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wind
Mar 29, 2010 6:41:58 GMT -5
Post by galina on Mar 29, 2010 6:41:58 GMT -5
littleminnie,
our plot can be quite windy. We get 60mph or more gales quite frequently around this time and again in September and early October. This plays havoc with newly transplanted peas and beans. I pre-grow all my peas and beans, transplant and firm in well to prevent windrock and use individual bottlecloches or other cloches for protection until the plants are established and less at risk.
Later in the year my tall growing ph vulgaris beans usually get shredded and often their support structures fall over or need re-enforcement. Ph coccineus beans stand up to winds better. We have a calmer period during the summer months. But if you have winds all the time, tall vegetables will be nearly impossible.
As ottowagardener said, keeping to low growing cultivars is a good choice. And maybe you need to invest in windbreaks, such as growing a hedge or rigging up semi-permeable fencing. The rule of thumb is that a certain height of fence or hedge will protect ten times that distance. If your hedges/fences were two metres high, they would protect an area twenty metres long from wind. In practice you will still get gusts from other direction than your normally prevailing (where you would place your windbreak), but much less of your garden will get damaged.
Crops such as Jerusalem Artichokes or sunflowers can act as a windbreak. Or a row of willow (this can be harvested regularly for making willow support structures for your vegetables. Effective, even though they are not a solid barrier. In a way a partial barrier is better than a solid barrier anyway because there are no eddies around the hard edges.
I hope you can arrange for windbreaks, else keep to short varieties.
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Post by galina on Mar 27, 2010 22:10:35 GMT -5
Wildseed57
I think we may have communicated about peas on another forum a few weeks ago. Nice to hear that you had such a good harvest last year. I hope all your grow outs will go well this year too. Spring Blush is an Alan Kapuler creation and quite new. There is nothing wrong with field peas, in fact some of them have huge seeds, although generally they are not very sweet. I love Golden Sweet, they look so cheery too. We like to make mixed pea salad, but it is a mistake to cook yellow and green pods together in the same pot. Cooked briefly and separately, they make an excellent salad in a French dressing with shallots. Looking forward to hearing how the new-to-you peas work out.
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Post by galina on Mar 27, 2010 9:07:51 GMT -5
Wildseed57
I notice that you have several cultivars ending in 'art'. The Dutch word for peas as far as I know is 'erwt'. Peas with the ending art are probably 'aert' or 'ärt' and come from Scandinavia.
Fruhe Niederige is most likely not Dutch either, as 'Frühe Niedrige' is a German phrase for 'early low growing'. The Dutch word for early would be 'vroege' - or at least that is what my early Dutch pea is called.
Witham Wonder can be googled, there are a few mentions of a tall growing pea. Hindukusch according to the John Innes Pisum database comes from Afghanistan (via a donor in Sweden).
Good luck finding more information, perhaps looking to other national collections in case of those peas that are not likely to be Dutch . And at European seed saver's organisations.
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Post by galina on Mar 26, 2010 20:17:40 GMT -5
Michael Here is a bit more about TSP. Sounds strong stuff. Perhaps a chemist can help. url: www.naturalhandyman.com/iip/infxtra/inftsp.htmlSeems to be used in decorating like we use 'sugar soap'. Cornishwoman, Vim is getting rare but still available in the UK.
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Post by galina on Mar 21, 2010 12:10:24 GMT -5
Robert you wrote: 'Purple podded varieties were bred as field peas for dried seed'. Yes, but there are also green podded field peas, some with black hilum.
I can just imagine how exciting and exotic Mummy pea and King Tut etc must have sounded to gullible folk. Same myths around some beans. 'New Mexico Cave' to name just one. Whilst these were apparently only 1500 years old and found in a sealed pot in a hidden cave, ie a good deal younger than these Egyptian peas, the allure is the same. Yep salesmanship is not a new thing :-) But it still grabs the imagination today.
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Post by galina on Mar 20, 2010 17:42:04 GMT -5
Thank you so much everybody. In a way knowing what to expect with Lancashire Lad makes me anticipate these even more. There is another Purple podded pea variety in the Heritage Seed Library and that sounds quite similar as far as eating qualities go, but not as tall.
Are you growing Mummy Pea, Robert?
Another variable in eventual pea stem height is the seed sowing date. The same variety started in February will grow a foot taller than started in April. Perhaps sun angle differences again? Lower light levels making the plants stretch versus stronger light later in spring? I would certainly include the sowing date in any comparison and mine are generally sown very early to avoid pea maggots. Kath, interesting that only Caruther's PP got attacked?
I guess all vegetable have a little more vegetation, larger leaves and lighter colouring the further north we go. I will let you know the final height of LL here. 8 foot supports pushed into the ground should be ok.
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Post by galina on Mar 19, 2010 10:33:08 GMT -5
Penny, Lancashire Lad is new to me this year. They originate from the Heritage Seed Library and are said to grow very tall with purple pods. Well they are two inch babies here, hardening off before being planted out under bottle cloches.
How tall were they with you? Did you eat the pods or shell them? Were they sweet? Sorry lots of questions here.
Robertb
We compared the heritage variety Dwarf Grey Sugar in three locations. They were truly dwarf in Colorado and needed no staking. In Maine they were two foot tall and here they were over four foot tall and needed good peasticks to keep them up. Pea plant length is latitude dependent it seems.
There are so many more observations we have the opportunity to make here. I am looking forward to it.
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Post by galina on Mar 18, 2010 17:35:23 GMT -5
This would not be the first time that a cultivar is sold as hybrid and is actually stable. Thanks for the info hiven. Just a matter of finding some fruit. Good luck.
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Post by galina on Mar 18, 2010 11:42:25 GMT -5
Very nice seedling rack and just about enough room :-)
How is the watering organised? Can't quite see the base layer below the trays. Is it capillary matting?
Is there a heat source? Is the function of the curtains to keep heat in?
Do I spot a cd player in the corner? Apparently Mozart works best for children and seedlngs :-)
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Post by galina on Mar 18, 2010 6:00:09 GMT -5
Great site, Hristo - the European Cultivated Potato Database is also included. A very comprehensive website.
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Post by galina on Mar 18, 2010 5:48:37 GMT -5
Many years ago I swapped a purple tomatillo, supposedly also purple on the inside - sounds like the Sandhill variety. Most fruits weren't very purple, some were even green and larger. The purple ones look exactly like Hristo's pictures. However just very occasionally I get a fruit that is fully purple, but not every year. Growing only from seeds of these deep purple fruits (which are smaller in size for some reason) the offspring is larger fruited and purple hued and not solid purple. I even get the occasional green fruited plant that matures to yellow-ish without a hint of purple from the deep purple seeds. A fully dark purple fruit appears only once in a while. It is not a plant full of deep purple fruits but a solitary fruit, and I have often wondered what genetic or environmental factors were responsible to create that. Even if I knew how to predict such a fruit/plant, tomatillos are outbreeders that cannot be 'selfed' as Castanea said. Saving seeds from the earliest, most purple looking fruits, I hope for the best and enjoy my not very uniform tomatillos.
As a rule, like others have said, the longer tomatillos are matured (both on the plant and off the plant) the more purple they get. I love them as mature as they can get for their fruity flavour to come to the fore. I can only guess that our very cool summer weather is the reason for that. Mine are greenhouse grown in any case as they are too marginal outside. This may be why Hristo's experience is so different.
One year I had a whole plant of exceptionally sweet tasting purple tomatillos. Stupidly I did not save seeds as the fruits were only slightly purple. The previous year Cape Gooseberry, Physalis Peruviana, was growing in the same greenhouse. Could they have crossed?
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Newbie
Mar 15, 2010 17:36:53 GMT -5
Post by galina on Mar 15, 2010 17:36:53 GMT -5
Hi and welcome. -.. . --. ....- -.- --. -.-.
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Post by galina on Mar 15, 2010 6:31:49 GMT -5
Yes but collecting seeds from an F1 tomato and growing them out will result in a very varied diverse F2 generation, where quite possibly none of the plants resemble the shop-bought Campari. The seeds originat from a Dutch breeder, Enza and here is their url: www.enzazaden.com/products/fruitvegets/tomato/cocktail/heatedcrops/campari.aspxThey can hopefully advise where in the USA these seeds can be obtained.
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Post by galina on Mar 15, 2010 6:06:13 GMT -5
Seedy Saturdays or Seedy Sundays have arrived in Britain too. The oldest and biggest is in Brighton. www.seedysunday.org/A long way to travel but I made it at one time about ten years ago and still enjoy the varieties I swapped then. Since then dozens of seed swap events have popped up all over the country. Quite often these are coupled to Potato Days. A Potato Day is an event where usually 100 or more different types of seed potatoes are for sale, by the individual tuber. Very popular events and a good chance to try out a small growing of new potatoes. www.potatoday.org/potatodays.htmAnd a great chance to meet other gardeners and swap seeds at the same time.
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Post by galina on Mar 14, 2010 15:15:42 GMT -5
Like Grunt, Robertb and Kathm I transplant all my beans and also peas routinely. Beans are best planted out at the two true sets of leaves stage. Individual paper pots or even toilet roll inner cardboard tubes are good for sowing into indoors, or the commercial product rootrainers.
After planting out (and firming in to avoid windrock, especially in cardboard/paperpots) each bean plant gets a cut-off plastic drinks bottle as a minicloche. However a group of newly planted beans can also be protected with frostcloth/fleece/remay if nibbling mice are not a problem.
Transplanting is a must in our climate where the last frost date can be as late as early June. We also have heavy clay soil and seeds tend to rot (especially white bean seeds which are more prone to rot). As we also have a hungry mouse population with a definite liking for pea and bean seeds, it all adds up to transplanting legumes to ensure a crop.
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