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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 23, 2015 9:09:28 GMT -5
oldmobie and kazedwards: I'm glad that you are working on this and having success. The traits of different cultivars, and even the same cultivar from week to week, are so variable that it's hard to make generalized statements... But I'll attempt something along those lines anyway. I start removing bulbils about the time the sheath around the bulbils splits (plus or minus a few days). I tend to remove the sheath, and then come back in a day or two when the flowers have de-compressed to remove the bulbils. Then come back in about a week and remove the bulbils I missed. Waiting too long (on many varieties) causes the flower head to crack apart, which leads to the flowers dehydrating early. I have plenty of flowers so I typically abandon split flower heads. Bulbils on some varieties are so loose that they pop themselves out of the head. Other varieties have bulbils that are so tightly held that I abandon them to their fate. Slightly older bulbils tend to be easier to remove, the trade off being to remove them before the head splits or they crush the flower stems.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 22, 2015 12:10:37 GMT -5
Hmmm. Sprouts eh? Sounds like dangerous living... Micro-greens on the other hand might fit within my comfort zone...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 22, 2015 0:25:30 GMT -5
I've been trying for years to grow bok choi... Direct seeding doesn't work here I suppose because of the aridity and/or the flea beetles. This year I set out transplants that were big enough to outgrow the flea beetles, and keep their roots in the soil moisture. (I have to plant bok choi months before our irrigation system becomes active.) I don't know if I'm a Beaniac yet, but I'm getting there: This field has something like 1800 row-feet of beans in it. Looking North: Those 'white buildings' behind the corn is the apiary. Some of the colonies have filled 2 deep hive bodies and 3 honey supers. We are doing the year's first extraction soon. Looking East Today when I quit work, I was about 100 row-feet short of having the whole thing weeded. The planting contains oxbowfarm's segregating hybrid, the Dutch Brown segregating hybrid, and Carol Deppe's resilient bean breeder segregating hybrid. I planted some bulk landrace seed, but mostly I sorted by type and planted like-kinds together. Sure makes it easy to see differences between types. There is a row of runner beans about 120 feet long. I stuck poles in for them. There is a short row of yellow tepary beans, and a mystery species that I am tentatively calling cowpeas. Some of the segregating hybrids are sending out runners. I'm still undecided whether to cull them or save them. The corn is Astronomy Domine. The row of squash is medium sized moschata, and medium sized maxima. I found some volunteer Chinese long beans in the tomatillo patch. I'm hoping to give them some poles to climb. Three rows of tomatillos, with fallow ground on either side... (That's the gentle way of saying that I didn't get it planted this year, and the weeds have claimed it as their own.)
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 21, 2015 23:40:57 GMT -5
I noticed there are many small watermelons forming in the watermelon patch. That's a good sign. Joseph Lofthouse, how are your watermelons and corn, and sunflowers, and peppers doing? My watermelons are doing really well this year. We had some weather that was much hotter than normal when they were small, so they really thrived. Here's what the main patch looked like a few days ago. There are a few marble sized fruits. There are about 5 plants in this planting who's mother had red flesh. The rest of them have been yellow-fleshed for at least two generations, though they were grown in a field that contained red-fleshed melons. I planted them as sibling groups, but they are all grown together now... I am growing 11 other hills in different fields for the seedless watermelon experiment. Here's what my flour corn patch looked like a couple days ago: I'm calling this 'Harmony'. It is the Keen101 hybrid swarm pollinated by South American Flour corns. I chose to grow flour corn this year instead of popcorn. I also threw a few hills into the planting that were flour corns sent to me by Holly, Alan, and others. Some of the sweet peppers are currently flowering. I need to weed them this week, then I'll be done with them til harvest. I planted them as sibling groups, so that should make selection easier. I flubbed up on planting, and didn't get the 'Giant Seeded' sunflowers planted this year. There are plenty of feral sunflower weeds growing in a corner of a field that I didn't get fully planted this year.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 20, 2015 22:59:21 GMT -5
No telling where honey comes from out in the desert...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 20, 2015 19:57:05 GMT -5
Lol! Steev beat me to the punch line....
We put some colonies far out in the desert where there was no alfalfa nearby. It came back dark as heck, and the most delightful of any that I have ever harvested.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 20, 2015 11:55:13 GMT -5
It was raining when I got up at 6 AM, and it's still raining at 11 AM, so I'm declaring a rain-day vacation. I skipped one of my irrigation-turns because of rain last week. I typically irrigate in spite of rain, but there was plenty of moisture in the ground.
I still have about 500 row-feet of beans to weed, then I can mostly be done weeding for the year. The crops are getting big enough to take care of themselves.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 19, 2015 1:45:39 GMT -5
Older one is too weedy for pics. Sounds like my garden!!!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 18, 2015 23:32:14 GMT -5
glenn10: I have only grown a few of these at a time... For example, I checked yesterday and found 3 bush plants out of about 80 plants in the general muskmelon patch... So I haven't tested their weed suppression capabilities in larger patches. They sure suppress annual weed seeds, I don't know how well they might do against bindweed.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 18, 2015 0:05:06 GMT -5
Found these flowers on a Golden Jubilee (Orange 6-7 oz fruit, Indeterminate) plant in the garden this morning Joseph. Very Nice ethin!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 22:47:18 GMT -5
My grass would choke out your thistles & bindweed. In that case, please send grass at your earliest convenience...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 22:32:52 GMT -5
keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.): I was in the cantaloupe patch yesterday and noticed that there are at least two bush plants growing among the normal muskmelons. That is pretty typical... The bush trait originally showed up in the general patch, and most years a few show up. So I'm already making the crosses, I'd just need to save seeds from them and plant them in a separate field for a year or two.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 22:19:46 GMT -5
The Jagodka plants in the greenhouse are all dead. The [Hillbilly X Jagodka] F2 plants are indeterminate and growing strongly. They're not currently flowering, but they are ripening fruit. The [DX52-12 X Jagodka] F2 plants are still growing, flowering, and ripening fruit, even though they are determinate. The [DX52-12 X Jagodka] F2 plants in the field have mostly started flowering. Most of the flowers are as industrialized as can be. I haven't found any yet with the open anther cones of the mother of the cross. I did however find two plants with very exerted stigmas. [DX52-12 X Jagodka] F2 plants: exerted stigmas. I also found this flower on one of the landrace plants: Huge petals, and exposed stigma. Also, turns out that I have already been growing tomatoes that have something to contribute to the promiscuous pollination project. This flower is from a dehybridized SunGold plant (about F4). With Solanum habrochaites as a presumed parent of the cross, it looks like it may have something to contribute to the project. Too bad I didn't grow SunGold this summer. But I am growing one SunSugar plant... Hmmm. I wonder what crosses I aught to be making? Dehybridized SunGold. Tomato flower with exerted stigma and huge petals.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 21:57:34 GMT -5
my garden is full of grass Wanna trade? Your grass for my thistles and bindweed...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 21:55:40 GMT -5
It's hard for me to tell exactly, because with access to a greenhouse this year I planted many different varieties of tomatoes at many different ages and times. With that written, my earliest tomatoes this year were:
Stupice Jagodka Matina Potato Leaved Bradley Something out of Joseph's earliest landrace (not Matina or Jagodka) Solanum pimpinellifolium, the most total fruits eaten so far, but very small. SunSugar
I missed planting SunGold this spring. Boo Hoo. But I do have some dehybridized segregates of it growing.
The earliest slicing tomato was "Wispy-leaved Slicer"... It was earliest last growing season as well.
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