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Post by oldmobie on May 2, 2014 18:48:03 GMT -5
Did it rain after you planted those carrot seeds? Maybe that washed them to the edge if the pot wasn't level? I'm wondering if any of mine are left in my raised bed after 5 inches of rain the other day! Watered 'em in. Mystery solved, I guess.
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Post by oldmobie on May 2, 2014 17:55:03 GMT -5
Transplanted my kale and mustard today. (Blue square) It was my last cool season WinterSown jug. Looks like I'll be cutting my first lettuce later today! (Near left square). The direct sown lettuce scattered behind is still tiny. Probably nothing over an inch. What's up with my Michihili cabbage? (Green square) It's supposed to look like this: But instead I have this: I get that it's bolting. We had a week or so of pretty warm weather. But it's WinterSown! It was out there through frost! Where's the "head"? Did it just break the seed open and shove out a flower stalk? Oh well, I think that was all my seed. I guess I'll let it produce seed, and hope something in a future generation bolts slower, so I can select for that. Sad as it is, I think this is my best ever spinach production. (Left of the cabbage) I think I'll be sure to save seeds. And stick with WinterSowing for all my spinach. It seems to like it. May even experiment with overwintering. Somehow my carrots all came up at the edges of the "bed". (Pot) I transplanted some to the bare area in the middle. I want that to fill in before I thin the rest. Went with wood chips on the west end. Just finished putting 'em down today. Also planted the Rhubarb and the 2 new blueberries over there. One may be dead, but we'll wait and see if it improves.
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Post by oldmobie on May 1, 2014 10:02:53 GMT -5
Figured I'd try the landrace thing. I'm an utter failure at the purity thing. Can't get corn to reproduce "true" for anything... For years now I've planted bright pink corn from the farmstore, and every year, all I harvest is yellow.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 29, 2014 17:52:30 GMT -5
It's almost time to plant corn here. Aside from my red/ white/ blue popcorn project (discussed extensively in another thread) I'm mulling over the best groupings to incorporate these collected genetics into landraces. Maybe the best advice is to plant 'em together, only separated by purpose. (Dent, sweet, flint, etc.) Just see what clever traits emerge and select for those. I can do that. If more planning should go into it, now's my chance to take a little guidance. Sweet corns I have: Peaches & Cream Ambrosia My own saved seed from the above 2, most likely crossed Stowell's Hooker's True Platinum Last 3 in tiny quantity from a GardenWeb trade. Popcorns: Pennsylvania Butter Flavored Tiny blue popcorn Boyscout popcorn (variety unknown) Decorative: Rainbow Earthtones Dent "Indian" corn These decorative corns are pretty mixed together. (My kids helped shell it. It was their first time.) The varieties and what the seeds look like are all I know in most cases. I do have an ear of "indian" corn saved seperately because it has purple shucks. I have the seeds of 3 ears of blue popcorn saved seperately because they grew on one plant. I saved the seeds seperately for the ears of "indian" and blue with least bug damage. And I saved the seed seperately from my largest ear I grew. I think I want to do sweet by itself, my popcorn breeding project by itself, and the decoratives together. (Probably won't grind any, but I hear you can treat 'em like dry beans. I'd like to try that.) I'm also thinking a "mass cross" area, where I can see what emerges. I guess I want to know how to incorporate the size and bug resistence genes into the sweet corns and popcorns, without making them into flours or flints. Do I cross first, then select for sweetness and popability? Also, is there anything I'm just overlooking? Also, I noticed that my decoratives had better pollination than my sweets, even though they were in a smaller planting. (2' X 4', vs 3' X 8' for the sweet) Is that due to better pollen production? Less inbreeding? Anything hereditary I can select for?
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 29, 2014 14:42:38 GMT -5
Well at first I thought this was wild garlic but then I took a closer look at the leaves and they aren't flat like garlic. They are like onion leaves but I have never heard of wild onions. It does have a bulb and does not appear to have cloves. We have wild onions here, but they don't look like your pictures. They tend to grow in clumps of 20 or more plants, (never counted) and only seem to grow 6" - 8" tall.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 27, 2014 15:14:22 GMT -5
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 27, 2014 13:39:36 GMT -5
Did battle today with the section of yard we annexed into the garden last year. Extending the electric fence protected it from mowing, but we ran out of mulch. The result was that the grass grew up about chest high, in mounds so tight a shovel barely cuts through the roots. When it died back in winter, it left behind heaps of 2 1/2' - 3' straw. I cut that down with a tool I grew up calling a whim-wham. Then we gathered it in one corner and spread it out as our first layer of mulch. I figure given the chance, it'll pop right back up, so next comes cardboard and straw, unless we get woodchips by then. That's for another day, though. We just beat the rain today.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 26, 2014 21:57:07 GMT -5
We moved the burn barrels today from the corner of the yard where my wife wants to start her butterfly garden. Since we'll mostly be direct sowing, it's time to get started. (Sorry for not having any pics, but if you imagine a corner of a yard with no barrels in it, you'll get pretty close.)
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 23, 2014 12:01:15 GMT -5
Looking good. Is that you in your profile pic? I have to say, nice hair! That guy ís named Jeffrey Dallas. It's from his music video Akbar. The dorkiest garden related thing I could think of.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 23, 2014 0:02:46 GMT -5
Is that 2"x4" fence wire hooped-over, by the tire? Cattle panels. Did a great job last year for beans and cucumbers. Not bad for squash. Would have done well for a tomato longer than the one we grew on it. Guess I should try an indeterminate?
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 22, 2014 20:10:04 GMT -5
Finished planting potatoes and onions today. Potatoes are under the straw, our "spare" onions are in the tractor tire, in some of the concrete blocks and in the SW corner of the NW square foot bed. NE square foot bed of radishes coming along nicely. Ordered "Groundhog" radish seeds from ebay today. Gonna find out if those big ol' taproots really draw up nutrients and break up clay! My wife weeded for the potatoes, between the square foot beds, and between the strawberries today. The strawberries were just planted last year. We're hoping they'll fill in this year and crowd out the weeds.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 19, 2014 18:08:05 GMT -5
Plants reproduce on their own. How can it become illegal? If plants under a non-open license go to seed without my input, am I breaking a law? Violating a copyright? That kind of system is unenforcable. To me, that makes this open license redundant and unnecessary. No, you are not violating a copyright, but actually breaking a patent...and penalties for THAT are much stiffer. And as long as you are doing it for your own use (and that includes any crop from the plants in question), then no, there's not a lot they can do. But, try and sell them (crop or seeds) and see how 'unenforceable' it is. There have been farmers put out of business because the damn GMO crap spread to their crop, from neighboring fields. Here's just one of literally thousands of articles about this problem. www.dailytech.com/Monsanto+Defeats+Small+Farmers+in+Critical+Bioethics+Class+Action+Suit/article24118.htmAnd yes Monsanto does actively pursue it. Probably uncontrollable would have been a better choice. What you refer to is just what I mean. The farmer did nothing wrong; his plants and Monsanto's pollen did all the patent violation. It's wrong to punish the farmer for this! I think right solution isn't to make a new population under a Creative Commons type license. If the Monsanto pollen contaminates it, you're screwed again. The right solution, in my opinion, is for the courts to tell Monsanto "You realeased your plants into the world, Slappy, where they've continued to behave like plants. Suck it up. If you wanted control, you should have kept it at home." Then we wouldn't be trying to protect ourselves from prosecution because our plants behaved as designed.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 19, 2014 16:16:06 GMT -5
Plants reproduce on their own. How can it become illegal? If plants under a non-open license go to seed without my input, am I breaking a law? Violating a copyright? That kind of system is unenforcable. To me, that makes this open license redundant and unnecessary.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 18, 2014 21:48:28 GMT -5
Planted first 4' X 4' bed of potatoes into the ground in NE corner of garden. Supposed to be Yukon Gold, but look suspiciously white when cut. Cut eyes for the other potatoes and put on screens to dry.
Radishes coming up nicely. Onions starting to green up. Either lettuce and Romanesco are starting to come up, or I'm gonna have weed troubles in that bed.
Planted large patio pot with Swiss Chard on the north, 6" White Icicle Radish in the middle, and Sparkler / Cherry Belle mix on the south. A few white radish are for eating, but most are for seed. Hoping for a cross.
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Post by oldmobie on Apr 18, 2014 7:55:38 GMT -5
Welcome to the club, budfaux! It's a great forum & folks here don't tire of talking about gardening. I think you'll like it here.
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