CSA vs Baskets

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Honeydew: good work on the seed saving! I think that saving one's own open pollinated seed is a great way to get the beginnings of a locally-adapted landrace. Modern tomatoes cross at about 5%. So you might find something new if you plant enough of them.

I'm planting 2 plants each for the named tomato varieties that I don't have much hope for being early, and 5 plants for those that are expected to be very early.

Yikes... I thought I had a short growing season.

I have a few fuddy-duddy's that want everything to look exactly like Wal*Mart, same sized, same colored, etc: just not among my family-basket people. One fellow complains several times a year about the zucchini not being exactly 5" long.

I have a hard time getting people to try sungold tomatoes, even though the flavor is preferred by just about everyone that actually tries them.

Lots of people though like variety: multi-colored sweet corn, mixed cherry tomatoes, mixed radishes, mixed greens. This year I'll be offering mixed colored green beans. The lady that offered mixed beans and mixed carrots last year did good with them.

My summer squash are always mix and match: Around 5/$1 regardless of shape, size, or color. Yellow scallops sell OK. Light green scallops not too well. Light green has easily damaged skin. Yellows travel better. I'd expect striped and dark green to sell OK. I bet a zephyr would sell best of all.

I grow land-race peppers so they are red, yellow, chocolate, blue, green, orange, etc... I usually separate them into normal sized peppers and small peppers, and then put a price tag on the bin so many per $1 mix and match. I don't grow huge sized peppers because I don't want 3 different size bins.

I really like the strategy of fill this bag with whatever will fit for $___.

[littleminnie]

There were gold cherry tomatoes at Sam's Club today and they taste just about like summer picked Sungolds! So I was happy that people can get used to them and want them at market. Although colored tomatoes for me are getting easier to sell for the most part. Colored carrots sold extremely well last year, but beans not so much. Beans don't sell well no matter what.
I wanted to grow Zephyr but decided not to spend the money. I got a mix summer squash packet so who knows what will be in there. Also Dundoo PM resistant zucs.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

My daddy sold the heck out of green beans last summer at the farmer's market. He packaged them into 1# bags laying them perpendicular to each other in the bag. (I forgot to plant green beans last summer during the irrigation upset.)

[honeydew]

What about heritage varieties? Have I read that they cross easier? And I guess letting the bees have access to the flowers will help too. I have soooo many seeds I could never plant them all. Will they mostly grow as their parents did with a wild card here and there? This year I will be more deliberate in this project.

I will still continue to save pure seeds of several varieties too.

I was thinking about the zephyr, but am still undecided. I have always grown open pollinated or heritage varieties, maybe grown a handful of hybrids total. I was thinking the same thing though about it being a good market variety. I'm not sure what I think about it personally.

Are you growing the hybrid version of the Sungold or the OP variety? Somehow that's one that I managed to miss getting this year. Oops.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I've heard that (older) potato leaved tomatoes are more likely to have female flower parts that are more accessible to insects or windblown pollen. I expect to transition much of my tomato crop to cross-pollinating varieties and mostly eliminate the in-breeders.

I don't know if I started with F1 or OP sungold tomatoes. I'm currently growing an open-pollinated and/or segregating population. Since I'm growing land-race tomatoes, I don't even know if my sungold is stable or not. I just throw some sungold fruits into the fermenting pot every summer along with whatever other cherry tomatoes I am saving seeds from. On modern OP tomatoes chances are around 95% that the offspring will be just like their parents.

[mjc]

Mar 3, 2011 22:07:19 GMT -5 honeydew said:

What about heritage varieties? Have I read that they cross easier? And I guess letting the bees have access to the flowers will help too. I have soooo many seeds I could never plant them all. Will they mostly grow as their parents did with a wild card here and there? This year I will be more deliberate in this project.

I will still continue to save pure seeds of several varieties too.

I was thinking about the zephyr, but am still undecided. I have always grown open pollinated or heritage varieties, maybe grown a handful of hybrids total. I was thinking the same thing though about it being a good market variety. I'm not sure what I think about it personally.

Are you growing the hybrid version of the Sungold or the OP variety? Somehow that's one that I managed to miss getting this year. Oops.

Tomato flowers are so far down the list of preferred flowers, most bees wouldn't go near them if they were the last ones around. There are a couple of tiny bees that do go for them, but they are the exception to the rule.

As far as crossing...basically anything, except currant tomatoes, from the last 100 yrs or so (and most before that) falls in that 5% range...in other words, they aren't really great crossers. But, that said, since they are prolific seed producers, 5% could give you quite a few crossed seeds.

My personal guess is that there is more change produced by selection/reselection than there is accidental crossing. Of course, purposeful crossing doesn't count.

[honeydew]

5% - so if I planted 20 seeds I could expect one different one. Hm. So here's the stupid question - ready?

How do you end up with a landrace when tomatoes don't like to cross? Locally adapted = landrace? Even if the tomatoes look the same as the originals?

Joseph this must be why you are trying to select outbreeding tomatoes?

Isn't Brandywine potato leaved? I last grew in '08 so can't quite recall. Would you plant next to other potato leaved varieties with desirable traits?

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Mar 4, 2011 1:19:12 GMT -5 honeydew said:

How do you end up with a landrace when tomatoes don't like to cross? Locally adapted = landrace? Even if the tomatoes look the same as the originals?

Joseph this must be why you are trying to select outbreeding tomatoes?

Isn't Brandywine potato leaved? I last grew in '08 so can't quite recall. Would you plant next to other potato leaved varieties with desirable traits?

I think of in-breeding landraces as multiple varieties growing together side-by-side as a group rather than as individual varieties. Chances are really good that it's the same varieties every year, with a little bit of cross pollination going on.

Lets take cherry tomatoes as an example: Say that I plant sungold, and yellow pear, and red cherry, and chocolate, and plum, and red pear, and Matt's wild cherry, and mock-roma and six other varieties of cherry tomato.

Then towards the end of the growing season I take my bucket out to collect seeds for next year... The chocolate variety only produced three fruits. That's a poor yield so I don't save the seed. Every fruit on the mock-roma had blossom end rot so I don't collect the seed. One variety didn't mature in my short growing season so I don't collect the seed. 60% of fruit on one variety was cracked so I don't collect the seed. And one variety died from powdery mildew early in the growing season. So I have eliminated 5 varieties that are not adapted well to my garden. I pick the fruits from the remaining 9 varieties and throw them together into the fermenting bucket. At that point they are a locally-adapted landrace. Cherry tomatoes tend to cross-pollinate more readily than larger tomatoes, so I may get some crosses and/or segregating going on as well. I can't do DNA analysis, but what I can do each year is save seeds from those individual plants that grow well and don't save from the poorly growing ones. That leads to locally adapted plants. I plant some seeds from older generations every year just to make sure that I'm selecting for the average local conditions, and not for one very unusual growing season.

My long term intent is to observe the tomato patch, and find varieties that are attractive to pollinators (either because they offer the pollinator something, or because the pollinator can eat into the blossom to steal something), and find varieties that have exposed pollen receptors and/or more open blossoms, and then to inter-plant these varieties together as a land-race and see what develops. I'm expecting that early on I will pay close attention to the brandywines and the cherry tomatoes, and maybe even do some un-bagged hand pollinations with modern varieties to mix things up.

Not to set preconceived notions on things, the out-crossing tomato project might also involve identifying a local insect that likes pollinating tomato blossoms, and figuring out ways to encourage higher population levels of that particular insect.

I have always kept the cherry tomatoes far away from my other tomatoes. Starting this year I will be inter-planting them with the others. I'm not expecting to be working on out-crossing tomatoes this summer, just setting the groundwork, and breaking away from my schooling.

[honeydew]

Okay, that makes sense to me. Thanks.

I did, without meaning to select that way when I saved some of my seeds. Obviously, I didn't save what I wasn't happy with for whatever reasons.

[littleminnie]

gosh it suprises me how many people save tomatoes without isolating them. I would do that for my own seed needs but wouldn't be comfortable telling others it was a certain tomato if I didn't isolate it. I don't isolate beans for saving though. I do one pole and one bush and they are separated by space and time. I have a lot of borage near my tomatoes and it self seeds everywhere so that brings the bees in and probably gets them on the tomato blossoms more.

Joseph, I too found beans more interesting to people when laid down all facing the same way. I pick them that way and lay them in a lettuce box or something and then remove and box for sale, but the bags sound way better! I did steamer bags of some veg last year but was uncomfortable about it because that implies they are ready to serve and I don't want to sell veggies that people don't need to wash themselves; that seems like a bad idea. But in a regular bag not trimmed would be good so it is easier for people to trim them. It doesn't take any more time to pick the beans all facing one way.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

I wash root crops. Other things go to market unwashed. I might take a rag with me and wipe a bit of dirt off here and there.

Thanks for the hint about picking beans...

[zephyrbird6a]

I'm following this thread, it has some very interesting discussions. I wonder how we all got so crazy about maters!!

That's cool about laying the beans straight. I'm going to try that this year at market.

I want to say I'm very lucky here in SW Michigan because CSA shares are getting to be very popular. We have a vibrant, growing farming community (yes, growing!) and some very cool farmers markets. We have a population willing to try new things and to take risks. Area restaurants are all up in the "locally grown" fad so times here are good.

I wish you all could move here!

[honeydew]

Littleminnie I know what you mean about the isolation of tomatoes. When I first saved tomato seeds, I was pretty clear on cross-pollination issues, but since then, have started growing so many more varieties side by side (out of necessity) and have gotten bees. I saw bees on my tomato blossoms last summer. That's where I got the idea of saving seed to see what would grow out of it. What I am still a bit unclear on is whether the flower is pollinated BEFORE the bee is able to visit it. The way I understand it some are, some are able to be pollinated before they open anyway. And if so, does it accept more pollen from an insect and other flower or is it too late. It's just you read one thing, and think you've got it, then read another and it gives you another question, and now I'm not 100% sure anymore.

I guess a real close look at the blossom of any particular variety tells you if it self pollinates before opening or not, I must do that next year and keep track.

That being said, I can't think of one time where I passed on seed that was potentially crossed without saying so. I'm going on the assumption that any extra purchased seeds I have are pure.

I always hope that I receive seeds in the same condition, but of course there is no guarantee, it's nice to be able to try something new, but if for whatever reason I wanted to be 100% sure of purity, I would probably buy it from a trusted source once I knew it grew good in my conditions and was well liked (my kids are so picky, bless their little souls!). I'm not rich enough to buy every variety that I see that interests me!

[littleminnie]

There is a thread about saving tomatoes without isolation on the idig forum.

I heard another idea the other day somewhere (think in a magazine) to have people pay ahead and then have credit at your market stand for more than they paid.

[12540dumont]

Here's one of my CSA Boxes. I own two per customer. They trade an empty for a full. They go home with the wooden boxes. I have them tagged with their names. They put their check in the empty box, along with canning jars and vases, saved egg cartons etc.

Everyone pays a deposit to join. $25. The only refund is if I have a total crop failure. It keeps the crazies away (mostly).

It's a no choice system. Everyone gets the same thing, unless you have an allergy. Say you are allergic to onions, your box is tagged, NO ONIONS. I don't substitute.

Everyone gets the same amount. For example there were 9 zukes this morning. I need 8 for the CSA. So, I got the other.

As a result of the constant picking, of course I'm constantly planting. And I really really hate it, if I get behind and don't get something planted. A pox on all inspectors. I missed one whole corn planting.

My folks seem to like the diversity. They like the blog. They can use it or not. Also, I'm flexible. If you're going to be gone and you notify the day ahead of your delivery. I don't pick for them and I don't charge. I have had 5 people drop out in 8 years. 10 more took their place. I drop the boxes off at a local store that's open late. The store gets my customers, and the store gets me more customers.

This year I turned away customers. When the produce is coming in gangbusters, I will take a summer add-on just to be able to use the produce. Or, I'll deliver extra produce to the store, people try it and join the following year.

I also dry produce and can produce to make my season go longer into the fall. Dried beans, dried tomatoes, jam, jelly, salsa and hopefully this year if Joseph tells me what to do about the corn disaster, there will be dried posole, and polenta! With winter squash and early fall veges, I should make it till December 15.

All my customers have my e-mail and phone number. They can drop me a note and say easy on the hot peppers or please more salsa!

A note about the canned food. Without a commercial kitchen, I can't sell it. But I can give it as gifts. It's these "gifts" that make my CSA very popular with the 9-5 crowd.

I have found regarding recipes, that if you give them the things they need to make a recipe, they'll try it. For example, if I want them to try pizza, I not only send tomatoes and peppers, but the basil and other dried herbs and a canned tomato sauce.

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