Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm a newbie gardener, so two (three?) quick dumb questions...

Are silverbeet and swiss chard the same thing? Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silverbeet) says so, but someone here mentioned planting both. Are they just varieties?

In a greenhouse, do capsicum need to be hand pollinated? I am hand pollinating mine, and I have a ton of flowers, but no fruiting yet. I'm not sure it's because I'm a pathetic bee , or GB conditions (it could easily be too cold, or too dim).

Thanks!

chard, silverbeet and beetroot are all the same species, just different varieties.

Don't know about the capsicum thing, sorry

You will need a little soft paintbrush and hand pollenate the capsicums. I was getting zero fruit, then once I strated doing that, it was near 100%

Hi Swanberg,

When you hand-pollenating, you have to wear black and yellow striped clothing and make constant buzzing sounds.

Will that actually help? I hear you ask.

If course not, but it will make your family and neighbours wonder if you have started to go a little crazy!

I'm probably the culprit on the swiss chard/silverbeet dilemma

I have referred to silverbeet as being the green leafed stuff, got some red leafed and called in red chard to differentiate

(blame Les )

Its all the same thing, i think the red variety is known as rainbow chard over here. I had visions of silverbeet being something like sugarbeet
To hand pollinate i use a cotton bud (Q-Tip) with the ends pulled out a bit to fluff them up.. giving the plant a good shake seems quite effective too.

Like it rough do they!

Same in South Africa...

Thanks for the chard/silverbeet info!



Way too late for that!

I've been using a q-tip, but not all fluffed up.
(oooh, bad choice of words!)