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  1. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Thanks for sharing this-- it's a fascinating anomaly, and perhaps more common than one would think. Gorgeous blossoms on your sweet pea plant!
  2. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Good point. It's probably best not to overthink these things. 😉
  3. Branching Out

    Tomatoes 2025

    One of my favourite summer activities is wandering the garden and checking out the tomatoes. Pictured are Tigrella, Sasha's Altai, and Zlatava. Seeds of Tigrella were started on February 4th, and the others were sown on April 9th.
  4. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    There is a remarkable sweet pea vine developing. I had a singleton seed of one variety, a ruffled cream blossom with a slight pink blush on the edges. It's really pretty. Now the plant is beginning to set seed, and a few of the late flowers are blooming in a completely different colour-- hot...
  5. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    We are in a warm dry stretch, which looks to be ideal for seed saving. Yesterday morning I spent an hour harvesting crisp and crunchy pods of sweet peas and shelling peas. Most of the dry fava pods got picked too. I grew two cultivars this year, in gardens a good distance apart and isolated...
  6. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    And in my instance the surface tunnel may have appeared as a result of irrigation as well. I had firmed the carrot planting site and then watered it very heavily, to make sure there would be moisture down deep for the carrot roots once the seeds germinated. So that likely flooded the burrow...
  7. Branching Out

    Tomatoes 2025

    A few days ago I found one of my Orange Dream tomato plants lying on the ground, cleanly severed at the base. At first I thought a critter had nipped off the stem, but on closer inspection I noticed tire tracks entering and exiting this tomato patch. Turns out that either me or our daughter...
  8. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Went out to the countryside to pick up a load of two year old composted manure, as well as sacks of alfalfa pellets and a couple of compressed bales of straw to mulch the garden. On the way back the front end of our old 1985 Ford pickup started to jiggle, and my husband had to put on our hazard...
  9. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Aw...Thanks for your kind words Steve. You all are my inspiration, and I've learned so many tips and tricks from the group here on TEG.
  10. Branching Out

    2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

    An early sowing of Sunshine (yellow pole snap bean) that is growing in a hot, dry spot under the overhand of our neighbour's cherry tree has started to dry down. I intended this primarily as a seed crop, and it looks like a bumper year. The cattle panel that they're growing up is leaning a...
  11. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Was able to sow Napoli carrots and also Taunus beets in the former garlic patch. I covered the planting area with a board, to keep the seeds cool and moist until they germinate. A mole or vole had made a tunnel through the soil before I even finished sowing; I hope that they were making tracks...
  12. Branching Out

    Sweet Peas!

    It has been a successful season for sweet peas, with many fragrant bouquets gracing our table as well. A small patch of Spring Sunshine Cerise has done great this summer with morning shade and hot afternoon sun; the roots are shaded by a Dusty Miller plant, which has likely helped. Several...
  13. Branching Out

    Cut flower garden

    What are the small peach coloured berries called? They're adorable. :)
  14. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Each bundle is indeed a different type, with just over 20 kinds (a couple of the bundles are duplicates as sometimes I have a cultivar grown from bulb as well as from bulbil.) The white labels that I use are made from aluminum window blinds. Each tag has a hole punched in it so it can follow...
  15. Branching Out

    Branching Out's Seeds and Sprouts

    Finished pulling the garlic today! The bulbs are looking quite nice this year. They will hang from the rafters of our carport for the next month or so, to cure. I managed to clean up two of the garlic beds and then prep them with dry organic fertilizer. I had pre-sprouted some bean seeds so...
  16. Branching Out

    Tomatoes 2025

    That's it-- thanks flowerbug!
  17. Branching Out

    Tomatoes 2025

    Here's another interesting dwarf tomato called 'House.' Evidently it can be grown indoors during the winter (have yet to try that.) House is about 10" tall. The large tomatoes pictured are Canestri, and Italian cultivar gifted to me by an older Italian woman who's been growing them for years...
  18. Branching Out

    2025 Little Easy Bean Network - Growers Of The Future Will Be Glad We Saved

    We've had a lot of cutworms this spring too. So frustrating. Now that I can recognize their pupas I can eliminate many of them at that stage of growth. One of our local garden experts Linda Gilkeson has a background in entomology, and I often refer to her documents for advice on how to deal...
  19. Branching Out

    Adventures in Soil Blocking

    Radicchio is indeed biennial, setting seed in its second year-- provided it makes it through the winter, which is questionable for this particular cultivar. The foliage is so strikingly beautiful that one is not inclined to harvest it, but rather to just stand there and stare at its artistic form.
  20. Branching Out

    Tomatoes 2025

    Interesting question. The foliage of micro-dwarf tomatoes is dense and often contacts the soil, which would certainly invite disease. And it's not like you can just trim off all of those lower leaves, as they are sometimes the only leaves on the plant. Perhaps improvements could be had by...
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