A Seed Saver's Garden

Gosh, you make ME want to grow peanuts, now!
I'll save some peat pots for this, too.

ducks4you said:

Gosh, you make ME want to grow peanuts, now!
I'll save some peat pots for this, too.

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It is worthwhile to do research on variety types with peanuts because productivity can REALLY vary from one to another. I saw some for sale at Seedy Sunday, & it crossed my mind for a split second to reconsider growing them again, so I read the back of the packet - it said they harvested 5 -7 pods per plant! Yikes! Clearly not a good variety for our location!

And so it begins 💚
I have found the baggie per pot with an elastic band around trick works super good to speed germination and control fungal problems typically born in warm and humid environments. I flip the baggies inside out once or twice a day so they get a new dry lid. When I had the single dome cover, I couldn't control the humidity well. I find this works really great, and it's only a buck or two for a box of the baggies.

A few more Seedy Sunday seed packets. I only saw after that the Indigo needs special treatment to sprout Not sure if I'll bother with since I'm moving away from flowers and perennials in general anyway. I just always like the look of these plants in particular, and I've never had one. Have you grown the melon @Pulsegleaner ? I feel like you probably have. The woman I got them from, who lives 3 1/2 hours north of me, grew them and thought they tasted great. I heard they taste like cucumber and lime, so...


I took a cutting of last year's Habanada because it never matured in time with the aphid setback. It looked terrible for a long while since I left it in a glass of water too long, but after transplanting it's perked up. I need to clip those flowers though. Hopefully this year I can get some peppers. 🤞

heirloomgal said:

And so it begins 💚
I have found the baggie per pot with an elastic band around trick works super good to speed germination and control fungal problems typically born in warm and humid environments. I flip the baggies inside out once or twice a day so they get a new dry lid. When I had the single dome cover, I couldn't control the humidity well. I find this works really great, and it's only a buck or two for a box of the baggies.View attachment 64382

A few more Seedy Sunday seed packets. I only saw after that the Indigo needs special treatment to sprout Not sure if I'll bother with since I'm moving away from flowers and perennials in general anyway. I just always like the look of these plants in particular, and I've never had one. Have you grown the melon @Pulsegleaner ? I feel like you probably have. The woman I got them from, who lives 3 1/2 hours north of me, grew them and thought they tasted great. I heard they taste like cucumber and lime, so...
View attachment 64383

I took a cutting of last year's Habanada because it never matured in time with the aphid setback. It looked terrible for a long while since I left it in a glass of water too long, but after transplanting it's perked up. I need to clip those flowers though. Hopefully this year I can get some peppers. 🤞
View attachment 64384

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What a gorgeous pepper plant! The leaves look so huge, and healthy. 😍

So the fun of the grow out list for tomatoes begins!! I've decided that 2024 will be a year for short season reds, a group of tomatoes I've mostly avoided. If the GSM descends with fury, I'll have ready tomatoes! A lady on the seed exchange has a really nice selection of these kinds of toms, and she's really generous too, and sent me a lot of rare seeds (rare, for my neck of the woods anyway). A few I can't find any online refernces for - yet. I'll add to this, but it's a start!

• 0-33
• Pozhar
• Uralskiy Ranniy
• Minusinskiy Lev (Minusinsk Lion)
• Bosu
• Kolkhoznitsa
• Schelkovskiy Ranniy (Shchelkovskiy Early)
• Vzryv
• Kron Prince
• Garant
• Gnom
• Praleska
• Serrewonder
• Cesu Agrais
• Volgogradskiy
• Poranek
• Vezha
• Pervenets (I need to find the translation of this one cause it's a bit too wierd)
• Norderaas Busk
• Taimyr
• Betta
• Tezemets
• Ostravske
• Drova
• Apple Tree Leaf
• Alpha
• Canada Northstar
• Prairie Pride

I also think I'm going to try the long keeper tomato Ruby Treasure - it seems to have the best flavor rating of all of them. Everyone I've asked who's grown them uses the same adjective - pastey. But decent for cooking. I need to have a few oddities in there so Wagner's Blue Green is tentatively on the list.

Sowed some herb seeds tonight too. Balkan Mint, Iberian White Thyme (seeds smelled like manna from heaven) West African Basil, Winter Lemon Savory & Palmarosa. Was a little crestfallen to see the Palmarosa needs cold strat. though I don't recall that in the description. I'm planting it anyway. 🤞🤞🤞

Got a new potting mix, very high in aggregate. It's just gorgeous, it's a limousine of planting mediums. Boy, it really counts what you start with!! My 1st bag was a plant killer, so I bought 2 new kinds - one dollar store type, one from the hardware store but not Pro-Nix. The hardware store bag stunted every surviving pepper seedling turning them ultra lime green, cotyledons and starter leaves turned to the sky, especially the C. Chinense. To my astonishment, the dollar tree bag was the best one of the first 3. But this last bag of Sunshine Mix is stellar in texture. I bet this one is going to work great!

heirloomgal said:

A few more Seedy Sunday seed packets. I only saw after that the Indigo needs special treatment to sprout Not sure if I'll bother with since I'm moving away from flowers and perennials in general anyway. I just always like the look of these plants in particular, and I've never had one.

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Same reason I'm skipping the Gopher Weed this year (some sort of native Florida legume). According to the instructions, I'd have to both scarify AND stratify them to get them to germinate, and, to be honest that's a bit too much on top of everything else I have to do this spring. Plus, the plum pit incident has made me a little dubious about how well or refrigerator does for stratification (I had those things in for MONTHS, and they still just rotted rather than germinated).

It's also why I keep putting off planting the seed for those California wild trefoils (Lotus jokerstii and Lotus yedoensis ) and that clover with the yellow flower I got at the same time. At least two of those require treatment with something called "smoke paper" to sprout, and, again, that's not something I'm familiar with using.

I may hold off on the Indigofera affina as well, since it has the classic for me problem of seed that needs scarification to germinate that is TOO SMALL to pick up individually. It's too hard for the boiling water shock treatment, and I don't own a seed drum (or a way to make a vacuum in one, even if I did).

heirloomgal said:

Have you grown the melon @Pulsegleaner ? I feel like you probably have. The woman I got them from, who lives 3 1/2 hours north of me, grew them and thought they tasted great. I heard they taste like cucumber and lime, so...

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If you mean the Kiwanos, yes, twice. The first time when I was a kid, I planted some in a long pot in the sunroom, and actually did get a small, ripe fruit off the plant. The second time was two or three years ago, when I planted some of the round variety in the back along with my other cucumber tests. They grew fine and produced some flowers (oddly whitish compared to the regular variety) but never made any female ones or set any fruit.

That's a semi-decent description of the flavor. I usually describe it as "sort of vaguely sour". I can't say it's top of my favorite fruits. The texture, of course, is like trying to eat a bowl of cucumber insides; all slippery goop and seeds.

I did discover that while they don't taste all that sweet, they do contain enough sugar to ferment (the hard way).

I now have the peas, cow peas, favas and Chinese garlic in the cold frame. I'll try and get the chestnut/chinkapin seedlings in tomorrow (would have done it today, but sat back for a nap and ended up sleeping all the way until sundown. That happens more often than I would like. It was raining today, so probably for the best) As far as I can tell, I have examples of both henryi and seguennii that have come up (probably more henryi; as I planted a lot more of those than the other.)

Two of the three tomatoes worked (only one of the White Currant seeds germinated, and that died almost immediately.) I'll start thinning as soon as I can figure out what to thin down TO (each pot now has a small mound of green shoots, and trying to work out which is the healthiest is currently hard.)

I guess, after that, the next two things to pot up will be the Lupines (unknown species, collected from the Andes) and the guar beans (which will have to STAY in a pot, since I KNOW they won't make mature seed before the frost comes, and so will need to carry them in to finish.) Then the rice beans (just starting to sprout) and by then, it will probably be warm enough to directly seed the West Indian Gherkins and the Lablab beans pot up the mung beans and the "wild" rice beans (along with adding the moth and urds that have already sprouted) and then wait until it's time to do the corn.

heirloomgal said:

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the Blue False Indigo is a great plant, but put it someplace you don't mind it spreading a bit... all those seeds...

Pulsegleaner said:

The texture, of course, is like trying to eat a bowl of cucumber insides; all slippery goop and seeds.

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The look of that texture was sort of what drew me in. It reminded me of pummelo innards. If the insides are wetter, like cuke innards, well, that'll be a little less ideal but I still sort of like that texture, the inside of the young cucumber texture. The seed supplier lady really likes the scooped out insides with yogurt.

I am too lazy a gardener to mess with the kinds of seeds that need scarification of any kind. I have found that some things will grow for me when I plant them, even though they technically require that treatment. Probably happens with fresh seed, though it doesn't always work. I guess the wilder tomatoes (currants, matt's wild cherry, coyote) I will put outside in late spring to get the flickering temps and that usually does the trick, but that's about as far as I've gone.

I too may try my hand at lupines this year, I found a sweet variety that doesn't have bitterness or need soaking. I think they tend to like cooler weather so I don't know how well they'll do here, and last attempt bean seed flies massacred every single plant in one day. I worry about planting them because I don't want an extra draw for those beasts, but I think I may be delluding myself because they're around anyway. Why they picked on those lupines so voraciously I don't know. Bugs probably smelled the stress of the plants when the weather got hot.

heirloomgal said:

The look of that texture was sort of what drew me in. It reminded me of pummelo innards. If the insides are wetter, like cuke innards, well, that'll be a little less ideal but I still sort of like that texture, the inside of the young cucumber texture. The seed supplier lady really likes the scooped out insides with yogurt.

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Not young cucumber texture, OLD cucumber texture, assuming you let them ripen up to full orange (there seems to be a split on that. All the one's I've ever seen sold are fully orange, but I had someone from Africa tell me (when I saw a video where someone picked a green one and ate it) that they are better in that state.

heirloomgal said:

I am too lazy a gardener to mess with the kinds of seeds that need scarification of any kind. I have found that some things will grow for me when I plant them, even though they technically require that treatment. Probably happens with fresh seed, though it doesn't always work. I guess the wilder tomatoes (currants, matt's wild cherry, coyote) I will put outside in late spring to get the flickering temps and that usually does the trick, but that's about as far as I've gone.

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I have no problem with scarification, provided it's EASY scarification I can do with sandpaper, nail clippers or jewelry wire cutters (I DREAD when I decide I want to try my hand again with the bigger seeded Caesalpinia like bonduc , and have to drag out the heavy gloves and the emery wheel again. I don't trust my skill with a hacksaw.)
It's all of the extra odd things that drive me crazy. I LOVE how Sturt's desert pea looks, so I was delighted when I found seed for sale when I was a kid. Then I found it it needed a bush fire to germinate, and you needed to replicate that through carefully timed periods in an oven. Needless to say, none ever came up.

heirloomgal said:

I too may try my hand at lupines this year, I found a sweet variety that doesn't have bitterness or need soaking. I think they tend to like cooler weather so I don't know how well they'll do here, and last attempt bean seed flies massacred every single plant in one day. I worry about planting them because I don't want an extra draw for those beasts, but I think I may be delluding myself because they're around anyway. Why they picked on those lupines so voraciously I don't know. Bugs probably smelled the stress of the plants when the weather got hot.

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We've not had great luck with lupines either. I DID manage to get some of those Altrei Coffee ones as far as flowering one year (Lupinus pilosus, I think), But that was the year we got the sudden two week spike into the 100-110's that basically fried everything in the ground in a single day, so no new seed. I tried again with Andean Lupine (L. mutabilis) but the few of those that came up never made it past first or second leaf (same problem as with the Andean corn, when it gets hot, they die). And when I've bought ornamental lupines at the nursery (with the idea of crossing for my own choice in flower color) they've sometimes grown, but never make pods. And seed for things like Russel's Hybrid, Texas Bluebonnet and Arroyo Lupine never come up. So this will be another shot in the dark (note in case you are confused, what I am growing this year is a lupine from the Andes, but it is not Andean lupine, there's more than one species there.)