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Post by farmermike on Mar 21, 2016 1:10:59 GMT -5
I continue to be really impressed with this Baart wheat I am trialing this year. I bought the seeds from NSS in 2011 or 12, and had excellent germination last fall. Sparrows mowed my rye and triticale to the ground, but they didn't touch the Baart. No matter how much wind and rain we get, it stands up straight and sturdy. We'll see (in a couple months) how well it yields and how easily the hulls thresh out. Apparently, the variety came from South Africa originally, and came to the U.S. (by way of Australia) in 1900. Seems it was very popular in the western states during the early 20th century. Anyone else have experience with this variety? I made my brother stand in the photo for scale.
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Post by farmermike on Mar 18, 2016 11:45:12 GMT -5
Good point, philagardener. I hadn't heard of those. Brussels sprouts that grow a bunch of little broccoli or cauliflower heads along the stem, instead of sprouts, would be pretty cool. But if it was possible, I imagine someone would have done it already.
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Post by farmermike on Mar 18, 2016 0:07:38 GMT -5
Does anyone have experience growing out crosses between very dissimilar B. oleracea varieties? I know there are crosses between broccoli and kale, or broccoli and cauliflower, but what about cauliflower x cabbage, broccoli x Brussels sprouts, or kohlrabi x anything? Am I likely to end up with anything useful?
Right now in my garden I have broccoli that is almost done flowering, Brussels sprouts that are just starting, and just a few cauliflowers that are at their peak of florescence. I imagine there are a few crosses between the broc and cauli, but I'm trying to decide if I should nip the last few broc flowers before the brussels really get going.
A couple of the cauliflowers are male-sterile Graffiti F1 that have a few seed pods ripening, so I guess I'm guaranteed some crosses there.
Any thoughts would be appreciated. Thanks!
Mike
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Post by farmermike on Mar 14, 2016 0:39:29 GMT -5
According to the CCC Rain Gauge, my nearest station (Concord, CA) has recorded nearly 4" in the past week--and has surpassed its annual average (17") by 3/4". Yay!! This doesn't end the drought, of course, but it's certainly a relief after the past few years. The last time I remember rain like this was the winter of 2010/2011.
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Post by farmermike on Mar 4, 2016 15:19:38 GMT -5
Wow! They were predicting rain to hit Pleasant Hill at noon today and it arrived right on the dot. Oakland is now 5" < NTD, with two months left in our normal wet season. steev , where do you get your weather statistics?
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Post by farmermike on Mar 4, 2016 0:53:59 GMT -5
Today I carved a windowsill out of an Incense Cedar branch that dropped upon a wire at work--on Memorial Day 2014. For almost 2 years the branch sat drying (summer) and mouldering (winter) in the scrap lumber pile. About a month ago I finally decided to mill it up, roughly, on the bandsaw. Today I spent the majority of the day planing it flat, carving it to fit the window, and sanding it smooth. It is a very messy business. Here it is after the first coat of finish dried.
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Post by farmermike on Feb 19, 2016 2:09:40 GMT -5
I think it is most valuable because that OSSI pledge printed on a seed packet introduces a new idea and encourages people to think about what kinds of plant breeding they want to support. Seems to me that this is the key point. I'm sure that the average seed purchaser would, otherwise, not think much about this. Thanks billw!
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Post by farmermike on Feb 18, 2016 1:14:01 GMT -5
After a couple weeks of spring-like weather (highs near 80F), a storm blew in today. High winds most of the day--my 7' tall Swedish Red soup peas were not at all comfortable. At one point I watched, through the skylight in my living room, as a higher layer of clouds moved due west, and lower clouds moved due north (perpendicular tragectories). I guess this is demonstrative of how our little valley causes swirling wind patterns.
Later, I drove up to Mt. Diablo and watched as the storm-front overtook Walnut Creek. Came down in buckets for a little while.
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Post by farmermike on Feb 14, 2016 2:05:59 GMT -5
richardw, in my experience figs grow very easily from seed. I have a couple of old fig trees in my yard (one with black fruit, one with green--don't know the varieties). Figs, from either tree, that fall and rot in my vegetable garden or potted plants, result in a little cluster of seedlings the following spring. I've been potting them up and planting them around. I don't know if they breed true from seed since none are old enough to fruit yet. But they are figs, after all--how bad could they be? I also grow them from cuttings by sticking them in a pot full of perlite (any time of year), and keeping them well watered--at least at first. If your seeds look viable, might as well give it a shot! Mike
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 13:05:09 GMT -5
They've cleaned out 100% of my last three plantings of peas. Yes, peas seem to be their seedling of choice. Although they didn't touch my recent row of Sugar Magnolia pea that was planted next to the Pima Club wheat!
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 13:01:01 GMT -5
I've been trying to achieve a balance between cultivating something enough for it to grow and leaving it neglected enough that they don't bother it. Good point, reed! I guess that's a good argument for leaving a screen of weeds around new plantings to act as camouflage until seedlings are hardened off. Better yet, maybe some self sowing arugula or rapini. I seem to remember Masanobu Fukuoka recommending the use of clay seed balls to protect grain seeds from sparrow predation. I haven't tried that yet. Seems like a lot of work. I've seen friends have reasonable success using them for native grass seed though!
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 1:25:44 GMT -5
Flocks of wintering sparrows seem to be my greatest obstacle to growing grains--any cool season crop to be honest. (They head north around mid-May, and return here in mid-October.) Here is a photo showing my Winter Cereal Rye (right), mowed down to an inch or two, and Baart Wheat (left) completely untouched. Both were planted at the same time. I'm not sure of the reason for this preference. I tasted a few blades of each today, and I think the rye was actually a little tougher than the wheat. The sparrows have also decimated both my sowings of Pima Club Wheat this fall/winter, while leaving other adjacent rows of grains unscathed. The first Pima sowing managed to sprout before it was eaten, but the second the birds dug up and ate the seeds within the first few days after they were planted (these were in separate gardens--miles from each other). I am baffled as to how they can be so uniformly discerning in their preferences for different grain varieties. Any ideas?
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Post by farmermike on Feb 12, 2016 0:43:33 GMT -5
The cauliflowers have been pretty hit or miss so far. I had a few nice heads, but quite a few of them got brown and rotten before they seemed large enough to pick. They are in a brand new garden bed, so maybe there are fertility issues and I should have harvested them small instead of waiting until they were a respectable size for a cauliflower. I also think that maybe some frosty nights (down to 26F), followed by a week of continuous rain in January, may have damaged them. Here is one of the rotten ones I tried eating. It was nasty. I got a few decent Graffiti F1 heads. My first Sicilio di Violetto is now ready. We will eat it tomorrow. This variety was planted at the same time as the others (end of August), but is a much bigger plant and about a month later to ripen. It is my favorite so far.
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Post by farmermike on Feb 1, 2016 2:01:06 GMT -5
The morning today was cool and mostly sunny (high of 54F), but in the afternoon a sudden squall came out of the northwest. My 2 year old was napping, so I decided to close my eyes for a minute, but was quickly awoken by howling wind and small branches clattering across my roof. When I looked out the front door I could see sheets of sunlit hail blowing by against the storm-darkened sky. It was very beautiful and dramatic, but then was over as quickly as it began (10-15 minutes total).
The kid slept through the whole thing without a peep.
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Post by farmermike on Jan 31, 2016 18:34:22 GMT -5
This winter is pretty much my first foray into growing small grains. Yesterday I planted a couple of test rows of Pima Club wheat and Burbank Hulless barley. I'm mainly looking for varieties that will be easy to thresh and eat as whole grains (like wheat berries or pearled barley).
I also have rows of Baart wheat, Forerunner triticale, and Winter Cereal rye that were planted in late November. The rye and triticale are surviving, but have been mowed to the ground by Golden Crowned sparrows. The Baart has gone untouched by them--for unknown reasons.
I've always been a little intimidated by growing small grains due to the economic reasons stated earlier in this thread, but the temptation of growing a crop that can be primarily watered by the winter rain (except in the worst drought years) is too much to overlook any longer. I'm hoping that my grains will dry up and ripen in May, when the soil does, just like the wild foxtail barley and oats growing out in the hills.
Does anyone know if these small plots (25-50 plants each) are large enough populations to do a seed increase, or will I need to worry about inbreeding depression? Eventually, once I have identified some easy-threshing varieties that I like, I will probably start mixing them into landraces, and continue to select for drought tolerance and thresh-ability.
Any other easy threshing varieties you can recommend?
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