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Post by templeton on Mar 13, 2014 19:52:56 GMT -5
Just harvested some quite ripe Farthest North F1 melons. Fragrant, colour change, slipping. Sat on the bench for a couple of days. Went to save seed from the best one,and all the seeds floated. Ditto the next best one. The third one, slightly overripe, had a half a dozen sinkers. But I left them sitting in the bowl of water for an hour or so, and now they have all sunk. Wondering which ones to keep. I thought cantaloupes/musk melons were like cucumbers, reject the floating seed, but the floating seed did look ripe, nice deep yellowy brown colour, not pale. And some floated on their sides, while others floated vertically, if you know what I mean. any advice? T
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Post by templeton on Mar 13, 2014 18:11:22 GMT -5
Richard, That's a kids toy shovel, right? Wow, very impressive. As to the root characteristics, I can't help. I only grew autumn - winter - spring to get them to flower and cross, at very close spacings, so I have very little idea of the vegetable characteristics. Here's a pic of my current F1 growouts of these lines, Halblange X F1 on the left, Kral X F1 on the right. These are somewhere over 8 feet tall, and the seed is just begining to color up. If anyone would like some, let me know. On a side note, I must improve my handwriting. I originally intended to call this Bendigo Bitza, as in Bitz of this and bitz of that, but in the venerable tradition of interesting transcription errors, (...send three and four pence <http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/08/26/reinforcements/>) I think we should let it stand - Bendigo Blitz it is (and I won't even suggest spelling it Blitnz...)
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Post by templeton on Mar 13, 2014 2:55:30 GMT -5
How does apricot wood go as a smoke source? Just pruned mine this afternoon. T
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Post by templeton on Mar 13, 2014 0:12:01 GMT -5
Phila, I wish I knew. Been trawling through the forum looking for this thread , so sorry for the late reply. I've got three plants of Plaza Latina growing, but only one is large and flowering. Hoping at least one of the tiny plants sets a flower soon so i can get a cross and save at least some seed. If the fruits develop before autumn crashes in. T
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Post by templeton on Mar 12, 2014 16:12:43 GMT -5
Thanks for all the advice, folks. I grew green sausage once, but it didn't do well for me at all - BER was horrendous, and low yield. As you suggest, BER has been a real problem for me with pastes - Opalka, Roma, etc. Suprisingly, the two Pastes I grew this year Scatalone and Ropreco had hardly any BER - maybe it was just the season, or my soil prep. I might go out and check the plants still standing and try for a late cross of Jap Black Trifele X Scatalone if I can find any flowers.Was just wondering how I might pick if the F1s are true crosses, then realised Scat is RL and JBT is PL, so should do the cross that way. This is handy - the JBT is in a spot where I can leave it to grow out for a month or so. T
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Post by templeton on Mar 11, 2014 4:27:20 GMT -5
FW, We've got that force field here too! I call it the Bendigo Rainshadow Triangle... cue spooky music...
Are we antipodal? T
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Post by templeton on Mar 11, 2014 4:18:41 GMT -5
I've just spent too much time this last week cooking down pasata from store-bought 'sauce tomatoes', and some piddling amounts of homegrown toms. The blacks make a great paste, but the store tomatoes take forever to cook down. Ray had given me some Scatalone paste tom seeds, which I cooked tonight - a revelation in processing time, so dry.
So why aren't there heaps of different coloured paste tomatoes? I've found a couple of black varieties are available in the US, but am I reinventing the wheel to try some black X paste crosses? Are the existing ones good? And what would make the perfect black paste? What characteristics should I look to combine? I could just start with the parents growing in the garden now, but I'm trying to be a bit more strategic... T
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Post by templeton on Mar 11, 2014 4:08:12 GMT -5
Thanks Steev. I'll fridge a couple of tiger snakes and pop them into an insulated envelope for you for some gopher control. Unwrap carefully, they get a bit cranky after winter I wonder if Richard wants some for the Shakey Isles... Ray, I found the TPS, will send. T
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Post by templeton on Mar 10, 2014 15:28:58 GMT -5
So, then I could harvest some tubers for eating and storing, leave some in the ground and they will resprout either later in the fall or next spring and produce berries/seeds when the conditions are right? Awesome! I never plant spuds. They just come up in Spring from the last summer's lot that got left behind. No frozen ground here of course. I actually wish I could get rid of them - rarely get a good crop since I don't irrigate them, and they host solanaceous diseases that get into my tomatoes.
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Post by templeton on Mar 9, 2014 22:28:06 GMT -5
Thanks T. My plant from seed is not producing pollen. I'll save some tubers though to take north. Ray, I found the old tps seed (from a Pink Eye plant) in my cleanout yesterday. Want me to send it up? T
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Post by templeton on Mar 9, 2014 3:51:57 GMT -5
Joseph I think someone posted here that the cylindrical peas are exhibiting the 'crowder' trait, which given your evidence might be closely linked to the snap gene. Again, it might just be a physiological response to the thickening of the pod. I'll need to check my growouts, if I get round to my snap projects this autumn. I've just been sorting my seed lots for a cooperative colored snowpea growout project I'm running on an Aust forum, and I've got a huge task sorting through the various lines to select which ones I'm going to go on with - yellows, purples, reds, snows, snaps, disease resistance, dwarfs and talls, sweetness and semileaflessness. I need a growout army! T
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Post by templeton on Mar 8, 2014 21:06:19 GMT -5
God I love this thread. A question on the red podded pea and Gregor Mendel. Does anyone know exactly which pea traits Mendel worked with? Did he use any purple podded varieties? I remember him crossing green and yellow pods. You have to assume if he had purple pod peas he would have crossed them and discovered Rebsie's red pea 150 years ago. 1. flower color is purple or white 2. flower position is axil or terminal 3. stem length is long or short 4. seed shape is round or wrinkled 5. seed color is yellow or green 6. pod shape is inflated or constricted 7. pod color is yellow or green from <http://anthro.palomar.edu/mendel/mendel_1.htm> Just getting out of summer harvest mindset, and beginning to think Autumn pea breeding T
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Post by templeton on Mar 7, 2014 7:25:30 GMT -5
I can feel a cut and paste to the 'soapbox' coming... T
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Post by templeton on Mar 6, 2014 1:43:13 GMT -5
i've had no problems not stratifying seed, Kevin. I sowed last autumn, and they were up pretty quickly. T
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Post by templeton on Mar 5, 2014 4:13:38 GMT -5
So, horticultural reward for my sloth!
I can forsee one downside - leaving it a bit too long, and losing the whole collection. T
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