Didn’t want to chop off all of the babies but I found stinkbugs and didn’t want to risk having a ton of bugs in my home. So chopped and washed the plant. However now I can actually hang him up if I want to!
Ok so recently we had to evacuate my city due to a hurricane, obviously I had to leave my plants at home (no room in the car for 50 plants with two cats and a dog) so I shut off the power in case there were power surges, to prevent a fire or shortages within the walls. I came home expecting all my babies to be dead but guess what!? While all the others seemed to be desperate for some airflow, my fiddle lead fig was THRIVING. This beautiful new leaf emerged while I was gone! Apparently it likes being in a super hot apartment with no air conditioning & not being bothered for two weeks. This is the biggest, healthiest leaf it has ever produced! It’s literally too heavy now because this leaf is so much bigger than all the others
You might rememberwhen back in July I wrote about experimenting with grafting succulents prompted by the lack of literature about this practice, most likely due to the fact it hasn’t any practical uses I could think of. Nevertheless, I wanted to know if it was possible, so I grafted a Graptopetalum sp. scion on x Graptoveria rootstock and x Graptoveria on x Graptoveria. The former was unsuccessful as my cuts weren’t clean enough, while the latter took and formed a beautiful union. You can read all about it by clicking here.
Right after writing that post I went on with more attempts at splicing up Crassulaceae:
1. Graptopetalum sp. on x Graptoveria
This time the cuts were good and it worked perfectly, creating a neat, permanent union, the Graptopetalum sp. scion started growing almost right away. The rootstock was the x Graptoveria I had already grafted on x Graptoveria just to save plant material, and it made it even more interesting as this is now a double-grafted plant.
2. x Graptoveria on Crassula ovata
Far from a neat and solid union, the callus tissue doesn’t seem to be developing well enough to create a proper bridge between the two plants. The Crassula keeps trying to put out leaves from the top left leaf scar and the x Graptoveria keeps growing short roots. However, it has been three months now, and the x Graptoveria is growing and showing no sign of dehydration. I doubt this will be a permanent union, but there must be some passage of water and nutrients between the two parts.
3. Crassula ovata on Graptopetalum sp.
The least successful of these attempts. The union formed, but it doesn’t look great, the Graptopetalum sp. rootstock keeps trying to sprout new shoots, which I keep rubbing off, and the Crassula ovata scion hasn’t grown at all. It looks like it’s just hanging there, surviving. It has to be noted this Graptopetalum sp. has one root system from which three stems emerge, as you can see in the photo. My guess is the plant is directing most of its energy towards the two stems which are not grafted, so this experiment isn’t really conclusive as the conditions weren’t ideal for success to begin with.
I will let them do their thing and we’ll see what happens with time. I might try more of these grafting experiments in the future, but last year I reduced my succulents collection by a lot so at the moment I don’t have the plant material (or plant material I’m willing to sacrifice) to try new combinations. Once again, I’d encourage anybody curious to try for themselves, please let me know if you do!
Thanks to the great promotion work by@seedkeeping, I was dying to get a chance to cook and eat dahlia, or Acocotli/Cocoxochitl tubers, a traditional Aztec crop: if anything excites me more than plants, that’s food that comes from plants! Also, whenever I would deadhead or trim dahlias at work, the scent coming off the cut parts would instantly and strangely cause my mouth to water copiously, so I just wanted to give my body what it clearly seemed to want.
I started with a small batch of mixed tubers from different plants, from the large-flowered cactus-type dahlias which seem to give the largest crop, and from some single-flowered ones. I cut them up in wedges, dusted them with corn starch and fried them in corn oil. I only added salt and no spices as I wanted to get a clear idea of the real taste.
Well, both me and my boyfriend really liked it! It would be hard to describe it though. It’s mild and has a hint of the smell of the greens, which I really enjoyed. We both agreed the taste reminded us of the smell of roasting dandelion root from when I made coffee with it, which makes sense as they are both Asteraceae and their roots contain the sugar inulin.
Since trying them I’ve been telling all the other gardeners in my allotment association and encouraged them to give it a go, as many grow dahlias, but nobody seemed particularly interested so far. I am certainly going to grow them for eating next summer now that I’ve discovered the dual-crop potential of these wonderful plants.
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