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Post by mskrieger on Sept 8, 2014 13:53:21 GMT -5
Please keep us updated on the sawdust saga. It's riveting.
And incidentally, when you get around to building Steev-henge, I've got a whole lot of megaliths for you here in New England, free for the taking. I'm sure your super powers will be developed enough then that you'll be able to sprint across country with them on your back.
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Post by mskrieger on Sept 4, 2014 19:36:59 GMT -5
You sure have a lot of squash! I'm impressed. Is Tahitian melon particularly good-tasting?
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melons
Sept 1, 2014 10:58:32 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Sept 1, 2014 10:58:32 GMT -5
Funny you should ask...indeed, Ken wrote me a very kind note this morning. He apologized and said he has no seed available for anyone anymore. Then he mentioned that, actually, he had been working with a group of local farmers, and they may have melon seed available this winter. We'll see.
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 28, 2014 12:27:40 GMT -5
Steev, what does redwood sawdust bring to the soil smorgasbord?
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melons
Aug 27, 2014 9:57:58 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Aug 27, 2014 9:57:58 GMT -5
Argh. Sorry to hear LI seed is no more. I found Ken Ettlinger's email address at Suffolk U (he was a geology prof, I think? ) and wrote to him. I offered to drive out and meet him. Haven't heard back. If there are any other LI Seed contacts who have access to the inventory and are willing to meet me, I will gladly go. I'm right across the water. 1254dumont, that's an awfully generous offer. I'll remember in October, and get in touch. I'll take any/all of the seed you'd like to share, even the reject seed. My soil and climate are dramatically different than yours, and the plants that perform poorly in Northern California (if I'm reading your lat/long correctly?) may be winners in my garden.
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 26, 2014 6:48:41 GMT -5
Kevin, That's too bad about the watermelon seedlings drying up. They're native to Egypt, I think--can you maybe plant them in sunken beds and flood the beds regularly? Have you tried it? I saw people garden that way in arid parts of central Turkey.
Watermelons can be very robust. A toddler down the street decided to 'plant' a full watermelon's worth of seeds in her parent's garden this spring, and they did shockingly well. We've been eating watermelons aplenty with those neighbors. Sweet and juicy. You just never know what will work until you try it.
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melons
Aug 25, 2014 5:55:07 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Aug 25, 2014 5:55:07 GMT -5
Ah, that's a good strategy. I actually did that with garlic, and it worked well--the local farmer's garlic did much better than the mail-order garlic in the same patch. Unfortunately, I've never seen a locally-grown melon in a market here! Which is odd. I'll have to ask around.
Actually, is the Long Island Seed project still operating? I recall they have a lot of melons, and my climate is very similar (I am just north across the Sound from them.) Anyone know how to get in touch?
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 24, 2014 10:40:43 GMT -5
Good call, blueadzuki.
As for the fingernail test, don't worry too much about rot. I do it all the time. In our climate, most gourds and winter squash will actually scab over and heal a shallow surface wound, such as that inflicted by a fingernail--I've had critters take a few bites out of a maxima (groundhog- or city bunny-sized bites), and had that fruit simply scab over and keep for months.
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melons
Aug 24, 2014 10:35:25 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Aug 24, 2014 10:35:25 GMT -5
Love hearing the good news, albeit I'm a bit envious. I tried growing muskmelons for the first time this year. Planted Gris de Rennes. The little vines grew and grew and grew, covered with flowers all summer....and not a single fruit did they set. I was about to give up on them, until I noticed a little striped melon hanging from a vine today. OK. Maybe we'll get one. Maybe next year I'll follow Joseph's example and plant a whole variety of muskmelons and see if I can set up a grex that fruits earlier in my climate. How do you guys decide which varieties to grow?
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melons
Aug 20, 2014 9:00:14 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Aug 20, 2014 9:00:14 GMT -5
do you think it is the genetics that produced a sweeter melon, or the unusually hot, dry weather you've been having?
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melons
Aug 19, 2014 8:59:14 GMT -5
Post by mskrieger on Aug 19, 2014 8:59:14 GMT -5
Mmmm, Steev, that sounds good. Do you think it is really descended from an Armenian cucumber? Or just looks like it?
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 6, 2014 13:27:28 GMT -5
Thanks for the tip. I don't have that type of picture account at the moment, so I'll remain imageless for now.
Good question regarding the aphids. It does look...kinda...like it could be aphid damage. I haven't seen any, though. My garden has had a posse of ladybug larvae on patrol recently. So maybe they swooped in and cleaned up? The problem doesn't seem to be spreading to other plants.
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 31, 2014 11:05:13 GMT -5
Or ya could just wait and see what their fruit is like. In my experience, desirable stone fruits frequently have desirable offspring. The fruit is usually good to eat (especially peaches and plums).
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 31, 2014 11:03:16 GMT -5
I'm growing celeriac for the first time. It's the 'Tellus' variety offered by Adaptive Seeds in 2014. Most of the leaves on most of the plants look very typical of Apiaceae--in fact, the plants are hard to distinguish from the parsley growing beside them. But some of the celeriac leaves look misshapen...they're curled down (imagine a hand with its fingers pointed down as if it's clutching something.) Is this a virus? A mosaic virus, maybe? The carrots and parsley growing alongside the celeriac all seem fine, and not all the celeriac has the misshapen leaves. In fact, some of the affected celeriac plants only have a few altered leaves, the rest seem normal.
So...anybody know what it is? (Sorry that I haven't been able to figure out how to post pictures on here yet.) And what should I do about it, if anything? I'm tempted to watch the plants and see if it has any effect on their growth, but will this eventually affect all the Apiaceae members in the patch?
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Post by mskrieger on Jul 29, 2014 12:26:09 GMT -5
OK guys, I have a new hypothesis: Maybe I mixed up the seeds, and planted my saved double-podded batch in the 'eating' patch and the original seed in the 'experimental' patch.
Why do I think this? Because the 'eating' patch has an awful lot of double-podded beans, while the 'experimental' patch is mostly single-podded. Huh. I guess nothing to do but save seed from the double pods in both patches. I'll save the experimental and eating patch material separately, and mark them when I plant them next year, and we'll see...
Meanwhile, the yard-longs have been super happy this year, and I'm getting plenty of delicious 16-20" long beans. No other weird ones besides that first super-early hairy podded thing.
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