17 June 2012

New colourful potatoes for Australia

Just came across this report on the ABC website about new colourful potato varieties imported by a grower in Tasmania, namely Amarosa a red fleshed spud, and Purple Bliss, a nice looking deep purple fleshed number. Should provide some fun new genetic material to play with when they get released, but it might be a couple of years before they hit the market.

16 June 2012

Winter pea sowing :(

I've been away for a couple of weeks into the far north west corner of New South Wales into the Strezlecki Desert and the Bullo Overflow chasing grass wrens (another crazy obsession worthy of its own blog), but before I left I harvested half of the crop of mature, but still green pods from my Chamber of Death X Purple podded F1 plants. I quickly dried them down over a couple of days in the dehydrator, and sowed them hoping I could squeeze an extra generation into the growing year.
I'm somewhat limited for space, and thought to utilise the ground along the back fence where my espalier apricots are now dormant - and hoping i could get a F2 generation growout setting pods before the leaves set on the apricots in spring.
But last night checking the 80 cells I sowed them into in the greenhouse, only one tiny shoot has appeared. A bit of careful excavation revealed some rotten seeds in the cells - most disappointed.