A sea of Sweet Potatoes. The aim here is to create a stock plant area of around eight different types of sweet potatoes. This means that most of the time these won’t be harvested, instead used for cutting material by community groups interested in cultivating SPs beyond the ‘normal’ orange one (although that’s in there too). Cuttings can be taken now up until early June for organising next season’s planting (if you’re set up to overwinter anything grown now) or taken in late November or early December for plonking straight in the ground. That’s the idea anyway. Over the years Sweet Potatoes reliably re-shoot down here at the bottom of the Burnley Field Station despite getting quite frosty. The key is the free draining soil which means the tubers mostly don’t rot even in a relatively wet winter. We’ll see how it goes 🤔. If it works I won’t have to go through the annual ritual of forcing slips from stored tubers on glasshouse bottom heat in the Burnley Nursery. And the stock material will have to be monitored for quality too in case of disease build-up. So far Sweet Potatoes in Melbourne are free of many of the things that attack them in the tropics, especially borers - one of the advantages sometimes of growing plants in a ‘sub-optimal’ environment. Thanks to @georgiemoyes @botanybits @plant.nerd.melbourne @dwiiiijjj @jimjamsgems and @hui_annetan for getting all this in the ground before last Christmas! #growingsweetpotatoes #ipomoeabatatas #motherplants #stockplants #seaofplants #groundcoverplants #beautifulfoliage #weedmat #volunteersrock #outreach #communityoutreach #urbanagriculture #novelcrops #panc #plantasalimenticiasnaoconvencionais #burnleynursery #burnleyfieldstation #urbanhorticulture

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Look what I grew! Sash @buffy_cellar is re-united with her prize Vanda orchid after summer holidays. No more #stolenvalour from me, the true Mother of Orchids is back! #vandaorchid #orchidflower #purpleflowers #aerialroots #glasshouse #foghouse #nurserywoman #nurseryperson #igrewthis #fingerpointing #burnleynursery

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Little Shop of Horrors but in a nice way. When Abyssinian Bananas start flowering they always remind me of Audrey II in Little Shop of Horrors , allegedly and apparently the most performed musical in the world. I saw a great performance of this years ago at the Cardinia Cultural Centre in Pakenham. Spoiler Alert: it’s about a small florist/nursery where one of the plants starts talking and growing exponentially and eats everyone. In fact I think it takes over the world but I can’t remember. Anyway, Abyssinian Bananas or Enset won’t eat you and are awesome. These two at the Northcote Pool are flowering at the same time so we should get fruit and therefore seed from them - if they get this all done before the Northcote is closed for redevelopment, earmarked for this year some time 😢 #littleshopofhorrors #audreyii #uncannylikeness #dontbeafraid #spoileralert #giantflower #giantherbaceousperennial #enseteventricosum #abyssinianbanana #plantsofeastafrica #plantsofethiopia #perennialvegetables #perennialedibles #poolgarden #novelcrops #panc #monocarpic #floweranddie #letthemrule

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Off to market...Steve Nelson and apprentice Tim from the City of Greater Dandenong dropped by this morning to pick up plants during a La Niña shower. The Cranberry Hibiscus (see video after photo), Sweet Potato, Brazilian Spinach, Konjac, Tamarillo and Cassava are going to be planted in the (mostly) edible Tropical Bed Steve’s team created several years ago just outside the Dandenong Market. The garden bed is designed to help reflect Dandenong’s ethnic diversity- the highest in Victoria - and the diversity of produce in the market itself. The City of Greater Dandenong’s gardeners form one of the most dedicated horticulture teams in Melbourne creating and maintaining gardens from exotic meadows and edible plantings to indigenous grasslands and revegetation #cityofgreaterdandenong #dandenong #dandenongmarket #municipalhorticulture #publicplanting #ediblegardening #tropicalplanting #brazilianspinach #cassava #amorphophalluskonjac #sweetpotatoplant #tamarillo #novelcrops #panc #outreach #backoftheute #apprenticelife #laniña #lamesummer #notcomplaining

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Fruits from pot grown Port Jackson Figs. I’ve included the trunks because you can see that the seed-grown one has buttress roots forming while the specimen grown from a cutting has a straight trunk. Now I’m sure I learnt this trick at Burnley a long time ago, possibly from @mayhorticulture. As I remember it the idea is that as because Port Jackson Figs are an extremely robust tree with some potential as a street tree having specimens without buttress roots would make them easier to manage. If this is all some strange mixed up educational memory then someone please let me know! Meanwhile I can tell you with certainty that the original provenance of these specimens is the eastern Warrumbungle Ranges in NSW at the western edge of their natural distribution and nowhere near Port Jackson (Sydney). Here they grow on cliffs, rocky outcrops or boulders, anywhere safe from fire and frost. As for the fruits when they’re ripe they’re really tasty with a slightest gritty aftertaste I’ll admit #bushfoods #bushfoodsofaustralia #wildfoods #australiannativefruit #australiannativetrees #australianrainforestplants #ficusrubiginosa #portjacksonfig #urbantrees #treesinpots #treepropagation #ihopethatsright #correctmeifimwrong

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These are tropical ‘cherries’ from a Grumichama tree. These came from a small tree stuck in a 50cm pot for the last few years. They’re delicious - sweeter than a strawberry guava and without the slight grittiness that some people get from guavas and feijoas. Grumichama comes from southern Brazil which has lots of Gondwanan cousins to Australian species in the Myrtaceae. Grumichama is essentially a Brazilian Lilly Pilly. This specimen survived -2 c in the Burnley Nursery two winters ago so I’m calling as do-able for most of Melbourne. My specimens came from @daleysfruit as tube stock #grumichama #eugeniabrasiliensis #myrtaceae #plantsofbrazil #newfavouritefruit #plantit #trysomethingnew #urbanorchards

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Lotus time of year. The perfume will always remind me of swimming in crocodile free Kimberley waterholes Apologies to all Tryophobics out there. I can’t remember the name of this cultivar which doesn’t full open like the classic model #nelumbonucifera #lotusflower #tryophobia #australiannativeplant #surprising #edibleplants #bushfoods #indigenousfoods #novelcrops #panc #asianplants #sacredplants #sacredflowers

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Abyssinian Bananas into their second growing season with rampant Malabar Gourd/Shark Fin Melon as sprawling ‘living mulch’. There are melons on these already, it’ll definitely need cutting back at times during summer #abyssinianbanana #enseteventricosum #enset #malabargourd #sharkfinmelon #curcubitaficifolia #livingmulch #mulchmadness #rampantplant #photosynthesis #soakinguptherays #ithinksummerishere #plantsofethiopia #plantsofmexico #agroecology #unusualedibles #novelcrops #panc #perennialedibles #urbanagriculture

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It’s a rescue! I can reveal that @fruitnerd Thanh Truong was my connect this year for giant African Yams . However in a shock confession he has revealed that he kept one lonely tuber to himself. After a brief struggle this neglected sprouting monster is now safely rescued, soon to be planted into the growing Yam community at Burnley #africanyam #dioscoreacayennensis #westafricanfood #sproutingyam #giveitback #thestruggleisreal #adealisadeal #honourthecode #connect #novelcrops #panc #thanksasalways #teamvietnam

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This is Cassava SM150. @bluesgirlbecsta and I have inherited a collection of Cassava varieties from the Monash University Botany Department (story for another day). Meanwhile SM150 is very unusual with beautiful, distinctive foliage. Cassava is a heat loving perennial which grows optimally between 30 and 40 degrees Celsius so it thrives in summer and then it dies when outside in Melbourne at the faintest hint of a cold night 😑. It’s the staple carb crop for about 1 billion people globally who eat the starchy roots. I’ve managed to keep them going in an unheated polytunnel by ruthlessly droughting them for 4 to 6 months from autumn through spring. They’re so robust that they’ll happily sit in pots as dried sticks for this period and then come back to life when re-watered in October. So root production is limited in our climate but some communities love eating the (thoroughly cooked) leaves. So the aim here is to have Cassava at least available for leaf production in summer and to look good shimmering in the sun on 40+ degree day #cassava #manihotesculenta #cassavaleaves #tropicalplantsinmelbourne #polytunnelgrowing #perennialcrops #novelcrops #panc #plantsofsouthamerica #indigenouscrops #edibleornamentals #urbanagriculture

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