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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 21, 2012 17:18:37 GMT -5
Very nice, a little disappointed that no sky clad farmers are doing the pants dance. Lovely animation. So brainiac, now that you are fluent in Russian have you figured out how to get seeds from their seed bank? Siberia and Utah sound exactly alike from your descriptions.....snow and more snow. The Russians were some of the best breeders around. I'd be happy to be on a planet with you and Dar. You guys can plant corn and tomatoes and I'll figure out new ways to cook them. You'd need to bring a lot of books. I just found out the most popular topping on pizza in South America is corn. Do tell how you did the animation.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 21, 2012 19:10:06 GMT -5
I'm growing Kral Russian parsnip, and some melons for last year's trial came with Cyrillic names, (@#$&* ftp software replaced the letters with ? during a transfer), and I trialed plenty of Siberian tomatoes. The Russian plants don't seem to grow very well in my garden. I attribute it to a combination of: - Siberia tends towards low elevation. I'm at high elevation.
- Moscow is quite damp during the growing season. I am very dry.
- Moscow is frequently overcast during the growing season. I usually have brilliant-sunlight.
- Moscow has about 3 weeks longer frost-free period than I do.
- The daily variation in temperature in Moscow is about 20F. With my intense radiant cooling at night my temperature difference is closer to 40F.
I think that I'd do better swapping seeds with Mongolia: Seems to be a better fit with elevation and climate. The moving image is an "animated gif". It was created with GIMP. First I found pictures (the hardest part). I have a fence post that I set the camera on while taking pictures. That gets me a somewhat consistent frame of reference. If I do it another year, it would be nice to put a set screw or something in the post so the camera could be put in the same place every time. The basic method is to load the first image into GIMP. [@] Create a new layer. Paste the next photo into the new layer. Make it semi-transparent so that both images are visible. Align the new image with the original image. When finished make the new image transparent and repeat from [@]. Crop the entire photo to get rid of the unfinished edges created by aligning the photos. Save as "GIF Animation". Any photo editing software that uses layers could be used. I'm partial to GIMP because it is an open source project.
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jan 21, 2012 19:38:17 GMT -5
Mongolia would be a very interesting place to swap seeds with. They have many of the same animals we have here, which i find fascinating. They just seem to call them different names. They have elk, and prairie dogs and all kinds of other things that we have here. An interesting thing to know is that apparently they have a rare wild camel there too. Interesting for the fact that i believe ancient camel bones have been found in this area.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 21, 2012 21:30:41 GMT -5
Comrade Joseph (inski), what can you tell me about Joseph's 3x30?
By the way, your Russian letters looking like my swearing.
What about Kazakhstan?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 21, 2012 22:24:40 GMT -5
Comrade Joseph (inski), what can you tell me about Joseph's 3x30? What about Kazakhstan? Kazakhstan seems like a better fit to my climate than Siberia. Brrrr!!! They sure are cold over there tonight! Sill fairly low elevation, but drier than Moscow. I don't have a clue what 3x30 would be. Is my handwriting that illegible? The russian watermelons I planted were: Медовый Гигант, Огонёк, Подарок Солнца, Сибирские Огни (Honey Giant, Spark, Gift of the Sun, Siberian fires). Sounds like yellow fleshed melons to me.
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Post by grunt on Jan 22, 2012 0:31:36 GMT -5
Joseph, she's referring to your 3" x 30" butternut.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 22, 2012 1:35:06 GMT -5
Joseph, she's referring to your 3" x 30" butternut. Blushing... I didn't think anyone saw THAT photo. Oh duh! She got the drawing on the seed packet. I was so naive back then. 3x30 would be the third squash from the left in this photo if the seed packet is also marked 2010. If there was a 4x32 or something similar, then that was the squash on the end. I got the original seed from one of my neighbors. I'm guessing that it started out as Pennsylvania Dutch Crookneck. (If the packet is marked 2009, then my neighbor grew the seed. If it's 2010 I grew it.) Growing season for all of these was 88 days from planting until they were killed by frost. About 75% of the varieties planted didn't produce seed that year (2010), and those that did produce a fruit were barely started when the frost arrived. [That's only one cheese pumpkin from a whole packet of seed, and one Naples Long, etc.] They all grew in the same patch so pollen could have come from any of these (or other similar ones not shown). The row was planted largest to smallest, so similar sizes would have tended to pollinate each other. The row was 150 feet long, and this is most of the harvest, so it was not a good year for producing butternuts, but it was a great year for selecting for short season. Starting with the most well adapted parent, and having a longer growing season in 2011 seed from the 4th squash from the left produced 4 fruits like this. Seeds from the fruits on the right side of the top photo produced these offspring, and a truckload more. With the longer growing season they ripened on the vine. These are what I saved for seed from the small/medium patch. The X was made with a sharpie to indicate which fruits in the patch ripened soonest. Due to popular demand for small butternuts, this group is being split into a small fruited landrace and a medium fruited landrace. It's nice to be able to harvest butternuts... The first year I planted butternuts I got around 5 fruits. The photo at the top of this post shows most of the second year yield. Here's more of the yield from the 3rd year. There was another harvest similar to this. Seems like I have finally got some moschata germplasm that thrives in my garden. Like I often say, the third year of a breeding/selection program seems magical to me, when the desired phenotype is there in abundance. [The zucchini are landrace seed for next year, the crookneck are leftovers intended as decorations, I don't remember what the corn is.] My 2011 planting of the large necked-butternut failed to germinate. Hoping to give it another go in 2012.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 22, 2012 21:13:33 GMT -5
There's much about Joseph, hidden behind a veil of moshatas....
The box from Dr.K came, 10 kinds of Mixtas! I have never even grown a Mixta before. I'm a pepo/moschata/maxima girl myself.
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Post by canadamike on Jan 23, 2012 1:36:03 GMT -5
very very interesting reading Joseph!
Keep up the good work...
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Post by steev on Jan 23, 2012 11:37:46 GMT -5
So you would be a Mixta, Holly? Welcome to the landrace!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 23, 2012 18:23:45 GMT -5
Nothing to report about what's happening at the farm. Just more of the same... Snow, snow, snow. But I went out anyway and took a photo for y'all. The road I normally take was washed out last week. An alternate route has been abandoned to the snow until spring. The road to my other field that I didn't go to today is also washed out. I lost or misplaced a batch of potato tubers (Good thing there are tens of thousands of seeds)... But a neighbor that I let have the first cantaloupes of the season returned the seeds as promised, so happy day. Notice the envelopes full of seeds? Those are outgoing. About 1/3 of what's owed. Popcorn is finally done. I expect to get that mailed this week; weather and my family's health permitting. Still eating moschatas. Gads it's hard: Trying to get all the seeds into the same city at the same time so that I can fill envelopes. Big apology: Sorry that I forgot to write down the names of people I shipped seeds to. I had meant to send you personalized notes.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 24, 2012 0:05:13 GMT -5
Joseph, you look even buffer this winter than your last photos.
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Hawk
gopher
Posts: 22
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Post by Hawk on Jan 24, 2012 0:11:55 GMT -5
Hey Joseph, I see that wire cattle panel to the right of you. I had thought of using those this year to make a trellis over each of my beds for some of my vining crops...
I know how you feel trying to get all of your mailings straight! I mailed most of mine but I still have a few people left on my list to take care of...
Do you have Greek Sweet Red (C. Moschata) It is a favorite of mine. I sent some seed out to some people this year. One girl emailed me to tell me that she had 14 squash off of one vine. I am looking forward to seeing pictures of your landraces this year.
Thanks,
Jason
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jan 24, 2012 2:13:10 GMT -5
I buffed up 20 pounds this winter. I'm still wearing size 33 pants though, so I don't know where it's going.
Last I checked the price of "hog wire" as we call it around here was $25 to $32 per panel depending on width and mesh size. I'd love to use more of it. It's great as a trellis.
I haven't tried the Greek Sweet Red. It seems like it requires too long of a season for my garden.
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Post by 12540dumont on Jan 24, 2012 11:43:03 GMT -5
Joseph, I find the Archbishop's Druid Blog very enlightening. I see what he means about choices that are really not choices every day here on the farm.
For example, I can buy any number of giant gas guzzling combines to help me thresh beans and wheat and clean the seeds.
But there is no equipment available that is peddle powered, crank operated or even electric suitable for a small farm at a reasonable price. The equipment I found in India does not meet EPA standards (it was diesel) so that's out. The Cicoria from Italy cost more than my house and ditto what I've found in America.
What is the right size for the farm is only available if I build it myself, and as we all know, if it can't be built with a needle and thread or a measuring cup and spatula, I don't have the skills to do it.
Thanks for posting that link. Great reading.
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