A Seed Saver's Garden

[jbosmith]

Little okra seed harvest today. The seeds let go from the pods amazingly well. Much easier than I expected.
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Last of the 'Purple Dragon' carrots. Was surprised to see the colour does not wash out when cooked, at all.
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Little fall display with pumpkins. I don't much enjoy the very cold temps setting in, but I sure do love everything else about this time of year.
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What okra do you have that grows where you live? Is it actually called Little?
Love the decorations!

 

[heirloomgal]

What okra do you have that grows where you live? Is it actually called Little?
Love the decorations!

It's actually, 'Jing Orange' okra. I only meant little as in not many pods (oops! didn't say that quite right!) The seed was raised here in Ontario, so it's a fairly suitable variety for cooler climates. I grew most of my plants in the greenhouse, but they would have done much better outside. It was really pretty too. I'll definitely try it again, this was my 1st year.

 

[jbosmith]

It's actually, 'Jing Orange' okra. I only meant little as in not many pods (oops! didn't say that quite right!) The seed was raised here in Ontario, so it's a fairly suitable variety for cooler climates. I grew most of my plants in the greenhouse, but they would have done much better outside. It was really pretty too. I'll definitely try it again, this was my 1st year.
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Awesome! I just ordered some to try here. Thanks!

 

[heirloomgal]

Awesome! I just ordered some to try here. Thanks!

Very nice okra type. Produces like a weed!

 

[heirloomgal]

The very last of the spring bulbs have been planted.

This one above - I'll be curious to see if these actually grow looking like this. Seems a bit hard to imagine, but I don't know daffodils very well.

 

[heirloomgal]

Got some pretty great news about my tomato seeds recently; send a truckload of varieties to a friend, and for the past two years they have been growing them out. I don't isolate anything except peppers and currant tomatoes so I always worry a teeny bit that someone might find crosses. Turns out that she didn't find any in all those packets! Pretty happy to hear that. I find the odd cherry tomato cross , but not many. Some years, none. Strange coincidence that I just seem to have one of those garden situations where very little crossing occurs.

 

[flowerbug]

for daffodils i've found that some bulb companies you may not get flowers that look at all like the pictures. i stopped ordering from one large bulb company after several years in a row of getting things that weren't even close to the pictures. *sigh* they'd give credit and you could order other things if something didn't come right, but i was sick of dealing with that at all.

i'm not sure how many daffodil varieties we have around here, maybe 20 or so. like tulips i was trying to get a decent collection of them so we'd have some variety plus an extended bloom season.

now Mom is so sick of them she's trying to get rid of them. we have thousands of them but so many are the same type that i'd be ok with less of those but when i'm so busy with other things in the spring it's hard for me to do much thinning out of the large clumps we have. in some places those clumps have been there for 15-20 years, but they keep blooming.

 

[ducks4you]

Nice okra harvest! I STILL need to harvest more pods from mine, as they, unLIKE the tomatoes, continue to want to grow.
I don't intend to harvest Any pods until mid November, but there are plenty that I let go hard to go to seed, so I should have quite a good many seeds.

 

[heirloomgal]

Mom is so sick of them she's trying to get rid of them.

How can someone get sick of tulips, they're so pretty!

I'm glad you hopped into the spring bulb subject, because I know you are a tulip expert and have a lot of experience growing and experimenting with them. So I'll rapid fire a couple of questions here to mine your tulip-o - philia. Do you have any absolute favourites? I was a little late this year getting to the bigger box stores for variety, many were sold out so I sorta had to settle for what I could find. But truly gorgeous ones would be great. They also had species tulips, a little less attractive I found (judging by the picture), but I do like variation in plantings. Do you suggest them? Of all the tulip qualities - those feathered edges, closed point vs open cup bloom vs. double blooms, any recommendations? Last question - is it better to plant a little closer to the surface, or a little too deep? My new bulb planter is only 4 inches, then you have to factor in the handle to get to the standard 6 inch depth. Always kinda guessing with that.

 

[flowerbug]

How can someone get sick of tulips, they're so pretty!

I'm glad you hopped into the spring bulb subject, because I know you are a tulip expert and have a lot of experience growing and experimenting with them. So I'll rapid fire a couple of questions here to mine your tulip-o - philia. Do you have any absolute favourites? I was a little late this year getting to the bigger box stores for variety, many were sold out so I sorta had to settle for what I could find. But truly gorgeous ones would be great. They also had species tulips, a little less attractive I found (judging by the picture), but I do like variation in plantings. Do you suggest them? Of all the tulip qualities - those feathered edges, closed point vs open cup bloom vs. double blooms, any recommendations? Last question - is it better to plant a little closer to the surface, or a little too deep? My new bulb planter is only 4 inches, then you have to factor in the handle to get to the standard 6 inch depth. Always kinda guessing with that.

well i was talking about daffodils and not tulips there, but that's ok.

i'll go in reverse, for planting depth the standard depth is three times the size of the bulb, but adjust for drainage and soil quality or protection. i think it is ok to go a little deeper as long as the drainage is ok.

the general problem with tulips is that you sometimes won't know how hardy they are until after you've grown them. catalogues can say all sorts of things, but i generally no longer trusted them after being burned a few too many times.

species tulips are usually hardy and some of them can spread pretty easily and persist so if you plant them put them where you don't mind them spreading or within some kind of confined edge. i thought they were pretty enough - but i'm kinda a sucker for any tulip.

the pointed (lily flowering tulips) are really interesting and i had several kinds of those and liked all of them.

the fringed ones i had some that were really great looking but botrytis destroyed almost all of them - i think i only have three different kinds of those now. this location is pretty brutal for almost all tulips that i really liked. anything not inside the fences gets regularly chewed down to nothing and usually will disappear within a few years. i used to have hundreds of tulips of all kinds that were extras that i planted in a long edge around the front gardens, i alternated every six inches with a daffodil. almost all of those are gone now except for a few, most of the daffodils are still there. only the youngest deer will try a daffodil once or twice before learning they're not good to eat. they'll mow down the tulips though.

my microclimate is so wrong here and ultimately the reason to give up on my plans of cross-breeding them. i may still have some small bulbs around somewhere from many years ago that were from seeds of cross breeds i did but they never get big enough to flower and i can't transplant them to a safe place because Mom will often take them out (by accident or intentionally ) so they're just limping along. i tried to find people to come get flowers/bulbs for free but people don't want to do that kind of work so it's just bumbling along. same for the daffodils, but i think we managed to rehome a few hundred spare bulbs that i had last year and i can probably give that person even more this year if i had the time to dig them up, but i don't. the weather is just not cooperating at all this fall so far.


my favorite tulip was this one (in the foreground):

the purple and white mix you have is going to be really nice. i have some of those around here.