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Post by kyredneck on Nov 1, 2015 16:58:57 GMT -5
I'm curious if you tried the Kwintus for flavor and what you thought.... 
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Post by reed on Nov 1, 2015 20:27:55 GMT -5
kyredneck, We got a couple messes of Kwintus early on and I liked them fine as green beans but the woman didn't. The never did very well over all. Only got maybe half a cup for seed and none to try as dry beans. Fortex and Emerite also neither one did well and very few seeds. Don't know if I'll grow any of them again. Canned quarts of green beans and have plenty of dry from other beans growing in the same part of the garden. Those Ohio Pole turned out to be a great dry bean too. They are a fantastic bean, green or dry and produced heavy.
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Post by reed on Nov 22, 2015 7:42:52 GMT -5
I'm wondering what to do with my carrots. I planted seven kinds including Ox Heart and Joseph Lofthouse's landrace and unlike my usual experience I think they pretty much all came up so they are way overcrowded. Plus some others that could only have been laying dormant all season from the ones I planted in spring also came up. I started to thin them out the other day but stopped because it occurred to me since one of my carrot goals is to find / develop one that lives and can be harvested in winter maybe I should wait and see if freezing weather selects some out for me. If so they would be the ones I don't want anyway. I only had one survive because of rabbit attack but last years fall planted ones did pretty good and the sole survivor bloomed well ahead of the area QAL. I hope to end up with stumpy, fat, winter hardy carrots. I want to harvest fresh carrots in the winter and have them bolt to seed reliably ahead of the QAL. That way I can plant in fall and spring with the fall planted ones also being the seed crop. Anyway, should I go ahead and thin them some or just see what cold does? We just had our first hard freeze this morning. They are about 3-4 inches tall and a solid mass, you can't see the ground between. I haven't been out yet this morning but hopeful that dill, squash and sunflower weeds got frozen, that will help a little. I am worried though that so many dill and sunflower came up this fall as I don't know how many will be left for spring. I'v come to depend on them being volunteer, just transplanting each spring and don't even save seeds. |
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Post by zeedman on Nov 23, 2015 1:12:11 GMT -5
I wouldn't worry about the dill. Mine volunteers too, and some seeds always sprout late in the Summer. Plenty more sprout the following year... usually enough to require thinning.
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Post by reed on Dec 12, 2015 7:41:35 GMT -5
I'v been spending a lot of evenings going through seeds and tagging them good so I won't forget what is what for next year. Got way more than I need of some things especially beans, corn and tomatoes. I'm making up next years garden, a good amount for back up and then some extra copies the same as I'm putting in next year for Christmas presents. Got just a couple more trades to get out to folks here on the forum but they are now packed and addressed so will drop them at the post next week.
So far for next year I'v settled on:
BEANS, a 100 ft or so row of a common pole bean landrace. A Lima and Runner landrace, each about 50 ft and 4 or 5 smaller plantings for some suspected crosses. Another 50 ft of a pole bean landrace (a subset of the other) for canning green beans and 3 or 4, 20 ft rows for some that I'm keeping "pure". That makes 300 - 400 feet of pole beans but I have all the supplies to make the trellises and about half of it is already up. And I might plant some in the corn as well.
CORN, I'll be devoting a lot of space to corn again next year and guard it better against coons. About 1/2 of both the old and new gardens will be successive plantings of sweet for a total of around 700 to 800 plants. I'll be planting every kind I have and saving seed mostly from AD, Aunt Mary's, some of my flour and flint x sweet crosses from this year and Bodacious and Delectable for the RM disease resistance. I want next year to be the last where I keep track of what is what and just save from the best ones from then on. I also not going to do as much detasseling. The borrowed spot across the road will be (non-sweet) corn again next year with about 1000 or so plants made up of everything I have. I may also put some of the RM sweet over there and select the wrinkled kernels back out in future seasons. I want to sell some as ornamental, use it for chicken feed and in future experiment with selecting it into something I can make cornbread from.
CARROTS, fall planted ones are doing well and will plant more in spring. Have about 7 or 8 kinds and want to select for a short stumpy one that will do good in heavy clay and be good keepers in the ground.
POTATOES, have two big rows ready where I dug trenches, filled them with corn stalks and bean vines and put the dirt back on top. Working on a third one outside the fence. Deer and rabbits don't bother potatoes (I don't think) so I want to grow a big spot of tuber planted ones outside and use one the inside ones to try out TPS.
ONIONS & GARLIC, want to get more serious about both of these. I have my Switzerland County top set onion, supposedly left over from when they were grown here as a commercial crop back in the 1800s and my newly named Reed's Indiana Homestead garlic that I found at an old log house site. I'v never done a lot with them except just let them grow and eat mostly the leaves. After finding the forum I'v decided maybe they deserve a little more respect and effort than I've given them up till now. Also have some TGS from a friend and really hopeful I can get it grow. Some is already planted and more will go in at intervals over winter.
TOMATOES, I'll grow other tomatoes now and then as well as any the woman insists on but I'v settled on just a half dozen or kinds to go on with to select into my own. An Ox heart looking one that is supposed to be a local heirloom that some old lady gave the doctor in the office next door to where I work. He didn't know how to save the seeds so I processed some for him and kept a nice supply, it was tasty with not much juice and not many seeds. Another similar but bigger one from Joseph that has open flowers and a couple others form Joseph also with open flowers. My own Cherokee Purple and what I call Particularly Productive Rutgers that stood out in the Rutgers patch a couple seasons ago. The a couple dehybridizing commercial ones the woman liked.
MELONS, got to find room to keep going with muskmelons just haven't figured it out yet. May try to stick a watermelon in some where but I know those seeds keep a long time so may wait till following season for them.
SQUASH, never been very serious about squash but want to give them a try. Haven't decided yet on what kind other than I'm thinking on a good keeping winter type. Don't have much experience with eating them either so it is all new. Did make some soup from a farm market butternut and liked it right much.
Then there are all the other things, lettuce, radish, broccoli, brussel sprouts, chard and who knows what else. And the fruits, blackberries, raspberries, honey berries, peaches, pears... Aw crap almost forgot GRAPES! I'm ditching strawberries, those things are way to much trouble and the birds get em all anyway.
PEAS, o yea, I forgot peas.
I went out and remeasured all the space inside fences to make new scale drawings, hadn't done that since the expansions of last couple seasons. I need to plan better and not over plant early things like I have often done. Since the Ash trees are dying it makes another 30 x 50 ft sunny spot available for expansion too so that will help even though it is sad at the same time.
Got plans to expand the chicken yard and build a bigger better coop. Also eyeballing a sloped spot for some kind of partially underground root cellar type contraption to store root crops and the like. Actually kind of a hybrid between an actual cellar and a pile of straw, the way my Grand Dad did it. I don't know why he did that because their house had a cellar where they kept canned goods and potatoes but he kept cabbage, apples and I don't remember what else buried in straw piles. If I remember right he just dug shallow wholes, lined them with straw and put the stuff in with a board on top and then lots more straw on top of that. Anyway, we don't have much good storage space I intend to remedy that one way or another.
[add} SWEET POTATOES, crap I forgot sweet potatoes, both conventional planted and from seed!
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Post by steev on Dec 12, 2015 11:34:51 GMT -5
That straw thingie is a very old practice called a "clamp".
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Post by reed on Dec 14, 2015 9:25:37 GMT -5
Any clue why he did that instead of just putting everything in the cellar? One might think my older brothers and sisters would remember but they were apparently uninterested. All I got are decades old memories of a 10 year old kid, maybe not completely reliable. Granny and GrandDad moved to a house in town on what he described as a postage stamp lot in 1969. Six months later they were both dead. So much for the easy life.
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Post by steev on Dec 14, 2015 11:12:47 GMT -5
If my own inclinations are any guide, he may have done it because it was a practice that linked him to his past, to people gone but not forgotten.
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Post by reed on Jan 8, 2016 3:50:05 GMT -5
My carrot patch is a mess, way overcrowded.  I I was waiting for winter to thin it out some but so far it hasn't even killed off the dill weeds. I don't want to waste all the extras if I don't have to so I pulled and replanted one to see what would happen.  That's it replanted, it's been a couple days and not even wilted. Now I got a project for the next reasonably dry day, transplant carrots into a production patch and a seed patch. If last years experience holds I should be able to harvest some at the same time I'm planting more and have the other patch bolt to seed well ahead of the QAL. Doubt I'll be able to do much selection on tiny plants but that's OK for now if I can get a nice batch of my own seed I'll be tickled. Last cold morning of 14 F took out most of the red lettuces, they aren't dead so I bet will regrow. Most of the green lettuce and the 1/2 dozen spinach look fine. The broccoli rabe that was in full flower mostly got zapped but a couple held on as did the ones just in bud. Got hopes they will turn into a nice weed. Swiss chard also looking good still. Several things to consider for winter crops, certainly doable on a regular basis in cold frames and without during mild winters. Onions and garlic planted late from bubils looking fine. Kale and radish weeds all around although the diakon radishes planted just for soil improvement got a serious set back. Don't know what this is. Must be kale but looks much different and tastes better than most of the others. Most of the kale just looks like red Russian but there are a few of these. This is the only one with a bud stalk.  |
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Post by mskrieger on Jan 8, 2016 13:00:55 GMT -5
Your carrot patch is enviable. Carrots often overwinter here, but they don't stay green. They resprout in spring.
The recent spate of single digit weather with no snow cover has done a number on everything green in the garden--cardoons, cauliflower, kale, brocolli raab, parsley, calendula--save the garlic, which is plenty hardy but grew so much during the mild December I'm wondering if I should mulch it to protect the tops. (Wish it would snow and save me the work!)
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Post by farmermike on Jan 17, 2016 12:56:11 GMT -5
Don't know what this is. Must be kale but looks much different and tastes better than most of the others. Most of the kale just looks like red Russian but there are a few of these. This is the only one with a bud stalk. It looks like arugula to me. They have pretty hairy sepals in bud--unlike kale (usually). I grow a lot of that. Nice spicey, mustardy salad greens. Your garden sounds great Reed! I'm excited to hear more about it as the season progresses. |
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Post by reed on Jan 28, 2016 8:21:45 GMT -5
farmermike, I have arugula but I'm pretty sure now that that plant is probably a radish. I found one that I had pulled up pitched aside and it had the same looking flower head. They must just be stunted because of the time of year. The spell of real winter is over at least for now and most things did not fare well. Only one Brussels sprout looks to have survived, it is the same one that lived through last year. My big beautiful broccoli looks terrible but has some green shoots on the stalks. I have to wonder if it might have done better if it had got cold sooner. It was actually still growing when the near zero temps hit. Arugula, broccoli rabe, lettuce except for one green kind all look dead as does the Swiss chard. Even most of the turnips look pretty bad. I don't think anything likes going straight from temps warm enough for slow growth to zero all at once. There is a patch of dill that doesn't look completely dead, little surprised by that and also a single cilantro plant that I think is still alive. Best news though is the thing I'm most interested in look fine. Very little damage to any of my carrots! yea!
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Post by reed on Feb 14, 2016 8:23:24 GMT -5
Been running some germ tests and everything came out fine except some 8 and 10 row Aunt Mary's sweet corn. I think the fellow I got it from culls it and said the ears he sent had just been laying in the green house for a couple of years, they tested about 25 - 30 % which actually is fine. I'll just plant thick and should be able to save the genetics for the thinner ears. Finally got the TGS in flats on the window sill last week, notice this morning a couple of sprouts in the ones on the heating pad but none in the other tray. I'm not sure it is a good test though because the window they are in is rather leaky and pretty cold at night although it gets good south sun in the day time. An experiment on a new way to host images:  can you all see it?? |
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Post by philagardener on Feb 14, 2016 9:03:34 GMT -5
Good of you to test - I have a lot of smaller, aging seed samples but not always enough to check before being able to plant them out.
Your cute pup?
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Post by richardw on Feb 14, 2016 13:19:34 GMT -5
Do you not freeze seed so then you dont have to worry about aging.
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