Elliot's been a'tinkerin

Rockwool, aeration cloner and Kratky hydroponics have become part of my everyday vocabulary.

I also no longer have much of a dining table, a spare room and even less of a deck.

I also have to hear Elliot declare that he is "a scientist" every other day. He has cloning, germinating and hydroponics on the go. I do however get amazing lettuces and basil that grow insanely quickly and to epic proportions.

Have actually just cut a whole lot of it to give away

Elliot wanted to try his hand at cloning (this equals becoming a scientist apparently) so that in future we can clone the best chilli plants and we won't have to worry about cross contamination which you get with growing from seeds you save. With cloning you can pick the best plants to grow again and you don't have to keep buying seedlings or seeds and wait to see if they will germinate.

It also means you can over-winter the chilli plants you want to keep growing and you just have to worry about tending to these mini versions rather than a huge plant outside in the cold and frost.

So Elliot is trying two cloning methods with some chillies and basil to see how they go. Firstly, he cut a nice strong bit of basil and put it in a jiffy pellet with some cloning solution. You then wait for it to start to grow roots which you can see on the sides of the pellet. You can then plant it out normally. This has worked really well and the clones have been transferred to the hydroponic system.

Elliot used the gel (there are powder ones too)

The clones

Planted out into the hydroponic system once roots had formed
The lettuces at the front have been frown from seed

This cloning method was clearly too easy and boring for Elliot who decided to make an aeration cloner. In this contraption holes are cut in the lid of a container and the plant cuttings are placed in a rubber circle to hold it in place and are suspended in the lid. Cloning solution is dabbed on the cut end of the plant and the container is filled half way with water. A sprinkler-type system is fashioned so that the end of the plants gets sprayed with water. This ensures the cutting gets water and air. It has worked extremely well and they have put out some big roots start. Again, you can then plant the clones out normally once the roots are big enough.

 Decent roots so ready to plant out

The hydroponics set up we have going on is super easy. Unlike the last system which had tubing and the water pumping through the bottom of the tubes (circulating system), in this set up holes are cut into the lid of a big container, the seedlings are washed of any soil and then placed in net pots and filled with perlite. The container is filled with water and nutrients are added and the water just stays stagnant (non-circulating system). The roots grow out of the pots and as soon as they hit the water, they take off and you can barely believe how fast this stuff grows.

And then you understand why the leaves are so ginormous 

The plants and leaves are huge and we are working hard to keep the demand up with the supply. To understand how fast these grow, below are photos taken every day for seven days.

To improve the hydroponic process slightly and the annoyance of having to wash the soil of the delicate roots of the seedlings, the germination Elliot is now doing is into rockwool cubes which are great for hydroponics as once the seed has germinated you can put the cube straight into a net pot to go into hydroponics. The cubes are soaked in water for about half an hour then the seeds are placed in the cube and then put in the seed propagator. Once they have germinated they go into the light box.

We have also always tended to buy seedlings so it is nice to give the whole process a go. As well as germinating lettuce and basil, we have decided to give coriander a go.

Tray of rockwool cubes

Jiffy pellet and rockwool cube germination

Another trip to Switched on Gardener (by myself I might add) was necessary to buy the rockwool cubes. This proved an entertaining ordeal as always as I had to take a photo to send to Elliot to determine what size cubes to get and had to deal with the shop worker's extreme paranoia that I did not accidentally get him in the picture. Three assurances later, I was allowed to send it.

Elliot has done most of the above by extensive researching on the internet. Apparently people really only use cloning methods to grow things far more exciting than basil and chillies. We are such geeks. Geeks with huge basil though.

Bear in mind I have child's hands

We've made batches and batches of pesto to use it up. Luckily pesto mayo potato salad makes an amazing BBQ accompaniment. And pesto, bacon and cheese scrolls are surprisingly easy; not so surprisingly tasty.

And of course you can not beat it with homegrown tomatoes or on a pizza.

We seriously do have an abundance of the stuff, so any pesto lovers, hit me up.

Update: I now have no dining table left at all as Elliot, in true tinkerer style, has decided to use the rest of the table to build a computer. As you do.

Diddly dee potatoes

Do not be alarmed. Chillies are still growing, fish are still alive, spicy food is still being eaten, but a hectic few weeks, coupled with the winter months not being conducive to a blog written about things that grow in the heat of summer, have made this blogger a tad MIA.

With spring fast approaching however, things are ramping up, chillies are growing quickly and I have been back in my neglected kitchen this weekend.

One of the best things we grew last year was potatoes, so when Elliot had some time off work recently, gardening centres were inevitably visited and seed potatoes were bought and left to eye up in the cupboard.

Varieties are Jersey Bennies and Maris Anchors

They were ready to be put into tubs today so all of the eyes except the biggest one were cut off and five potatoes were planted in each of the three 40 litre tubs (remember to put holes in the bottom BEFORE putting the kilos and kilos of potting mix in...)

The potatoes were placed on top of some compost and covered with potting mix.

Yep, they are that easy and you only need to tend to them with they sprout leaves out the top. At that point they get heaped over with more potting mix and repeated until the soil gets to the top.

The maturity time is about three months so we will have some lovely new potatoes just before summer.

I think this is the perfect thing to do with kiddies if you want to get them into gardening or just outdoors - you can do it in tubs so they don't take up much room, they are super easy to do and they are so rewarding after a few months as you can get your hands in the tubs and dig out the potato treasure.

One of my fondest childhood memories is doing this in Grandpa's garden in Picton and Nana would get fresh potatoes every night to cook up over the Christmas period - a bit of butter (which we were NEVER allowed at home) and a bit of salt - heavenly.

The rest of our garden is looking green and fantastic. Our carrots have been pulled - they are awesome and funky and tasty and about as big as they are going to get growing fairly crowdedly in tubs.

Plus the tops are yummy in salads.

We continue to plant and eat and plant and eat our cos lettuces and herbs and have re-planted some spring onions.

The shallots are growing very well and have been in there for a few months now so they shouldn't be too far away now - bring on the Thai chilli pastes.

The chilli season is definitely upon us with Elliot looking after the seeds and plants well (some may say obsessively). Seeds continue to germinate in the propagator and then get transferred to the light box and potted up when big enough. Some have even had a little outside time.

Updates and photos to come, as well as some recipes (fingers crossed the bread rises this time).

Chilli season dos

I think gardening would be a lot more popular if people did it Gemma and Elliot style - planting seeds on a Saturday night whilst drinking and watching MTV (preferably Karaoke Club, but a top 400 countdown also works well).

No garden sheds, no dirty hands, rather wine and beer and TLC (Elliot and I identified a tad differently with the songs in the top 400 songs from the 90's countdown - I obviously was cool, Elliot liked Korn).

While the chilli plants don't go outside until about Labour weekend, we sowed the super hot varieties this weekend as it is quite the process to get them ready to go outside (and last year they took a bit longer to germinate than the non super hot varieties).

The seeds will take a few weeks to germinate; once germinated they will go into the light box and once they get to about 10 centimetres tall they will be separated out and potted up to bigger pots. They will be kept inside (apparently at this time we will no longer require half of our already very small lounge) until big and strong enough so that they can be hardened off (slowly introducing them to the outdoors by putting them outside for hours at a time, slowly increasing to whole days and then nights) when weather allows, and then they finally make the move outside.

A couple of weeks ago we decided what we were going to grow this year. We had a fair few seeds leftover from last season so had to decide what we wanted to grow again from those and what new varieties we wanted to try. This is no easy task - if you take a quick look on the net you will soon see how many varieties there are out there and the many different varieties the psychotic growers in America and England come up with each year - with the aim being to create the next hottest chilli in the world (this formidable title seems to change fairly often).

We are also limited space-wise due to still wanting to be able to walk on our deck, and not having planter beds any longer means we don't want huge plants (like the capsicums and marconis we grew last year) as they need to be amenable to growing in pots. Fortunately Elliot's Dad, Phil, has been a legend in nabbing some 15 litre buckets from work so we don't have to buy 20 more pots this season.

These have been washed well and will have holes drilled in them for drainage

So after the seed variety decision discussion was had, it was decided this year we will grow:

• Bhut Jolokia*
• Orange Habanero*
• Jalapeno
• Carolina Reaper*
• Jamaican Hot Chocolate* (not as sweet and delish as it sounds)
• NuMex Twilight
• Trinidad Yellow Scotch Bonnet*
• Brain Strain*
• Trinidad Scorpion Butch T*
• Black Pearl
• Takanotsume

*the super hot varieties (scientifically known as Capsicum chinense varieties - so named because the Dutch botanist who named them in the 18th century erroneously thought they originated in China).

We are sowing five seeds of each of the 11 varieties, but only really want about 20 plants. We had quite a good germination rate last year (approximately 70%) but are being super cautious this year and sowing many more than needed, but if necessary we will give any surplus plants away.

For the seeds we had to buy, we got them from The Hippy Seed Company in Australia - they have a fantastic range of crazy hot chillies (although their name prompted one friend to ask "are you sure they are chilli seeds?"). You can check them out at http://www.thehippyseedcompany.com/

Ordering was a breeze and the seeds arrived within days.

There are a few different ways to germinate seeds; we went with the following method:

Put a hole in the bottom of a plastic cup (Elliot did them with his soldering iron).

Write the name of the chilli on the side of the cup.

In a bowl moisten the seed raising mix with some water.

Fill each cup three quarters full with the seed raising mix.

Place the soil-filled cup inside another plastic cup with no hole.

Make five shallow holes in the soil.

Place one seed in each hole and gently cover with the soil.

Place a piece of Gladwrap over the cup and secure with a rubber band (this is to keep the moisture in - kind of a mini hot house - so that you don't have to keep watering them).

Place in a seed propagator with the lid on, plug it in and cover with a towel. This will keep the seeds warm at about 45°C.

Hopefully we will start to see results in a couple of weeks.

There are some mentally hot varieties this year which I will undoubtedly (and probably regrettably) try and incorporate into recipes. Stay tuned for the growing progress and spicy food to come.

Oh, and of course the highlight of my weekend was the Sunday morning trip to the storage unit trying not to make eye contact with anyone whilst walking out with a box lined with tinfoil, fluorescent lights, timers and plant pots.