Moved to Washington

I've moved to Washington state, and we live on an acre lot, so I have a lot more room to grow stuff outside. I have discovered that it takes more than dropping some seeds into the ground to make a garden. I guess I don't remember all the things my mother did long ago to make her garden grow, but I'm learning. I love listening to Cordi's podcast. She also has a great website.

Fragrant Spring or Chinese Toon Tree

I didn't know they were one and the same. Thank you Greenblogosphere.
Now I have a 5 foot Fragrant Spring tree that I got from Raintree Nursery and two little Chinese Toons that I've grown from seed I guess I'll have a Fragrant Spring grove in a few years. The great thing about them is that their leaves are edible. I say the more edible perennial plants you have the better.

Can't anyone grow an Avocado from seed any more?

For the past 4 or 5 years I have been trying to grow an Avocado tree from seeds of avocados that I buy in the grocery store. None have sprouted. I remember in younger years doing this frequently, and I'd say about half of the seeds sprouted. They usually succombed to negligent care later on, but it was not hard to get them started. Now, I cannot get any to sprout. Is this because of they are being irradiated? They are not labeled as being irradiated. I have even bought organic avocados with no sprouting success.

I bought the book The After-Dinner Gardening Book by Richard W. Langer some years ago. (Actually recommended by a reader of this blog.) The book is out of print, but you can buy used copies. It tells about a New York City man's obsession with growing plants from seeds and remnants of foods eaten. It's an engrossing read, but I doubt that Mr. Langer would have as much success these days.

More on Gac fruit (Wooden Turtle)

I found a source for Gac fruit seeds as in my post last year. They call it Wooden Turtle. I love perusing the Horizon Herbs site. The guy talks familiarly about almost all the plants they offer.

Another source for Lemon Grass

I found another source for Lemon Grass. They sell the Cymbopogon citratus variety. Tropilab also has seeds for other tropical fruits like Barbados Cherry and Guanabana.

Lemongrass and Added new link

Sand Mountain Herbs has lots and lots of seeds of useful herbs. Actually many will be recognizable as common weeds. Is someone really going to plant Dandelion? On the other hand, there are plants that supposedly grow in the wild that I don't know how to recognize such as Mallow and Feverfew. I'm going to get some of these seeds, grow them and then maybe I'll be able to recognize the wild plant.

I don't have much of a problem with mosquitoes where I live, but if I did, I would certainly get some lemongrass seeds. These people swear by its use as a mosquito repellent. Lemongrass has also been scientifically tested. Sand Mountain sells Cymbopogon flexuosus but the mosquito repellent articles refer to Cymbopogon citratus. Apparently they are very similar and interchangeable for most uses.

Sweet Prayer, Katemfe--I give up

The Sweet Prayer, aka Katemfe (or Katempfe) or ego, is a Western African plant that is 1500 times sweeter than sugar. But I give up; after looking high and low on the Internet for months, I can't find a supplier of the seeds or plant anywhere. The scientific name is Thaumatococcus daniellii. Apparently some company has synthesized the sweet ingredient thaumatin, but it does not seem to have been commercialized much. For the conspiracy minded, maybe aspartame interests are paying someone off.

In Australia there is an invasive plant they call sweet prayer, but there is some kind of mistake, because they say it is Thaumastochloa danielii which does not show up anywhere on plant indices. It is the correct family Marantaceae, but it appears that the genus is wrong. So if someone in Australia wants to check this out, I would like to have some seeds from this "weed" if it really is sweet prayer.

Grow your own soap tree

Newstarget came out with an article about soap nuts. They contain soapy substances called saponins. You can use them to wash your clothes and make a general purpose cleanser. They also can be used as a shampoo and skin cleanser; you have to be careful as the nuts are poisonous to eat. But it seems uneconomical to import soap all the way from India. Top Tropicals has seeds and says the tree can be grown inside in large tubs or outside in warmer climates. There are also seeds on ebay.

Apparently there are several different varieties, because I've come up with Sapindus mukorossi, Sapindus detergens and Sapindus saponaria, and there is a native soapberry tree in the Southwest USA (New Mexico, Arizona and Texas). There are actually quite a few plants that have these saponins and can be used as soap. Plants for a Future has a good article about them, and here's and interesting article about several soap plants but mostly the soap lilly.

Free Ginkgo Biloba seeds

My Ginkgo seeds are growing. I've had them in the fridge since last fall when I picked them up from a park that has several ginkgo trees in downtown Portland. I put them in plastic bags (out of the fridge) until they started to sprout roots and then planted them. I have about 6 growing now.

I still have about 50 seeds left, so for about 10 of my wonderful readers that wander by, I'll send you some seeds free if you send me an email (kdavidhizaratgmaildotcom) with your mailing address. Some things just can't be done virtually. No guarantees, about a third of mine have sprouted so far.

Update: I have just sent out the last of my seeds for this year. Not sure if I will do this again or not. Have to get downtown at the right time to pick up the seeds. Hope all those who have received seeds are enjoying their little trees.

Have a Hoodia sprout

The plastic bag method is just the best for getting seeds started.

I had a few Hoodia seeds left over from the ones I bought last year, so a few weeks ago I planted all but two in small pots. Nothing has happened with them. A few days ago, I put the last two seeds into a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. In just a couple of days I have roots popping out. So from now on that's how I'm going to propagate everything.

I also have two pomegranate seedlings that I started that way coming up. I got the seeds from some pomegranates I bought at the grocery store. Now I'm waiting for my Ginkgo biloba seeds to sprout. I picked up a bagful of them from a park in downtown Portland, where they have a bunch of beautiful old ginkgo trees growing.

Gac Fruit - Another very nutritious fruit

I bought this little bottle from the health food store. It says it has Gac fruit plus other fruit juices. Now I find that Gac (also called Spiny Gourd or all these names if you are into languages) is another nutrition-laden fruit. If we had all these fruits available fresh, would no one ever get sick? It's scientific name is Momordica Cochinchinensis spreng. Gac is very high in anti-oxidants and lycopene and beta-carotenes. It also has essential oils and Vitamin E like avocado. There are several formulations on the market with canned juices, but I think it would be better for us fresh and/or raw.

It grows as a vine, and I suppose it is a warm climate plant. However, I have been unable to find any seed store that has the seeds. Maybe you can find the fruit at an oriental store that carries fresh fruits and vegetables and get seeds from the fruit. It is also used as a Chinese herb with the name Mu Bie Zi, and you can find whole seeds at Chinese herb stores like here and here and here, although I don't know if any or all would be viable. Disclaimer: I have no relationship to any of these stores.

My plant failures

My two little stevia plants succumbed to damping off disease, I guess. They were growing about an inch but then withered and died. I had one hoodia plant growing last summer, but it also died. It looked quite cactus-like, so I don't know if it died from damping off disease or what. Maybe I should not have had it out on my windy deck last summer.

That's the end of my stevia seeds. Maybe I'll buy a stevia plant next summer. And I've planted the rest of my Hoodia seeds. They haven't come up yet.

Aloe vera --not just for burns

I've always had an aloe vera plant that I've used for burns. Takes the pain away immediately. It's also antiseptic and helps scrapes and wounds heal, but I read somewhere a long time ago that it wasn't good to ingest aloe.

But now I'm finding that it is very good for you to eat or drink it. It is good for your digestive tract and also helps your blood move through your arteries and carry more oxygen to all the cells of your body as described in this article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Here's an article at Newstarget that talks about how good it is for your cardiovascular system. I just wish it tasted better; you have to add it to something else, and my daughter refused to use it on her sunburns when she was young, because she said it smelled like sweat.

Aloe is pretty easy to grow. For me the biggest danger is over watering it. Since my last move I hadn't had any aloe, so I bought a little container at Walmart for about $5 that had 4 little plants in it. Two plants I left out in the hot windy deck last summer, and they didn't do so well. One actually sent up a little flower (the one in the picture). I guess it thought it was going to die, and it had to procreate before passing on. They say it is better for your system if it is a bigger plant, so it will take a year or two to get mine big enough.

You can get a free aloe ($3 for shipping and handling) and lots of info from Aloe Vera Plant Products. Also Neem Tree Farms (I want to get one of those neem trees one of these days.) has Aloe Barbadensis, which they claim is most often used in herbal remedies. I don't know about that but it's only $7. The aloe in the Pitt lab photo looks to me like an ordinary aloe .

Have a stevia sprout

I complained a couple of months ago about my stevia seeds not growing. But I made a last ditch effort and put the few seeds remaining in a plastic baggie with a damp paper towel, and now I did get two sprouts. One sprout is growing so far; the other sprout hasn't come up from the soil I planted it in.

This is a good method for impatient people like me who can't keep watering soil where I planted a seed and nothing comes up for weeks. This also worked for lemon seeds. They take so long to sprout, but in the bag you just check them every few days, and you can see when they sprout. Also for seeds that have to have the cold treatment like apple or cherry seeds, you put the bag in the fridge and just check every couple of weeks. Eventually they will start sprouting.

Hey, I'm just learning as I go along.

Goji berry plants growing

Last year I had bad luck with my Goji seedlings and a couple of weeks ago I checked the seeds I had left and they seemed all soft and moist. I thought they're probably not any good any more, so I planted them quickly. Now they are coming up. Apparently these are seed pods, because there are a whole bunch of seedlings coming up each place where I planted a seed. So there are lots of little seeds inside the seed pods that are in each berry. I didn't notice this last year.

Well anyway I'm going to have over fifty plants if I can keep them growing. I'll keep you posted.

Columnar Apples

Here's a great idea for growing apples in your house or patio. One Green World has three kinds of apples that you can grow in a container and they bear apples along the main trunk. The description doesn't say if they are hybrids. I wonder if you could grow more from seeds, or at least cuttings. Nowadays they say all fruits are hybrids.

One Green World has a lot of interesting plants, like Goji berry (they call it Wolfberry), Guavas, Pomogrante, lots of kinds of Sea Berries, plus many other exotic fuits and berries.

Ask them to send you a catalog. The catalog is more descriptive than the website. For instance, there are three kinds of Columnar apples, Golden Sentinel M-26, Northpole M-7 and Scarlet Sentinel M-7, but on the website they are just thrown in with the apple varieties.

No luck with stevia seeds

I'm not having as much luck with my stevia seeds. The company I bought them from (Whatcom Seeds Co.) was a little stingy with the seeds. I only go about 6 or 8 seeds in my package. I planted 3 seeds and they haven't sprouted, so I only have a few more to try with. I also got these last year, so that might be the reason they are not sprouting.

Hoodia Gordonii

I planted two of the Hoodia Gordonii seeds I bought last year, and they both came up. This is really exciting, because I was afraid I waited too long and they wouldn't sprout. And I didn't do anything special except use a cactus soil mix. Now let's see if it will continue to grow or get seedling wilt. I'm trying to keep the top of the soil on the dry side. Here are some detailed instructions about growing Hoodia (scroll down to the bottom of the page) although they don't sell seeds, and another site that talks about growing Hoodia, but I can't see where they sell seeds.

Bouncing Bear has seeds for a quite reasonable price. I bought mine on ebay

Clove tree

Found a place (Jene's Tropicals) to buy a clove tree. Very expensive, but I would love to have one. Lots of information about cloves here. They sell seeds here, but sounds like they are not very easy to start. Some info from India about growing cloves from seeds.

Graviola or Guanabana

I remember when I lived in Colombia we used to drink this guanabana juice a lot. I never realized that this plant has so many medicinal uses including anti-cancer, anti-parasitic (very important in tropical countries) and reducing blood pressure. There's a lot of information about this plant at Raintree Nutrition. You can buy plants and seeds at Exotic Fruits and plants at Top Tropicals. You can probably find the fruits at some Latin markets. They are filled with seeds. To make the juice you have to whirl the fruit in a blender with water or milk.