A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

What type of corn did you grow? Decorative?

Yes, but my own special hand picked version, not a commercial one. Assuming it stayed the way it was, it should be miniature, and multicolored, but a dent rather than a popcorn (I found three ears of that some time ago, and that's what these came from).

Next year, I plan to do something similar, only with miniature multicolored sweetcorn. I found some of that as well, though not nearly as much (the dent ears were all dent, but all the sweet kernels where odd incidental crosses on otherwise non-sweet ears. I have 118 kernels, which, when factoring in for the bad germination I now get from these being so old, will probably get me maybe 10-11 plants [I got about 21 this year])

Yet another reason to try and get to the point where I can apply to that center near me; if I can get them to take me on, and agree to let me do my corn there, I'll have the room to do more than one kind in the same year, along with the help to do so, and won't get this seed backlog.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, the corn is harvested; all seven ear that were ready (there is one lagger that is only JUST getting its silks, and two ears had no kernels at all and were discarded). I'm going to hold off on a picture for the moment, to allow them to dry down so I have full data on things like their type.

Pollination wasn't great, so none of them are even close to "hang on the door pretty". But at least I got SOMETHING this year, which is better than I have done in over a decade. And this is probably the best I can hope to do, I just don't have ROOM for the big blocks needed to get good pollination from corn. About the only thing different I can do next year is put the corn plants in the MIDDLE of the space rather than the border, so they're closer together.)

Despite the fact that all of them are quite short and stubby, the fact that they all have a very long "nose" of unfertilized ear at the end makes me thing most to all of them come from the two long eared donors rather than the short stubby eared one. That and that there is a LOT of dark purple in the kernels, which the stubby one didn't have.

There's also a surprisingly high number of yellow kernels (given that one one kernel of any of those ears was yellow or any color that could contain yellow, and I didn't plant that one yet) and a lot that have spots of one color over the others (which none of them had) Note that this is the standard fuzzy speckling, not the sharp tight dots of stippling I actively look for.

One thing, as I mentioned, next year I plan to work with the few miniature sweetcorn kernels I managed to acquire. I already know that, if a kernel of dent corn is not appressed (pushed against by neighboring kernels) the dent does not form, as there isn't any pressure to force the softer top in. Does anyone know if, when there is no pressure, sweetcorn kernels still wrinkle? Unlike this year, next year I am presumably going to have to divide the kernels at seasons end into sweet and non sweet (remember, all of the sweet kernels were picked off of non-sweet ears.) , and only replant the sweet ones if I have a reasonable chance of making a viable line. Am I going to be able to tell which is which if each kernel basically grows with nothing surrounding it?

In other news, the lablab pods are beginning to fill out nicely. On the less good news, after all of that work with the two best cucumbers I had, I only got about five possibly viable seeds out of both, so, for the moment, I'm holding off on picking any more in order to let a few get fully ripe and hope their seed is better.

 

[flowerbug]

@Pulsegleaner i haven't spent much time growning corn here. just not worth the fight with the critters.

 

[Ladyreneer]

Well, the corn is harvested; all seven ear that were ready (there is one lagger that is only JUST getting its silks, and two ears had no kernels at all and were discarded). I'm going to hold off on a picture for the moment, to allow them to dry down so I have full data on things like their type.

Pollination wasn't great, so none of them are even close to "hang on the door pretty". But at least I got SOMETHING this year, which is better than I have done in over a decade. And this is probably the best I can hope to do, I just don't have ROOM for the big blocks needed to get good pollination from corn. About the only thing different I can do next year is put the corn plants in the MIDDLE of the space rather than the border, so they're closer together.)

Despite the fact that all of them are quite short and stubby, the fact that they all have a very long "nose" of unfertilized ear at the end makes me thing most to all of them come from the two long eared donors rather than the short stubby eared one. That and that there is a LOT of dark purple in the kernels, which the stubby one didn't have.

There's also a surprisingly high number of yellow kernels (given that one one kernel of any of those ears was yellow or any color that could contain yellow, and I didn't plant that one yet) and a lot that have spots of one color over the others (which none of them had) Note that this is the standard fuzzy speckling, not the sharp tight dots of stippling I actively look for.

One thing, as I mentioned, next year I plan to work with the few miniature sweetcorn kernels I managed to acquire. I already know that, if a kernel of dent corn is not appressed (pushed against by neighboring kernels) the dent does not form, as there isn't any pressure to force the softer top in. Does anyone know if, when there is no pressure, sweetcorn kernels still wrinkle? Unlike this year, next year I am presumably going to have to divide the kernels at seasons end into sweet and non sweet (remember, all of the sweet kernels were picked off of non-sweet ears.) , and only replant the sweet ones if I have a reasonable chance of making a viable line. Am I going to be able to tell which is which if each kernel basically grows with nothing surrounding it?

In other news, the lablab pods are beginning to fill out nicely. On the less good news, after all of that work with the two best cucumbers I had, I only got about five possibly viable seeds out of both, so, for the moment, I'm holding off on picking any more in order to let a few get fully ripe and hope their seed is better.

Have you tried hand pollinating your corn since you're only growing a small amount? I did it a couple of years ago and I had a fabulous result. Full perfect ears of corn.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Have you tried hand pollinating your corn since you're only growing a small amount? I did it a couple of years ago and I had a fabulous result. Full perfect ears of corn.

That was what I planned to do this year. The problem is that the pollen started dropping before I was ready.

There is also the problem that, in order to keep the animals off,, all of the corn was in a 4x4 cage. I'm a big guy, and there really isn't any way for me to get INTO the cage without knocking over the corn (actually I wouldn't be able to get in at all, it's too short) And trying to lift the cage off of them and then put it back on after I'm done is also a bit of an ordeal (and impossible once the beans started climbing around the sides of the cage.)
There's a good chance there will be fewer plants there next year (going by the ratio of how many seeds I started versus how many plants I actually got, there will probably be only 10 plants next year) so I might be able to space them out enough next year to get between them if I crouch.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Not many updates.

I brought in some more cucumbers today. While I had planned to leave everything out there until it got totally ripe, I noticed that the plants, or at least, the stems most of those cukes were attached to were dead, so there was no real advantage to leaving them there (and a potential liability in terms of animals eating them.)

Managed to find some more stuff in another little bag of coriander, but nothing dramatically new. Though it am a bit worried that a spice being sold by an upscale gourmet supermarket chain has such a high concentration of weed seeds in it (I think it's probably higher than what the bulk stuff sold at the Indian market has now, that seems perfectly clean by sight.)

I also discovered that, in one of my bags of beads, there was a kernel left of the purple dent corn (the one that had 0% germination this spring.) I suppose I'll plant it next year, but given the rest HAD a 0% germination, I can't imagine this one will be any different (and, if it grows, I'll have to find somewhere out of the way to stick it so it doesn't contaminate the sweet corn.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Does anyone know if, when there is no pressure, sweetcorn kernels still wrinkle?

I'm not 100% sure @Pulsegleaner, but I'd guess that sweet corn kernels would wrinkle without the pressure. I say this mostly because the kernels I've seen are wrinkled on all sides whereas the dent corn has a site specific wrinkle.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well, as promised the corn has dried down, so here's the picture.

In all probability, the only one I will keep in the breeding population is the one on the far right (with the slight space between it and the rest). All of the others seem to have reverted to pure flint/pop (when December comes and I take the stuff apart to store it, I can take a few kernels from those and see if it is flint or pop.) They don't even seem to have inherited any particularly noteworthy colors for a popcorn (I think there are two pink kernels (one with a big split in it, so it's no good) but the rest seem the standard mini-popcorn palette. At least the one on the right MIGHT have some soft starch left in it (they're kind of cloudy).

If I can use the house as a pollen blocker, I also might plant what's left of the mini flour corn next year. With only four kernels left, devoting a whole year to them seems silly, especially with such a backlog of corn.

I really ought to think about dipping into the Andean box as well, but planting corn where you KNOW the odds of getting seed back are infinitesimal no matter WHAT you do seems a poor use of time and space.

 

[heirloomgal]

Pepper updates.

Murupi White rebounded in time to make me at least a few seeds. Wierd little peppers for sure.

Cheiro Roxy, as pretty as I hoped.

White Hot Fingers

Brazilian Starfish

Zavory, best pod set I’ve had growing this variety yet. Heatless.

Wiri Wiri, might make me some seeds yet. May try to overwinter a few of these plants or take cuttings. We’ll see, I do like to take a complete plant hiatus in winter.

Sugar Rush Stripey finally got stripes. It turns red too when fully mature. Excellent on pizza.

Lunchbox Orange.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

No usable seeds in the six most recent cucumbers either; do I have to let them ROT on the vine before any of the seed is good? If I do, I'm on the verge of being SOL, at this point there's only one left that has gotten to even the yellow stage, and the vines are dying back faster than new flowers or fruits can be produced.

Looks like there are only one or two common beans in each half of the mix that have the staying power to keep going in this heat. On the black side, there's one that's making white rounded seeds that just keeps churning pods out, followed by another round one with a tiny amount of purple around the hilum that seems to turn either pure light brown or white with light brown Orca mottling (depending on the bean). The speckled side is harder to tell, since the vines are a lot more mixed up. There are SOME that are still making a few pods, and flowers, but which they are, and which pods are attached to which plants in all that bean straw I don't know. Seeds seem a little more slender than on the the black survivors, can't tell if they are supposed to be white or tan (with the heat, a lot of pods start withering down before they are totally done, so getting seeds that still have a green cast to them is not at all uncommon.)

I suspect that, as soon at the one very hairy pod the big plant in the mung pot ripens, that will be it; by now, the big ones are pretty much all there is left that isn't dead and discarded.

Sort of a lull in long bean production. Not a lot of pods developing now, but plants in both pots are getting new flowers, so a second flush is possible. There are a fair number of developing pods on the ones in the corn patch, but most seem to be staying thin, which indicates they probably don't have good seed in them (I've been getting a fair number of mature pods on both groups that have no mature seeds when opened, I didn't know long beans could do that.)