A Seed Saver's Garden

[Zeedman]

Do mice, chipmunks or squirrels eat soybean plants? Other than a baby rabbit or groundhog I don't know what could get through such small spaces? If yes to squirrels, I may have discovered my problem. We have those this year.

Anything which eats plants, will eat soybeans... and pass nearly everything else to get to them. Deer will nip off the tops (the plants will usually recover if protected) but rabbits & ground hogs will eat them to the ground. That is the biggest challenge to growing what would otherwise be an easy crop. I never had to fence my garden until I began growing soybeans. I use 36" chicken wire low, and either welded wire fencing or string up to 6'. The tiller buries the bottom of the chicken wire. That keeps out bunnies & deer. If a ground hog shows up (about every 5-6 years) I put a live trap in front of the hole it dug under the fence, and usually catch it in a day or two.

Squirrels, chipmunks, and mice are not stopped by the fence, but almost never eat the plants. Squirrels only seem to bother things in pots for some reason; only once have they bothered the garden (when they dug up all of my emerging runner & lima beans ). Chipmunks & mice can harvest soybean seeds as they begin to ripen though... and will do so until stopped. A few times the loss of a variety was nearly total. I have about 50 weather-proof mouse traps, and will put 4-5 under a row when the pods fatten, or at the first sign of damage.

 

[heirloomgal]

chipmunks do eat soybean seeds and sprouts (especially the edamame sorts).

i don't know much about squirrels, but i think they also would.

The plants are maybe 10 inches to a foot high, and whatever was eating them, was eating the whole plant right up and leaving behind stem stumps that are a few inches tall. I put them in as 1 month old transplants.

 

[heirloomgal]

The Tinga Pea --- I had contacted the seed company a bit ago about any other possible info they might have on this species since my searches didn't turn up much. They messaged me today with some helpful info which was nice. It does go by the alternative name 'Tangiers' pea, which I think will make researching them more successful. The bad news is that I did not give them any supports, thinking they grew like grass peas. Turns out they grow to 5 feet! Argh! So, either I let them sprawl as the company does when they grow them, or I try to rig something up and wrestle the plants around a bit. They're quite tangled now.

 

[heirloomgal]

The Tinga dillema, to stake up or to not stake up. That is the question. If anyone has suggestions how this might be done at this advanced point, please share.

Experiments. And the accompanying mystery of results. Hard to determine cause and effect, but one tries.

#1 I have no idea why these are my only bush beans so far to get vigorous, and why they are nearly the last ones planted and still are bigger than all the rest by a significant amount. (The beans behind were planted at least a week earlier.) The bigger ones are also much more crowded. All I can figure is that maybe the pure compost I planted them in has had an effect and beans are more sensitive to soil fertility than I thought. However, I have a single row in my raised bed that was filled in 100% with this same city compost and the bush beans there aren't the same as these. Could a small, raised planter be that influential in terms of heat? Another possibility is the behind bean seeds (Cyrus Grays) were not harvested last year whereas the big plants were from 2022 seed. I wonder if seed freshness could result in such growing differences?

Never planted beans in pots, and thought I'd try just for the fun of it. I had extra dirt and planters so what the heck. It would appear that at least 1/2 the beans fried while germinating in here under landscape fabric. Temps were to nearly 90F at the time. Not an experiment I'll repeat. Planters are pretty small and cookable in high heat. I may transfer some of these to my empty soybean spots.

Decided to remove some of the peppers from the greenhouse for awhile. Just too many aphids with all this high heat. I thought a day or two out in the cool temps would slow the growth a bit and give predators a chance to clean them up. It worked. But I'm going to leave them out for bit more so any eggs will hatch and get eaten first before going back in. I may even leave some to grow outdoors since the outdoor peps are doing pretty good too and it will be less crowded. I can compare greenhouse grown to outdoor grown in the same varieties this way as well.

We need a draining trench in the lower part of the garden, and DH is all *big ideas* about it. I thought I'd try just a small groove dug to exit on the left. Had our first chance to see if it works with the last 2 days of rain, and it did. DH was not super impressed with my amateur attempt, until he saw that it seemed to work, lol. No more duck pond in this area. She's now using my kiddie pool (that was supposed to me for me to cool off in).

Little 'Warba' potato patch. I think the bag had 6 potatoes in it! I'm experimenting with depths here. I put them lower in the garden this year where the soil is deeper, and dug really deep holes. Emergence took much longer because of how deep I put them. I'm hoping that will increase yield because this variety is known for a-being the earliest of all varieties b-being low yielding. I'll be curious what the results will be. I'm gonna hill them too, something I never do.

I kept wondering what is wrong with this tomato plant? And it's not yellow but whitish flowers. Then I remembered that this variety ('Lutescent' aka Honor Bright) is known for it's odd flowers and awful foliage, it's the genetics of the plants. It certainly came true to type on that point. Green is not strong in the leaves. The whole plant is an oddity - apparently you get green, then waxy white, then yellow, then red, then full maturity orange tomatoes on the plant all at once in the fruits various stages. Said to be a good 'storage' tomato, which probably translates to 🤢. But it's an experiment so we'll see.

Little 'Pinta' bean patch. Like to celebrate the Spain connections. Part of my heritage apparently.

A new cilantro to me. I don't usually try different ones because they are all more or less the same it seems, variations mostly being in bolting tendency. But this one is a feathery leaf type, where it looks like it does when it goes to seed throughout it's whole life span. Slower to bolt they say, a bit milder taste. Which is okay by me. Fresh cilantro is pretty strong anyway.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Chipmunks & mice can harvest soybean seeds as they begin to ripen though... and will do so until stopped. A few times the loss of a variety was nearly total.

I remember back when I first grew the cowpea I called Coals in the Candle (the one with the fat, juicy, wax white pods) seeing a chipmunk walk under the plant, rear up on its hind legs to get its forepaws to the bottom of one of the pods and then actually pulling down to snap it off to get it close enough to its mouth it could eat it! (or why I only got one mature pod from that plant, the critters totally ignored the skinny purple podded one right next to it.)

Then there was the time a whole fruiting rice bean vine disappeared overnight (except for one immature pod) right down to the base, which I can only guess means a deer walked over, pulled it both off its support AND out of the ground, and slurped the whole thing up like a spaghetti noodle.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Now the cucumbers have flowers! It looks like, this year, nature is telling my plants "Screw growth, move onto reproduction as quickly as possible!"

For the tomatoes and beans, I have no qualms; they're both plenty big to handle their fruit loads (at least, provided the Phils Two tomatoes don't try and set two dozen fruit all at once.) But the cucumbers are still super short, they haven't even really reached the netting and started to climb. If they don't put on some more inches, how many apple sized cucumbers will they be able to hold without collapsing?

Only new plant acquisition today was a pot of celosia, which I only got because one plant is half albino. Don't know if it will transfer over to the seed.

 

[ducks4you]

OH Great and Wonderful Wizard of Seed Saving!
I noticed that the 8 ft tall volunteer Redbud has like 100 seed pods on it.
I would like to harvest them.
Any suggestions?
I could take pictures tomorrow, if that would help!

 

[heirloomgal]

Do you mean Redbud, as in the tree?

eta: I checked it out, and if you are talking the North American tree I found this -

Looks like a tough one!


Seed

The eastern redbud has a large natural range, and to ensure hardiness, seed should be collected from a local source (Dirr 1998). Seed is collected in late summer when the pods turn dark and in the eastern areas of the country, may continue into November (Young and Young 1992). To avoid insect damage, seed is best collected as soon as it is ripe (Young and Young 1990). After collection, spread in the sun or hang in coarse-fiber fabric bags to dry. Once dry, the seed can be stored in sealed containers at three to five degrees Celsius (Young and Young 1992).

Ripened seed not completely dry can be sown directly into the field in the fall with good results (Young and Young 1992). Once dried, both scarification and stratification must be implemented to produce good germination.

Scarification is used to break down the seed coat. This is necessary to allow water and gas exchange within the seed (Hamilton and Carpenter 1975). Acid scarification, in concentrated sulfuric acid for thirty minutes, is standard (Dirr 1998), although this may vary by seed source (Young and Young 1992). Another method of scarification is hot water treatment.

There are two methods of hot water treatment. One is to place the seeds in boiling water for one minute; the other is to place the seeds in water heated to eighty-two degrees Celsius and allow to cool overnight (Young and Young 1992).

 

[heirloomgal]

Now the cucumbers have flowers! It looks like, this year, nature is telling my plants "Screw growth, move onto reproduction as quickly as possible!"

For the tomatoes and beans, I have no qualms; they're both plenty big to handle their fruit loads (at least, provided the Phils Two tomatoes don't try and set two dozen fruit all at once.) But the cucumbers are still super short, they haven't even really reached the netting and started to climb. If they don't put on some more inches, how many apple sized cucumbers will they be able to hold without collapsing?

Only new plant acquisition today was a pot of celosia, which I only got because one plant is half albino. Don't know if it will transfer over to the seed.

Oooh! Phil's Two! Is this your first time growing it, or have you already grown it and know what it tastes like? Can't help but be a little curious, I love green when ripe tomatoes.

eta: When I spoke with Mr. Minkey the tomato man this winter he mentioned this celosia variety to me, I guess it was listed in the SSE book and I think he was going to try it. The flowers sounded amazing! 4-5 feet tall plants! Here's the entry:

Giant Bombay Indian Cockscomb​

FLOWERS / CELOSIA-COCKSCOMBPHOTOSRAREVIRGINIA LISTER
FOR YEARS, WE HAVE PLANTED HUNDREDS OF THESE IN OUR FRONT YARD. COUNTLESS PEOPLE STOP BY AND COMMENT ON THEIR BEAUTY AND MAGNIFICENCE YEAR AFTER YEAR. THIS STRAIN OF COCKS COMB IS, BAR NONE, THE LARGEST AND MOST BEAUTIFUL AVAILABLE. EACH HEAD AVERAGES 18 INCHES IN LENGTH AND 6 INCHES WIDE, SOME EVEN LARGER, DEEP MAGENTA COLOR. PLANTS GROW TO BE 4-5 FT TALL. THRIVES IN HOT, DRY CONDITIONS. EASY TO GROW. WE GUARANTEE, YOU PLANT THESE ONCE, YOU WILL BE THE TALK OF YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD FOR YEARS TO COME

 

[ducks4you]

WOW!! I Said that you were a Wizard!
Yes, it is a tree.
Some bird must have planted it.
They are pretty expensive if you buy them.
In the Spring they flush pink flowers.
I will Definiately give it a try. I thought that the pods weren't ready yet.