Eino Kenttä

Interesting that you can use the leaf fibers too! Never knew. I've made incidental cordage from the root fibers. Basically, I turned the leftovers from an inpromptu breakfast of fire-roasted cattail rhizomes into cordage, just to see how it would turn out. This is quite some time ago, but I remember it as working very well. The cordage was strong, and I didn't notice any brittleness when dry.

Those in the first picture look exactly like some we've had in our poo compost beds. They appeared very soon after the bed was built, grew for a while, then disappeared. I'm guessing they are a "pioneer" type species (don't know if there's a more specialised term for fungi) - appear, eat all of whatever it is they like eating, produce a lot of spores, then die off. I'd think if you just leave them alone, they'll disappear eventually.

How about a hard-boiled egg with the top sliced off and a sprig of lilac stuck in it, all decoration-like? Or maybe like the egg is a vase for the lilac?

Yep, good luck! I did manage to grow cherry trees from seed once, but the germination rate was rubbish. Two germinated, out of I think between 20 and 30 seeds. Also, one of the seedlings developed into some sort of freak. The top of the plant couldn't decide if it wanted to be leaves or a very weird flower - I was afraid it might attempt to eat me! Later on, it died. But the other one is doing great, growing extremely vigorously.

I stratified the seeds in the fridge, don't remember how long. (This was sweet cherry, Prunus avium, in case it matters.) My understanding is that the stratification works best above freezing, and more or less pauses at freezer temperatures. Not sure if that's true for all plants, or if there are seeds that need to be deep frozen to germinate?

Two of my almonds germinated! And a couple more look like they will! Yay! Unfortunately, I lost track of what exact treatment was used on these. The first batch all molded and died, but I'm not sure if the germinated ones are from the batch that spent a little bit of time in the fridge or not.

In the future I won't bother with letting them germinate on a wet paper towel before planting, I think. Too many of them molded, and there doesn't seem to be that much benefit to it. Just soaking, removing the coating and planting right away feels like the way to go. I wonder if sweet almonds are more sensitive to mold than peaches, since the kernel doesn't contain as much amygdalin? Can mold get cyanide poisoning?

I had been under the impression that almost all dandelions reproduced exclusively by apomixis (each seed being genetically identical to the mother plant) which would make selective breeding impossible, but apparently some species have sexual reproduction. I see some very interesting possibilities.

If you could reproduce your plant, Timothy, I think that would have potential! I like eating the flowering stems at the end of flowering, or sometimes even after seed set. They are crisp, sweet and lightly bitter. I don't really understand why the plant would leave appreciable amounts of sugar in the stem when the seeds are already ripe, but it seems they do, at least sometimes, and I'm grateful. I've never eaten any large quantities of them, but they are nice to munch while walking.

I seem to remember that in an old episode of Mythbusters, they tested something (from a movie maybe?) about using multiple mirrors to direct light into a dark building. They ran into the problem that the light came in, but only lit up a quite small patch of wall, until they hung a white shirt in the beam. Then, suddenly, there was light.

Christopher Weeks wrote:First, I haven't tried that, but potato has to be among the easiest to make that work. At least that's my intuitive sense.

I don't know what you have them potted in, but could you just fill them deeper or put them into deeper pots and then fill those? I'm thinking of emulating the stabilizing effect of a neck-collar for a trauma patient.

Yeah, that's my feeling as well. Tomatoes root in literally no time, and since they are so closely related, potatoes probably do the same. As for filling the pot deeper, I would if I could, but it's already full almost all the way up, and the seedlings are just too tall for what little soil would fit to make any difference. And since it's just about the deepest pot I have access to, replanting them probably wouldn't do much good. Well, we live and we learn...

I sowed true potato seeds for the first time this year. They germinated well, but I think I didn't manage to give them enough light, as they quickly grew extremely leggy. Some of them are shaping up decently now, but still with rather long, fragile stems. The problem is they're still a couple weeks and some transport away from planting, and I'm concerned they might break. So I thought, why not prune them, and use the cut stems as cuttings? That would reduce the risk of them breaking, and best case I'd have two plants for each plant I have now. Some things I've read suggest that it should be possible to get them to root.

So what do you all think? Should I do it? Have you done it? Are there other, better solutions for this problem? (I've thought of simply planting them deeper, but that would need an extremely large pot.)

Okay, I don't yet know if this will actually work (ask me in a year!) but I've found this amazing plant called Rubus chingii var. suavissimus, or Chinese sweet tea. It's a close relative of raspberry whose leaves contain a substance called rubusoside, which is similar to steviol glucosides. So no calories, and extremely sweet. I've got a plant, ordered another, and am trying to grow some from seeds as well (diversity!)

The plant is supposed to survive temperatures down to -25 degrees C, and even if the tops are killed off, it's not necessarily a huge deal, since it works like raspberry in that each cane only lives for two years even though the root system is perennial.

I haven't really used the leaves for much yet, since I don't want to slow the plant down too much, but I did taste the leaves directly and made tea from them. Both the leaves and the tea taste extremely sweet, and without that "off" taste that I get in both stevia leaves and steviol glucoside based sweeteners. As a bonus, it's supposed to have a whole lot of good medicinal benefits, including reducing insulin resistance! In short, from everything I've read and seen, it seems awesome. The only remaining question mark is whether it will actually survive our winters.