scoutmum
Senior Member
North Queensland
Posts: 189
Likes: 344
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Post by scoutmum on Feb 16, 2015 16:28:50 GMT 10
Birds eye chillies are growing well... We didn't plant them, but are pretty pleased in any case! Radishes have started popping their heads through in our fledgling aquaponics system... The mulberries are coming in like mad, thanks to the recent rain, too: as big as my thumb and oh so juicy! The kids have sticky purple faces, and I've been make heaps of mulberry muffins as well! Attachments:
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Post by Fractus on Feb 16, 2015 17:31:07 GMT 10
My jalapeño harvest in the process of pickling. Got about 2 kgs and that was after the geese had eaten them to the ground when they were just seedlings
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Post by You Must Enter A Name on Feb 17, 2015 6:37:25 GMT 10
Under a small pile of branches stacked at the far end of the yard I discovered something... uncanny! Cherry tomatoes, I don't even know how it happened but we have cherry tomatoes for zero effort.
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scoutmum
Senior Member
North Queensland
Posts: 189
Likes: 344
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Post by scoutmum on Feb 17, 2015 8:14:16 GMT 10
Under a small pile of branches stacked at the far end of the yard I discovered something... uncanny! Cherry tomatoes, I don't even know how it happened but we have cherry tomatoes for zero effort. Cherry tomatoes seem to frequently occur with zero effort... I've been told the birds spread them pretty much everywhere. Speaking of birds and tomatoes: a few years ago, we had a wonderful crop of (unintended) tomatoes come up in our flower bed after using manure collected from our chook pen!
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SM+?
Senior Member
This old dragon will see you all when all this is over and done.
Posts: 339
Likes: 274
Location: Darwin Area, Northern Territory
Email: becci_75@hotmail.com
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Post by SM+? on Feb 17, 2015 9:08:47 GMT 10
We have wild passion fruit vines and wild cucumbers growing everywhere out here, we also have a patch of pawpaws that has been left to go wild too. We did have bananas but they had to be destroyed because of the banana freckle, we also have a few different wild flowers growing but I'm not sure right now if they are edable. Oh and we do have a wild bee hive somewhere but I'm yet to find it, will be good once I do.
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Post by StepfordRenegade on Feb 18, 2015 8:37:22 GMT 10
I had to order some more organic heirloom seeds because I can't find my others ones *sob* I had so many good ones I've got a bunch of the usuals, but this'll be my first time growing corn, so FC we get some good ones
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SM+?
Senior Member
This old dragon will see you all when all this is over and done.
Posts: 339
Likes: 274
Location: Darwin Area, Northern Territory
Email: becci_75@hotmail.com
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Post by SM+? on Feb 18, 2015 15:43:41 GMT 10
I will have to replace all my seeds as my ex has the box of seeds I had collected.
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Post by Fractus on Feb 19, 2015 7:12:38 GMT 10
I had to order some more organic heirloom seeds because I can't find my others ones *sob* I had so many good ones I've got a bunch of the usuals, but this'll be my first time growing corn, so FC we get some good ones Diggers in Victoria has a large range of heirloom seeds and post them out. diggers.com.au
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Post by StepfordRenegade on Feb 19, 2015 11:10:26 GMT 10
I had to order some more organic heirloom seeds because I can't find my others ones *sob* I had so many good ones I've got a bunch of the usuals, but this'll be my first time growing corn, so FC we get some good ones Diggers in Victoria has a large range of heirloom seeds and post them out. diggers.com.au Thanks for the tip!
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scoutmum
Senior Member
North Queensland
Posts: 189
Likes: 344
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Post by scoutmum on Feb 19, 2015 11:54:05 GMT 10
Diggers in Victoria has a large range of heirloom seeds and post them out. diggers.com.au Thanks for the tip! A good Queensland one is edenseeds.com.au... We've used both them and diggers.
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Post by Fractus on Feb 22, 2015 20:37:14 GMT 10
These are a very hot rocotto or manzano or tree chilli. They are perennial and tolerate melbourne climates fine. The tree I have is couple of years old and was transplanted last year. They are very hardy. We are going to dry them and use them as crushed or powder so we can control the heat better. They burn even after you thoughly wash your hands so wear gloves (lesson I learned the hard way) and they are one of the earliest cultivated chillis. www.rocoto.comI am happy to send off a few seeds to anyone that wants some ( as long as it is not everyone). Just pm me
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Post by Fractus on Mar 1, 2015 7:25:42 GMT 10
I have this as a weed. I call it pig weed. I can from compost my parents gave me and it spreads well and grows in the most inhospitable places now I find it has the highest omega 3 of any terrestrial plant go figure. I tasted it and it is ok.
Purslane contains more omega-3 fatty acids (alpha-linolenic acid in particular[6]) than any other leafy vegetable plant. Studies have found that Purslane has 0.01 mg/g of eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA). This is an extraordinary amount of EPA for a land-based vegetable source. EPA is an Omega-3 fatty acid found mostly in fish and some algae. It also contains vitamins (mainly vitamin A, vitamin C, Vitamin E (alpha-tocopherol)[7] and some vitamin B and carotenoids), as well as dietary minerals, such as magnesium, calcium, potassium, and iron. Also present are two types of betalain alkaloid pigments, the reddish betacyanins (visible in the colouration of the stems) and the yellow betaxanthins (noticeable in the flowers and in the slight yellowish cast of the leaves). Both of these pigment types are potent antioxidants and have been found to have antimutagenic properties in laboratory studies.[8]
100 Grams of fresh purslane leaves (about half a cup) contain 300 to 400 mg of alpha-linolenic acid.[9] One cup (250 ml) of cooked leaves contains 90 mg of calcium, 561 mg of potassium, and more than 2,000 IUs of vitamin A. A half-cup of purslane leaves contains as much as 910 mg of oxalate, a compound implicated in the formation of kidney stones; however, many common vegetables, such as spinach, also can contain high concentrations of oxalates. Cooking purslane reduces overall soluble oxalate content by 27%, which is important considering its suggested nutritional benefits of being part of a healthy diet.[10]
When stressed by low availability of water, purslane, which has evolved in hot and dry environments, switches to photosynthesis using Crassulacean acid metabolism (the CAM pathway): At night its leaves trap carbon dioxide, which is converted into malic acid (the souring principle of apples), and, in the day, the malic acid is converted into glucose. When harvested in the early morning, the leaves have ten times the malic acid content as when harvested in the late afternoon, and thus have a significantly more tangy taste.
Traditional medicine
Portulaca oleracea showing blooms
Seed pods, closed and open, revealing the seeds Known as Ma Chi Xian (pinyin: translates as "horse tooth amaranth") in traditional Chinese medicine, its active constituents include: noradrenaline, calcium salts, dopamine, DOPA[disambiguation needed], malic acid, citric acid, glutamic acid, asparagic acid, nicotinic acid, alanine, glucose, fructose, and sucrose.[11] Betacyanins isolated from Portulaca oleracea improved cognition deficits in aged mice.[12] A rare subclass of isoflavonoids, from the plant, showed in vitro cytotoxic activities towards four human cancer cell lines.[13] Use is contraindicated during pregnancy and for those with cold and weak digestion.[11] Purslane is a clinically effective treatment for oral lichen planus,[14] and its leaves are used to treat insect or snake bites on the skin,[15] boils, sores, pain from bee stings, bacillary dysentery, diarrhea, hemorrhoids, postpartum bleeding, and intestinal bleeding.[11]
Portulaca oleracea efficiently removes bisphenol A, an endocrine-disrupting chemical, from a hydroponic solution. How this happens is unclear.[16]
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Post by Fractus on Mar 7, 2015 10:48:19 GMT 10
We get one dozen per day now expecting that to be about 10 per day when they settle down but love it while I can.mini pumpkin zukks and jalapeños make up the meagrely haul. But enough calories to sustain us and have the herbs to make it more palatable.
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Post by Fractus on Mar 7, 2015 10:53:10 GMT 10
Has anyone tried to make a living fence. Not sure what you would use in Aust as willow is easy but is too readily eaten by stock. Black berry is too hard to manage although is great to keep sheep in. Yanks use Osage quite a bit but I can't find it here. the plant needs to be nibbleable (coined a word I think) but thorny enough to survive and block.
Looks like blackthorn might be the go. It grows from cutting is hardy with torns, good for bees and you can make sloe gin with the fruit. Etc etc
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VegHead
VIP Member
Posts: 545
Likes: 913
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Post by VegHead on Mar 7, 2015 11:47:31 GMT 10
In the ground we have celery, tomatoes, cucumber, zucchini, cabbage, broccoli, leeks, beans (French and broad), Jerusalem artichokes, banana, banana passionfruit, chillies, radish, carrot, spring onions, and summer squash. This morning I did up a number of seed trays in the hothouse using home-made soil blocks and seeded the following: Rainbow Swiss chard, Fordhook Giant silver beet, Detroit Beetroot, Mizuna asian lettuce, cauliflower and two varieties of kohl rabi. This afternoon I will be pickling our pickling onions, yay, all 14 kgs of them And after fractus's post on purslane then that's now on my radar!!
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Post by Fractus on Mar 9, 2015 18:08:19 GMT 10
Picked up two types of thorn trees today for a try at a living fence. Ie when I can't afford fencing materials or I want it to be a wind break, or to funnel zombies. One is fairly common and traditional in England. The black thorn. You can make a very tasty drink for its fruit called sloe gin. I told the very nice man what I had in mind for the plant me how would I propagate from cuttings. He said try the kei Apple (dovyalis caffra)So I got one(3 in one pot)) looked it up on wiki and it seems great for all my needs and the fruit pickles well and is edible as well as jams. Very nasty thorns as required. The fruit in the picture is unripe and from Wikipedia.
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Post by SA Hunter on Apr 8, 2015 16:27:27 GMT 10
Well, we moved our rabbit cages to another part of the garden (wire bottoms), and I added compost soil and more cow manure - planted brocolli, cabbage, radish, beetroot, spring onions and chives, as well as some more lemongrass in a pot.
Next job is to trim back the chilli bushes when we pick the last chillis off them - they will last 4-5 years if you prune them back, much like a rose bush. We found they produce more fruit each year.
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Post by Fractus on Apr 8, 2015 17:25:44 GMT 10
Well, we moved our rabbit cages to another part of the garden (wire bottoms), and I added compost soil and more cow manure - planted brocolli, cabbage, radish, beetroot, spring onions and chives, as well as some more lemongrass in a pot. Next job is to trim back the chilli bushes when we pick the last chillis off them - they will last 4-5 years if you prune them back, much like a rose bush. We found they produce more fruit each year. What sort of chillis are they?
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Post by SA Hunter on Apr 8, 2015 18:15:15 GMT 10
All sorts - we go for the hotter rating chillis ( ie 8/10 to 15/10 ).We grow from seed, but also seedlings from the nursery. Don't really have a favourite brand though - plus, for more heat, lots of manure!!!!!
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Post by Peter on Apr 8, 2015 18:28:37 GMT 10
... for more heat, lots of manure!!!!! Seriously? I've heard that less watering in the days prior to cutting increases heat, but this is very interesting indeed.
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