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Post by billw on Apr 3, 2013 14:05:31 GMT -5
47. I don't need to black out. They grew very well last year with no interference. I'm just thinking it might be a way to check for varieties that are more inclined toward earlier tuber formation.
Earlier is better because first frost here can happen anywhere from mid-October to mid-January. A hard frost in mid-October would probably leave me with very little oca.
It would also be nice because everything is soaking wet by the end of October and harvesting a lot of oca will be unpleasant. I might want to put a low tunnel over them just to keep the soil drier.
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Post by billw on Apr 2, 2013 21:28:05 GMT -5
It makes a nice winter salad green. Helps to balance out all the kale and cabbage.
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Post by billw on Apr 2, 2013 18:54:32 GMT -5
I just got hit by this for the first time. I have ordered many packages from overseas, including a number that have specified for example "tubers and plant material" on the customs form, that came through without a hitch. So, I was feeling pretty confident when a friend traveling in Peru, Bolivia, and Chile for the past month asked how he should ship the 40+ varieties of oca and ulluco he collected for me. I told him all in one box That was a mistake!
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Post by billw on Apr 2, 2013 3:07:22 GMT -5
I start carrots in late September for early spring harvest. I sprout them in a sprouting jar, mix the sprouted seeds into a large amount of water, and then pour them down a row (have to re-mix every few feet). I come back and cover them with a little sifted compost.
Might be a good technique for those of you who have trouble keeping them moist enough to germinate. There is also the better known board method - sow seed, water, then cover with a 2x4 or whatever scrap you have until they sprout.
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Post by billw on Apr 2, 2013 2:32:18 GMT -5
Clearly I need to grow enough to try them cooked. The tubers that I didn't have to save for this year were all eaten raw. I was surprised by how much they taste like apple, given that I have read that the cooked product tastes more like potato. They were just sweet enough that we wondered if they might not make an interesting pie ingredient.
I wonder if blacking out might be a way of screening for varieties that are less daylight sensitive. Figure out what the typical minimum blackout time is and then work backward from there, screening promising varieties for progressively smaller blackout periods.
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Hello
Mar 31, 2013 19:40:23 GMT -5
Post by billw on Mar 31, 2013 19:40:23 GMT -5
BillW, tell me about Skirret and scorzonera. We're just getting started with Skirret, so I don't have a lot to report yet, other than that germination is extremely slow and irregular. From a sowing in early Feb, I got some seedlings after two weeks and I still have new seedlings coming up now. Scorzonera... the root tastes like salsify, which IMO, doesn't taste very good. But, I read in one of Carol Deppe's books that it makes a good perennial leaf green and that has turned out to be true. It makes pretty tasty salad greens for most of the year and comes up nice and early in the late winter around here. It makes a great dual use crop if you like the roots, but I'd rather eat a parsnip or parsley root.
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Hello
Mar 31, 2013 3:12:52 GMT -5
Post by billw on Mar 31, 2013 3:12:52 GMT -5
Excellent - then let me ask you a question, richardw. What spacing do you use?
I've seen advice ranging from 30cm to 1.5m. 1.5m is much larger than my plants got last year, so I think that I'll throw that one out. But, last year, I spaced them at 30cm in row and that seemed too close, so I may have stunted them.
Lacking clear information, I've been planning to space at 45cm this year.
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Hello
Mar 29, 2013 20:04:07 GMT -5
Post by billw on Mar 29, 2013 20:04:07 GMT -5
Yes, indeed. I am about to take the dogs on their walk to the beach and will return with my daily 10 pounds of seaweed for the garden.
We grow just about everything that we can find time for. We have more space than time, so it is always tempting to go too far.
* Small fruit. We have about 20,000 square feet of raspberries, gooseberries, sea buckthorn, hardy kiwi, and Chilean guava.
* Garlic and onions. We make do with potato onions and shallots for all our onion needs. We probably have about 12 varieties of garlic, but we lost track of which was which and just plant them all intermixed.
* Beans - mostly runner beans and broad beans.
* Brassicas - we can grow most year round, so I always have cabbage, brussels sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, kale, mustards, kohlrabi, turnips, and rutabagas in some stage of growth at just about any time of year.
* Corn. Typically we fail at corn, but I grew some flour corn last year and it did OK, so I am going to try it again.
* Curcubits - Cucumber, achocha, and bitter melon. I am planting 25 varieties of bitter melon this year in an attempt to get something that will tolerate a cooler climate.
* Peas - Mostly tall peas, although we switch to short peas in late September because the tall peas can't handle our fall windstorms.
* Peppers - As many hot peppers as I can cram in our hoophouse. No peppers will grow outdoors here.
* Tomatoes - However many I need to plant in the hoophouse to keep my wife happy. I only like them green.
* Potatoes - We'll grow about 1000 pounds this year, of which we'll consume about 300 pounds and 700 pounds will go to feeding our ducks.
* Carrots and parsnips. I just harvested the last of our summer planted parsnips today and they are going to be delicious.
* Squash. Spaghetti and a mix of winter squashes. This is always a gamble. Some years I get some, some years I don't.
* Salad greens. This is the climate for greens, so we grow just about every type we can find. Our staples are lettuce, escarole, mache, orach, sorrel, and spinach. There are only about six weeks a year where greens aren't growing.
* Other stuff / oddballs. Skirret, maca, fuki, scorzonera, mashua, root parsley, rampions.
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Post by billw on Mar 29, 2013 16:09:40 GMT -5
Kale... chips? Those are two words I would not have expected paired.
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Post by billw on Mar 29, 2013 16:00:31 GMT -5
Perhaps I could also select for a dark colored speckled pea so that even if a bug bite existed on the seed that it wouldn't be obvious. Now that is an ingenious solution and appropriate to the nature of the problem as well. I love it!
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Hello
Mar 27, 2013 16:16:49 GMT -5
Post by billw on Mar 27, 2013 16:16:49 GMT -5
There are tradeoffs, raymondo. It is very hard for me to grow a tomato outside.
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Post by billw on Mar 24, 2013 7:11:28 GMT -5
I've tried just about every OP cauliflower I could find.
For spring sown, Amazing, Early Snowball A, and Goodman were the best.
Closely followed by Minute Man, Snowball X, and All the Year Round.
Not so great: Snow Crown, Igloo, Lecerf, Snowball Y. What I received for these may be in need of some reselection as the results were pretty variable.
For fall sown, Winter Roscoff, Leamington Giant, Autumn Giant, and Galleon, from best to still pretty good. Autumn Giant might be a spring-sown variety as well.
If I could only grow one for each season, I would grow Amazing and Winter Roscoff.
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Post by billw on Mar 23, 2013 1:58:43 GMT -5
Do you get a lot of rain? The ground rarely freezes to any significant depth here, but we get a heck of a lot of rain. Well drained soil doesn't mean much when the water just keeps dumping out of the sky. I tried Yacon three years running and it died every winter. Looks like it just rotted. If I plant it in spring, it will grow, make tubers, and then die over the winter whether I harvest the storage tubers or just leave it alone in the ground. I tried storing tubers in sand over the winter and they rotted. Then, I gave up. Sorry, that probably doesn't inspire.
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Hello
Mar 23, 2013 1:51:12 GMT -5
Post by billw on Mar 23, 2013 1:51:12 GMT -5
This forum kept turning up in my web searches with the answers I was looking for, so I figured I had better join.
I'm from the wet side of the wet side of Washington. It is a more difficult gardening climate than you might expect and I am on the road to a lot of locally adapted varieties, having given up on most of what was available to purchase.
My biggest new project for this year is a large growout of oca (about 300 plants) and ulluco (about 50 plants) after tinkering with them last year. I'm most interested in getting seeds from them, although we certainly won't mind having a lot of oca to eat as well. As for ulluco, I would love to eat it if I could get it to grow larger than a marble.
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Post by billw on Mar 23, 2013 1:16:21 GMT -5
We have Red/Yellow raspberry - R. idaeus Malahat, Tulameen, Caroline, and Anne. 64 feet of each. Conventional raspberries and all very good. Malahat is the best tasting, but least vigorous.
Eastern black raspberry - R. occidentalis Jewel. 32 feet. We've had them for several years, but I just don't like them as much as red raspberries and often think about pulling them out and replacing them.
Western black raspberry - R. leucodermis. 16 feet. Very tasty but not productive.
Salmonberry - R. spectabiliis. 64 feet. Earliest cane fruits and this is their ideal habitat, so they grow very well. I have selected superior clones from the wild for our planting. I get good yields, but it is hard to guess how much is the result of better plants and how much is the result of cultivation.
Emerald Carpet - R. calycinoides. A little patch. It doesn't do much. I got a berry once and it was bland. Not a very vigorous ground cover for us.
Formosan Raspberry - R. formosensis. 16 feet. Flowered and fruited six years ago when I planted it. The fruits were tasty. Hasn't set fruit since, although it grows well. Whatever it needs, we're not supplying it.
We also have tons of wild blackberries - Himalayan R. armeniacus, Evergreen R. laciniatus, and trailing blackberry R. ursinus. We keep them somewhat trimmed, but it is basically a wild patch. Himalayan blackberries are so vigorous and invasive here that there is no reason to cultivate. If we stop cutting them back at the edge of the field, they will grow 12 feet onto the property in a season. Trailing blackberry is tasty, but not nearly as common. Its growth habit - sprawling on the ground - makes it difficult to manage as anything other than a wild plant.
Also wild Thimbleberry - R. parviflorus. Not enough. We have some growing on the property wild, but I have had a very difficult time getting it to grow where I want it. Very tasty, but frustratingly difficult to get more plants and fruit.
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