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Post by steev on May 28, 2014 19:45:49 GMT -5
Aw, c'mon, Joseph! You're not going all "utilitarian" are you? Where's the fun in that? If I did that, I'd only have livestock on my farm, like the locals, and prolly be terminally constipated (I'm not "privy" to that information about them), though they do tend to be a tad "conservative".
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Post by oxbowfarm on May 30, 2014 20:47:22 GMT -5
I don't think it is necessary to save seed from every crop. I don't think it would be even feasible to run even a landrace breeding program for every crop. I grow a decent amount of radishes and lots of arugula, mizuna, and other asian greens, but it doesn't make any sense to me to try and save radish or arugula seed. It is incredibly cheap from Oregon, and neither crop could be described as a staple/survival crop. For me it makes no sense to put energy into them when there are way too many projects I can't keep ahead of on crops that are staples.
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Post by steev on May 30, 2014 22:05:25 GMT -5
I tend to have lousy returns from early radishes, days getting hot very early in Spring; I've wanted to give the larger Fall types a decent trial, but the weather has been so weird the last few years; maybe this coming Fall, when the rains will come early, no doubt.
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on May 31, 2014 0:04:52 GMT -5
I've pretty much always been utilitarian. I'm just becoming more so as I age. I used to think that I had to grow everything. Not so much any more. It helps that I don't do CSA any more. I hated feeling like I had become a slave to the basket's owners.
If I throw things away at the end of market because my family can't eat that many perishables that makes me grumpy. Better to grow staples, so that I can use them myself.
I have disliked the taste of leaf lettuce since I was a kid... It is only semi-decent tasting for two weeks per year. This year it was bitter as soon as it germinated. Why do I continue to grow a crop like that? I know it's deeply ingrained into my family psychology, and early childhood memories, and it always comes up as a volunteer, but really? Why grow a food that I won't eat and neither will my family? Why inflict that kind of food on the people at market?
I'm focusing nowadays mostly on squash, corn, pulses, tomatoes, and melons. Then I play with crops like okra, true potato seeds, and garlic seeds for the thrill of the chase.
There are some crops that thrive for me regardless of what cultivars I plant (beets, turnips, peas) so there is little monetarily or agriculturally to gain from growing my own seed. The gain to me comes from "growing my own seed", and thus being slightly more disconnected from the man.
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Post by steev on May 31, 2014 0:37:48 GMT -5
Lettuce! There's a crop that isn't worth torturing myself about; I don't dislike it, but it's a pain on the farm: two week season, at best. At least radishes, if I can get good production, are good for fresh "relish" or kimchee.
While I have no problem returning what I can't use to the Earth, from which it came, not believing that all food must pass through a human gut, I do aspire to having critters that will eat my surplus and provide me a source of "enhanced" nutrition. One day, it shall be so; Inshallah!
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Post by oldmobie on May 31, 2014 18:08:08 GMT -5
My pak choi's been putting up a flower stalk for some time now, and today the first blooms were just starting to open. So, on the advice of oxbowfarm, my wife and I stripped the top few inches of seed pods from my Michihili cabbage to make a division; pods below will be pure Michihili, the ones above, and the ones on the pak choi, will be potential crosses. |
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