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Post by reed on Jul 18, 2018 7:28:44 GMT -5
Finally got our first ripe tomatoes, they sure are good. Came from F4, maybe F5, not sure exactly, of a commercial Brandywine/Rutgers hybrid called Red Rose. Lots more to come on those vines, I'm calling them Hoosier Rose. Looks like some big Ox-heart types will be next. They are either what I call Utah Heart originally from Joseph's seeds or Minnesota Heart from Tom's. I'v stopped keeping exact tract, mostly just saving and labeling seed by description. Only about 20% of the total crop is producing well so I guess I know which ones handle hot dry conditions the best.
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Post by reed on Jul 24, 2018 10:54:46 GMT -5
I finally got around to harvesting my carrots and got a nice big tub full. Well over 1/2 had some damage from some king of critter, mostly toward the top but the bulk of the root was fine so we blanched and froze a bunch of them.
I sorted out around fifty perfect ones, no damage at all and am thinking of going ahead and replanting them to try again to get seeds next year. I've read that all you need is a portion of the top, and I'm wondering is that really true? These are the best, largest, darkest orange, and in a wide range of shapes ranging from big fat ones to long skinny ones. It's a shame to not eat them but I want maximum chance of them living to make seeds.
Are chances just as good replanting the top couple of inches as it is to replant the whole thing?
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Post by Joseph Lofthouse on Jul 24, 2018 11:17:06 GMT -5
Are chances just as good replanting the top couple of inches as it is to replant the whole thing? Seems like it to me. In the spring, I sometimes gather together bits and pieces of carrots that were tilled under a couple times since fall, and put them into a bed for seed production. They seem to do as well as the whole roots. Besides how much carrot seed to you really need? When a plant might produce thousands of seeds. |
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Post by oldmobie on Jul 24, 2018 16:44:18 GMT -5
I've read that all you need is a portion of the top, and I'm wondering is that really true? ... Are chances just as good replanting the top couple of inches as it is to replant the whole thing? 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! The post above is my whole experience, so take it with a grain of salt, but it can work that way. |
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Post by reed on Jul 25, 2018 5:45:36 GMT -5
Thanks oldmobie, that is just what I wanted to see. Now if they just live through the coming winter to bloom next year it should work. The living through winter is the part that has me worried. |
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Post by mskrieger on Aug 6, 2018 13:23:35 GMT -5
I find carrots to be entirely hardy in my garden, reed. If I miss any they bloom profusely (I have several thousand seeds coming off a single stray carrot that hid in my leek seed patch) so you should be good. |
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Post by reed on Sept 22, 2018 16:03:07 GMT -5
About half of my carrot tops that I put out awhile back have either croaked or gone dormant. Things are winding down now and it wasn't a good year for a lot of things. Potatoes were almost a total flop and most beans weren't much better. Tomatoes were so so, we had plenty to eat fresh all season and canned a few,good thing we still have plenty in the pantry from last year though.
Big areas of both gardens are now looking pretty good with radishes, turnips and a whole bunch of very old bean seed making a pretty good cover. The beans will frost out soon then the radishes will freeze and hopefully plenty of turnips will overwinter for fresh seed pods and seeds next year.
Planted a whole bunch of peas the other day, never fall planted peas before but it has got hard to grow peas in spring here with hot dry showing up before they can mature, will see what happens. Also planted lots of lettuce, table radishes and other greens type things.
Took all my onions, four types of top sets, some from Tom's and Joseph's mixes, a few originally from the grocery store. Basically everything I have that was grow from seed, made seed and or has ever overwintered in my garden and mixed them all up what I hope will become my semi-wild onion patch. The only one I kept careful track of is the new top set one I found growing by a creek back in the summer. Did the same thing will all my garlic in another bed. I had problem with a little white maggot in my leeks this year. Never saw them before but reading up I saw that they seem to prefer highly organic soil and I had been heavily mulching the leeks with grass clippings before they showed up. So, I went back to planting my garlic and onions in crappy soil. I don't care about the biggest, I just want a reliable supply.
I got a big mix of cabbage, collards, brussels sprouts, mustards and so on planted in another big area. I just broadcast sowed lots of seeds and raked them in. They are looking good now in seedling stage, will munch a little on the young leaves and then leave them be to see if anything overwinters.
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Post by reed on Feb 9, 2019 5:04:21 GMT -5
Wow, haven't reported anything here for awhile but with planting time just around the corner I was going through seeds and inspecting the garden and thinking about the coming season. I'm pretty pleased with the garden right now, despite an overall warm winter with the obligatory short but very cold spells with little snow I'v got some good survival rates of some things I'm trying to adapt to winter growing. Lots of turnips and new mustard varieties look pretty good, I'm hoping to transfer best ones to a bed to cross up and go to seed. Looking forward to munching on the flower clusters and immature seed pods. My other brassica patch did not do well at all. Onions and garlic have their tips burned by freezing but that's normal. Some fall plated carrots that I forgot about look decent, maybe I finally figured out how to get carrot seed. I think I may have live Swiss Chard this year too, I have in the past but didn't realize it and ended up killing it to plant something else. This year I know to give it a better chance to grow before reusing the spot. I got several nice looking lettuce plants, some of the best ever at this time of year, all but a couple look like the same dark red one that has always done best but also a light green one and a couple speckled ones. I'll move them into their own little seed bed too, when it warms up. I have a few of my own potato seeds from the variety White Superior and a blue one from Joseph's seeds as well as some I got as a gift so I'm gonna try with potatoes again but on a pretty small scale. Intense summer heat and dry spells may cause me to abandon potatoes all together. Got several bean projects going on. My "survivor" pole beans which just get planted and left to the whims of nature each year. I'm growing our some selected crosses for possible stabilizing into a new variety to pledge OSSI. Then a fairly new project to breed/discover pole beans that grow in the 4 - 8 foot tall range so I don't have to build such big trellises. I'm gonna try hand pollination of tomatoes this year to try to get a good mix up of genetics from my most reliable favorites with some more disease resistant ones. Want to find a spot for my radish mix where I can plant a thick patch of my most favorites for greens and seed pods. They will also will hopefully be growing where ever they want as volunteers like before but I want the other patch to concentrate those that have milder flavored seed pods. Couple of my favorite projects this year is for flour and flint corns that will look largely like Carol's Magic Manna and Cascade Ruby Gold which I will use in the initial crosses with Zapalote Chico. Hope to end up with multi colored ears (each ear only one color) like hers but with the beautiful purple shucks of ZC and more important pretty much immune to ear worms. I'll probably toss in a lot of my other flour/flint and even sweet corns to keep more diversity but that patch will be kept separate till the sweet, colored aleurone and longer season is eliminated. Gonna go bigger on winter squash this year. I had about given up on squash cause of disease and bugs but I have some pretty good acorn and the offspring of Tetsukabuto that actually held on pretty good, especially the Tetsukabuto. Here it is mid Feb and I still have some in storage so I think it's worth going on with them. Then along with other odds and ends is, I guess my primary breeding project, sweet potatoes. I have my collection of seed grown clones from past years and am gonna but some new commercial ones this year to try to get some new genes into my mix. *I have two or three people I promised seeds to that I haven't sent yet. If your one of them I haven't forgot and will get them out next week.  |
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