Megan Palmer

Here's a volunteer cherry seedling that came in with some mulch.

It will most likely be an ornamental flowering cherry but it was in a suitable spot to allow it to grow on with the intention of using it as a rootstock.

This year is the first time it has flowered so hopefully I will learn whether the fruit are edible.

Many friends have delicious fruiting cherry trees that I can scrounge scion wood from - our region is renowned for growing stone and pip fruit.

Here are two seedling apple trees growing at the community garden.

Neither were deliberately planted, one is in a neglected garden bed that hasn't been cultivated for at least six years and the other is beside the perimeter fence between a hazelnut and a seedling grown plum tree.

The fence line tree has a naturally weeping habit and the disused plot tree has a more upright habit.

Neither have previously been pruned but I decided to cut them back because I've been given scions of 7 apple varieties and wanted to graft onto them.

Was absolutely delighted to find blossoms on both trees.

Fingers crossed that we get some fruit from them that I get to taste and report back on.

I grow two un named walking onions with different coloured topsets - one with a reddish tinge and the other yellowish coloured.

They have only just started to emerge so the topsets are a few months away yet.

Here are photos from several years ago.

Some plants produced two tiers of topsets, with both flowers and bulbils and I made a half hearted attept to produce seed by removing the bulbils but was unsuccessful.

Saffron has traditionally been used as a dye as well as a spice.

How fresh was the garlic that you used - was it homegrown?

Older garlic that is starting to desiccate can sometimes develop a bitter taste.

I’ve eaten all of my last batch of lacto fermented garlic, however it remained shelf stable for several years, I tend to mainly dehydrate and/or ferment whole garlic cloves in honey when I have excess.

The lacto fermented garlic was a tan colour by the time i got around to finishing the last of it and had retained its crunch without any bitterness.

I would put it away at the back of a shelf and taste again in a few months!

Do report back if you do decide to keep it.

Revisiting this thread and noticed that my last post was three years ago to the day.

There was a storm last night and the wind was loud enough to wake us.

It also brought fresh snow onto the mountains and blew quite a few blossoms off the blackboy peach tree at home.

Over the years, I have successfully grown numerous peach trees from stones by simply planting them in pots after eating/processing the fruit as Bryant recommends.

Every year, I plant a selection of peach, plum, apricot and nectarine stones, the former usually fruit within 3 years.

The seedlings are repotted and allowed to grow on for a year ot two before planted in the community garden or given away.

Despite an electric fence around the gardens, possums have managed to get into the gardens and they have gnawed on the trunks and branches of many of the fruit trees so it is prudent to have back up trees to plant.

Have you considered onion skins?

I’ve only ever used them to tint white embroidery canvas because I didn’t want any white bits to show so don’t know how colour fast it is.