A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

Good news and bad news in the garden today.

Good news: Harvested my first eight mung bean pods. It looks like the mottled one WILL produce here, not sure about the others (one pod produced solid green seeds, but whether that's a regular pod or I picked one too soon (the pod LOOKED yellow, and was papery inside, which usually indicates full maturity, but who knows?) Also have my first confirmed fruit on the Phil's Two tomato.

Bad News: I figured out what that mystery black and white bug is, it a first molt Spotted Lanternfly nymph! Found two second molt ones (with the red) in the back today (managed to catch one, other was too fast.) It turns out they've been in NYC since 2020, so I suppose it shouldn't be a surprise, but I better keep my eyes peeled.

 

[SPedigrees]

Bad News: I figured out what that mystery black and white bug is, it a first molt Spotted Lanternfly nymph!

I found a dead one on my back porch (with the pink/red) last week. It's a pretty creature; unfortunate that it is so destructive. They're coming whether we want them or not, it seems.

 

[heirloomgal]

I thought of something today, just out of the blue, in regards to my electric fertilizer poles. Not one cut worm took out a plant this year. For the last 3 years I've had them take out a few things here and there, never much really, but losing even one plant is a lot from a harvest point of view (if you aren't on an acre). So, I think that there is in fact some deterrent action - for certain pest types - that the poles effect as the articles suggest they do. Have not had a single vole either, another critter purported to dislike subtle electric frequencies. And those critters have bedevilled me in the past. The plants grown right against the bush have had a few snails, but nothing like what I had last year, especially not after I moved the pots a bit further away from that grassy edge. Clearly, rabbits are not affected though. The wigglers seem the most responsive.

As for the vigor of the plants, and the ability of the poles to increase the availability of fertility in the soil/atmosphere I'm very tempted to conclude (for the beans especially since they take up the most garden real estate) that the plants are being affected. And to a significant degree. Of course, I did provide the plants with amendments & then there is the hot weather to factor in as well. I really do feel that azomite, greensand, kelp and alfalfa have an effect. I only used those fertility amendments with certain bean varieties last year (minus the greensand) and no question that many of them yielded significantly above the unamended plants. This year I amended all the bean plants with those same additions after the 2022 'test run'. However, the photos from last year at this time show plants much smaller than what I have now, so I can't give too much credit to the amendments for plant vigor. They simply did not get so big so fast last year. The yields may be a different matter, I'm not sure.

I will put the poles in again next year, if I even take them out. If I can get the same results next year as I am this year, with different weather, I will feel even more certain that my spidey senses are right that it's working. Even the tomatoes have far surpassed their usual performance size wise, and it's only the 3rd week in July. Same with the bush beans. My plants now are bigger now than they were at the end of last year.

 

[Alasgun]

@heirloomgal Im happy to hear a positive report and like you; id agree to the benefits you mention. No slugs, which for us is huge and everything except the pumpkins look real good. The pumpkins are a long way from the “test zone”. I will hold off a bit longer to get a better feel for the final outcome of the rest, but im smiling!
i have no intention of moving them; they will winter where they are just fine; but i might he lazier than some?
If you have any interest in playing with that meter, Pm me. Id be happy to send it along. I just imagine your a lot more tuned into them spidey senses than i am!

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal Im happy to hear a positive report and like you; id agree to the benefits you mention. No slugs, which for us is huge and everything except the pumpkins look real good. The pumpkins are a long way from the “test zone”. I will hold off a bit longer to get a better feel for the final outcome of the rest, but im smiling!
i have no intention of moving them; they will winter where they are just fine; but i might he lazier than some?
If you have any interest in playing with that meter, Pm me. Id be happy to send it along. I just imagine your a lot more tuned into them spidey senses than i am!

I got the funniest feedback from our next door neighbours yesterday. Given that all our backyards are open to each other side to side everyone can see right in. Apparently my neighbour & his DW have been quietly observing the yard the past 2 months and finally came over yesterday and said, 'What on earth is going on in your garden!?' He said, I think those poles you're using might be working! Which is hysterical because when we first put them in and he asked about it, and we explained the theory, he had a very quietly polite demeanour afterward which spoke of ---- I. Didn't. Know. You. Were. Crazy. I could see he was a bit taken aback and thought it was nuts. So it's especially funny that he made a point to come over and backtrack on that a little.

 

[Alasgun]

Im having a great time telling those who ask “that im monitoring and re-directing the polar magnetism of the earth”. Those who know me just smile and the rest are more confused than when they first ask!

I truly believe i’ve had some appreciable results. I’m still holding out till fall/or harvest time but i’m clearly on track for my best onion crop ever and the Chocolate mint is knee high this year and still not showing signs of flowering. One cutting is all i’ll get this year BUT it’s gonna be like cutting hay!

 

[heirloomgal]

Is the little red cherry tomato 'Japonaise Haute' worthy of all the rave reviews? Yup!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Sunflower is now fully open. Not that big (or that black) but I suppose if it makes any seeds I'll save them.

In other news.

Barring a second flush, the mung bean crop is now almost totally in.

It looks like the mottled coat is heritable, as I got a lot of those.

I haven't gotten any yellows back yet, so either the yellow didn't come up, didn't make pods or the yellow doesn't pass along from generation to generation (but the fact @Zeedman has a yellow seeded strain would seem to refute that......).

No sign of any urds or mothe beans yet. Maybe the mothe beans were just too old (I have one fresh "scribbled" one I found this year, I'll try again next year with that.)

Corn is beginning to silk.

Also have begun to get the first harvest off of the common beans. Looks like they are FAR from finished segregating. Forget about two different flower colors, I'm not sure I got more than two or three pods whose seed was the same COLOR (and I didn't pick much yet, just the really dry and wrinkly ones). Even factoring in for the fact that by now they are all showing signs of CBCD (Common bean collapse disorder, my name for the fact that, around the time when the first pods start to ripen, any bean plants I have grown start to rapidly succumb to whatever insect or air born diseases they may have picked up and start dying, fast. Or why I pretty much never can get a second flush of bean pods; by the time the first is done, most plants are either mostly or totally devoid of leaves) which means some colors may be inaccurate (if the pod withered along with the plant before the seed was totally ripe) there's still a LOT of variation.

In the pot I sowed with black seeds, two pods produce black/purple seeds again (of two completely different shapes and sizes). One produced purple/black seeds with a white patch at one end, one or two produced light tan seeds, and the rest are pure white.

I only took two pods from the speckled seeded pot so far (there seem to be fewer ready ones there). One seems to retain the tan with blue black streaks I started with and one is sort of greenish (possibly underripe, but flageolets CAN be greenish at maturity.)

There is at least one pod developing in the corn patch, but I doubt I can harvest that until I harvest the corn (and can get in there) But since all of those are just the "flips" of the mottled, I assume that, whatever happens with the mottled pot will happen with them.

Now up to three or four developing cukes, one of which already has yellow stripes (is Russian Netted supposed to get those? As I have never seen a picture of a fruit that was not totally ripe and brown and crackly skinned I don't know. I'd be worried I got a lemon cuke by mistake (I don't like the taste of lemon cukes, I found them too sour and or bitter.) but the fruit is too flattened for it to be that.

And the back yard long beans already have some pods that, if I wad growing them to EAT this year instead of for seed, would be eating/cooking size.

Oh, and some of the Spoon tomatoes are starting to redden up.

 

[heirloomgal]

Also have begun to get the first harvest off of the common beans.

You mean, you have dried beans already!?

Now up to three or four developing cukes, one of which already has yellow stripes (is Russian Netted supposed to get those?

I haven't grown that particular variety, but I have grown Poona Kheera and Kaiser Alexander which mature into netted cukes, but I don't remember stripes? The small cucumbers were a pure white to light greenish, with a touch of yellow.

Very pretty sunflower @Pulsegleaner! I've always been a big fan of the burgundy or chocolate sunflowers, much more so than the yellows. One year I grew a few dozen of them, different varieties.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

the sad thing is that while i do love my books and have a hard time getting rid of any of them eventually someone will probably come along and just throw most of them out.

they won't know about the Nietzsche forgery (maybe? talk about rabbit holes... that one is deeper than i care to go these days) called My Sister and I or any of the other interesting tidbits.

My Sister and I (Nietzsche) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Same sort of thought with me an most of my collections. Unless someone else in my family develops the same interests or loves that I do (and since I KNOW I will never have kids, and I have some doubts my sister ever will either, it'd have to be a fairly distant relation,) at best, it'll all just be sold off, and while I can HOPE the buyer is someone who loves them as much as I do, it's just or more likely to be some sleazebag who'll misrepresent them to try and fleece someone out of more money and turn them off of their love. At worst, most of it will just be tossed out in the garbage or burned as waste. A bit like our house and property, I can HOPE some other family moves in someday and starts their own life here, but odds are the buyer will be a land developer who knocks the whole place down so he or she can put up a McMansion they can get a few mil for before it totally collapses in two or three years. In this day and age, not only does nothing last forever, in truth, nothing seems to last for even a brief time, even memories.

You mean, you have dried beans already!?

Yes, more or less. It's a byproduct of the collapse thing; as the plants die, they throw whatever energy they have left into ripening whatever seed that have made as of that point (even aborting less developed pods to divert energy to more developed ones.)
Whether they are all dried right now I'm not sure but I can be pretty sure all of the ones I harvested today will be dry by tomorrow morning.

I haven't grown that particular variety, but I have grown Poona Kheera and Kaiser Alexander which mature into netted cukes, but I don't remember stripes? The small cucumbers were a pure white to light greenish, with a touch of yellow.

That's sort of what I expected, white turning to yellow and then bronze (I'm not sure any have ever gone full brown here, I think we may not have enough sun for that.) I can just hope the second plant gives me some clues. As I currently have only one source for Russian Netted seed I can sort of rely on (in that the photo they show IS of Russian Netted, NOT Brown Russian [they are NOT the same!] I'd hate to discover their seed isn't pure (or, worse, that none of it is Russian Netted in the first place.)

This also leaves me with a mystery from last year. We got one cuke last year I thought might be a Russian netted, based on where it was in the cucumber row (I knew what order I had planted the seeds in, but not which specific seeds had ,made it to maturity, so telling where one section ended and the next begun was often blurry. That one wasn't round but I thought maybe they rounded up later (they don't they're supposed to be round right from the start) but the problem is it also wasn't white, it was dark green, and NEITHER of the ones in that line should have been that (the line was between Russia Netted and the last few Brown Russian seeds I had saved from the previous year, and that's starts white as well. The next one in the line was supposed to be Sambar but Sambar is 1. a cucumber melon (so the insides should have looked different). and 2, supposed to have stripes (I think).

I think I may be in for a murky year, much like I will next year if I plant the individual sized winter melon seeds I got (just looking at the package, I can see there are two seeds that CAN'T be the same variety as the rest.)