A Seed Saver's Garden

[flowerbug]

... We ended up catching him because we found him staggering around the kitchen this morning, disoriented.

Sigh of relief. Now I can safely plant more pepper seeds.

keep the traps out just in case there is more than one of them...

 

[heirloomgal]

Well, victory was short lived.

I was awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of a crinkling bag on my nightstand. My gosh, it's like an invasion.

When we came in early this afternoon from a walk, we opened the door to the sight of a tiny jumping mouse on the entrance carpet, likely the same one I heard last night. DD contained it in a back room and we waited for DH to get home. I truly cannot face this sort of thing. DD and DH worked together this evening to get the seeming infant and it died of a heart attack at the end of the capture. It appeared to be offspring. DH was of the rather grim view that the first mouse had become a mother during her stay here. This would definitely explain how she had a 6th sense for avoiding danger. I felt that this was not the most positive way to view the sitation, and counted my lucky starts that the deeply unwanted visitors were finally gone.

That is, until we all came home this evening to the sound of squeaking. Loud sqeaking. I could hardly believe my own ears. We all froze in the entrance, straining to hear the noise. It was indeed a symphony of squeaks on repeat. We all tiptoed around looking for where the symphony seemed to be coming from. Kitchen. We hadn't lifted the multiple set traps yet, and low and behold we had caught 2 more on a sticky trap behind the stove. My gosh what a hideous sight. These were literally baby mice, clearly looking for their missing ma. I don't like the methodology of sticky traps, but they work. DH decided to not prolong their suffering and that was that.

I really, really, realy hope that was her whole litter and we're now DONE. For good.

 

[flowerbug]

I really, really, realy hope that was her whole litter and we're now DONE. For good.

i hope so too! i'm glad that we very rarely have mice that get into the house and i've mouse- proofed the crawlspace too so that we don't get them down there. if they do get into the house it is usually from moving a box from the garage or shed into the house without knowing there's a mouse in it. since i plugged up the shed and keep a pretty close eye on the garage we've not had any mice from those in 15 years or more. if they do get in the house they don't have many easy places to hide and often i can hear them so a few peanut butter baited traps will usually get them within the first day.

i've never used sticky traps.

 

[ducks4you]

I use 6 sets of kitty fangs and claws to protect me and my own.
I have a leaky back door, PERFECT for mouse to come in.
Honestly, I never see any in the house.
I Do see mice in the barn.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I really, really, really hope that was her whole litter and we're now DONE. For good.

It's quite possible. That's usually the pattern we see here, we catch one or two full grown mice (usually in the traps) and then two or three young mice show up. (Technically they're not "baby mice". actual baby mice, called pinkies, are basically blind and immobile.) Their fate depends on whether they come out in the kitchen again (trap) the cat gets to them (killed) or we get to them before the cat (trapped alive and released outside far enough away they can't come back.)

Which is good because once, when I was in my apartment I caught a mouse in one of the live release traps (the kind that work by rocking back and forth to close the door), and I saw a second mouse come out and get the first one back out by jumping on the other end of the trap (moving it back into the open position and re-opening the door.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I feel a little affirmed to read your post @Pulsegleaner. We found one more little guy yesterday when DD went to tidy the cavy cage. I had wondered about that. Our cavy girl is almost 9, waaay beyond the average life span of her kind, and the vet was utterly mystified when we brought her in for a check up to see she had some bewildering ear issue. He was so baffled that we were there for nearly 2 hours as he took glass slides of her ear stuff and spend time at the microscope and in the books. When we got home it occured to me that she might be getting a visitor(s) to her cage - hay, water, warmth - all a rodent would want. I believe she picked up something from those mice. She is old and very arthritic as it is, and the last thing we want for her is more discomfort at this point in her llife. She can't use her back legs to scratch anymore either, so an itchy ear is def not comfortable for her.

I really do hope that #4 offspring was the last one. So far so good, I don't see any evidence to the contrary. For now.

 

[heirloomgal]

On the positive side - I got more seeds in the mail today! My MOST favorite kind, @Bluejay 's netowrk beans! 🥰 I'm actually waiting for just the right moment to go through all the packets - just like I do if I buy a very nice chocolate bar and wait to enjoy it until I can get a perfect moment of calm in the day to savor the goodness in all it's fullness.

I also got the Muni Chocame beans today, interesting! They look like little mini Ram's Horn beans.

Last night, I replanted the peppers that got eaten and a dozen more varieties that I think could use the extra time beefing up before being planted out. This will be an exciting pepper year for sure, given how many rare & unusual varieties I found. I tend to get most of my rare seed opportunities in the bean department, so this is a wonderful start to the 2024 season already!

The seed requests are starting to roll in as well, which is always so nice. Love the personal exchange with all those gardeners who are already excited to step into the next garden season with seeds. ❤️

Ah, God is good.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Finally got my seeds from the OSSI. Opened three of the five packs (the basil one is transparent, so I can see through it, and I saw no point at looking at the onion seed, since all onion seed looks pretty much the same).

Looks like Madagascar Blue is more or less IDENTICAL to the mottled mung beans I have been pulling out of the bags. Oh well, there's goes my chance of registering that one as a new variety (guess I'll move onto the gold one, the wild one, or see if I have any pure black ones yet......)

The Hopniss (American Ground Nut) seed I got is a lot smaller than the other sample I got some years ago (though just as wrinkly). Maybe the seeds get smaller the further north you get them. In which case, I REALLY wish I could have gotten some full term seed off the ones in Ithaca (if most of the fertile ones are in the south, and the sterile ones are in the north, I wonder where those vines up there came from....)

The Watermelon seeds ARE multiple colors but they all seem the same size, so not as diverse as I hoped. Have to decide what to do now next year (plant just the one off type from the Yamato Silver Packet, plant the one I got out of the seedless, plant these, or some combination.

 

[heirloomgal]

So you haven't grown Yamato Silver yet @Pulsegleaner? I think I'm going to grow a watermelon this summer, maybe Cream of Saskatchewan. I'm not crazy about melons, but a fresh watermelon is a treat and I remember liking that one. Petite Yellow is also up for consideration. My last dance with the Turkish watermelons 2 years ago did not result in delicious melons, though I got a lot of them. Not much you can do with a bland melon.

Watched a seed film called 'Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds' that I got out of the library. Wasn't my cup of tea, all that crying was rather irritating, and the framing of the issues was very skewed IMO, but 2 tidbits stood out. The first that crop/seed variety innovation suffers without patents. I'd prefer there be no patents on Creation, but, I'd have to agree that this is indeed what has happened with the OP seeds. Which is a fair price to pay. If there is no valuable reward or opportunity for growth on the part of a developer, it isn't realistic to expect anyone to want to go in that direction seriously. Especially when your work can be 'pirated' (in a way) so quickly & easily. Also, and probably more interestingly, the genetic cost of pesticides, even organic ones. I hadn't thought about the fact that without sprays, crops that are vulnerable will die off and those who resist factor X remain. Spraying them with anything selects/allows the poorer specimens to continue. There is no selection happening toward resilience. Of course, sometimes this is just theoretical gibberish. A whole crop can perish in certain challenges so specimens that survive factor X would be a moot point; sometimes it's a total wipeout. But there was a bit in the film that was food for thought. I've always found the Percy Schmeiser case interesting, too bad they didn't dig a little deeper into that one.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

So you haven't grown Yamato Silver yet @Pulsegleaner?

Oh, I GREW it, I just didn't actually GET anything; none of them made any flowers or fruit.

I think I'm going to grow a watermelon this summer, maybe Cream of Saskatchewan. I'm not crazy about melons, but a fresh watermelon is a treat and I remember liking that one. Petite Yellow is also up for consideration. My last dance with the Turkish watermelons 2 years ago did not result in delicious melons, though I got a lot of them. Not much you can do with a bland melon.

Cream of Saskatchewan might be OK, but skip C.S. While Flesh and White Wonder. I grew those, and the brix was so low I couldn't even taste MELON without juicing them.

Actually, I've heard whites are sort of low in general, so maybe Cream isn't a good idea either.

Watched a seed film called 'Open Sesame: The Story of Seeds' that I got out of the library. Wasn't my cup of tea, all that crying was rather irritating, and the framing of the issues was very skewed IMO, but 2 tidbits stood out. The first that crop/seed variety innovation suffers without patents. I'd prefer there be no patents on Creation, but, I'd have to agree that this is indeed what has happened with the OP seeds. Which is a fair price to pay. If there is no valuable reward or opportunity for growth on the part of a developer, it isn't realistic to expect anyone to want to go in that direction seriously. Especially when your work can be 'pirated' (in a way) so quickly & easily.

Exactly. In an ideal world, it wouldn't matter, since either people would be automatically grateful, or the creators would think the way I do and decide that the fact they think they CAN make something useful OBLIGATES them to, no matter the personal cost. But most people are not willing to be altruistic to the point of possible self sacrifice/destruction, so yeah, they need some incentive.

Also, and probably more interestingly, the genetic cost of pesticides, even organic ones. I hadn't thought about the fact that without sprays, crops that are vulnerable will die off and those who resist factor X remain. Spraying them with anything selects/allows the poorer specimens to continue. There is no selection happening toward resilience. Of course, sometimes this is just theoretical gibberish. A whole crop can perish in certain challenges so specimens that survive factor X would be a moot point; sometimes it's a total wipeout. But there was a bit in the film that was food for thought. I've always found the Percy Schmeiser case interesting, too bad they didn't dig a little deeper into that one.

Well, it's sort of an extension of the selections we have put on ourselves ever since we developed sentience, technology and civilization. Those things re-define what is needed to be "fit" enough to survive. Without them, very large numbers of the people now living would not be so, nor, in many cases, would they have even existed, as their ancestors would not have made it who knows how many generations ago.

And we likewise have altered the rules for the plants and animals we raise. Having your toxins that keep pests from eating your seeds bred out is probably not a great evolutionary advantage to the plant (it's a detractor), but it is one for us, so we did it. We took teosinte, which can grow perfectly well on its own, and turned it into maize, which literally can't successfully GROW unless we take it off the cob first. We've kept a couple dozen types of tree that theoretically should have gone extinct at the end of the last Ice age with the death of their seed dispersers alive because we found a use for them and were willing to step in and take over dispersal.