A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

Oh, and since the flexuosum peppers didn't work, I ordered a different one for next year. I'm trying lanecolatum, as it seemed to be the only non spicy wild pepper the seller on Etsy had.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Now the beans are getting a bit interesting. I've gotten at least one pods worth with a soldier/orca pattern (won't know which until it dries down and I can see it clearer) and one with a "tip" (white patch at one end).

 

[heirloomgal]

Great job on the berry pie and I love the flower pics!

Thanks!

 

[heirloomgal]

Oh, and since the flexuosum peppers didn't work, I ordered a different one for next year. I'm trying lanecolatum, as it seemed to be the only non spicy wild pepper the seller on Etsy had.

Ooh! Looks interesting! I see the price and yow, another wild pepper that is $1 per seed!!! If my flexuosum's actually gain in size (SO SMALL for SO long now) I'll do a heat test; if it's a zero, I can send you some of these if your interested.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Ooh! Looks interesting! I see the price and yow, another wild pepper that is $1 per seed!!! If my flexuosum's actually gain in size (SO SMALL for SO long now) I'll do a heat test; if it's a zero, I can send you some of these if your interested.

I'm really not, now that I think they are hot peppers.

 

[heirloomgal]

I'm really not, now that I think they are hot peppers.

They could be @Pulsegleaner, but I do think there is enough genetic variation in the gene pool of C flexusoum (from what I've read) that there is a chance they'll be low to zero for heat. I guess I'll see!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Okay, here are some fruit from that pear tree I found (pill bottle cap is for scale)

They're not TOTALLY ripe (they're still rock hard), but, given how many were already on the ground and how semi-infrequently I'm in that area, I thought it was better to take some now and let them finish up inside that risk missing the crop (If I got it wrong, there will probably be at least ONE Sunday trip for takeout Greek dinner between now and seasons end, so I should get another shot.)

I have FINALLY gotten a few beans with a bit of purple. Only they aren't pure purple, they're either soldier or orca pattern, same as last time (though I think these are a bit bigger) Odd that the ratio of these pattern ones is the so close to what it was last year so far (one purple solider/orca, one speckled solider, one brown one with a white tip on one end) even though I planted NONE of the patterned seeds this year.

I can HOPE that some of the others in the black seed pot make pure blacks, but since there are probably only about three producing plants in there (plus maybe another two or three from the later batch that are still not old enough) there's aren't likely to be many.

I've also realized there a reason why so much white seems to be showing up; when they are fresh out of the pod, the lighter tan ones ARE white. They darken as they dry. Though I'm STILL not seeing many, if any, of the darker brown ones (I think I have one yellowy brown, and that's it, everything else is the pinky-tan there).

And one of the white seeded ones has started to flower, so there should be pods from that in a few weeks or so.

 

[heirloomgal]

Okay, here are some fruit from that pear tree I found (pill bottle cap is for scale)

View attachment 67263

They're not TOTALLY ripe (they're still rock hard), but, given how many were already on the ground and how semi-infrequently I'm in that area, I thought it was better to take some now and let them finish up inside that risk missing the crop (If I got it wrong, there will probably be at least ONE Sunday trip for takeout Greek dinner between now and seasons end, so I should get another shot.)

I have FINALLY gotten a few beans with a bit of purple. Only they aren't pure purple, they're either soldier or orca pattern, same as last time (though I think these are a bit bigger) Odd that the ratio of these pattern ones is the so close to what it was last year so far (one purple solider/orca, one speckled solider, one brown one with a white tip on one end) even though I planted NONE of the patterned seeds this year.

I can HOPE that some of the others in the black seed pot make pure blacks, but since there are probably only about three producing plants in there (plus maybe another two or three from the later batch that are still not old enough) there's aren't likely to be many.

I've also realized there a reason why so much white seems to be showing up; when they are fresh out of the pod, the lighter tan ones ARE white. They darken as they dry. Though I'm STILL not seeing many, if any, of the darker brown ones (I think I have one yellowy brown, and that's it, everything else is the pinky-tan there).

And one of the white seeded ones has started to flower, so there should be pods from that in a few weeks or so.

Nice photo of those pears. No signs of insect presence in fruit that presumably is organic and growing without human intervention, which is not always the case. The pears and apples that grow on the trees on my street are always absolutely riddled with holes.

I really have a bone to pick with pears & ripening. They seem to be divided into two camps; they either start rock hard and ripen up to a soft texture akin to ambrosia, or they stay ROCK hard forever. They perish before they'll actually soften. I don't know what the dividing line between the two, if it's variety, or age when picked, or what.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Nice photo of those pears. No signs of insect presence in fruit that presumably is organic and growing without human intervention, which is not always the case. The pears and apples that grow on the trees on my street are always absolutely riddled with holes.

I really have a bone to pick with pears & ripening. They seem to be divided into two camps; they either start rock hard and ripen up to a soft texture akin to ambrosia, or they stay ROCK hard forever. They perish before they'll actually soften. I don't know what the dividing line between the two, if it's variety, or age when picked, or what.

THESE don't, but I was selective in which fruits I picked off the tree. I am planning to try and EAT some of these when they are ripe after all. Plus, where there are holes, there's a tendency for rot to get into the holes and ruin the fruit before it is done ripening.

The condition seems to vary with the variety. I've seen some that stay gorgeous, like the little "crabapples" on the Peabody tree and the mysterious one in the gully when I was a kid. On the flip side, the Target tree's look awful (almost as bad as they taste!), and the ones our neighbors used to have, along with the Evergreen Lane and Restoration ones (all of which appear or appeared to be the same type) all were so wormy and blighted by the time they were ready the neighbors were lucky to get a pie out of the lot (and, at that time, the neighbors had two or three and the Evergreen house had about five* The one on Hemlock might have been better, I don't recall.**

*All of the neighbors ones are long gone, but I think one of the Evergreen ones is still there (I haven't walked down there in a while). It's also been a while since I visited the restoration so I don't know how many of those are still there, but I seem to recall continually passing under apple trees as you walked around the main area, so they also would have had to have had four or five, plus the one pear (which I didn't know about until I volunteered there, as it's over by the gate to the cow pasture, farther than most people would go.

**It got cut down when I was in high school. I was walking by the day the workmen were doing it, and they were literally tossing apples to everyone who passed by, from about forty feet up! (and these were pretty firm apples!)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

7/25

FINALLY have gotten some beans black which are all purple/black.

It looks like one plant is making all black, one is making the soldier/orca ones, and one is making ones that are almost totally white with just a dot of purple on each side of the hilum.

And that's sort of the issue, until the other ones catch up, those are the only three plants in that pot producing (and even when they DO, that's only another three plants or so). What causes/caused the black and white to have such sucky fertility compared to the brown I have no clue, but that seems to be the ultimate issue.

In other news.
The Pear run yesterday reminded me about the plum tree, so I ran over there. I was basically too late (the plums probably ripened about mid July, but I found one seriously overripe one on the tree, and a dried out one on the ground, so I have at least two stones to work with.
Oh, and while cleaning up the overripe on, I think that, to my surprised, despite being clearly an ornamental (given the dark purple leaves) if ripe, the plums may be okay. The stuff certainly SMELLED like a ripe plum as I was washing and, while I only touched my finger to the stone and touched that to my tongue, it TASTED sort of plum like. Plus, I suspect the brix is pretty high, given how STICKY the overripe fruit was (that could also explain why there were not a ton of dried out fruits on the ground, they're probably very attractive to the birds as well as the squirrels after the stones.)