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Post by prairiegarden on Apr 29, 2015 13:23:15 GMT -5
registered in tomatoville. but have to wait to be accepted as a member before I can read any of the threads I wanna read:).
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Post by prairiegarden on Apr 29, 2015 13:06:36 GMT -5
Hi thank you! I will go over to tomatoville and see what is going on over there.
The main things I am looking for are plants with super flavor..if things don't taste good nobody will eat them so in practical terms nothing else matters much. Also,I am assuming, perhaps wrongly, that wonderful taste reflects high nutritional value. Has anyone any data on that? I'm looking for plants that are about 18-20 inches max (not including the pot,)as that should be tall enough to have decent size yields and fruit size (cherry size is fine) and the plants will FIT under lights. That light height will also accommodate some bush beans, peas, chard etc. They will have to have a degree of toughness (resistence to disease) as ventilation/crowding issues could lead to problems, and in an ideal world would be perennial.
There's a tomato called the House tomato which has been supposedly going for 10 years now, outside in summer and inside in winter, and that's intriguing. Being perennial is probably the least important thing though as people will probably want a break from time to time anyway.
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Post by prairiegarden on Apr 28, 2015 23:19:20 GMT -5
Sorry if this is a really dumb question but I'm wondering.. just had a conversation with someone about saving seed either from hybrids or even worse a hybrid crossed with an open pollinated corn and he insisted that the cobs will be horrible, inedible if they aren't kept in isolation from each other or if seed is saved from a hybrid.
Now that makes no sense to me but it's such am entrenched belief that I am beginning to wonder when I read that it takes three years to get a happy and settled result, and up to 90 % of the first years plantings are not considered worth going on with.
What exactly does that mean? Does the corn taste bad? Does it not form cobs? Does it just mean that it didn't perform better enough so it's out of the running or does it mean that for some reason it's inedible? Every seed catalogue burbles on about how this sweet corn MUST be isolated and how hybrid seed cannot be used to save seed or unnamed horrors will occur, but what? If I throw 5 or 6 varieties in a field together what can I expect to have happen and how do I tell if a cob is going to be edible or awful?
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Post by prairiegarden on Apr 28, 2015 3:37:16 GMT -5
Hi all. I've been spending way too much time on this site the last couple of weeks reading old threads and getting a tremendous education, thank you all!
I'm sort of doing the opposite of most of you in some ways, working on trying to find miniature veggies and design/maximize a "normal" (as opposed to a greenhouse) indoor space with LED T-8 growlights for growing veggies for people who have no way to garden outside. As someone pointed out on one of the threads, if things go bad then lots of older people will have a very hard time of it, many are already struggling. Youngsters have more options.
OTOH on some land I have I am also trying a bunch of stuff that isn't normally grown in this area, planted chestnut and butternut trees last summer,(also hazelnuts but they all promptly died so that was a disappointment, don't know why that happened). The chestnuts apparently put out a siren call to the pocket gophers as they turned up within a week in areas where they've never been before and between the gophers and the deer none the chestnuts made it. The butternut trees seem to be less enticing to the wildlife. This summer I'm trying the Australian edible sweet lupin that isn't supposed to need soaking/rinsing, so those will get started tomorrow. I've been putting it off because they supposedly have a tap root and dislike intensely being transplanted, but I think they need a longer season than we can promise so will see how that goes, the packet has NO instructions or days to maturity or anything on it, sort of bizarre, guess they must think everyone knows what they're doing. If only.
Presently dealing with a whole lot of sweet potato slips which have all come from one sweet potato that I got to experiment with way too early. It won't QUIT~ I've even eaten a mess of leaves and it is still trying to push out more slips. Looked up planting distances and was informed that I should expect a 8- 10 slips from a tuber. Hah. I've got about 2 dozen in soil in beer cups (space limitations!!) another dozen sharing 2 gallon pots and another dozen clipped from the vines that were getting tangled. Those last are just in water to see if they will root. So far everything has no matter what, these things seem to be about as indestructible as it's possible to be, as long as they don't get too cold. When they eventually get to the garden it will be interesting to see if they actually produce anything.
Also hostage to some squash and corn seed that were germination tests before I gave some some seeds to someone..the seed for the corn is about 6 years old and I got 100% germination, which was both surprising and gratifying. Admittedly a couple of plants are looking a little feeble, but a half a dozen are now about 2 feet tall and really in the way. Would they croak if they got transplanted outside and then hit by a (usual) late frost? The three germination test squash seed are from a winter squash that survived a late spring frost last year. It was a bit of a short season for it and I wasn't sure if the seed was mature enough to germinate but sprout they have..can't bring myself to toss them out when they're trying so hard to live so tonight they got put in some soil to do their thing and wait for another few weeks to go out.
Only failures so far were lavender (only two germinated and one got missed when watering so that was my fault) and white miniature cucumber.. all sprouted then tried to blossom when only 1 1/2 - 2 inches tall and the leaves all dried out.. some sort of virus maybe, don't know. Plants have to do their thing without coddling or they're outta here, no prima donnas allowed. Have about 2 dozen lucky leprachaun tomatoes blooming under the lights,a couple have tomatoes forming, will see if they produce anything worthwhile. It seems difficult to find good miniature tomatoes, would love to find one with at least cherry sized fruit, the flavour of Paul Robeson or Cherokee Chocolate,the plant size of these ones, but which will keep producing like a good indeterminate will. Reading the landrace plant breeding threads on here is inspiring some fantasies..
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