It Gives Me A Thrill

 I love growing stuff and trying to grow the more unusual, over the past couple of weeks I have been experimenting with a few new things and this week harvesting some of this years experiments. 

First up is rice, for a couple of years I have tried to germinate various types of rice and trying to get seed in U.K. is like pulling hens teeth 

Well look what I have managed to do,  I almost peed my pants in excitment  ,at last I have found a rice that I can germinate, and I could get it in the U.K., 

This is not the right time of the year to be growing rice, but I am happy to see it can grow, roll on spring when I can do it properly, this is a paddy rice and it needs wet conditions also about 120 days of warmth, but I have a few ideas and will put them into play next year.

At the same time I also managed to get some seeds for an upland rice which dosent need wet conditions, the seeds I had to import making them fairly pricey but hopefully they will grow well and produce more seed, the Upland rice only needs about 90 days of warmth so I am hoping it will do well.

Next ups sugar cane, again something I have been desperate to grow, after a bit of research I found out  it will grow fairly well in the U.K.

I manage to track down some sugar cane chunks and set them to germinate

It was another pee in the pants moment when I saw those roots.

Autumn is the best time to get sugar cane started.

I have managed to get roots on 2 of the 4 chunks, I now have visions of a sugar cane plantation and rice paddies here on on our small holding.

I don’t expect for the moment  it will come into fruition but the trying  and dreaming is what keeps me going.

I did find out that rice and sugar cane are part of the grass family, now I can grow grass it grows all over the place, so who knows.

I will leave you with these that I have harvested this week

A lovely purple cauliflower 

Asian Yard Long Beans

And a lovely little pineapple that was so sweet.

Who says that growing your own food is boring?