Potato onions. I bought a really large salad onion from an organic shop and planted it in my polytunnel. I planted six potato onions around it to try and cross them. The idea is that if i cross the two, i might be able to grow the seeds and obtain a new potato onion variety that makes larger onions. For doing this, according to Carol Deppe and her excellent "Breed your own vegetable varieties" book, it would be a good idea to pollinate the potato onion with the salad onion pollen. The reason for this is that the female parent that makes the seeds should be the variety that has the important genetic traits. If both make seed i will try and grow all of the seeds to see the difference.
Layering chilean hazelnut (gevuina avellana). I already did this successfully last year. This method works very well and i think that one can multiply and grow almost any plant on its own roots this way. Young gevuina avellana tree. To begin i choose a low growing side branch on my plant and trim away the leaves in the middle. A small side branch growing close to the ground like this is ideal. I cut off the leaves in the mid section. Using a sharp knife i carefully open the stem with a long cut. I try not to cut further up than half of the thickness of the stem. Apply rooting hormone to the wound (it probably works without hormone too, but i like to use it). It's very important to wedge one or two small bits of matchstick into the cut to force the wound to stay open. I cut a plastic pot leaving two holes at the correct height to accommodate the branch passing through. Put the pot in place, taking care that the cut is roughly in the middle and that the bits of matchstick stay in pl...

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