permaculture

["Graham Burnett" <gburnett@unisonfree.net>]

Sea beet grows wild in this area, I have it growing on my allotment, it self 
propogated in a bed
I'd heavily mulched with seaweed from the beach a couple of years ago, and 
now it springs up quite
a bit on the plot, though mainly in the vicinity of the aforementioned 
mulched bed- I'd also heard
from Patrick Whitefield that seabeet seed is largely non-viable as I'd been 
offering it through the
Permaculture Seed Exchange- all I can say is that it produces loads of seed 
which seems to
germinate quite happily on my plot (though when you consider the amount that 
springs up in ratio to
the amount of seed thats actually produced on the plants, and which either 
goes through the
compost, goes on the ground either as rough mulch or naturally falls, it is 
actually fairly small)
Maybe you need to put alot of seed in, or maybe it's very regionally specific 
(my plot is @ a mile
from the beach) or maybe it needs the conditions that are created by 
spreading seaweed on the
ground?
I've also looked up propogation of seabeet on the Plants For A Future 
Database, all it says is
'grow from seed' & 'prefers a light nuetral to malkaline soil. Tolerates PH 
4.8-8.3'.
I will say that I did sow some seabeet in my garden using a handful of seed 
I'd obtained from a
very windswept, dead looking specimen I discovered whilst cycling along the 
seawall in about
February a year or 2 back, which had hardly any seed left on it, and this 
germinated well- maybe
the seed needs to be weathered on the plant as some sort of scarification 
process? After all in
it's natural habitat it gets a pretty tough life!
Will post this to the other lists I'm on to see if anybody else has any 
information on the
viability of seabeet cos it's a great plant to have....

Graham Burnett
35 Rayleigh Avenue
Westcliff On Sea
Essex, UK
SS0 7DS
-----Original Message-----
From: C.Messingham@psd.maff.gov.uk <C.Messingham@psd.maff.gov.uk>
To: Graham Burnett <gburnett@unisonfree.net>
Date: 13 August 1999 08:26
Subject: seabeet


>>Do you want anything in exchange? I've got tree onions, spelt seed, sea 
>>beet and maybe some other
>>items of interest (perennial kale (Dorbentons) next year I hope as it's 
>>just establishing this
>>year)
>
>Graham
>
>RE the seabeet, did you grow this from seed, I have some seed collected from 
>seabeet last year but
have been unable to get it to germinate.  Any tips ?
>
>Cheers
>Craig
>