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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jun 18, 2011 21:57:37 GMT -5
Irrigation water is working in my new field. I traded a pound of silver for used pipe. I've still gotta patch a few leaks, and trade out some of the connectors so that they fit together properly and can be moved easily, but it's good enough as is to keep the garden well watered. The water system in all three fields is now operational. The patch of corn on the left is 8 rows of Astronomy Domine. The row just to the right of the pipe is my landrace cantaloupe.  |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 2, 2011 10:10:21 GMT -5
Here's what my CSA family baskets looked like a week ago (June 22th):  Bok Choi, spinach, radishes, lettuce, turnips, baby garlic, and 5 flavors of green onions. Here's what my CSA family backets looked like on Wednesday (June 29th):  Walla walla slicing onions, cilantro, spinach, 3 flavors of green onions, chives, turnips, radishes, 3 kinds of lettuce, garlic. A few baskets also got swiss chard and bok choi. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 2, 2011 14:52:47 GMT -5
Hey Joseph! My wallas are bigger 'en your wallas. I harvested these last week for my CSA baskets! Spinach! All of mine bolted in one day. Granted it was 97 degrees, but I picked and washed spinach for 4 hours. Everyone in the CSA got a 2 lb bag. I still have 10 lbs in the fridge. Off to the night kitchen I go. I already froze a few pounds, so I guess I'll dry the rest. I'm jealous of your spinach. That's it for mine till fall. Too hot and getting hotter. Beetberry here I come. Summer Greens..ugh. The lettuce has turned bitter on me and it's arugula cousins are sending up flower spikes. I'm going to pull a row of lettuce and feed it to the chickens. It WAS so beautiful. Can you say Cold beer? Attachments:
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 4, 2011 14:24:10 GMT -5
Nice onions!
Don't fret about spinach. That was my last harvest of spinach and radishes. I tilled under the last of the row because it bolted and I didn't want it to contaminate my breeding patch. I'm betting that the lettuce will be too bitter by the next market day.
Fortunately, Swiss chard is ready to start harvesting. Carrots and beets will be coming starting within days.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 5, 2011 16:56:41 GMT -5
First Tomato of the season. This is two weeks earlier than last year, and 3 weeks earlier than 2009. That's in spite of our growing degree days for the season being way behind average. Variety is "Joseph's Earliest Landrace". This was transplanted into the garden after our last frost (about June 5th) without any covers. It is way ahead of "Early Girl" that were planted earlier, as larger plants, and under a floating row cover. Early Girl is blossoming, but hasn't set any fruits. Oh my gosh this plant breeding/selection is hard work, but it sure is paying off for me!!!  In other news: I planted my (alleged) 100% sugary enhanced sweet corn. About 10% of it germinated. That's great news! Because it is acting just like the commercial homozygous sugary enhanced sweet corn that I am used to: Fickle and unreliable. I planted a number of varieties of F1 hybrids between sugary enhanced sweet corn and old fashioned sweet corn. Just about all of them were reliable and grew robustly. Remains to be seen how they will taste. I'm leaning towards making F1 hybrids my main corn crop, and only growing the sugary enhanced as a pollen source. |
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jul 5, 2011 19:59:41 GMT -5
Good luck with the tomato and radish selections! Maybe you should try those black Spanish radishes. One of these days i may have to figure out which plants i would really like to grow, and then request "Joseph's earliest" of whatever that turns out to be. Our climates are slightly different, but close enough that your selections would pay off fantastic in my own garden. I was doing some corn selections today, and i came to an interesting thought. This year i planted my corn rows extra thick together. Most of the corn by now is starting to get large and of decent size. I went through and cut or pulled any corn that still looked like twigs. I wonder if by selecting this way, i will eventually get corn that can do well competing with each other, and maybe i'm unknowingly selecting varieties with deeper roots. I'm thinking that when planted close together the little twig sized corns maybe just have shallow roots and never grow very fast because they can't get to the nutrients. or maybe they were the last to germinate, and were unable to get to the nutrients. Either way, i'm thinking this type of selecting should lead to a more robust corn. eh? By-the-way Joseph, how are your watermelons doing? Mine are just barley starting to vine out now. They look healthy though. P.s., not sure if idaho is similar to utah, but here is a neat watermelon you might consider getting some seeds for. I think I'm going to buy a few for 2012. www.greatideas.icestorm.com/watermelon/ |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 5, 2011 21:08:06 GMT -5
I grew black spanish radishes last fall, but gave my seed away this spring.  I often weed out the weakest and slowest growing plants figuring that what's left is the stronger part of the population. I usually don't select for good growth in crowded conditions though since I like well spaced plants. The weather this year was very cold way past usual, so I (think I) had two failures in my breeding programs.... Of the 600 watermelon seeds that I planted only about 15 seeds germinated and are still alive, maybe 2% of the population. That is not enough for market let alone for a breeding program... One positive aspect of such dismal results is that many of the plants that survived came from seeds that I grew last year, and from a variety that my father has been growing for decades. It's used to our soil, pests, and fickle weather. The plantings were spread across 3 different fields and a month in time, so I'd have expected at least one planting to do well. I'm vowing that from now on I will pre-germinate watermelon seeds before putting them in the garden. So I get to repeat the seed collection process again next year since I have exhausted my seed stock of collected seeds. I still have plenty of my own seed. My cantaloupe plantings likewise germinated erratically across 3 gardens and a month difference in planting times, but since they were my own seeds I planted such an abundance that there are plenty of plants to select from. Some of the cantaloupes are already blooming!! My tomato selection program this year didn't go as well as I would have liked due to so many of the plants being killed by hail or drought, but I've identified about 3 plants that are much earlier in my garden than the rest. I managed to kill every last true potato seedling before it got established in the garden. I have tubers that I grew overwinter from a few varieties. I guess I'll plant them in pots so that I can bring them inside and baby them when it starts getting cold. But the potato breeding program is not a loss. I am growing tubers that were seedlings last year, and I am pollinating flowers, and have berries growing, and I'm trialling many new varieties. My technique for attempting potato pollinations is as follows: 1-Flick a blossom with my fingernail. If it releases pollen pick it. 2-Put the blossom close to the female part of another flower and flick it. 3-Flick against 8 to 10 flowers before the pollen wears out. Pick another flickable blossom. Repeat. I don't really care if they get pollinated or not, some plants last year were abundantly fruitful without any help from me. I figure that they be the same way this year, and perhaps I'll spread a little pollen around. My turnip seeds are doing great. I'm expecting to harvest them in about a week. Bean landrace is doing well. One pole bean showed up. Huh? Oh well, I might decide I like it. I harvested some of this year's parsnips and maltreated them with dehydration before putting them in the fridge in ice-water. I'm expecting to plant them out in a week or so. Seeing if they'll produce seed for me this year. I grew broccoli from seed for the first time this spring... They are every bit as early as the transplants, just not as big. I guess I aught to select some this week to go to seed, and put some surveyor's ribbon on them. I'm growing onion seed again this year. I am also attempting to grow my own onion sets from last year's seed. I planted seed on the longest day of the year. It has germinated. I'm not making any F1 corn seed this year (oops!!!) unless I decide to hand pollinate it and have se+ pollen ready at an appropriate time. The season got away from me. Problems with the irrigation system get me every year... I'm growing out plenty of crosses from last year, most all of them are doing very well. I would have liked to have grown beet seed this year, but didn't save any suitable beet roots overwinter. I am not growing carrot seed this year since I have plenty. I'm attempting to save lettuce seed for the first time this year... My pepper landrace is doing very well. Seems much earlier than in previous years. Butternut squash germinated poorly. Should be enough though. I'm also attempting to grow pepo squash seed. We'll see if I left enough isolation distance next summer. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 5, 2011 23:14:49 GMT -5
P.s., not sure if idaho is similar to utah, but here is a neat watermelon you might consider getting some seeds for. I think I'm going to buy a few for 2012. www.greatideas.icestorm.com/watermelon/Looking forward to growing it... Burley Idaho is about 900 feet lower in elevation than my garden, so the growing season there is longer and warmer. The high surrounding mountains may make my garden more susceptible to late/early frosts, but I'm sure glad I don't have Burley's wind! Our soils are radically different. Burley has volcanic mostly wind-deposited soil, I have limestone based lake-bottom soil. |
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Post by 12540dumont on Jul 6, 2011 14:55:38 GMT -5
Joseph, I put together a seed care package for you. Radishes, peas, cabbage. If I put it in the mailbox, the seeds will bake/fry/pop...so be patient, tomorrow I have a car and will drive them to the post office. Here's a photo of those purple peas from Alan Kapuler. Look in the bottom of the left hand corner, you can see some of the crazy tendrils. Alan's peas have more nutrition in them because they are purple. They were a very sturdy pea here. They pulled down the trellis! I thought these were very beautiful. I sent the yellow peas too. I didn't care for them all that much. They were not as sweet as my standard Amish peas. This fall I'm going to trial a snow pea jumble from Long Island Seed Project. Sugaree Snap from A.K., Schwizerriesen and Kefe Von Seengen from Solstice Seed. Somewhere over the rainbow there's a pea that does not get powdery mildew and still tastes great. I don't care what color it is! Attachments:
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Jul 6, 2011 15:53:07 GMT -5
Those hyper-tendrils are starting to get the better of my curiosity. I'm going to have to order a few peas directly from peace seeds now. I think I'll put a check in the mail today.
I was browsing a few sites the other day for some peas, and i do remember reading that many of their dwarf sugar snaps were mildew resistant. I'll try and find the link again. Otherwise, i'm sure if you look for some you'll find some listed as snaps and mildew resistant.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 7, 2011 1:32:05 GMT -5
Thanks for the seeds! Here's what my baskets looked like today (July 7th). The radishes and lettuce were from my brother's and my father's gardens.  Carrots grown from my landrace seed, Walla Walla onions, beets grown from my daddy's seed (he produced Swiss chard seed the same year, so about 3% of the plants are hybrids), Garlic which has been in the family for years (nobody has a name for it or even knows who originally planted it), radishes, broccoli from the nursery, Swiss chard from my seed, Simpson's black seeded lettuce from seed that volunteers in my daddy's garden every year (it's slowest to turn bitter of anything we have grown), cilantro (flowering already), (yellow or purple) green onions, snow/snap peas, and my turnips (not a landrace, just plain old purple top white globe which has been adapted to my garden). This will be my last turnips for a while since I flubbed up and didn't plant enough. Ooops. And the conversation piece for my table this week:  Considering the amount of labor it required to trial so many varieties of tomatoes over so many years, and the expense of obtaining many hundreds of varieties to trial, the price I put on it was akin to a grand-prize giveaway. Alas. My neighbors didn't have the vision of what that tomato could mean to our village!!! Can you imagine? Tomatoes three weeks earlier than any other variety? And finally for what it's worth. Someone asked when the Astronomy Domine sweet corn will be ready. (A long time still, it is right on schedule for corn around here: Knee high by the 4th of July.) |
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Post by synergy on Jul 7, 2011 2:06:44 GMT -5
Joseph, i am such a neophyte gardener but quickly appreciating how a landrace developed variety is superior to name brands. Our native plants thrive like weeds and my open pollinated heirlooms are like nurturing orchids. I need to search out plants for a moderate cool pacific coastal climate and try to develop some of my own stock I think .
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 7, 2011 2:44:17 GMT -5
Synergy:
You are a very lucky lady! There are lots of great seed companies that grow seeds near you. I often cuss when I get seed grown in the pacific northwest because it is not at all adapted to my super-arid sun-drenched garden. The only one that comes readily to mind is "Wild Garden Seed". Also "Lupine Knoll Farm" may be able to get you in contact with other Oregon growers.
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Post by mnjrutherford on Jul 8, 2011 4:23:48 GMT -5
Yup, that little tomato might be worth a whole lot more than $100. I think you need to keep it!
Our Astronomy Domine is all gone. We are still waiting for the Cherokee Squaw and the Trucker's Favorite along with the popcorn. The wax corn is plain amazing considering the weather and lack of rain. Likewise the sunflower/corn patch I planted behind the shed.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 8, 2011 8:47:11 GMT -5
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