oldmobie's Doings

[oldmobie]

The first sunflower bloom has opened (yesterday). About 4"-5", kind of yellow to orange to bronze coloration. Four of five more unopened blooms on that plant. Have to get pics soon.

Edit: Here's the pic.




And some of the phlox mentioned previously:

[oldmobie]

Despite my WinterSowing fiasco (the compost was contaminated with cherry tomato seeds), some of what I planted seems to have survived. I found these on two of my plants. As the plant I decided was roma last year had more blimp shaped fruits, I guess these must by the yellow pears I got in a Garden Web trade.



Looks like all my peas are either finished or winding down. We've had some temps into the 90°s, but it's been an unusually mild summer so far. Otherwise I suspect they'd have been long gone by now. Just the same, I think there's a clear winner as to which has been the most heat tolerant. Also larger and more productive.



Joseph Lofthouse , would you like some seeds back from this, for that heat tolerant landrace you've been meaning to start?

[steev]

Having planted Holly's Bouquet of Sunflowers along the road side of the plant corral, I think I'll have time/energy enough this week-end to bag some of them, so the birds don't clean them out, as I clearly need to expand their planting, so pretty and so popular with the bees.

[oldmobie]

Picked a weird green bean today. Possible cross?



First bloom on birdhouse gourds today.

Last hill of zucchini germinated today. Now every hill of zucchini, moschata squash, and cantaloupe are germinated.

[oldmobie]

Harvested onions today. This was a 4'X4' bed.



Also planted the second wave today for the LISP Ashworth X Oaxacan flour corn cross. Today was five more seeds of Ashworth and five seeds of Oaxacan.

[oldmobie]

Replanted the 4'X4' bed the onions came out of with assorted dry beans and lentils. All came from the grocery store, so I'll probably have to select heavily in the next generation. Also I'll hopefully have extra Rattlesnake to add after this season. Trionfo Violetto too, if they're tasty dried.

Jul 4, 2014 1:04:14 GMT -5 kazedwards said:

Your green beans are looking good. I can't wait for them myself they are my favorite. Have tried pickling them? I have not tried it myself but I hear they are very good.

Don't know if it was truly pickling, but took a few raw beans and poured the brine from some dill slices over them. I've kept them refridgerated. After a two day soak, they're... interesting. A nice change. Don't know if that will develop into liking them, but I'll try 'em again. Still soaking a few. From a food safety standpoint, I don't know how long I can keep 'em in there. They're cold, and the ph should be low, but they weren't pasturized or sealed. A week should be safe, right?

For what it's worth, the colors have still faded and gotten spotty, but they're better preserved than they have been under any other circumstances. (Sorry, the purple ones have already been sampled. I'll try to get a pic next time.)

[oldmobie]

A few of my carrots are blooming. One is finally open enough to evaluate for CMS. If I properly understand what I'm looking for, I have a properly formed breeder. Hopefully my carrots won't slowly revert to Queen Anne's Lace.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

oldmobie: The resolution isn't as good as i would like to be definitive. That carrot flower looks male sterile to me: Because I can't see anthers -- There are some filaments, but I can't see anthers attached to them. And because instead of the 5 petaled flowers that I am used to seeing on male fertile carrots it looks like the flowers have about 8-10 petals. (Instead of growing anthers the plant makes another set of petals.) And because the flower cluster isn't fuzzy enough...

I expect male fertile carrot flowers to look like this:

[oldmobie]

Jul 21, 2014 2:02:15 GMT -5 Joseph Lofthouse said:

oldmobie: The resolution isn't as good as i would like to be definitive. That carrot flower looks male sterile to me: Because I can't see anthers -- There are some filaments, but I can't see anthers attached to them. And because instead of the 5 petaled flowers that I am used to seeing on male fertile carrots it looks like the flowers have about 8-10 petals. (Instead of growing anthers the plant makes another set of petals.) And because the flower cluster isn't fuzzy enough...

Apparently I was looking at your pictures as is the anther and filament were one structure. The brown things on the tips (that resemble tiny seeds) are the anthers, and seem to be missing in my picture, right? And the little white stems that hold them up are the filaments? If so, it looks sterile to me, too. Don't know if I can get a better pic, but I'll take a closer look. If I don't see anthers in the next few days I'll pull it.

[kazedwards]

I don't know about your area of Missouri but mine has plenty of Queen Annes Lace for for the male pollen. Hehehe. I can't even think about saving carrot seeds in my garden, if I do they all come out as QAL roots. Hope it ends well for you.

[oldmobie]

Took advantage today of my lousy peanut germination and did some transplanting:



Orange circles are peppers grown from a pepper that looked like a jalepeño, but tasted like a bell pepper, minus the bitterness. Green marks malabar spinach. Original seeds from ebay, a few came from a plant I overwintered. Blue is orach from a GardenWeb trade.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jul 21, 2014 11:59:34 GMT -5 oldmobie said:

The brown things on the tips (that resemble tiny seeds) are the anthers, and seem to be missing in my picture, right? And the little white stems that hold them up are the filaments?

Yup.

[oldmobie]

Some time ago, I got curious and did a little experiment. You know the trick where you save the top of a carrot root and grow new leaves from it? I wondered if it would grow a new root, so I saved several and planted them with my carrots from seed. They started growing tops, and resisted slightly when I pulled, so I decided to see what happened at harvest time. Then I forgot about them.

This morning, I looked again for anthers on my carrot blooms. Couldn't see any, so I pulled the blooming carrots.



Should have known. I wondered why they were blooming in their first year. If it was stress, why didn't they all bloom? Only the most stressed plants bloomed. And in their second season. Duh!

[philagardener]

Just about the most sensible thing they could do, given the circumstances! :>)

[oldmobie]

Jul 15, 2014 21:58:21 GMT -5 oldmobie said:

As the plant I decided was roma last year had more blimp shaped fruits, I guess these must by the yellow pears I got in a Garden Web trade.

Wrong. It's either last year's roma, or my compost is contaminated with more than one kind of tomato seed.



The grape is growing nicely. Hopefully it will fill its support this season and put its energy into fruiting next year.



The new bed of grocery store dry beans and lentils getting started:



One of the more promising cukes in the new garden:



My best looking moschata. Hill #6, Joseph's.



My largest watermelon:



Some of my "orphaned" cukes, adopted by the wife's flowerbed:



Tepary beans finally starting to grow:



I guess I owe the duck an apology. When he kept digging up and eating those gourd seeds, I think he was trying to save us from this monster! Seeds from this thing just made my short list for ground-cover/ smother-crop for next year. One of these with cardboard or newspaper under it should smother a lot of grass.



Something is wrong with at least one of the vines of decorative gourd/ assorted pumkin. If anyone knows what this is about, a heads up would be appreciated. I suppose I'll trace it down to the root end and look for signs of vine borer.



I am seeing some interesting fruits in there. Suppose I need to look up how to know when they're ripe.





This one's my favorite. It's like a white Jack-be-little.