Reed's Garden Report(s)

[reed]

I'm having lots of fun now that I have freed myself from the shackles of "pure" seed saving. My efforts of discovering / breeding tough, drought tolerant varieties is going precisely as planned. With approximately 3/4 an inch of rain in the last six weeks (not counting today's 1/2 inch) things that can deal with that are starting to show themselves. Except in some special cases I am not even keeping track of variety names because mostly all I care about is does it grow and produce and does it taste good. 

In sweet corn patch #1 where Indian, flour and flints are being being detassled for pollination by SE sweets ALL of the first mentioned sprouted and are growing well on the soil residual moisture. They include Cascade Cream Cap, White Magic Manna, Oaxacan Green, Painted Mountain and Pink and White Hopi. Approximately 40% of the SE pollinators sprouted and are growing along with them. Gaps in the SE have been filled back in mostly with white variety SE including Spring Snow. 

In sweet corn patch #2 Astronomy Domonie is going strong as are most of the other SU sweets, very few gaps have had to be filled in. This patch has the added stresses of going directly from a weed patch to garden with little more than a one shovel wide turn of the dirt for each row. (that about wore me out, by the way). Little attention was paid to varieties planted in either patch except for tagging and recording the detassel rows.

Nearly ALL of the flour / corn meal kinds came up without rain and are looking pretty good. One ten foot section of the detassel row is an exception, I'm pretty sure it was the Wampum. That's OK as I'm not sure I want those hard little kernels in there anyway. My "Big Red" is looking strong which kind of surprises me because in germ tests it was a little puny compared to most others. Once again the Hopi corns are are very strong here also. 

RUNNER BEANS, out of about 100 seeds planted 38 found the water they needed and popped up. I expect more to follow now that it has rained a little. Interesting that all but a few of the first ones had a rather purplish color to their first leaves and are still very dark green.  

CARROTS, I admit I cheated and watered a little bit here. The Lofthouse Landrace and Oxheart are the winners in germination and vigor but not by a lot. All varieties are growing as well or better than any carrots I'v ever grown. Guess better care in thinning and weeding pays off. 

TOMATOES - to can, five each of several kinds were planted by transplant in the woman's garden for her to care for for fresh eating and to can. I imagine they would be bigger if I had watered but they all look fine. 

TOMATO SWARM - again set out as transplants about fifty or so plants planted close together competing with weeds but they all look good except one that mysteriously disappeared. All kinds in no particular order because I don't care. All I want is seeds of the ones that do good and we like. Volunteers are also being moved here as they are discovered. 

TOMATO MESS - Direct seeded hundreds of seeds with no regard at all for what kind except for the Lofthouse (short season large) & (open flower).  Had many coming up already and with today's rain expect many more. 

More on beans, peppers, melons and other stuff later.  

[reed]

Tomatoes are all looking good with lots getting ready to bloom. Only one single plant, a potato leaf one has a small amount of brown spots and edges to just a couple of leaves, I'll have to keep an eye on that.

Wow, Oaxacan Green Dent corn. Almost didn't plant this because I don't want dent corn and wasn't sure I like the idea of green corn BUT! It is pushing four feet tall, well over any other, it has fat strong stalks and beautiful dark green color. Was excited about the Hopi corns and they are doing OK but have had a couple plants fail to uncurl their new leaves right and end up all deformed looking. 

Still looking for my sorghum,  most of the weeds where it is planted are grasses and since I have never seen sorghum seedlings before maybe it is in there, hope so. 

Okra jumped right up couple days after planting, now to see what it does and if I like okra. Never did before but never had it fresh so who knows. 

Got lots of strong looking little melons, mostly Joseph Lofthouse 's best and some of my Minnesota Midget mixed in. Minnesota Midget is the only one I have successfully grown here to date if you call 4 or 5 ripe melons in 20 years successful. Ran out of room and decided since I know watermelon seed keep good to put them off till next year. I hope to have lots of my own corn seed to put away and won't grow as large of patches next year so will have more room for other things. 

My first ever carrot flowers are about to open. A single Red Core Chantenay that lived through winter, being transplanted and attacked by rabbits. It is ahead of a couple pet Queen Ann's Lace that I kept just for that purpose. The spring planted carrots look beautiful, I thinned them again the other day and replanted the ones I pulled, seems to have worked. 

Have had a problem with some kind of rot disease that attacks right at the surface with threads of white fungus visible. It appears to mostly affect beans including maybe 10 to 15 percent of my runners but I also even saw some weeds with it.  It almost wiped out one planting of pole beans, I think it was Fortex, I'll have to get out my diagrams and see. Some others not bothered at all. 

Watching everyday to see what happens with those goofy onion flowers. 

[reed]

I almost forgot, I got some tasseling going on in the Painted Mountain and it is barely two feet tall. Don't think I like that so I'm plucking them out. Probably not much of a problem anyway as there is no sign of an ear or silk anywhere anyway.

[reed]

Got some interesting looking flowers going on in the tomatoes. Kinda regretting not keeping track of varieties, I don't care about it but to share with others in might matter. Anyway I'm sure some of the ones shown are a hybrid from Burpee called Brandy Boy, some I think are Joseph's open flowered ones. Interesting that the really weird flowers appear to be just the first one or two on the plant with subsequent ones looking more normal. Anyway here they are.

 

  
This one looks pretty normal except more open than I'm used to seeing. 



This is one of a couple plants with odd flat stems and what look like double or even triple flowers. Wonder if I'll get some kind of crazy looking tomatoes from it. Again just the first couple of flowers look like this. 



This one is just single but BIG I thought, for a tomato flower.



This one has green stuff growing out of it, what's up with that??



This one does too. 




This last one was in Joseph Lofthouse 's "Short Season All Kinds" mix. It isn't as dramatic by itself as when I pulled it from the bed with the others but compared to them it looked almost like a fern. I put it in a spot by itself so it wouldn't get lost. Funny looking critter. 

[templeton]

Reed, I often get these fused flowers really early in the season, i think it's a temperature related thing. You can leave them, but they often develop into really large misshapen monsters that ripen unevenly, with seams and inclusions. I tend to pinch them out, so the plant puts its energy into 'proper' tomatoes. You dont lose much, maybe a week or two, and the first tomatoes are often a bit flavourless, anyway.
T

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Jun 8, 2015 15:45:10 GMT -5 reed said:

This last one was in Joseph Lofthouse 's "Short Season All Kinds" mix. It isn't as dramatic by itself as when I pulled it from the bed with the others but compared to them it looked almost like a fern. I put it in a spot by itself so it wouldn't get lost. Funny looking critter. 

That looks like one of my favorites... I'm thinking that this fall I will save seed from the ones like this separate, so that I can have them more fully represented in the bedding plants that I grow.

[reed]

My first ever carrot flower is about mature, several side shoots are a little behind.  QAL is in bud but well behind the carrot. Assuming I correctly Identified QAL then they look a lot different and not just the root part so you don't have to wait till harvest to know if you had contamination, just cull out any fuzzy ones. They also flower don't necessarily flower at the same time YEA!  Of course one carrot and one QAL does not prove anything but still, encouraging I think.  

Now if that other carrot looking plant is QAL or will cross with carrot it is a lost cause. That stuff gets six feet tall and is in full bloom right now. There is a forest of it right up the road from me.

Big, fat, orange carrots that keep through winter in the ground that's what I want. 



templeton thanks for the input on those crazy tomato flowers, I think I'll pluck those things off. 

[richardw]

Wow does your local wild QAL get that tall,certainly no QAL gets that tall within 3kms of here, they are promptly grubbed out though,even further a field a meter is about the limit, just shows they dont do as well in this dry climate.

[reed]

richardw , No I don't think so, what I am almost positive is QAL only gets about 3 feet tall or so. I don't think the taller stuff is QAL, but it does smell a little carrot like and has carrot like leaf. The possibility it might also cross is what worries me. I'll get some pictures of it and maybe someone will know what it is.  

[reed]

Here is the big carrot looking weed. I am pretty sure it is not QAL but if it is a carrot then saving carrot seeds here might not be possible, there is a lot of this stuff. This patch is just right up the road from me. I think someone may have talked about it in another post but I couldn't find it. Picking this one I realized although it does have a smell it isn't exactly carrot like, like I remembered, the QAL does smell like carrot. Searching google I found stuff indicating it might be hemlock. That's a little spooky but as long as it isn't carrot, I'm happy. 

[reed]

I decided to move some of my other posts updates here. This one is concerning my Dazed and Confused Corn Projects. alanbishop.proboards.com/thread/8330/reeds-dazed-confused-corn-projects?page=2&scrollTo=108198

Here is what the flour / meal patch looked like today. The white posts mark 10 foot divisions between different kinds in the detassel row. I ran out of them so used big rocks for the rest. Bottom left is Painted Mountain but it is in some shade of a tree just out of the picture so may be smaller because of that. I am already detasseling it in the flour x se sweet patch but just leaving it be here. Hope to have lots of interesting seeds for next year and to share. 

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Queen Ann's lace has hairy stems. Poison hemlock has smooth stems. In other words, "The Queen has hairy legs".

[diane]

Poison hemlock (Conium maculatum) has purple blotches on its stem - maculatum means "spotted"

It doesn't take much of it to kill - a five year old here ate a little bit and died. Fortunately it is biennial so just needs to be cut down before it forms seeds, and seeds don't remain viable for very many years. We had it growing in a community garden here but seem to have eliminated it after about five years of digging it out in May or cutting the flowering plant in June. I still go around all the allotments each year to check, of course.

[reed]

Melons! this is maybe my favorite gardening project this year. I love melons and have not been able to grow them since moving away from the river valley. I planted ten Minnesota Midget cause it is the only one that ever produced here and a bunch of Joseph Lofthouse 's best. I have 61 plants and hope to get a few ripe tasty melons. 

 

Another reason I am excited about them is because they are in the new garden that two years ago was a wood lot, had to do almost all prep by hand cause of the stumps. Finding out what can be done by a feller with little more than a shovel and some seeds is a big part of my whole gardening plan. I also have one of my sweet corn patches, some tomatoes and beans in this garden. They are all doing as good as I could hope for. 

Here are a couple of Painted Mountain tassels I plucked out of the flour x se sweet corn patch. I'm learning the proper way to do it, they have to be big enough to get a hold of good and give a quick jerk. The white stem piece is full of water and quite refreshing with a good corny flavor, I already ate it before the picture. 



The dog loves anything corn and is pretty sneaky steev , she's not a poodle, she's an Ethel.   

[flowerweaver]

Ethel is cute! The corn patch looks great. Diane is right, poison hemlock is not a plant you want around. Many years ago a local teen at a camp touched a bit to her tongue and was brain dead in a matter of minutes.