So whats planned for 2010??

[raymondo]

This (southern hemisphere) winter I'll be growing some F2 of my long golden beet project and some F1 of my colourful cabbages and collards project, combining the glossy leaf of Green Glaze with the purple leaf of a red cabbage, provided I did get some crosses of course. I let the bees do that one. I collected some seed from my potato onions so I'll be growing these over winter and maybe trying to select for larger bulbs. I also had a garlic plant that produced good-sized bulbils. I'll plant those this month as an experiment.
In the warmer part of the year, I'll be growing the F1 of an orach mix (greens, pinks and purples left to cross at will), the F2 of my naked seed with good flesh winter squash project and a few plants each of various tomato projects. I'll also be bulking up a number of beans, tomatoes and corn and trialling a number of cowpeas and soybeans (for edamame) looking for early maturity. As usual, I'll be trialling sweet and hot peppers and eggplants looking for nice early varieties.

[kathm]

First post - be gentle!
I'm growing out my F2 generation of crossed peas this year - Lancashire Lad (British heritage purple podded) x Oregon Sugar Pod. Exciting this - my first crosses.
I'm also growing a selection of the crosses from a heritage tomato - Tiger Tom, with Sungold.
Got 2 types of potato from true seed that I want to bulk up too.
Oh, and I found a rogue bean in my Soldier beans from the Heritage Seed Library. The F2s from this threw up some lovely beans. I need to see if I can get any of those to stabilise as true lines.
So glad I'm retired. No time to go to work!

[ottawagardener]

Hi Kathm! Nice to get to the real work eh Selections of Sungold always seem popular. Interesting sounding pea cross. What are the TPS potatoes like?

Telsing

[ottawagardener]

My project this year: Buying a farm. It's put everything else on the back burner.

[kathm]

The original potato was Salad Blue and all the seedlings had some colouring. The two I've chosen to proceed with are a deep amethyst (which I'm caling Amethyst!) with a lovely flavour and waxy texture and the second's a slightly greyish spud, until you cook it when the main flesh is creamy but the inside is dark - also waxy textured. I'll have to call this Purple Heart I think!

Although I've selected from sungold - you can get some good tomatoes though some suffer from the serious splitting that the original is prone to, but the nicest flavours seem to come from the cross with the heritage tomato.

Wish I had a farm (only a little one though!)

[ottawagardener]

The potatoes sound neat. I like the purple heart's transformation. I've not tried any of the OP sungold selections (yet) just heard a lot about them. I'll follow your project.

[raymondo]

Welcome kathm. I've tried crossing peas but my hands get in the way. I'll have to be satisfied with watching your and Rebsie's projects unfold.

[kathm]

Hi raymondo - I do need my reading glasses these days!

[galina]

Just coming across this thread for the first time. There is still a lot of posts I haven't caught up with

I am extremely lucky (for pea crossing anyway) to be very short sighted and without glasses my vision at 2-3 inches is just perfect. Only problem is my hands are a little clumsy at times.