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Post by littleminnie on Feb 15, 2014 21:38:08 GMT -5
I am trying to decide on what varieties to plant when. I will be doing 2 plantings this year (did 3 last year) in 2 long rows. cantaloupe basic Charentais collective farm woman Delicious 51 early hanover gnadenfeld hale's best hearts of gold honeydew rich sweetness Sugar salmon Mixed seed saved last year of c. melo black seeded ice cream BTM X Crimson sweet Crimsonx BTM early Canada golden midget moon&stars yellow orange tender Orangeglo strawberry sugar baby
mixed seed saved last year of cit. lanatus
I have not done any pure saving of melons because I don't have (don't take) time to hand pollinate. I was thinking being I am putting in 2 plantings hopefully several weeks apart I might be able to do some isolation by time. That is if I plant 52 melons/watermelons on 4/25 with cover until they flower and then plant the other 52 on 6/1 moving the cover there until they flower; well then I could do something like just orange watermelons in the first planting and red in the second or vice versa. I could also try that with the melons too. This first row would come out less mixed than the second being the first would still be flowering when the second was. Give me some ideas. As it is I would like to decide how best to lay them all out this year so I can tell which is which better than last year. 2 long rows with some distance between them will help some.
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Post by littleminnie on Feb 15, 2014 21:40:13 GMT -5
Now I am thinking, why don't I do that with squash too?
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Post by flowerweaver on Feb 15, 2014 22:18:06 GMT -5
I have some extra Earli-dew seeds if you are interested. It performed well here even though it's supposed to be for northern gardens. The original seed of this hybrid was purchased, but this seed was collected last year on my farm and it was grown with Tigger and Hale's Best, so there's really no telling what genetics it has now. I'm planning to mix it with Prescott Fond Blanc, Sweet Freckles, and Zatta this year.
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Post by MikeH on Feb 17, 2014 6:35:19 GMT -5
Now I am thinking, why don't I do that with squash too? We're starting to do that this year. The only problem that I can see are the C. pepo summer and winter squashes. A couple of years ago we had a volunteer that we let grow just to see what it was. The squash were huge, dark green, unribbed cylinders. These Zucorn aka Acchini were inedible - tasteless, dry, very hard. We're going to see if we can get around the problem by using a bit of permaculture design thinking. The Costata Romanesco will go in zone 1 since they are an ongoing harvest during the summer while the Thelma Saunders and Delicata will go into Zone 5 since they don't require a lot of attention until harvest time. For us Zone 5 is about 500 feet away in a meadow in our woods with lots of trees and other bee forage in between. It'll be interesting to see what Nature does with our plan. LOL What squash are you planning to grow?
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Post by littleminnie on Feb 20, 2014 19:16:24 GMT -5
I probably didn't explain myself well. I was thinking that by selecting certain varieties for the first planting and saving earlier fruits I could limit how many varieties are crossing and so veer the landrace in a direction. So I decided I will plant normal muskmelons in the first group and save the honeydews and other kinds of melons to the second group. That way the first seeds will be just crossed muskmelons. For the watermelons I am going to do the red ones in the first group and save them as just red crosses and then the second planting can be oranges and yellows. I will save seeds later with all varieties mixed as well but at least the earlier saving will be less diverse.
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Post by canadamike on Apr 20, 2014 19:16:20 GMT -5
I would suggest you select your mothers well and harvest from the most desirable ones, the ones with the most qualities you desire. Planting them close to daddies with good characteristics is very very far from certainty, but in mass planting it could help direct...the bees LOL!! Just help, not garantee the results...early Canada and Oranglo, a relatively early and good producer even up here, looks like a winning cross to me, I do not have time to do it now but it has been in my mind for years...for watermelons.
Gnadenfled and Charentais sounds very very sexy...again, since it is mass crossing, to increase chance, whatever your ideal combinations are, plant them side by side away from the others to help the maths against the bees...
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