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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 18:56:42 GMT -5
I got a report earlier today from another farmer that had almost no silking this year. he wondered if it could have been due to the extreme hot temperatures we had a couple of weeks ago. flowerweaver: I could imagine all that rain you had washing the pollen away before it could reach the silks.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 16, 2015 2:04:39 GMT -5
I threshed and winnowed the bok choi seed today. Looks like there is enough seed to plant 24 acres. If I kept it in the freezer I suppose that it would last me the rest of my life, and probably be enough for a lifetime supply for my children and grandchildren...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 15, 2015 23:12:21 GMT -5
I grow tobacco. I am totally disconnected from the social/cultural traditions of growing tobacco. (I think they're dumb.) Therefore, I treat tobacco like any other herb that I harvest and dehydrate: Pick the leaves, or the plant, and hang it in the shed to dry. No fermenting or curing for me. The climate is wrong to even attempt something like that. Then I take it down and crumble it after it is dry.
I prefer drying individual leaves, which I harvest as a leaf or two every few days starting at the bottom of the plant. If I hang a whole plant up, the stem keeps growing and trying to make a flower, and it takes a long time to dehydrate. Even individual leaves take a long time, because they have a waxy coating so they hold onto the moisture well. I suppose that if you are harvesting a lot of it, wear gloves. The wax on the leaves seems dangerous to me.
Even though I prefer to dry individual leaves, I feel like whole plants make better gifts to the shaman and medicine women.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 14, 2015 22:35:09 GMT -5
The bok choi seed isn't on the shelf yet...
I laid the crop out on a blanket to finish drying, in an area that I thought was safe. Turns out that it was right where the neighbor's irrigation water hits... They are probably fine... Peas laid out under the same conditions would have been in bad shape.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 14, 2015 18:48:51 GMT -5
It looks to me, based on fruit and leaf shape/texture/color, like there are three different plants in the photo...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 13, 2015 23:29:28 GMT -5
I harvested bok choi seeds on Friday. They managed to outgrow the thistles and bindweed.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 13, 2015 23:10:11 GMT -5
I've been watching the plantings of the diploid watermelon and the possibly tetraploid, and measuring leaf sizes to see if I can get an early indication of what I might expect... Some of the results were hard to interpret in the greenhouse, so I made small plantings in 3 different fields. I can't discern any plants among the possibly tetra population that I think might be seedless triploids. However, among the diploid/triploid population there are large-leaved plants and small-leaved plants. Possible that the large-leaved might be seedless triploids? Anxiously waiting... Sibling group: Diploid mother, possibly selfed, or possibly pollinated with pollen from tetraploid plants.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 13, 2015 22:58:41 GMT -5
Today I poked poles into the garden for the runner beans to climb. My daddy didn't plant any pole beans this summer making the poles available for the runners. I felt like the poles were charmed, because he has previously grown runner beans on them. So far this year, the runners have been grown perfectly as far as the farmer's behavior: Weeded and watered appropriately. (Just to keep things real, I ended up abandoning the red-podded peas in the colder field. Too many weeds.)
I planted one row about 125 feet long. Two plants were flowering profusely today. Many plants are runts and might as well be culled. Some plants had vines up to 2.5 feet long.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 12, 2015 18:40:57 GMT -5
I'm collaborating with another grower on a bush cantaloupe project. I sent her most of my seed, but saved enough to plant one hill just to confirm that the bush trait was present in the seeds that I sent her. This is being grown in an isolated field.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 12, 2015 18:30:15 GMT -5
I had given seed from the F1 cross to a collaborator. He grew it out last summer and gave me tubers. So I planted the tubers from his grow out in the next row over from mine. They all survived the winter fine, and are growing fine... F1 Sunroots: Also, both of us collected seeds from our F1 tubers. I planted some of them and selected the best of the F2 plants for transplant into the field. Three have survived until now. F2 Sunroots: I might also be inadvertently growing some of the [sunroot X annual sunflowers] that were mentioned in a previous post. I screened for some that may match that phenotype as seedlings, but last I checked I couldn't find them in the garden, so either they died, or I wasn't looking properly. By the way, I have a terrible sunroot-weed problem in the field where I have been conducting this project...
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 12, 2015 17:53:28 GMT -5
On Friday I spent some time staring at the plants in the weird squash phenotypes planting. Here's some photos. The fig-leaved moschata: Mottle-leaved maxima: Rough-margined maxima: Descendent of silver-leaved maxima: The mixta squash are planted in the next row over from the weird phenotypes planting. They're growing great for a change!
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 9, 2015 22:40:09 GMT -5
My potatoes are setting lots of berries this year: Even though I haven't weeded them.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 9, 2015 13:16:06 GMT -5
Presently, the seed pods look full sized, but still quite green. That seems like they are only a week or so from drying down. Do the cukes/squash need the room today? Or can they wait a week? Growth of squash in my garden this week is phenomenal. It seems to me that seeds become viable at a much younger age than our sensibilities would suggest.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 8, 2015 19:36:18 GMT -5
We had spotty thunderstorms last night. Two fields were soaked. One field was missed completely. One field got enough rain to be too muddy to want to work in but not enough for proper plant growth, so I turned on the irrigation.
Today I completely weeded the dry field. Then pulled red-roots, annual grass, and bindweed in one of the soaked fields. I weeded squash, runner beans, and melons. It was way too muddy to use a hoe. It started sprinkling and I kept weeding until it started pouring and it became too slimy muddy to hold onto the weeds. Best working conditions in a long time. I turned off the irrigation and declared a rain-day vacation.
The runner beans are looking really good this year!!! Thanks Holly and anyone else that sent seed.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 7, 2015 16:05:26 GMT -5
When I first started growing rye, it shattered in a manner that caused the ends of the seed head to break off. A seed head shattered in that manner looks like this: About 3/4 of the head has broken off and fallen onto the ground. So I have been selecting for non-shattering heads that do not break apart before I harvest them. Other types of shattering I have seen, are the seeds falling out of the heads too soon. I haven't been consciously selecting against that trait, but I have been selecting for seeds that are easily threshed...
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