PERMABREED

 Brussels sprouts. Seven different varieties of brussels sprouts are now growing at my place. Next year i will let them run to seed in order to cross them and try to select ancient brussel sprouts. The idea is to reestablish an open pollinated landrace of brussels sprouts that slowly ripens over a long period of time from the bottom of the plant upwards like the old varieties used to do before modern farming needs modified them to all ripen at the same time. Some heirloom varieties still ripen over an extended period of time but the goal of this project is to see whether an improved brussel sprout plant for the private gardener can be created.

 Medlar. Mespilus germanica. I was lucky to get two very rare types of medlar. One kind was sent to me by a swiss collector who said it is the best tasting variety he knows. The second one is a seedless one that makes larger fruit than the ordinary seedless one, so also very special. There still is a huge potential in improving medlars through breeding simply by crossing them or even by trying to cross them with other fruit species. Medlars give fruit in my climate every year. No other fruit tree is as reliable for me as the medlar. superior tasting swiss type. large fruited, seedless type from bulgaria.

 Murdannia loriformis. First time growing murdannia. This plant was successfully tested in thailand for its anti-cancerous properties. In clinical tests people who took this plant had a significant reduction of cancerous tumours. Unfortunately this plant comes from thailand and is therefore not so easy to grow in temperate climates. It will and does grow in a polytunnel, no problem, but when temperatures drop it stops to grow and you have to keep it indoors over winter. To treat yourself against cancer with this you would need large amounts of plant material rendering the practical application of this plant very difficult unless you have a frost free glass house with a lot of space. In trials people drank the freshly pressed juice of this plant and it was effective in combating cancer. But like i said if you wanted to do this yourself you would need huge amounts of this plant growing in a frost free glass house and it might not help against all types of cancer.

 Mauka. Mirabilis expansa. I managed to grow two mauka varieties. Mauka blanca and mauka roja. I gave leaves to a friend of mine to try and eat them as spinach. He said they were moderately good and knowing him, if he says that, it means they are rather bad. I am trying to grow them through winter. The idea is to protect them from the frost so they might flower in january/february in order to get seeds. Mauka blanca Mauka roja.

 I only have one lonely macadamia survivor from all the little seedlings that i had. Loads of them just died on me. I didn't have time to look after them properly and some of that is no doubt due to the unfavourable conditions we have, but i still have one little tree. Chances that it can grow outdoors here are next to zero but one day i will have to plant it out nevertheless.

 Corylus colurna. Turkish hazelnut. A friend of mine gave me a turkish hazelnut. A curious plant for most of us who are used to seeing normal hazelnuts. The turkish hazelnut makes a trunk and grows like an ordinary tree. It can grow up to 25 meters tall and looks very different to our european hazelnuts. Chances are that most of the hazelnuts you ate in your life came from this tree because turkey is the worldwide biggest producer of hazelnuts and they grow these trees.

 Luffa. Luffa aegyptiaca   fruit miraculously freed itself from the wire in the polytunnel. The fruit is getting bigger and bigger. It's about time because temperatures are dropping. The leaves and the whole plant are suffering. I am hoping to harvest ripe seeds and to be able to try out the famous sponges. luffa gourd ripening. second fruit. Will it have time to ripen?

Potato onions. I harvested the seeds of the potato onions that i tried to cross. I planted the irish potato onion and the green mountain potato onion next to a large store-bought onion in order to cross them. They all flowered and i saw a lot of insects on the flowers. I did not attempt any hand pollination. These are seeds from the green mountain PO x large onion. picture of the flower stalks with the heads i tied into paper bags for drying. Notice the size difference. Irish PO at the right, green mountain PO in the middle and the large onion on the left. Dry green mountain potato onion flower head loaded with seeds.

 Luffa gourd (luffa aegyptiaca) The fruit is getting bigger and hopefully we will get ripe seeds and get to try out the sponges. There was only one female flower to begin with but no male flowers and then only male flower for a whole month. Finally then a female flower that i hand pollinated. second fruit growing.

 Golden Midget watermelon. We harvested our first and only golden midget watermelon. I only had one seed that germinated so i planted it in the polytunnel. I left only one fruit on the plant. We harvested it when it was nice and yellow. The taste was ok but it was quite floury and not very juicy. I am happy that some of the seeds seem ripe enough so they should grow next year. I used the pollen of the male flowers to pollinate my blacktail mountain watermelons outside.

Avocado. My mexicola avocado was completely destroyed by frost this winter, but it grew back nicely from the roots. If this happens every other year i will probably never get fruit from it because it will never reach a large enough size to start flowering.  Mexicola avocado on the 31st of august. Fantastic avocado seedling that survived last winter with less damage than the mexicola despite being smaller and younger.

 Crimson Crush F3. My best plant this year has now given me 11 good tomatoes and shows no sign of disease. I harvested 6 tomatoes and kept them for a few days. I took out the seeds and ate them. I was surprised how good they actually tasted. I will continue next year with the seeds from this plant. picture of the outdoor tomato plant on the 19th of september. The same plant still ripening fruit.

 Potato onions. The very largest one that didn't divide was just over 7cm diameter. The largest one was almost 9cm but it divided.

 Potato onions. I harvested my potato onions. I had about 6 to 7 hundred plants. After an initial rough culling i was left with 330 onions. My selection method is to favour the ones that didn't divide in their first year of growth. I don't know for sure if this is really that important but i just have this idea in my head that if i was to replant a potato onion that already divided in its first year chances are that it will divide once in the second growing season and then a second time, giving me onions with skins in the middle. A big heap of useless onions that i culled. Picture of the onions that made it through the first culling. The ones i decided to keep were already taken out. Potato onions selected for replanting next year. All of these didn't or almost didn't divide. Some more that i will keep and replant. The divisions here were noticeable under the skin but size was good with one large red one that clearly divided itself but was very big so i will replant it ...