Sabtu, 30 April 2016

Tree onion seeds

Posted by aep on 18.37 with No comments so far

Tree onions, also known as Egyptian onions, Walking onions, Topsetting onions etc (Allium × proliferum, formerly Allium cepa var proliferum) are a very productive perennial onion that grows small onions on top of the flower stalk.  It is meant to be the most hardy of all the edible onions and is not bothered by heat, drought or cold.  I wrote an earlier post about them here.

One remarkable thing about the tree onion is that they do not really grow flowers.  They send up a flower stalk and grow small onions instead of flowers.  In this way they are simple to propagate, just break off a small top onion and plant it somewhere.  If left alone they will do this by themselves and constantly increase the size of their patch for you.  It is this bizarre habit that makes them so interesting to grow, sometimes they will plant their own topsets and walk across your garden leaving an edible onion forest in their wake.

Tree onions can also divide under ground.  The main bulb, if left alone, will split into a handful of plants each year.  The plants have to compete with each other and the resultant plants will never be overly large.  If divided these plants can produce many plants in a year or two.  By dividing the plants you eliminate competition and end up with more robust and stronger plants.
Tree onion clump - this was a single plant 2 or 3 years ago.  It has grown from bulb division only as I removed all topsets

What is wrong with tree onions

When being grown by topsets all of the tree onion plants are said to be genetically identical.  This poses problems if the tree onion is not well suited to your climate or if there is some problem that only genetic diversity can overcome.  Tree onion bulbs are not very large, the largest I have seen is about golf ball sized, it would be nice if they were even a little larger.  In some climates they may not produce bulbs.

Perennial onions often accumulate a virus load, this virus load does not stop the plant from being edible but often reduces the size of the bulbs.  Potato onions that are seed grown are three times the size (or larger) of regular potato onions.  This is due to shedding the virus load through growing from seed.  I have started to wonder if something similar to this will happen with tree onions if they are seed grown.  Or perhaps tree onions do not have a virus load when grown from bulbils, I just dont know.

At present there is only one clone of tree onion in Australia that I am aware of.  I am happy to be wrong about this, if you have a different tree onion I would love to hear from you.  Overseas they seem to have a handful of types but we dont appear to be so lucky here.

Tree onions are good, but if the bulbs were larger they would be far more useful for the cook.  Perhaps shedding of virus load would increase the size of the bulbs, perhaps better genetics would achieve larger bulb size, regardless larger bulbs would be better and make tree onions more worth while to grow.

Having a few different colours of tree onions would also make people a lot happier as people tend to pick onions based on colour rather than any other trait.  I must admit, I see some pictures of the different varieties of tree onion that are overseas and would prefer to grow them than the variety that we have.

In some climates tree onions may not produce true bulbs ever, instead they will start to grow a bulb by thickening the base of the stalk but never die down properly even if water is withheld.  They just keep on growing.  This basal swelling is eaten the same way as an onion bulb and tastes the same, but it can not be dug and stored like a bulb and does not look as good as a bulb.  This may be a day length sensitivity issue or something else, either way it would be better if they died to bulbs in every climate.
Tree onions starting to flower as well as send up bulbils

Breeding better tree onions

All of these desirable traits (size, colour etc) could be bred into tree onions by home gardeners, at present I know of no one who is doing any tree onion breeding anywhere in the world.  I find this odd, but then again perhaps people have better things to do with their time than trying to improve an ancient onion when there are so many great onions already around.  Breeding tree onions for something better is problematic in a plant that does not readily produce seed.  Luckily tree onions can produce seed, it just takes a bit of work.

In my climate the tree onions sometimes grows a few flowers in amongst the bulbils on the flower stalk.  Not every plant does this, and they dont do it every year, but they have the ability to produce flowers when conditions are just right.  As the bulbils grow they drain all the energy from the flowers causing them to wither and drop.  If left alone to do their own thing they can not produce seed.

I have heard of a few people carefully removing all the bulbils to allow the flowers to develop and then trying to obtain seed.  This process works with garlic to obtain true garlic seed so there is no reason that it would not work with tree onions.  I know that at least one person who was successful in this and had some of the resultant seed germinate but am not aware of the outcome.  I have a feeling that this project was abandoned as more pressing matters arose.

I also know of one type of tree onion known as Finnish air onions that regularly produces viable seed as well as topsets.  Unfortunately these are not yet present in Australia and I have not been able to track down anyone who can send me some seed.  Perhaps some day we will have access to these amazing plants, but for now we have to work with what we have.
Tree onions starting to flower, the one on the left also sent up a flower stalk from the bulbils

My tree onion seeds

I have had some strange and amazing things happen with my perennial onions over the past few years, I assume that the extreme weather here and me not dividing them often enough has stressed them somewhat and made them reconsider their stance on not flowering.  This year, just like last year, something odd has happened in my garden.

In among my tree onions I have a few plants which sent up flower stalks that had a lot of flowers.  Some of these flower heads had a few tiny bulbils (which I have since removed) and others had no bulbils at all.  I have grown tree onions for years and never seen this before, I have asked around and no one else seems to have seen this either.  I normally see a few flowers here and there, but this year some heads are pretty much completely covered in flowers and have no bulbils.  Interestingly the flowers seem to be covered in their own separate paper covering to any bulbils that are present.  Sometimes there are a few separately covered flower sets on the same stalk.
Tree onion flowers, strangely no bulbils at all!
Initially I wondered if these were tree onions or if somehow a stray seed of a bulb onion blew in with the wind or something.  There is absolutely no question, these are tree onions flowering.  Some plants are flowering and they have a base bulb connected to another bulb (ie the underground bulb split into several bulbs) that is sending up bulbils as normal.  Some plants sent up a flower stalk which grew normal bulbils, some of these bulbils sent up another flower stalk which only has flowers.

The flowers appear to be complete and should have the ability to set viable seed.  Some of these flowers have formed immature fruits that appear to be ripening and look as though they will produce good seed.  I plan to protect these flower heads, if they produce viable seed I plan to collect it and try to grow it.  At this stage I do not know how this will go but have a good feeling that I should at least get a handful of viable seed to grow.
Tree onion flowers with the bulbils removed
Tree onions are a spontaneous hybrid between Allium cepa (bulb onion) and Allium fistulosum (spring onions), being an interspecific hydrid I do not know what pollen they would require in order to produce viable seed.  Perhaps they will pollinate themselves, perhaps they need something else to pollinate them, I will never know for sure.

I have about a dozen small flower heads on the tree onions at the moment, these are at different stages of development.  Assuming that tree onions can pollinate themselves some flowers should shed pollen at the right time for the others to be receptive to it.  There are plenty of pollinators around here ranging from honey bees, over a dozen species of native bee, various wasps, tachinid flies etc so pollination should not be an issue.

There are plenty of other alliums flowering at the moment which may be able to donate pollen if the tree onion flowers prove to be self incompatible.  Currently I have tree onions, everlasting onions, potato onions, a few bulb onions and spring onions all flowering.  There are probably a few other alliums flowering now but it is doubtful that anything else would be compatible with tree onions.
More tree onion flowers
If any seeds grow I do not know what the resultant plants will be like.  They may be similar to the parent tree onion, they may have poor traits of each parent and not be worth growing, or they may be superior to the parent plants in some way.  Considering that the tree onion is an interspecific hybrid each seed grown plant should be genetically different from each other, given that seed grown plants may have pollen from some other allium increases the chances of the seed grown plants being very variable.  Only time will tell on this one but it is all very exciting.


Where to buy tree onions in Australia

I sell tree onions as well as other perennial vegetables and a few other things on my for sale page.  If I end up growing one of these tree onion seeds and it turns out to be something remarkable I may also sell them, but that is probably a few years off.
 
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Perennial Leeks

Posted by aep on 10.59 with No comments so far
A few years ago we got some perennial leeks online. Like all plants you get online it is difficult to know if it will survive being posted or survive in our garden. They are meant to grow and taste just like ordinary leeks. Instead of saving seed and raising seedlings they grow numerous tiny leeks from their base.

When we moved here I dug up the leeks and brought them with us. Normally they keep growing as usual but this summer they seemed to die down to bulbs which made moving easier. I planted them out in one of the vegetable gardens. The picture below shows some of the leeks I have planted.

perennial vegetables - plant once harvest forever
Perennial leeks - very hardy
Having never eaten or grown any other type of leek I can not compare them, but these are easy to grow and are tasty. They are very productive and take heavy frost with no worries. If they die down when stressed they should also be able to take the heat here.

As all leeks apparently do, they grow rather slowly. But these ones multiply fast. I have let some plants flower but they have never produce viable seeds for me. By the time a large leek is ready to be dug up and eaten it will have numerous smaller leeks ready to take its place. If you divide the babies off they all grow large and start to multiply, if you do not divide them they keep growing but are much smaller.

The picture below shows a larger leek in the background, with many smaller leeks in the foreground waiting to be divided. As you can see the lack of viable seed is not a problem whatsoever.

perennial leek plantsLike all the vegetables that I have got online I had hoped that these would do well and would eventually pay for themselves in one way or another. Some things have paid for themselves by reducing the amount of groceries we have to buy, others such as yacon pay for themselves by being sold. The leeks certainly have been hardy and generous plants and have grown and multiplied well. After seeing the prices for leek in the supermarket I know that they have paid for themselves several times over just from what we have eaten.

Since writing this I have grown some regular leeks and have written a post comparing these with perennial leeks here

 I do sell perennial leek plants as well as some other perennial vegetables, herbs and some vegetable seeds, please see my For Sale page for details.
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Jumat, 29 April 2016

Why Save Seeds

Posted by aep on 17.31 with No comments so far

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Saving seeds is for everyone

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

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

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

Saving seed from other things is far simpler.  Other things can take almost no time, no effort, no cost (in fact they save you money as you never buy seeds or seedlings of that plant ever again), and end up giving you a superior variety that is better suited to your purposes.  I want to encourage people to save seed from these easy things.
Reisetomate tomatoes, difficult to find anywhere but simple to save seeds once you have found them
Saving seed from a coriander plant for example is simple.  You grow your coriander as normal, you eat the leaves as normal, when it flowers and goes to seed you rip out any substandard plants (or at least kill the plants that flower first) and allow the rest to do their thing.  Then you can let them self seed and you are done, no real effort on your behalf other than ripping out some plants which you were going to do anyway.  Or you could collect and store the seeds somewhere until you are ready to plant again, and that is all.  That wasnt too hard and didnt take much time and certainly didnt cost anything.  

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


Are home grown seeds as good?

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

The longer answer is that seeds you can buy the seeds that I save, but seeds that you save yourself are likely to be far superior to anything you can buy anywhere for quite a number of reasons. 
OSU Blue tomato - you dont see these at the supermarket
If you save seeds you should get higher germination rates, this is due partly to the fact that the seeds will be fresher, seeds that you buy may be a few years old before you purchase them.  I write the year the seeds were collected on seed packets, I know of no one else who does this, they mostly write an arbitrary date of expiration or the date that they were repackaged.  I dislike companies who write the repackage date as who knows how old the seeds were before they were repackaged and sold.  I dislike the arbitrary best before dates for a number of reasons.  I want to know the year they they were grown, that is why I write that on my packets.

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

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

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

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

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

But my garden does not have ideal c
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Today at 3 PM dont miss it!

Posted by aep on 12.47 with No comments so far

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Broadbeans

Posted by aep on 11.39 with No comments so far

I am not all that fond of eating broad beans.  I think I have eaten them maybe 2 or 3 times in my life and have never particularly liked them.  I have, however, grown broad beans and saved their seeds many times.

Why grow Broad Beans (Vicia faba)

I used to grow broad beans as green manure or mulch.  As a green manure they are fantastic, they protect the soil, they prevent winter weeds from getting a start, the roots incorporate nitrogen into the soil, the tops add a lot of carbon rich organic matter, and they grow over the cooler months when little else needs the space, they are easy to chop/kill and you can plant seedlings directly into the dead patch.  As a mulch they do ok, being high in nitrogen it tends to break down a bit too fast unless you use a very thick layer, but it certainly has its uses in the vegetable garden.  The variety I am growing now, I first purchased seeds before my first child was born, he "helped" me to plant and save broad bean seeds a few times.

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Scions

Posted by aep on 11.03 with No comments so far
Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind,
 going and coming like ourselves,
 traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day,
 and through space heaven knows how fast and far! 
-John Muir


Scion -n

1. a descendant.
2. Also, cion. a shoot or twig, especially one cut for grafting or planting; a cutting.


A couple of Sundays ago we attended a scion exchange in our neighborhood where gardeners and farmers traded cuttings from their fruit trees and vines.  There were workshops as well, including one on grafting taught by our local fruit tree expert who has an amazing property hosting over 100 rare fruit trees.  We walked away with some new knowlege and about 40 different varieties to graft in the orchard.
Here is our documented attempt at grafting our pear tree using a whipgraft...

(Collect scions when deciduous plants are dormant.  When the leaves are mostly gone and the buds are small, not swelling.  In the SF Bay Area--ealy winter.  Bag labeled scions in airtight plastic with drops of water and refigerate.  Deciduous scions will last for 2-10 months.) 




Select a branch on the tree where there are small buds so you know there is sap running to that particular branch.  ?




?Using a knife or heavy cutter, cut the branch  in a locaion that is slightly smaller than the scion in diameter.  Then make a clean cut on the scion keeping 2-4 buds.




?Carefully shave the scion and the branch into a wedge shape to make a tight fit. 




?If they do not fit together perfectly you may need to reshape. 




We used this nifty product that comes in a convenient paper package called Parafilm.  When you open it and apply pressure it stretches out and becomes slightly elastic creating an excellent adhesive.  ?



Wrap tightly around the joining point of the branch and the scion so that the bond is completely covered.  You want the sap to run into the scion not onto the tree branch.  ?



Label and record the location of the graft and voila!  Now we await rapidly approaching spring.  We will check the graft in 3-4 weeks for bud swell.  ?


?
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Skirret a forgotten perennial vegetable

Posted by aep on 09.43 with No comments so far

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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