A Seed Saver's Garden

[flowerbug]

I didn't catch the multiple use of the generic *pumpkin* term pumpkin, I read the first few and went with it. I edited that post to correct it. Yes, it's so true - every Cucurbita variety basically has to be individually researched to confirm it's species. I don't think there is any real way to tell from looking at the varieties in the squash family what species it is.

i'm newbie enough with them that i would not know.

i do know that i have often had crosses showing up and i'm ok with that to a point.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

We finally cut the thing up last night and there is good news and bad news.

The good news is that it is perfectly edible (basically, apart from the size and shape, it's more or less still a butternut.)

The bad news is that the cross seems to have not done so well in terms of fertility. In the whole fruit I found a grand total of ONE filled seed!. EVERY other one was empty and aborted (I even checked for partial embryos, but all of the other shells were totally empty, just the coat and the inner membrane.) So, as a re-growable item, it's all but a dead end.

Make that ZERO, the one "good" seed collapsed in on itself as soon as it dried (must have just been full of fluid).

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Made a rare trip to one of the few local farmers markets still open at this season on Saturday. Not that much to buy produce wise (it's more prepared and baked goods at this time of year). But someone did have a small number of cherry tomatoes left, and I was able to get a handful or so, in varying states of ripeness. Not sure what I have (basically took whatever looked greenish, whitish or purplish) , or when it will be ready (that ripeness thing). But there does seem to be one Green Zebra Cherry in there, so at least I'll get some seed out of the deal hopefully. I'm approaching seed saving pragmatically now, so everything else will have to be tasted before I make decisions on the seed (I'm good at getting just the gel into the container and fermenting that, so it is possible for me to taste a tomato AND save seed from it.)

So far, not getting great results. The "Green Zebra cherry" which it turns out is not a green zebra cherry (it's zebra, but the flesh is a mixture of green and red swirls once it ripened up), proved to have a trace of flavor, but most of the others so far have been more or less tasteless and, in the case of the other possible greenish ones, basically rock solid (I was careful to put the seed aside from the three of them, but, once I actually ATE the fruit walls, I dumped it all down the garbage disposal as pointless to save.)

There still are a decent number left, but those are pretty much all the same yellow kind (except for three sort of squiggly red ones, and a darker yellow plum shaped ones) so, unless there is a flavor bomb hiding in there, I doubt I'll be saving from any of those.

In other plant news, my parents surprised me with a new LED plant rack so, this year, I guess I actually WILL be able to start tomatoes when I am supposed to (i.e. in February indoors) as opposed to having to wait until it's warm enough outside they can go from sowing to into the ground in three or four weeks (which works, but REALLY puts them behind and cuts down on my fruiting season.) That is, if I can find my Jiffy Pots by then (I found a box of sixteen when I was cleaning my room, but I'm going to need a LOT more than that to do anything significant. those rigs with the soil in the newspaper don't work for me, they're too tall to fit in a takeaway "greenhouse" and too hard to move from container to container.)

 

[Branching Out]

In other plant news, my parents surprised me with a new LED plant rack so, this year, I guess I actually WILL be able to start tomatoes when I am supposed to (i.e. in February indoors) as opposed to having to wait until it's warm enough outside they can go from sowing to into the ground in three or four weeks (which works, but REALLY puts them behind and cuts down on my fruiting season.) That is, if I can find my Jiffy Pots by then (I found a box of sixteen when I was cleaning my room, but I'm going to need a LOT more than that to do anything significant. those rigs with the soil in the newspaper don't work for me, they're too tall to fit in a takeaway "greenhouse" and too hard to move from container to container.)

Congratulations on the new LED plant rack Pulsegleaner! It is spirit lifting to be able to have a small space with bright lights indoors, especially during the last dark months of winter. Keep us posted on how it works out for you!

 

[Zeedman]

Well believe it or not, I did save seeds other than beans this year. In fact, the members of the gourd family did really well.


Two Chinese bitter melons that I have been dehybridizing for years. "Unknown Chinese #1" (left) is a long one; I'm still selecting it for length & high yield. "Unknown Chinese #2" (right) is the top-shaped one in my avatar. That one produced better than it ever did, and appears to be stable. Had plenty of both to give away to my Filipino friends too. I'd post photos of the bitter melons themselves, but I doubt anyone here other than myself would ever be caught dead eating one.


Cucumber "Nippon Sanjaku Kiuri".


Luffa "Long Beauty". The green ones are edible stage. The seeds come from the mature, dry stage that can be cleaned & used as a shower sponge. The sponges from this one are softer & not as strong as those from "Joy" last year; but the vegetable yield was much higher. Got a tremendous seed yield from the 6 allowed to mature.


Squash "Bush Table King". I grew these years ago, and loved the true bush habit & short DTM. Then they disappeared from the seed trade. The seeds I'd saved, as I've mentioned elsewhere, were heavily crossed & basically unusable. Tried "bush" acorn squashes from two seed companies - both turned out to be vining. I'm glad to finally find this again. Due to weather & my being out of town shortly after flowering began, my hand pollinations were limited, and only one of those took. Fortunately the seed yield from that one squash was surprisingly large. A great 'winter' squash for limited space, but they don't keep much beyond December.

 

[Beanmad Nanna]

odd things when you have different things from that (or how I wound up one year with a pumpkin with a woody gourd shell inside it.)

odd things when you have different things from that (or how I wound up one year with a pumpkin with a woody gourd shell inside it.)

HA ! I think it was just hungry one night

 

[flowerbug]

odd things when you have different things from that (or how I wound up one year with a pumpkin with a woody gourd shell inside it.)

HA ! I think it was just hungry one night

cabbinalizm!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Just got my seed for Texas Walnut. Boy, when they call it the Little Walnut, there aren't kidding! Given the size of all of the other walnuts I have seen, when they called J. microcarpa "little" I assumed they mean a bit smaller than most, so maybe the size of a standard globe radish to a black walnuts ping pong ball size or so. But these things are only about as big as hazelnuts! This one might actually be describable as not for human consumption, if only because trying to crack a hazelnut sized black walnut equivalent is probably not even remotely worth the bother for the amount of meat you'd get out.

On the other hand, this makes their being a refutation of the statement that "Everything is Bigger in Texas" even funnier.

 

[flowerbug]

...
On the other hand, this makes their being a refutation of the statement that "Everything is Bigger in Texas" even funnier.

a bigger pain the butt to shell out...

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I did a double run to BOTH H-marts near me in an attempt to secure more of the wild mung beans and such while I could. The first trip was not initially part of the plan, but I could not find the empty bag I had put to the side from the last one for its expiration date (which would tell me which batch NOT to buy), so I had to go back to my "normal" one and double check the date. This actually proved to be somewhat advantageous, as, while check ALL of the bags, I noticed an "old" one I had missed last time (plus, I managed to scare up two package of frozen Chinese buns of the one frozen brand I actually find to be somewhat decent, and confirmed the new bottled ice tea I have become fond of is in fact being restocked for the moment.)

Between the two of them, I walked away with four bags to test. And while, regrettably, none of them proved to be the "correct" ones (it looks like the company must update the expiration date and switch batches quite often, as I found two bags with dates separated by only a week or two [ and remember, this is a dried, not very perishable product, so updating the date so often would not actually be all that necessary.]) I did not wind up TOTALLY empty handed, there were a smattering of bindweed seeds of various species (there pretty much always are, regardless of what else does or does not show up) and a few commoner domestic seeds (regular mung bean, regular rice bean).

The only odd thing was the presence of a lentil in one bag and of a LOT of guar seeds in two others (same batch). The bags say the senna is grown in China, and neither of these are crops I associate with there. Maybe where they are grown borders China AND India (or maybe they're growing it just for export or processing purposes, like how the chickpeas probably would up in the Korean "Healthy Bean Mix."