Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Julie at yilgarn@midwest.com.au has a permaculture operation and has open-pollinated seeds for sale, some of them very exotic (including Ceylon Running Spinach). Prices are very reasonable, indeed! See her website at www.permaculturenursery.com.au

Ron

thanks for that link Ron. They have a good selection of seeds, especially ones that places like Eden can't send into WA.

ive not been very impressed by the quality of eden seeds in the past few years

they maybe open pollinated but it seems they arent rogueing some of their plants well enough
Siberian yellow watermelon, snake beans and some others have been off type.
the watermelons were yellow but the f2 had a large number of pinks, oranges and reds indicating the seed in fact was hybridised. i checked and there was no other melons for miles from where i grew them.
in the case of the snake beans they seemed to reverted to be a wild type, very thin and coarse (inedible) snake beans on extremely vigourous vines

Ive grown Yilgarn traders products and they are excellent.
Lemon boy tomato is one of my all time favourites. and She has a 2 tone snake bean that is excellent. I imagine the chinese minicorn would do very well in AP

also the seed from asian groceries includes a swarf snowpea variety worth trying

Kakulas in northbridge stocks ( i think still) an italian line of seeds 'Bulsem'?
they are EXCELLENt. best price and amount of seed and quality of any seed company i know of. great for unusual chicories, zuchinni and tomato varieties. Their Nantes carrot is perfection.

im hinking of growing some medicinal herbs in AP
esp root crops, because they would be so easy to harvest
Ashwaghanda and Valerian are 2 starters. I will report back on how it goes.

People seem to be growing Pawpaw/Papaya well in AP
It might pay to grow one of the dwarf varieties such as Waimanolo for extra sturdiness and early bearing. Pawpaw being medicinal too.

Pawpaw/Papaya grow well but don't like to be flooded too often.

Any one know if comfrey is okay for animals. Might be safer to fence it off from the chooks.

Cheers JM

thanks

Yes comfrey is safe for animals, and humans
Its banned for internal use therapeutically but not for food!

the sterile hybrid comfrey we mostly have here in australia is the hybrid symphytum Xuplandicum used for forage

The toxin in comfrey are pyrrilizidone alkaoids (often referred to as PA's)
they occur in a number of related plants and are toxic to the liver, and cumulative

BUT

they dont occur in teh leaf of the hybrid comfrey. only in the root.
so you can use comfreyt root salve externally and its safe, just dont eat the roots.

I grew heaps of it at my last place. its so productive if it gets a good spot, i could cut wheelbarrowloads every week
The chooks loved it
after the first week of not being sure they were fine after that and it was about 30% of their diet
they were very healthy chooks with lots of eggs

i would definitely use it

when it dries it flakes up nicely
might make a nice meal for fish too

When I grew my big pawpaw plant in the gravel grow-bed it had no problem with a constant flood and drain cycle. It got hit by frost before it fruited properly, so can't vouch for fruiting in f&d.

As for comfrey - great plant. I've got a border of it right along one side of my vegetable patch. It makes a great foliar feed - just make up some comfrey tea by rotting the leaves is a barrel of water, seive and water onto plants.

I've also used it medicinaly on sporting injuries (externally) and it certainly works in my opinion.

comfrey leaf poultice works well on open wounds too. THere is some debate as to the toxicity of comfrey as it seems to be very high doses that cause cancer etc.
The biggest problem i have with it is its soo good that everything else eats it as a preference, so it struggles to grow

Ive got a scrawny Dragonfruit plant in my AP that I wouldnt mind ripping out if someone in Perth wants to take it & give it a go

it's the red with white flesh variety . Never fruited in the AP , took half out and put it in the garden and got 3 fruit straight away

I know the quote is about a year late but anyway..............

I'm fairly sure it IS banned for human consumption.

This is not to say that i haven't eaten it, i just wouldn't be putting it into salads for an AP BBQ

The Research on PA's is dubious at best, PA's are a 'class' of compounds, and for one, i dont think the research tests stipulated which PA's they used. Secondly when they did the tests (on mice from memory) the injected the PA's directly into the peritoneal cavity at mg/KG that would equate to a ridiculous amount of comfrey for a human adult.

Comfrey rocks! have witnessed crazy healing with it.

That probably why they wanted people to stop using it. Big chemical and big pharmaceutical have done some pretty wicked things in the name of big profits.

Dont get me started LOL.

Anyone have quinoa? I need some.

Done, doing, will always do (as long as money stays in politics)
Nothing wrong with profits as such, profits drive the world. It's gubment regulation and intervention that causes all the problems