A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

I thought this was a neat little talk on aphids and fungus.

 

[Jack Holloway]

So @heirloomgal how do you winnow down what you'll grow this season? I've got lots and lots of tomato seeds and not enough space, time, or energy to grow them all. Some of the seed is old, some is only a year or two old. I managed to limit my peppers, but not sure how to limit the tomatoes, plus I won't be starting as many as I did the peppers. Help!

edited to correct spelling and add missing words. As Homer Simpson says "D'oh!'

 

[SPedigrees]

Pepper update. So I flubbed it a little. I have a strict policy of not keeping them moist and really letting them get quite dry before giving them a proper soak, with bottom watering usually. Well, I got busy for a few days and noticed a little too late that some of the pots had gotten so dry that a few had some wilted leaves. Full size peppers seem to recover well from this when it happens, but clearly wee seedlings don't have the same strength. So a few of the leaves were damaged even after a recovery. But onwards and upwards!

The Habanadas are doing very well, the second largest seedlings behind Peruviano Arancia. I'm glad I started them this early, and I think this may be one of the better harvests I get from the hab family. It will be a good size by June. It's nearly time to start pruning.
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Purple Serrano is already showing it's true colors.
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One of the lights; lots of Zavory peppers in here, another heatless hab type.
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I got 'the zoomies' while visiting the Atlantic Pepper Seeds site the other day and expect to be planting many more pots now once they arrive. I can see they've been shipped so hopefully they arrive soon. @Jack Holloway's pepper seeds sort of 'got me in the mood' for pepper planting and I'm going to need another 2 greenhouses to grow them all. lol I am really looking forward to growing some of these neat peppers though. Here's a little sneak peak of the line up.

Cheiro Roxa

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Pink Cayenne
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Cappuccino Chiltepin

Murupi White
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Aji Fantasy White

Goronong
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Wiri Wiri Large Yellow
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Shu Variegated

Sugar Rush Stripey
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That is a fabulous collection of interesting-looking peppers!

 

[Zeedman]

So @heirloomgal how do you winnow down what you'll grow this season? I've got lots and lots of tomato seeds and not space, time, or energy to grow them all. Some of the seed is old, so is only a year or two old. I managed to limit my peppers, but not sure how to limit the tomatoes, plus I won't be starting as many as I did the peppers. Help!

My grandfather, noting how much food we often left on the plate in our youth, said that kids often "have eyes bigger than their stomach". I think a lot of gardeners (self included) have a similar affliction when it comes to seeds; our dreams exceed our square footage.

There is actually a good reason for buying all that seed though. When you see seed for a variety that interests you, it may not be there tomorrow - so you buy it today. That's my excuse explanation, and I'm sticking to it. I can't help it if I dream in green.

 

[ducks4you]

So @heirloomgal how do you winnow down what you'll grow this season? I've got lots and lots of tomato seeds and not enough space, time, or energy to grow them all. Some of the seed is old, some is only a year or two old. I managed to limit my peppers, but not sure how to limit the tomatoes, plus I won't be starting as many as I did the peppers. Help!

edited to correct spelling and add missing words. As Homer Simpson says "D'oh!'

Tomato seeds, stored properly, will last for a looooooooonnnnnnngggg time, I have posted this before. I started 35yo tomato seeds. I thought that they weren't sprouting and forgot about them. I had them in a milk jug and found them a month later, one inch tall and dead and dried out.
I suggest that you grow what you want and try to take one tomato from each type that you grow and ferment the seeds, save and store them...for next time. Older seeds take longer to sprout. That's all.
Seeds don't take a lot of space to store. You can also bag them up in ziplock bags that are labeled with a sharpie.
A box, a bag, stored in closet will suffice, to store great future flavor.

 

[heirloomgal]

So @heirloomgal how do you winnow down what you'll grow this season? I've got lots and lots of tomato seeds and not enough space, time, or energy to grow them all. Some of the seed is old, some is only a year or two old. I managed to limit my peppers, but not sure how to limit the tomatoes, plus I won't be starting as many as I did the peppers. Help!

edited to correct spelling and add missing words. As Homer Simpson says "D'oh!'

Not easy! But I look deeply into my soul and sternly ask the question - how much do I/will I really enjoy this tomato? And then I try to give myself an honest answer! Do you grow in ground or do you do pots too? That can make a difference, because you can get away with growing more tomatoes if you do pots. I almost never prune in a pot, all I do is give water and food once in awhile and let 'em do their thing. You could also blindfold yourself and pick out from your tomato seed stack the number you'll grow.

 

[heirloomgal]

There is actually a good reason for buying all that seed though. When you see seed for a variety that interests you, it may not be there tomorrow - so you buy it today. That's my excuse explanation, and I'm sticking to it. I can't help it if I dream in green.

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

There is also the question of "what are realistically my odds of actually getting this thing to grow in a manner that will be of use to me." It doesn't matter HOW much you like the taste of something, if you plain and simply don't have the environment for it, all you are ultimately doing is wasting money and seeds.

In my case, there is also sometimes a question of WHO, if anyone will be the beneficiary. That's what often puts a hold on my plans for fruit and nut trees. Starting from seed, the odds are that, by the time they bear fruit, I will no longer be living here. And there is no guarantee that the next people will benefit either, both because they might cut the trees down to get more light, and the fairly high likelihood that, as my house is quite old (if well built), rather than being an actual family, the next purchaser of the property will be a real estate developer who will simply demolish and clear cut everything in order to put up a McMansion or two he can flip for a large fee before it collapses. And THAT assumes that, by then, thing haven't changed so much that a developer could buy ALL the homes on my cul de sac, get the area re-zoned, and turn it into something like another entry for the senior community over by the hospital (who do want another one, and it's only about two minutes by car as the crow flies from here to there.)

 

[Branching Out]

Craig LeHoullier, the tomato guy, recommends that you start a second round of determinate tomatoes once the first transplants go out. That could effectively double the number of determinate tomatoes that you grow. I may just give this a try, because I took have purchased a lot of new varieties that I am itching to grow. It would stagger the harvest and that would be a big plus.

And Zeedman, I Dream In Green  too! Do you think we could get that on a t-shirt??

 

[flowerbug]

That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

i think there's a lot of sticky people here...