breeding could focus on fatter roots, having one single focus should mean that improvements are made a lot faster as culling can be more harsh.

One of the issues we have in Australia is that so few people grow skirret that we probably have a bit of a genetic bottleneck.  Hopefully the natural genetic diversity on this plant will ensure that we can still select for improved varieties and make ground reasonably fast.  I would love someone to take on skirret and breed some improved varieties, if the woody core could be bred out of skirret there is no reason that people would not grow it in backyards or even for market gardens.  As mentioned earlier I have never heard of anyone who dislikes skirret, improved varieties could make this crop more common once again.  Skirret does not always cope with summer in my climate so does not always flower (or necessarily even survive) so I probably wont do a lot of serious breeding with it.  That being said each year my skirret does flower I will save and plant seed from the best plants and cull the weaker plants.

Skirret plants with adult leaves

Where to get skirret in Australia

People who know a lot about rare vegetables often tell me that skirret is not in Australia, and due to problems importing the seed that we will never be able to grow skirret.  I dont know how to respond to them as I have grown skirret before and I am also currently growing skirret.

Skirret plants in a small pot

If I divide my plants I will try to sell some crowns over winter on my for sale page.  I will also try to save seed from my best plants each year to sell on my for sale page but skirret doesnt like the heat and aridity of my climate so I can make no assurance that I will have seed or spare plants for sale.  This year my plants are growing very strong and have all divided into several plants, one even looks as though it may be about to send up flower stalk so everything is looking positive.

Failing that some Australian seed companies occasionally carry skirret seed in small amounts and I even know of a lady in Tasmania who sells skirret plants (as well as some other rare perennial vegetables) and will post them to the mainland.  While I have never bought from her we have conversed and I believe that she is honest, that being said I take no responsibility for her service or plants.

At some stage I will include some growing notes on skirret.  If you have never tried skirret I think you should get some and grow it. 

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Front Pack Carriers the Truth

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

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

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

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

What are my thoughts on front pack carriers:

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

 THEY ARE OK TO USE.

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

Here is better head support

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

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

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


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

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Potato Onion Seeds

I wrote a little about potato onions in a previous post.  They are an edible, perennial, heirloom onion that is near extinction in Australia and I have always been rather fond of them.

Potato onions rarely flower, when they do flower they rarely produce seeds, when they do produce seeds they are rarely viable.  From what I have heard the small number of viable seeds exhibit a tremendous degree of variability and tend to grow larger, better and more vigorously than their parents. 

White potato onions, not all that large but still great

After growing potato onions for many years in a few different climates I had never seen one flower until 2013.  Interestingly enough my everlasting onions flower every year and never set seed, but they have produced seed for the first time this year.  The lady who gave me the everlasting onions has had them for over 30 years, she has never had them produce seed, so it must be the year for rare onion seed.  I plan to plant this everlasting onion seed and see what comes of it, but that is a story for another post.

My brown potato onions had been stressed badly the previous year and had not divided well.  Many even began to die off.  This year was almost as harsh as last year, it is more dry but not quite as hot.  From the surviving brown potato onions I ended up with 5 flower stalks.  From those flower stalks 3 flowered and then only produced unviable shriveled dead seed.  Out of the two remaining flowers, one produced 6 good looking seeds and the other one is still ripening but looks as though it should produce a dozen or more seeds.  This is very exciting.  Hopefully at least a few seeds will grow for me.

Potato onion seed ripening - very exciting

 While the potato onions were flowering I also had regular bulb onions, tree onions, spring onions, and everlasting onions flowering.  I do not know what these potato onions seed will produce, they may be potato onions, or they may be a cross between potato onions and one of the other onions.  I will never be able to know for sure as potato onions grown from seed are highly variable.

White potato onion - these did not flower

I plan to attempt to grow these potato onion seeds, unfortunately I have no idea what to do with them.  I do not know when to plant them, or how to treat them, and there is really no one to ask.  Potato onions flower so rarely that experienced gardeners will argue with you that if they flower then they are not true potato onions.  At this stage I plan on hedging my bets by planting half in February or March, then the other half during winter or spring.  I plan to plant them in pots to begin with so that I can protect them a bit more than I would be able to if they were in the garden.  Fingers crossed that something truly remarkable comes out of these few seeds.

I have been told by people who have potato onions flowering overseas that seed grown potato onions are more likely to flower than their parents.  I have seen some amazing breeding work and the results after just 2 or 3 generations is nothing short of remarkable.

At this stage I will not be selling any potato onion seed, mostly because I do not have many seeds.  If I ever reach a point where I have extra seeds I will certainly try to distribute them as we need more varieties of potato onions in Australia.  I do sell potato onions occasionally, as well as some other perennial vegetables on my for sale page.

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Overwintering vegetable plants

We have some perennial vegetables which I decided to overwinter.  We moved in Spring so I have not had time to make a post about them until now.  We had the coldest winter since we have lived here and lost a lot of frost tender plants that I normally can overwinter with no effort.  I took a few pictures of some of the survivors.  Most of these plants are far larger now.

Kangkong (Ipomoea aquatica)

This is a heat loving tropical perennial leaf vegetable which is often grown as an annual in cooler climates.  It grows well from seed, but I wanted to see if overwintered plants were larger than seed grown and it appears that they are.  It has many common names and is related to sweet potatoes.  I am not overly fond of leaf vegetables, but I like kang kong.  Unlike many other leaf vegetables it never goes bitter, it can be eaten raw or cooked.  I have only eaten it raw and it tastes nice, apparently cooked it tastes a lot like spinach.

I grew it in too small a pot so it did not reach anywhere near its potential last summer.  I tried to grow it in a fish talk as a floating water plant but there was not enough sunlight and it appears to prefer at least some soil for its roots.  It tried to flower but then winter came and the cold cut it down to a stump.  I do not want to save and plant seed each year if there is an easier way and this plant grows easily from cuttings.  I am glad that this can be overwintered as it is simple and the plants are larger than seed grown.

Once the warmer weather came along it started to grow fast again.  I wish I knew about this plant years ago as it is great.  It dislikes the cold weather and dies back badly even without frosts but survives and grows very fast once the days are warm.

Kangkong resprouting in late winter, it dislikes the cold air even when protected from frosts

The same plant in Spring after being cut back a few times

Chilli - Trinidad Scorpion Butch T
Most varieties of chilli available to home gardeners can be overwintered easily enough.  Super hot chilli are a lot more finicky than regular chilli and capsicums from what I have heard.  Being the first time I have grown the super hot chilli I decided to try and overwinter it rather than start from seed again.  Strangely it went very well and was very easy.  I tried to keep it out of the frost at night and put it in the sun during the day when I remembered.  I accidentally let it get a bit of frost a few times and forgot to put in in the sun more often than I remembered and all three survived nicely.

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T in tiny pot

Super hot chilli in late winter - not many leaves

Strangely healthy chilli in winter

The same plants after the weather got warmer

Trinidad Scorpion Butch T

Tomatoes
Indeterminate tomatoes
Most indeterminate tomatoes are simple to overwinter if the frost can be kept off them.  This year was colder than most and I lost most of the tomatoes I had planned to overwinter as I did not look after them all that well.  I grew one seedling far too late  in the season last year so decided to try and overwinter it.  Mid winter, with no heat, just moving it inside at night to avoid frosts the plant started to flower.  The flowers all fell off as it was too cold for pollination to occur but the plant was mature.  This meant that it is easy to plant them out when the weather warms and have them set fruit almost right away.

Tomato plant mid winter

Micro Tom tomatoes
Micro tom is a great little tomato variety that needs more people to grow it and save its seed.  I grew one on the kitchen window over winter to see how it would go.  Apparently they grow just fine over winter if kept inside and this one started to flower when the nights were still frosty outside.  They have such a short lifespan that this particular plant flowered, set fruit and died before Spring came.  What a great plant, while it may not be the tastiest tomato variety it was a lot better than any cherry tomato I could buy from the supermarket at that time if year.  They are not terribly productive but being so small means that it can grow in a tiny pot and not need much space to provide a crop.  Being able to bring them indoors at night means that it is possible to get them to set fruit in Winter, I never would have thought that getting fruit in Winter was possible for a tomato that is not parthenocarpic.

I also planted some Micro Tom seeds mid winter to see if they would germinate in the cold and they did.  Being such tiny plants the kids adore them.  They are even more happy to eat the tomatoes and they tend to carry the tiny plants around talking to them and treating them like pets rather than plants.  The more I grow Micro Tom the more I discover about them that shows me how good they are.

Micro Tom tomato flowering in mid winter

Vietnamese Coriander (Persicaria odorata)
This perennial herb has many, many common names.  It smells a lot like coriander and is far simpler to grow.  It does not bolt to seed like real coriander and does not even flower often outside of the tropics.  It appears to love water and I grow it as a bog plant or an emergent water plant.  It does not like frost, mine got frosted a few times but they all came back in the warmer weather.  Over winter they look terrible, as soon as the warmer weather returned they sprang back to life.  Cuttings strike very easily in water so once it warmed up I cut one plant into many pieces, the original plant grew back and each cutting grew roots within a few days.

Vietnamese coriander leaves turn a bit red in cool weather

Water Celery (Oenanthe javanica)

This is another emergent water vegetable, it is grown for leaves and stems that taste of celery or parsley.  Like many of the vegetables I grow this is a perennial vegetable that rarely flowers or sets seed.  I have the variegated form of this vegetable, while it is prettier than the regular green one it is also not as aggressive in its growth.  I would like to track down the regular green version one day and see just how strong it will grow.  I would prefer a productive vegetable to a pretty vegetable.

My plant grew with no winter protection, the top of the water was covered in ice many times.  It certainly did not love being covered in ice and died back somewhat, the smaller plants that were grown with protection from frost looked a lot healthier at the end of winter.  As soon as the heat returned it was very fast to recover.

Water Celery surviving winter with no protection.

Where to get perennial Vegetables
I have been selling perennial vegetable plants and some seeds for years.  Unfortunately we recently moved to town and do not have any land so will not be selling anything for a while.  We do plan on moving again very soon, when we have settled I hope to sell perennial vegetables and vegetable seeds again, they will be listed on my For Sale page when the time comes.

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True potato onion seeds and other perennial alliums

True Potato Onion Seed

In 2013 some of my potato onions flowered.  It is the first time I have ever seen a potato onion flower so I was very excited, I wrote a little about it on a blog post called Potato onion seeds.  I planted about half of those seeds in Autumn and nothing germinated, I was more than a little disappointed but there was nothing I could do.

I planted the rest of the seeds in Spring and some of them have just begun to germinate.  I dont know how many will grow but at this stage it looks like only a small number.  I could not be more excited about this.  To make things even better, some of my original potato onions have begun to flower again this year!  This should hopefully give me some more seed to try and grow next year.  Hopefully they will flower more often so I can have seed grown potato onions to begin selecting for traits I want to see in them.

Tiny Potato Onion seedlings germinating

Once these seedlings grow a bit I will separate them and see what they turn into.  Apparently potato onions that are grown from seed exhibit a lot of variation.  I had many types of onion flower at the same time as these potato onions (potato onions, spring onions, everlasting onion, tree onions, several types of bulb onions) so whatever these seeds grow into each of them should be different from each other.  Fingers crossed something truly remarkable comes out of this lot.

Potato onion seedlings growing larger

Potato Onions flowering again

Potato onion seedlings - only the strong survived

Everlasting Onion Seed and Bulbils

Another perennial onion I grow are the amazing Everlasting onions.  They flower each year but never produce seeds.  They have been grown by many different people in many different climates for well over 30 years and have not set seed and do not produce top sets.  They rapidly split in half many times throughout the year so are simple to multiply without the need for seeds.

Everlasting onions flowering happily as usual

Last year one everlasting flower produced a bulbil, I planted this in a small 10cm pot and kind of forgot about it.  That one bulbil has split into 7 small plants over the year and they are now flowering.  That is pretty remarkable considering how little space is in that small pot.  Time will tell if this will be more inclined to produce topsets or if it was just a once off.  Topsets are fun so I would like this to happen more often.  If not the tree onions are flowering at the moment and they produce a lot of topsets.

Everlasting onions grown from one bulbil - starting to flower

Last year from several hundred flower heads my everlasting onions actually produced some viable seeds.  I planted most of the seeds and ended up with 7 seedlings.  So far I can not see a lot of variation between the seedlings which I find rather odd.  Some are slightly larger than others, some are slightly brown whereas others are slightly red, but this happens throughout the year with regular everlasting onions so is nothing different.  They are still very small so perhaps I will notice differences as they grow, or perhaps they will be very similar to the parent, only time will tell.  As mentioned above a lot of alliums were flowering at the same time so I would have expected them to cross a little and result in some unique perennial onions.

Everlasting onion seedlings, I have since planted them into separate pots

Babingtons Leek (Allium ampeloprasum var. babingtonii)

One of the perennial leeks I grow is Babingtons leek, I should write a blog post about them but probably wont for a while.  I am not aware of anyhere in Australia that currently sells Babingtons leek so if I ever have enough I plan to sell them so that more people can grow and experience these amazing plants.  They are a kind of wild leek that has been semi-domesticated, when it flowers it grows tiny bulbils on the flower head instead of flowers, kind of like the leek version of tree onions.

I heard of Babingtons leek years ago and tried to track down some to grow.  One place had them for sale for more than I was willing to pay, but I contacted them anyway and they had sold out.  That place stopped selling plants altogether shortly after.  I emailed them and asked if I could get in touch with their supplier and was told no.  They believed that this variety of leek had died out in Australia completely and they wished me luck in finding any.

Babingtons leek

As luck would have it some kind person traded some of my things for a few tiny Babingtons leek plants.  I planted them in 3 different places to help protect against disaster.  They grew slowly for me, then died down over the heat of summer.  I hoped they had died down to bulbs but was not overly confident that they were coming back as they were posted at an inconvenient time for them.

When the weather cooled and the plants began to grow I had increased my stock from 5 tiny plants to 6 plants which ranged in size from tiny to reasonably large.  I had hoped that more would have grown from the roots, but that was not to be this year.  I am told that they will divide a bit each time they die down and many people increase their numbers in this way.  I am assuming that mine did not increase in number much as they were posted late in their season so they put their energy into establishing rather than dividing.

This year one of the plants is beginning to send up a flower stalk.  I have told the kids not to go near this plant and am concerned that they may remove it or damage it and I will have to wait another year to see what happens next.  Regardless, I have at least one plant of flowering size and it should flower each year from here on.  I am guessing that if all goes well the other plants will be flowering size next year as each of them is now larger than the ones I started with.

Not a great picture of Babingtons leek starting to flower

I do not know how many bulbils to expect from one flower stalk.  I know of no one here who has grown these and have to rely on the internet for information.  Some internet sites say three of four large bulbils will be produced, others say a few dozen, while others say several hundred tiny bulbils.  I have no option but to wait and see.  I find all of this to be very exciting.  Judging by the size of the flower I am guessing not many bulbils will be produced this year, next year the plant may be larger and produce more.


Chives (Allium schoenoprasum)

I dont have a lot to say about these little guys.  They are nothing special, they are not even a special type of chives, but I like them.  They die down to tiny bulbs each winter and grow again when the weather warms up a little.  Apparently they are the smallest species of edible onions.  I would like more of them so am letting some of them flower in the hope of either collecting the seeds or just letting the seeds fall and grow by themselves.

Chives starting to flower

Spring onions (Allium fistulosum)

Spring onions are, in my opinion, the poor cousin of the everlasting onion.  They are edible, useful, hardy and perennial so are not without their charm.  I had some plants at our previous house that were 3 or so years old.  Prior to moving here I saved their seed to bring with us.  I planted them during the first few weeks after we moved in and they have been growing ever since.  I do not have the heart to kill them as they are perennial and require very little looking after, so they have stayed where they are not doing too much.  They produce viable seed each year, I used to collect the seed but recently have not bothered as everlasting onions are far superior.

Spring onions are perennial onions, we used to eat their leaves and white shanks.  The problem is that their leaves get too thick and coarse after their first year and I do not know how to fix that other than planting new seed each year and killing the parent stock.  I have cut some to the ground, when they sprout they are think again.

Everlasting onions have far thinner foliage and it is never course.  Spring onions do not have the ability to produce bulbs whereas everlasting onions die to bulbs each year if I want them to and will keep growing if I water them a lot over summer.

Tree onions are an interspecific hybrid between spring onions and bulb onions that was made accidentally hundreds of years ago.  I have often thought of trying to recreate tree onions with better parents but I doubt I will ever try to do that as I have a lot of other, more deserving things going on in the vegetable garden.

Spring Onions flowering - these are almost 4 years old now

Giant Russian Garlic (Allium ampeloprasum var. ampeloprasum)

This is great stuff.  Botanically it is a type of perennial leek, but for everyone else it is a massive garlic that is mild in taste.  Apparently this can grow in more tropical places where regular garlic can not.

Many people say that they can not produce seed but this is not true, each year mine produce a tiny amount of seed which grows into new plants.  The seed seems to grow true to type even when there are other types of leek flowering at the same time.

Russian Garlic almost ready to flower and die down

At the moment my plants are looking shabby as they are almost ready to flower, after they have done so they will die down to bulbs.  This normally happens around Christmas/New Year.  I will dig them up after this and have them for sale again, digging them up now does not go so well for them.

Some people complain that Giant Russian garlic is too mild.  I have found that if I plant them early and they grow through some frost the taste is a lot more intense.  Apparently putting them in the fridge a few weeks prior to planting can have the same result if they are grown in frost free areas.

I have successfully (and accidentally) stored the bulbs for over 18 months before we moved here.  I stored the cloves somewhere and forgot about them, by the time I noticed them it was too late to plant and I had no more garden space so I waited for the following year.  From those, 100% grew and the plants were indistinguishable from the fresh ones.  While this is far from ideal, it shows how easy these things are to grow.

One single giant Russian garlic clove, they do get a lot larger than this in good years

Perennial vegetables for sale in Australia

If you are interested in growing some of these I do sell everlasting onions, tree onions, perennial leeks, giant Russian garlic, garlic chives, two types of potato onions and a bunch of other perennial vegetables (and some heirloom vegetable seed) on my for sale page.  When I have enough I plan to also offer Babingtons leeks but that will have to wait for at least a few months to see what happens with this flower.  If the potato onion seedlings or the everlasting onion seedlings end up as anything remarkable I will sell them too, but I dare say that is a while off as I would like to grow them out for a few seasons to see how they perform and evaluate if they are worth keeping.

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