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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Aug 25, 2016 0:11:14 GMT -5
Will you continue with all of those lines or pick out a couple favorites? I have really been enjoying the HX-clade of tomatoes... This clade combines my longest-term favorite tasting tomato, Hillbilly, with the variety that scored highest in my cold tolerance tests, Jagodka. I'm intending to drop most of the lines, and only carry a few of them forward. The lines I am most excited about are determinate plants with yellow/orange/bicolor saladette tomatoes, (2 to 4 ounces). They were originally created as part of the promiscuously pollinating tomato project. Most of them didn't produce open flowers, but some of them produced very early, highly productive plants with tomatoes that actually taste good to me. They are worth keeping around. I may do another planting of the F2 seed, just to grab more of these types out of the mix... Here's what some of the fruits look like. The top row is like the parents of the cross. Below that is a fruit like the F1 hybrid. The rest of the tomatoes are F3 fruits from various lines...  Jagodka was a parent to another cross in the promiscuously pollinating tomato project in a mating with DX52-12 which was the Campbell's Soup variety for this area. I haven't yet isolated open flowers from the clade, but I am feeling amazed at it's productivity. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 9, 2016 0:02:30 GMT -5
I have been using a calorie/nutrients/work program the past few days. When I finalized today's entry is said, "To maintain your current weight you can eat 2943 more kcalories today. I am fully sated. I don't know how I'd even begin to add another 2900 calories to my plate today. I love farming!!! Yesterday I harvested tobacco, wheat, and hull-free oats. Today I harvested tomatoes, tomatillos, orach seed, and the early dry beans.  High Resolution Image I harvested a cold tolerance bean trial a few weeks ago. I might want to start planting beans earlier than I have in the past. I have now grown two generations of some beans that survived frost when 99% of other beans died. I have enough seed now to do a serious trial. To follow-up regarding the HX-13 clade. I stopped measuring harvest and collecting seed after harvesting the fruits shown in the following photo taken after the 3rd harvest. I made the 4th picking today, and set them aside for the farmer's market. Harvest of HX-13 clade prior to today's harvest.  |
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Post by steve1 on Sept 9, 2016 2:08:54 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse - you are doing some serious work when you can add another 2900 calories to your plate. Love the frost tolerant beans too. With beans like those we could probably grow them here for 9 months of the year.
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Post by imgrimmer on Sept 9, 2016 14:33:23 GMT -5
There is a frost tolerant bush bean variety in Germany called Eisbohne looks the same as the yellow beans on your photo. Surely a coincidence but interesting.
I did a frost trial with all of my runner bean varieties last year, actually it was more a cold test because temperatures were slightly above the freezing point. I found many survivours but only a few of them fruited. Which is strange as the same varieties fruited without problems the years before. the cold must affected them somehow.
The F2 is growing right now in the garden. I hope for a good harvest.
Good luck for your trial!
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Post by keen101 (Biolumo / Andrew B.) on Sept 13, 2016 20:32:56 GMT -5
The bean that did the best for me both for heat tolerance and for frost tolerance two years in a row was the yellow zuni four corners bean. Similar pattern to the red/maroon anasazi bean, but yellow and white.
I don't think i got a single pod of Runner Beans this year. I even had hoped to get some purple podded runner beans from the Aeron Purple Star seeds a nice guy from the UK sent me by request (http://aeronvale-allotments.org.uk/aeronpurplestar/). Sadly i didn't see any. But Joseph might be interested in those since they are actually descended from a cross between a purple podded non-runner bean and a runner bean.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 14, 2016 6:00:14 GMT -5
I have been growing two runners at opposite ends of the garden this year. One hasn't bloomed at all, and it looks like I won't get any seed back. The other, Moonlight, has been blooming fairly prolifically for a while, but only started to set pods when the heat broke a few weeks ago. When I checked it yesterday, it may be shutting down as there are no new buds or blossoms visible. I will get seed back but a low yield for a runner. Must be the strange weather we have had this year.
Moonlight also is supposed to have common runner in it's ancestry, but the EU company that bred it has been pretty tight about details.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 25, 2016 15:08:02 GMT -5
Here's what my landrace tomatoes looked like at market yesterday. I didn't grow any production tomatoes this year, only breeding lines.  I've harvested about 30 pounds of dry beans so far this season.  I had fun at market this week.  Snow will be down into the valley before long.  |
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Post by jondear on Sept 25, 2016 17:20:59 GMT -5
What a bountiful looking table!
Did the recent tornado in Utah have any effect on your area?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 25, 2016 18:18:48 GMT -5
Did the recent tornado in Utah have any effect on your area? I'm disconnected from the news-media and from pop-culture, so I didn't even know that tornadoes had been reported. The closest was about 50 miles away. My farm received about 5" of rain from the storm, which is among the heaviest storms in my memory. The squash vines in one field got rolled up into wind-rows. Some of the squash fruits absorbed so much water that they split open. Tree branches came down all over town. So basically a non-event at my place. |
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Post by jondear on Sept 25, 2016 19:37:51 GMT -5
I was hoping you'd catch a break seeing how you had late frost and early frost. The last thing anyone needs is weather related chaos when bringing in the harvest.
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Post by richardw on Sept 25, 2016 20:58:43 GMT -5
Your display stand looks very good.
Do you get anyone asking "what variety of tomatoes are these?"
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 25, 2016 23:49:09 GMT -5
Do you get anyone asking "what variety of tomatoes are these?" They ask it all the time about every crop... I end up saying, "They are Lofthouse ______, a variety that is unique to my farm." Except with daddy's garlic. We still call it Lofthouse Garlic, but we say that it's the garlic that daddy's been growing since before anyone now living can remember. Because daddy's memory is iffy. The farmer in the booth next to me considers variety names to be a trade secret. People that have been buying from me for a long time come up and ask things like, "When will YOUR dry beans be ready?" I actually named a tomato this year. I am calling it "Wild Zebra". To me, it's tied for first place as the tastiest tomato that I grow. It doesn't look like any other variety, so it's easy to pick it out of a flat of tomatoes. |
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Sept 28, 2016 0:19:04 GMT -5
I've been enjoying harvesting the squash. I'm down 70 pounds from my maximum weight, so showing off a little. The day I harvested squash, the calorie/work counter that I've been using said at the end of the day, "You may eat another 4100 calories today to maintain your current weight". Bwah, ha, ha!  There were two squash this size in the XL fruited population this year. I'm expecting that next year I'll only plant seeds from the two squash like this, and forget about the big moschata pumpkins. One of my local friends suggests calling it XXXL moschata squash.  The lagenaria snake squash are finally growing well enough that I don't mind eating some along the way. There are plenty left over for seeds. I'm intending to grow some from a tree next year to try to get straighter squash for a local artist.  The piles close to the camera are for seed. The piles on the sidewalk, and in the crates are for market.  |
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andyb
gardener
Posts: 179
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Post by andyb on Sept 28, 2016 1:03:46 GMT -5
According to my encyclopedia of food values, you can apparently eat a 10 kg squash for dinner and still maintain your weight. I'm betting you have a moschata in one of those piles that would work.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 28, 2016 6:18:59 GMT -5
Joseph Lofthouse , those squash are looking great! andyb , we will know when he turns an even brighter orange! 
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