Konjac

Konjac Amorphophallus konjac

It was not planned, but happened anyway – the Konjac came in to flower. The corm has rested dry in a cupboard since autumn. 3 weeks ago the bud started growing, very rapidly. Yesterday the flower opened and took on the deep red colour. When I returned after work, I had to cut the flower immediately, and carry it out door into the snow. It has a penetrating odour like decaying flesh, probably perfect to attract the flyes needed for pollination in it’s native habitat.

I’m impressed, that a flower can grow this rapidly from a corm, given no soil or water. All its nourishment and liquid was stored in the corm.

The corm

The corm is huge. In Japan they cook a delicacy, konnyaku, from it. It’s a kind of jelly, supposed to be healthy and a joy to eat. It’s also employed by the European food industry. It is labelled E 425. See if you can find it in the supermarket!

The flower I cut from the corm. I placed it in the snow in front of the kitchen window, and brought the corm inside the house again. The rest of the stem on top of the corm will soon wither away, and after a few months I can expect a single large leaf, shaped like a palm. I grow the Konjac for the beautiful leaf.

Last time I had a Konjac in flower was in 2008.

 

Danish Seed Savers 2010 Exchangelist

Mangel (Beta vulgaris) Prizewinner

The exchange list of Frøsamlerne 2010 has been released.
As usual, there’s lots of rare and exciting varieties, collected in their gardens by members who are willing to share.

Do you know the Horn of plenty, alias African valerian (Fedia cornucopiae)?

Or Caucasian Spinach (Hablitzia tamnoides), a perennial climber with delicious edible leaves. I expect this to become a regular on the exchange list.

59 tomato varieties in all colours, shapes and sizes.

In 2010 ”Lost crops of the Incas” has become an independent grouping, including 3 types of Mashua Tropaeolum tuberosum), 2 types Oca (Oxalis tuberosa) and a single Yacon (Polymnia sonchifolia).

But also old local seeds, like the black barley = “Sort 6 radet Byg”.
The black oat, “Havre fra Ribe”, collected by Vavilov Institute (VIR) before 1920 (VIR K11504) in south west Denmark.

Take a look in the list, if you are a seed dreamer like me

I’m sure you can translate the list with Babelfish, Google or some other free language tool on the web.

This month the garden has looked clean and white.

Chusan Palm (Trachycarpus fortunei) in snow

 

Ulluco Harvest

Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) harvest of the year, lest “Pisac”, right “Cusco”

This time I succeeded getting a tiny ulluco harvest. I planted three different clones. One died. Of the two survivors, only the one from Cusco made a notable harvest. Well, not that the tuber are sizeable at all, but the output was heavier than the input! In their favour I must note, that they sprouted very late, in late June. Maybe they need a few growing seasons to overcome the move from Andes to Denmark?
Compare the size with the parent tubers below:

The three tubers planted in spring. The small to the very right sprouted first, but only to fade away.

I was away a week in December. When I came home, the ullucos and their pots was frozen solid. An other week passed, before I managed to dig them out of the still frozen pots. The tubers in the surface had all died, but those deeper buried, but still frozen, survived to a large extent. Some died during the first week indoor, but most of them are still in good shape.

Don’t ask how they taste! I didn’t taste them yet. I believe a number of gardeners would like to try them in their garden. All will be saved for replanting in spring.

Ulluco – again an older post

 

Seeds from NordGen

Turnip (Brassica rapa) Petrowsky “Gulia”
Breeders name: Vangede (P 1948)

NordGen, former Nordisk Genbank, the Nordic countries common gene bank, send seeds to us ordinary people. It’s a bit demanding to find the wanted variety in their database SESTO, but not impossible, and worthwhile. Try clicking on “Cultivars” gives you the full list. Or search by the Latin species name clicking on “Taxons”.

I fell in love with Petrowsky “Gulia”, as it is a Danish breeding line of the tasty turnip Petrowsky. It was created by Ohlsens Enke, and approved in trials 1948 in Vangede, just outside Copenhagen. It was marketed first time in the same year.

In my old J.E.Ohlsens Enke seed catalogue from 1954 I find this turnip:

Petrowsky Vangede P. 1948.

The seeds I received was harvested in 1983, NordGen got them in 1989.
Now I hope to succeed with these old seeds. Fortunately they have been in professional care in the time passed since harvest.

When I gooled “Petrowsky”, I noticed the spelling “Petrowski” gave much more results. I found, that Petrowski was an important crop in Alaska around 1921. (Botanical Abstracts, 1921)

I also found, that Sperli in Germany seems to believe, that Petrowski and Teltower is two names for the same variety – how would that fit with descriptions of the Teltower having a unique taste? I’m sure this in future will mix up the two cultivars. Best thing we can do is to keep good records of what we grow and the source. This can be an quick and unintended way to get rid of old varieties. Thanks to the gene banks, who try to get accurate informations when they invent seeds.

Do I learn more about Petrowski, I intend to add it here, although it isn’t good practice in a blog.

 

Dead Graft

Dead graft

In the spring I grafted an exiting wild apple on my old apple tree. Unfortunately the grafting has died, although it seemed to grow callus and connect in early summer. Did I store the twigs for grafting under bad conditions? Did I do a technically lousy grafting? Did some happy little bird clean its beak and break the graft? I don’t know, and it shall not keep me from grafting some other time. It’s funny, and does a grafting take on it’s great.

I’ve been told, that some professionals now have grafted this wild apple, to learn if it deserves to be grown in plantations or gardens. If it is a healthy tree, I’m sure we will get access to it for our gardens, at least from some of the specialised nurseries.

 

A Garden Revisited

Garden with a view

I revisited Merete and Ejners garden. First visit was in spring, this second visit was after the first frost. The garden is situated in a village, with a view over field and wood.

Sage (Salvia officinalis)

The huge sage with the wrinkled stems made me think of
the oldest oak in Denmark. Age is an important dimension in our garden plants. Never saw a more beautiful sage.

Kirsten and Merete deeply engaged in garden talk

People fond of gardening always talk a lot, when we meet in a garden. It still surprises me, how different we people can grow our gardens. Even with same plants in same climate. We ate us through the different fruit trees; cooking apples, table apples, pears, prunes, filberts and grapes.

Old grape wine growing in the apple trees

A very old grape wine has conquered the tops of some of the apple trees. In old days there was a greenhouse around it, but since it perished, the grape wine has continued to grow with no protection. Could it be the old variety Frankenthaler?

Leaf chicory

There still is a lot of vegetables in the garden. The leaf chicory was served for lunch – mmm…. We also had leek and a mayonnaise spiced with ‘Susan Delafield’ garlic.
Thanks for a nice day.

 

Artichoke Seed

Good artichoke seeds left, right the quality I had in former years

This year I harvest artichoke seeds of a superior quality, compared to my normal harvest. The seeds are hard with a smooth surface, and of a darker shade than usual. Normally the germination of my artichoke seeds are very low, but still allowing to grow a few plants. From this years seeds I expect a much higher germination rate, as seeds are obviously better ripened. I also harvested more seeds than usual, a little more than 150 seeds of the best quality. The mother plant is the old danish Serridslevgaard, very rare and difficult to obtain, but every seed growing will be its own new variety. I expect a broad variation in the seedlings. Most of them will probably be inferior to their mother, but with some luck a few better plants might appear. The mother plant is in the elite when it comes to hardiness, many of the seedlings are likely to inherit this trace – but not all.

The inferior seeds to the right in the picture are of a lighter color. A nail on the surface of the seed shell let you feel the difference. Inferior seeds are not slippery like a ripe filbert nut, but gives resistance to moving the nail along the shell.

How come the artichoke seeds developed so well this year? I believe it’s due to the warm unusually dry late summer we had on Amager, my island.

 

Tom Wagner Workshop

Some of Tom Wagners varities of potato
Copyright Anja Egeriis anja.egeriis@gmail.com

Tom Wagner from USA gave a workshop at the organic farm Hegnstrup outside Copenhagen in Denmark.

Tom shared his lifelong fascination in potatoes and tomatoes (tater & mater). For 56 years he has been crossing and selecting on potatoes and tomatoes, and he still has many ideas to improve varieties. Tom is best known for his tomato Green Zebra.

Tom Wagner explains what to watch out for in a tomato flower for breeding
Copyright Anja Egeriis anja.egeriis@gmail.com

It is a pleasure to dive deep in to details with such an experienced breeder as Tom. He showed us how the first flower in a cluster often have a deformed style. The shape makes it more sensitive to later insect pollination, at a point we would think we had control of the pollination. He also recommended looking at the little scar in the flower end of the ripe tomato. Is it a tiny spot, the style was well shaped, a larger irregular brown scar suggest the style was deformed, with an increased risk of unintended crossing.

Tom gently tear off the anthers of the tomato flower
Copyright Anja Egeriis anja.egeriis@gmail.com

Tom gently tear off the anthers of a tomato flower. Then he knock it over his thumb nail to release any pollen, to learn if there is any ripe pollen. There was none, meaning this flower can be crossed. He already had noticed the green shine in the yellow anthers, suggesting they were not releasing pollen yet.

Tom pollinate a tomato flower
Copyright Anja Egeriis anja.egeriis@gmail.com

Then he pick a well developed flower of an other tomato variety, knock it gently over a brown clay tray and we can all see the pollen collected on the tray. With the tip of a brush he transfer the pollen from the tray to the stigma. Then he removes the petals, so insects will not be attracted, and add a tag to remember what he did to the flower (later tomato). Last he pick the older flowers, not letting them take any energy from his pollinated flower.

We gather closely to see every detail
Copyright Anja Egeriis anja.egeriis@gmail.com

Tom Wagner thinks in combining good genes. For both potato and tomato this include resistance to late blight. He also want hairy plants, as insect find the plant fur unattractive. In this way both insect damage and insect transfer of disease by their bites are reduced.

He has developed potato varieties that can stay in ground all winter for eating or replanting in April, without any sprouting. They do need a mulch in case of severe frost.

He has also develop a potato I think of as a CO2-reduced potato. It is tasty, yellow fleshed and only take a 5 minute boil before eating. A 75% reduction of CO2 in the boiling process.

For the tiny garden he developed a series of potatoes with huge flamboyant flowers, the photos made me think of Dahlias, with more usefull tubers.

As Tom has no land of his own, he is totally dependent of others cooperating with him. Tom sends out a lot of not yet stabilised hybrids to others, for them to select on according to his guidance for some generations. He find that they usually stabilise in the 5th. or 6th. generation.

One of Toms interesting techniques is the preselection. He has gained the capacity to read the phenotype already at the seedling stage, allowing him to sort out most of the unattractive seedlings before transplant. This saves a lot of space in the gardens. In the shape of the young leaves he read the shape of the tubers to come later, round or elongated. When he wish a potato resistant to late frosts, he look for seedlings that will be first in afternoon to gather their leaves on top of the growing tip, thus protecting it from frost. These techniques show how deep he understand these crops.

At transplant of potato seedlings, it is very important to bury 1 or 2 of the normal leaves in the ground, otherwise you won’t get a proper tuber production.

Tom believe we ordinary people should take responsibility to maintain and improve the heritage form our ancestors. He believe we should do the F1 hybrids bottom up (by ourselves), and share them generously, keeping hybrids fertile in future generations and maintain the inherited gene pool. We can afford the longterm investment, whereas the few remaining multinational seed companies breed for the next ten years only, and for shareholders that’s a very long perspective compared to the normal 5 year perspective.

To ease our work on potatoes, he also breed to improve fruit setting in potatoes. Most modern potatoes set no fruits at all. To grow new and better varieties we need the seeds!

Ps. At Bifurcated Carrots you can read the plan for Tom Wagners tour in Europe

 

Elderberry Vodka

Elderberries, chili and Stolichnaya vodka

In the hedge grow a small wild elderberry. Only few berries this autumn, inspired me to do an elderberry vodka. I cleaned the berries, dumped them in a less than half full bottle of russian Stolichnaya vodka. Then I thought it might become rather insipid without a lot of sugar. But wouldn’t the health benefit be lost with a lot of sugar added? I imagine a little chili heat might balace the elderberries and vodka. In the garden I picked two spanish chilies, but in the end only added one. I want elderberry to taste, not to be overpowered by the chili. The chili is Guindilla, Anselmo in Spain send me seeds for it last winter – thanks a lot Anselmo!
The elder is not a named variety, just one of these small trees that willingly grows as a hedge weed in my neighborhood.

 

Breeding new pepper varieties

Typical sweet peppers from 12 plants of 2. generation from a cross

This year I have grown 13 plants of my unintended pepper cross. One plant quickly got diseased after transplant, lots of brown spot on the leaves, that soon dropped to the ground. I discarded this plant late, to ensure a heavy disease pressure on the other plants, to reveal any others with the same tendency. No other plants was infected, except for a few minor spots of no importance.

Plant #2 also has problems showing now late in the season. All the small unripe fruits are rotting away. No other plants are affected. I will not continue this breeding line !

I transplanted in a row, according to the development of the plants at transplant. First plant was also first to get ripe red peppers. But for the rest there seems to be no connection between development at transplant and days to harvest. Plants # 5 and 6 didn’t even make a single ripe pepper. Plant # 11 as a contrast have given a rich harvest, and still have a lot of green peppers to harvest before first frost within the next two weeks.

It started as a secret love affair between german ‘Roter Augsburger’ and croatian ‘Zlatni Medal’, who in summer 2007 stood close, rubbing their flowers in the summer wind. Next year it showed up in the row of ‘Roter Augsburg’, where a single plant look in between the parents. It can be seen in a post from last year.

As ‘Roter Augsburger’ and ‘Zlatni Medal’ are very early varieties, suitable for open ground in Denmark, I understood this could become a happy ending love affair, if given some attention in the next years, until one or more varieties has become true breeding.

Several plants with chocolate colored fruits was a surprise, as granny is red and grandpa is orange red (not easily distinguished in my photos). They look like ‘Sweet Chocolate’ in color, I might grow that for comparison.