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Post by davidp on Aug 19, 2017 6:23:46 GMT -5
Is selection for long storage why you save and plant in spring? The choice to plant in Fall or Spring, for me, is based on two issues: 1) Yes, as you've noted, I do want to select for storage for at least a portion of my crop. There will come a point when I can't possibly consume all the short-storage onions/shallots before they go bad. So, I'm prejudiced in favor of longer-keepers. That said, there will definitely be part of the harvest which will not survive the wait through winter to spring. But I'm prepared for that -- just hoping that sufficient red ones make it through, since those have traditionally been the shortest-lived, followed by whites, with yellows being the long-haulers. 2) It's been my experience that fall-planted multipliers much more readily go to seed than spring-planted ones. Certainly part of my crop will be planted this fall, as I do want to keep expanding/experimenting with the gene pool. However, there's also a limit to how much seed I need for this, so the bulk of my harvest will be held for planting in the spring. |
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Post by steev on Sept 8, 2017 22:52:33 GMT -5
I've no expertise to offer; wishing you the best of luck; re: Cactus Jack, I looked up "Liver-Eating Johnson"; pretty grotty, that. I'm really not as anthropophagic as I present, besides, I'm no great fan of liver, as such; bit of liverwurst/braunschweiger in a sammie? Fine, but no sushi, as it were.
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Post by kazedwards on Sept 9, 2017 1:44:05 GMT -5
By the time I dug the chesnok red most of them had started growing again. That happened a few years ago too. This year it was from laziness but a few years ago I kept the scapes on there as long as possible. A bit too late obviously. Do now I plan on planting them back rather soon. If I wait until late fall early winter I think it will do more damage than just planting them now. I'm sure it won't hurt them to get some extra energy before winter either.
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Post by reed on Sept 9, 2017 4:28:53 GMT -5
I planted all my little bulbs from the late started seeds a couple weeks ago and they are growing. Plan on planting a lot of the larger ones this weekend. Everything, garlic and onions alike that was missed in harvest or purposely left already has quite a bit of new growth. I also got a bed ready and will be putting in most of my back up seed as well.
My patches are small so I try to compensate, diversity wise by planting as many different kinds as I can. I think I got a pretty good mix with the TPOS, Joseph's landrace and some grocery store ones that lived through last year.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 12, 2017 19:16:55 GMT -5
I'm starting to think almost anything can come out of TPOS seeds! Well, except tomatoes - I know they're coming up on their own!  |
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Post by fliver on Sept 23, 2017 21:53:41 GMT -5
Something I have been forgetting to mention/ask: When harvesting the potato onion/modern shallot bulbs grown from true seed I have come across a dozen or so plants that were healthy but did not form bulbs, they look just like a scallion. I am wondering if it is just a fluke or if it is possible that a non-bulb forming strain could randomly come out of a batch of TPOS? I am certainly not an expert about seed grown shallots, but I had some shallots which flowered in 2012 during a "major" drought here in the midwest. When I planted them out several years later (2016), I noticed that some looked more like scallions. I thought it was just some of their diversity. (To my everlasting regret I culled them, however I have more seed and if they show up again I will keep everyone.) |
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Post by fliver on Sept 24, 2017 8:42:35 GMT -5
You are doing well if you are getting decent germination of these allium seeds after so many years.  This is something I have been curious about as most allium seeds do not keep well regarding long term storage. I planted all the seeds this year that I harvested last year because I figured germination rate would crash. If they keep well then I would prefer to hold on to a bunch of them a little longer to make the project a little more manageable. I store all my seeds in the refrigerator. Most seem to last several years longer than advertised. It gives me time to learn from my mistakes (which unfortunately, are numerous) |
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Post by steev on Sept 24, 2017 22:19:50 GMT -5
If your mistakes are numerous, you are obviously pushing the envelope and learning, no doubt.
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Post by steev on Sept 28, 2017 23:52:17 GMT -5
I note your soil looks gray to me; do you chem-fert, or is it good-to-go?
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Post by reed on Sept 29, 2017 9:48:47 GMT -5
I take a pretty hands off approach to any chemicals at all. All my garden waste, grass clippings, sticks, twigs, leaves and weeds goes into the garden but noting else. I do pitch clean wood ashes from the stove over the fence and bury some chicken poo now and then. My general approach is if it won't grow in my dirt then I don't grow it but for the most part stuff grows anyway.
I guess I do have sort of a bad attitude toward the use of amendments but largely I jut don't want to mess with figuring out what to use or not use plus I'm too cheap to buy anyway.
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Post by reed on Sept 29, 2017 13:16:24 GMT -5
Yea, it's kinda funny when people think refined natural poison isn't as bad as manufactured poison. I also need to correct myself as I do use bt for cabbage worms but I'm trying to develop a method to avoid that, which is to make a genetically mixed up mess of brassica that grows mostly in winter and makes lots of tasty flower stalks and shoots before the worms arrive. They can have the hot weather leaves as the seeds mature. It may not produce traditional heads like cabbage or look like broccoli but that is fine, good tasting late winter / early spring green food is all I want. I made my peace with tomato blight a decade or more ago. I wonder if our weather getting hotter sooner is what does it for us but I about always get a good enough harvest before the worst of the blight hits. I do miss the days when 10 plants made the good enough rather than 50. I agree with Joseph Lofthouse that the way to break dependency on chemicals is to plant and select for better performance and resistance. I had two tomato plants this year that got blight to a less degree than the others and they were not the so called blight resistant ones I trialed. My biggest obstacle is my small space only allows for small populations which of course limits the chances of something great showing up in any particular season which brings me back to topic of the TPOS thread. All my onions, both the ones planted last fall and this spring are growing nicely but the whole of my patches looks to be maybe 10% of what you have going. Worse, the woman has laid claim to every other one in the biggest patch for green onions, I had to concede her point on, what ya growin if for if ya can't eat it. |
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Post by davidp on Sept 30, 2017 14:49:48 GMT -5
If anyone is interested, Kelly Winterton has just updated his journal for 2017 (his last previous entry was in February).
He had a very difficult season from a weather and disease standpoint, along with a late start in planting, along with equipment failure, etc.
He's not going to be shipping bulbs after this year, because of the disease issue, and after seeing his Green Mountain bulbs dwindling in size (due to extensive cloning over the years) he's going to be re-starting the GM line from true seed.
But he did have a few bright spots with some newer landraces he's been working on.
An interesting read.
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Post by philagardener on Sept 30, 2017 19:15:47 GMT -5
Last year I had a crop failure of the GM that I originally obtained from KW due to overly wet weather. I was able to rebuild my stocks a bit this year, but they never have been quite as advertised for me.
It is too bad that the restoration of vigor he originally observed upon growing plants from true seed seems to dwindle quickly.
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Post by steev on Oct 12, 2017 22:38:34 GMT -5
Pretty good garden porn there; makes me wanna go.. propagate.
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Post by philagardener on Oct 13, 2017 7:01:22 GMT -5
Interesting - I've wondered how day length sensitive GM and the others in the group are. When I grew some from seed (both from KW as well as my own OP) a few years ago, they bulbed OK but I started them early in the season.
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This is something I have been curious about as most allium seeds do not keep well regarding long term storage. I planted all the seeds this year that I harvested last year because I figured germination rate would crash. If they keep well then I would prefer to hold on to a bunch of them a little longer to make the project a little more manageable.