A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

Any interesting new varieties? I thought you grew Phil's 2 last year (or before?), which is a very unique one. I've only got a few wierdos on the list this year, so I'm trying to live vicariously through others growing them. ;>

I do have Wagner Blue Green, Cherokee Tiger Black (the one with the chartreuse foliage) and a European peachy fuzzy tomato I got from @Artorius though I can't recall it's name at the moment, but it looks pretty neat already even though it's just a wee seedling. I guess Ramillette de Majorca counts too, since that was called an 'odd duck' in my tomato book. I actually have a few long keeper tomatoes planted, though not as many as I originally planned - Ruby Treasure and Zhiraf, a Russian long keeper. I only had 2 seeds left of Zhiraf and both sprouted (yay! because no one else offers it anymore here).

Only doing two this year (was going to do three, but it looks like none of the White Currants made it through).

One is Phantome du Laos, that large white fleshed tomato that supposed to work as a ghost detector.

The other is a green one called Open Minded. I suppose that one is sort of interesting, as it is what I think of as a "deceptor" green; a green with no secondary shades of yellow or pink, and a fruit skin that is clear. This means there is no visual cures as to when the tomato is actually ripe, so you have to go by feel.

With the Currants gone, I suppose I SHOULD get some other sort of cherry or smaller tomato, as insurance (full sized tomatoes don't produce very well for me, so I tend to rely on the cherry ones for the bulk of the crop. Not that they produce much better.)

If I have space, I am TOYING with the idea of trying Capsicum rhombofolium again, since Trade Winds has some back in. I LIKE the idea of a fruity tasting pepper (particularly one with no heat.) But it IS pretty hard to get to germinate, and I have had no luck so far, so I have a nagging suspicion that getting more seeds and trying again would just be wasting my money.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

At this point, basically just drumming my fingers, waiting until it's time to start the hotboxes for the corn. More accurately, waiting for it to get warm enough reliably I can set the tomatoes and have ROOM to start the hotboxes for the corn (and be able to clear space in the cold frame to move them to when the hotboxes have done their job.)

I dug out a pack of seed for the oval green cherry tomatoes I used to find at the farmer's market to make the third (having just full sized tomatoes is just too risky in terms of having any to eat,) but won't start them until the current ones go out (again, no room).

Have a few sprouts in the wild mung pot, and one in one of the Malvacae pots (can't remember which is the Senegalese Green roselle and which is the stuff I picked out (which could be roselle, kenaf, or any of a dozen other things.) Realize I probably should have scarified the wild mungs before planting them (or hotboxed them) I forgot that just because domestic mung and rice beans have a near 100% natural imbibing rate, that doesn't mean the wild ones would (In truth, even domestic rice beans don't have a 100% at room temperature, but it's presumably a lot closer than the wild do.) Oh well, too late to do anything now (at least, until the sprouted ones are big enough to move around; if I can do that, I can filter the rest of the soil in the pot, retrieve the unimbibed seeds, scarify them, then plant them again.)

A lot of the stuff outside now is in sort of "spring stasis". It isn't dying, but it also isn't growing much, and won't pick up until it is warmer.

 

[heirloomgal]

Some more rather interesting and surprising electro culture results. As I've written about before on this thread: DH's prehistoric decade old orchids have been an eye sore for awhile, and not bloomed super well in years. And then my putting a small roll of copper on the table by accident seemed to cause a shocking burst of blooms in them, many which hadn't bloomed since I don't remember when. We have the heat on probably 7 or even 8 months a year, so our house is not orchid friendly. So, after the bloom burst he put small electro culture wands in all of them using bbq skewers. Well, something has since happened - and fairly quickly - which has never happpened in the 14 or so years DH had been growing these plants. Babies.

Quite a contrast the old tired leaves to the new babies.

As you can see in this pic, the orchid on the right is especially old & awful. Those leaves are dreadfully weary, and leathery. The left orchid isn't great either, but in slighty better condition than the other, but still very dull. If the orchids here perish, it's usually due to atmospheric dehydration.

Nother little burst of blooms, with more flowers on the spray than it's had in the past.

Some new foliage appearing on this old one as well, and a bloom burst. They're all doing this, I just took photos of a few. But you can see the bad shape the leaves are in, in the house conditions. And the room these are in have 2 heating vents, not good. I'm tempted to think electro culture may be especially effective for certain kinds of plants. The orchids have literally no soil in their pots, which I would have thought necessary. But apparently not. Hard to imagine the wands are transferring into the bark and clay balls, could be something similiar to what beans do to collect nitrogen. I'm not really sure what is happening here, but the lights hanging above the plants as you mentioned once @Alasgun are no doubt throwing a lot of electric field presence that the wands can harvest and seemingly transmit. So, for the first time ever we have orchid babies. DD and& I regret introducing electro culture to the orchid table because we'll never be rid of these plants now! 🤣

 

[ducks4you]

When I posted about my volunteer Redbud a few of you wanted to see it, in flower. Apologies for the late evening photos. It is over 10 ft tall now, doing strong, Probably planted by some bird. I Wish it wasn't right on the property line. The trash is all my neighbor's, to the south, btw. I have seed pods availabe, if anyone is interested.

 

[heirloomgal]

When I posted about my volunteer Redbud a few of you wanted to see it, in flower. Apologies for the late evening photos. It is over 10 ft tall now, doing strong, Probably planted by some bird. I Wish it wasn't right on the property line. The trash is all my neighbor's, to the south, btw. I have seed pods availabe, if anyone is interested.View attachment 65444View attachment 65445

Beautiful! Pink! 💗

 

[Pulsegleaner]

It looks like I may quite possibly have to re-think my corn plans. I set up my corn kernel boxes eight days ago, so, last night, I opened them to check status (that's how it works, plant them, check in a week, remove the ones that have not germinated, put the boxes back for another week, re-open them, remove any kernels that have sprouted in a non-viable manner [no root, not forming a firm connection to the ground etc.] one more week, then transfer into pots).

With the age of the corn, I was expecting about a 10% germination rate, same as last year. Turns out that was WILDLY optimistic. Out of all four containers (with probably a bit more than 100 kernels in each one) a grand total of THREE kernels actually germinated, and two of those look rather shaky.

I stuck most of the sweet corn ones back in (now one per plug, to give them maximum space) and will give those a little longer. And I'm sticking the rest I pulled out in some wet paper towels to see if that coaxes anything out. But I rather suspect that, if I want any reasonably corn this year, I better plan to go back into my stores and pull out some more candidates, and most to all of my breeding plans for these four are pretty much shot (I can put those three in pots of their own to keep them separate, but getting corn back from a single corn plant is hard, even WITH hand pollination) .

 

[heirloomgal]

It looks like I may quite possibly have to re-think my corn plans. I set up my corn kernel boxes eight days ago, so, last night, I opened them to check status (that's how it works, plant them, check in a week, remove the ones that have not germinated, put the boxes back for another week, re-open them, remove any kernels that have sprouted in a non-viable manner [no root, not forming a firm connection to the ground etc.] one more week, then transfer into pots).

With the age of the corn, I was expecting about a 10% germination rate, same as last year. Turns out that was WILDLY optimistic. Out of all four containers (with probably a bit more than 100 kernels in each one) a grand total of THREE kernels actually germinated, and two of those look rather shaky.

I stuck most of the sweet corn ones back in (now one per plug, to give them maximum space) and will give those a little longer. And I'm sticking the rest I pulled out in some wet paper towels to see if that coaxes anything out. But I rather suspect that, if I want any reasonably corn this year, I better plan to go back into my stores and pull out some more candidates, and most to all of my breeding plans for these four are pretty much shot (I can put those three in pots of their own to keep them separate, but getting corn back from a single corn plant is hard, even WITH hand pollination) .

That's too bad @Pulsegleaner. I guess on the bright side, there is still time to switch to another variety.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Okay. The good news is I managed to dig out some replacement corn to plant. |

The bad news is that it is just as old, if not older, so I have to assume it also will have pretty terrible germination.

So, rather than trying to put it directly into the peat plugs (which I wouldn't have nearly enough of to cover the 5-600 kernels I pulled out to compensate for the likely lousy germination,) or trying to sow them directly (which , even if I COULD keep the critters from eating all of the seeds as soon as I sowed them, would almost assuredly result in the plants being spaced irregularly and too far apart for decent pollination,) I've lain them out in a single layer in a sealed container between two wet paper towels, which I will put somewhere warm. Any kernels that DO germinate will THEN get stuck in their plugs or pots (by now, I'm actually pretty good with being able to take just germinated corn kernels and move them from plug to plug or pot to pot without breaking them.)

I also re-filled the empty plugs with more corn (that sort of Andean Mountain/Maiz Morado stuff I found at the bodega all that time ago), to see if I can coax anything out of that (I know that, as Andean, it is unlikely to be able to go full term this far north, but maybe I can get some breeding pollen out of it.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Okay. The good news is I managed to dig out some replacement corn to plant. |

The bad news is that it is just as old, if not older, so I have to assume it also will have pretty terrible germination.

So, rather than trying to put it directly into the peat plugs (which I wouldn't have nearly enough of to cover the 5-600 kernels I pulled out to compensate for the likely lousy germination,) or trying to sow them directly (which , even if I COULD keep the critters from eating all of the seeds as soon as I sowed them, would almost assuredly result in the plants being spaced irregularly and too far apart for decent pollination,) I've lain them out in a single layer in a sealed container between two wet paper towels, which I will put somewhere warm. Any kernels that DO germinate will THEN get stuck in their plugs or pots (by now, I'm actually pretty good with being able to take just germinated corn kernels and move them from plug to plug or pot to pot without breaking them.)

I also re-filled the empty plugs with more corn (that sort of Andean Mountain/Maiz Morado stuff I found at the bodega all that time ago), to see if I can coax anything out of that (I know that, as Andean, it is unlikely to be able to go full term this far north, but maybe I can get some breeding pollen out of it.)

You inspired, and reminded, me to get my corn seeds in the ground @Pulsegleaner. I bought a blackish purple Morado corn last year, the one that is suitable for Northern climates (probably different than your variety?), and considered planting it this year. However, because my neighbour wants some corn seed from me I had to go with a sweet, fresh cob eating type. I went with Lofthouse Astronomy Domine. I really hope it doesn't develop it's colors until later in maturity, I know he won't really like the idea of colored kernels! Pots are all planted. I plucked out all yellow kernels for him, not sure how much effect that will have. 🤷‍♀️

 

[heirloomgal]

More electro-culture updates. So I've had my small 24 gauge wrapped wands in the starter pots for about 2 weeks now, and by golly they have grown incredible since. I wish I had been a little more thoughtful about taking a photo journal, but there hasn't been time. I didn't expect the results would be so dramatic either. I am super impressed though. I will NEVER again have transplants under lights without wands.

Started putting together maps of where everything will go. We're firming up plants to get another triaxle load of soil, to expand the garden this year and create the cedar log raised bed. I do find this part of the season really enjoyable, I love to plan out what's going to go where. With all this new light I'm going to have (because of tree cutting) I'll need to re-evaluate how and where I plant things. Going to be another BIG bean year - so, so fun! Lots of new tomatoes too. I've read really great things about a cherry tomato called 'Pinky' so I'm curious about that one, same with 'Deutscher' Fleiss and 'Karma Miracle'.

Got some Jerusalem Artichokes in the mail and planted those. This is my first time planting this species, so we'll see what I can harvest in a single season. I'll have to be careful with placement because they like to get a bit too cozy with everyone. Finished peeling all our logs too, so those are ready to be used. I'm not unhappy that job is finished. :> Been super cold outside until today, but we're finally getting a bit of warmth.

The 2024 season really seems to have begun. ✨💚✨