A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

Speaking of fertilizing itself, do you know how Butterfly Peas get pollinated? a.k.a get viable seeds from them? Last year I had 2 plants (next to each other) and no pods were formed once the blossoms fell. This year unfortunately I only have the one plant. I'd like to collect some seed since the seeds from Richter's are either old or the species is a sporadic germinator. I think fresh seeds would be better to get an earlier start. Online searches turn up only convoluted and contradicting answers.

No I don't know (though it is information I probably should know before growing them myself). The fact they are so readily available indicates it probably isn't all that rare an occurrence, and the fact I saw a mature pod on a plant once at the Bronx Botanical Garden indicates that it probably doesn't involve some insect we do not have here (unless they did it themselves, in which case, why they would leave a mature pod that had popped open on the plant without collecting the seeds is beyond me*.)

But as for getting fresh seeds, just go on Etsy and put in Clitoria (Butterfly Pea's genus name) and narrow down the search to seeds and plants. You'll be spoiled for choice, there must be several hundred people who have it, in many colors** and forms (single or double)

I noticed something odd about my corn today. Usually when I've grown any kind of corn the cob numbers per plant are more or less the same. I took a patient look today and saw that the cob numbers are really diverse - some have 4 cobs, some have 1. I have a couple thoughts about this; the corn itself 'Rootbeer' is a selection from 'Cassiopeia' and maybe there is some variability in there? Could that be? Seems odd to me. The other thing is I've watered them with a hose standing at the front of the patch and no question the front received more water overall for the past 2 months. It's the plants closest to where I stood watering that have mostly 4 cobs each. Whereas the back of the patch which got the least seems to have many plants with one cob each. The middle seems to all be less than 4, but hard to tell since at 1 foot apart each way I can't get in there to really check. The last thing is that the front of the patch is nearest my fertilizer pole and no question that those plants closest to it all have the 4 cobs, the middle to back of that patch is totally out of the range of the pole. This is a new experience for me with corn. Very strange.

I have no idea on that. I THINK ear number is determined by genetics, but I'm not sure. I do know most modern corns are bred to only make one ear per plant (so the ear is as large as possible), so multiple ears would be an older trait. I think all of my plants have only one ear, but they are all smallish plants (especially the one or two that are only one foot tall or so), so one ear is probably all they can handle.

* The Bronx Botanical garden seems sort of variable in how carefully they clean up after the shedding plants. The very first time I went on a school trip as a kid, the main room's floor was COVERED with dropped silk tree flowers (or, some legume flowers that looked like silk tree flowers) and there were quite a lot of palm seeds in the cracks between the paving stones, indicating they hadn't swept those up either (and they probably should have, having piles of oily seeds all over the ground would probably attract a lot of rats.)


** Though you may want to steer away from lavender unless you are an expert. A lot of people who think they have lavender flowered butterfly pea actually have spurred butterfly pea (Centrosema) so assuming you care what you get, you need to be able to both trust the dealer and know what the two seeds look like (spurred seeds are brown (as opposed to black), vaguely bean like in shape with the hilum on the side (not the edge of the side, like regular) and have dark brown streaks edged with gold (not those little white dots the standard has).

Also stay with ternetata . The other species have some problems, fairchilda (butterfly pea tree) is really had to get to germinate and the other one (macrophylla) there I'm fairly sure is Centrosema again.

CORRECTION- Avoid the PINK, not the lavender. Personally, there are some white and blue variegated and highlighted ones I think are quite attractive.

Oh and I'm going to try matrima next year.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I suppose next year I'll have to do something about the mint dilemma as well. For some reason, in the pots, all of the mints do INCREDIBLE, filling every inch and then some in a month or two. But the moment we move any into the actual ground, it languishes, never grows so much as an extra leaf and dies almost instantly (and I'm used to thinking of mint as nearly unkillable.) Maybe our soil is incompatible. So, next year, when I get a shot at getting fresh Egyptian mint, I guess it's back to a big pot.

 

[heirloomgal]

I suppose next year I'll have to do something about the mint dilemma as well. For some reason, in the pots, all of the mints do INCREDIBLE, filling every inch and then some in a month or two. But the moment we move any into the actual ground, it languishes, never grows so much as an extra leaf and dies almost instantly (and I'm used to thinking of mint as nearly unkillable.) Maybe our soil is incompatible. So, next year, when I get a shot at getting fresh Egyptian mint, I guess it's back to a big pot.

That's odd? I wonder what could cause that? Usually mint is terribly invasive, and can handle just about every condition known to man, including excessive moisture and drought. Are they specialty mints of other species?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

That's odd? I wonder what could cause that? Usually mint is terribly invasive, and can handle just about every condition known to man, including excessive moisture and drought. Are they specialty mints of other species?

They are, but, in terms of how they behaved in the pots, they seemed as vigorous as any other mints. Most likely reason is that the patio gets a bit more attention (i.e. watering) than the ground. This has been a hot year, and we're still sort of used to thinking of the area where we planted it as the "shade garden" even if it isn't anymore (by now, most of the hemlocks that shaded it have died and been removed, so it's actually one of the sunnier spots on our property.)

I really should check on the yellow lavender as well, since that also is in a spot we don't pay much attention to, it could be having problems we don't know about.

Finally got to EAT from the garden tonight. The Spoon tomatoes taste pretty decent (though they did re-kindle my desire to either find or breed a green when ripe currant tomato). For me, the only catch is that, being so small, cutting them in half is pointless, so you can't really salt or pepper them (though, if I could ever get a big enough crop, I could make a really fun spoonable insalata caprese.)

To my relief, the cucumbers, whatever they are, do NOT have the taste I found off putting in Lemon cukes, so we're good on that count. Seed cavity is very wide though, so it probably is an "eat or seed, not both" cucumber. Might see how they pickle, if we get a bumper crop (like we ever get a cuke crop bigger than we can eat!)

 

[heirloomgal]

Pea updates. Always surprises.

Amplissimos Victoria Ukrainskaya is shorter than I thought it would be. But it is productive.

Red Fox pea. These had the prettiest flowers I’ve ever seen on a garden pea as far as colour, a true pastel pink. Most red seeded peas have purple pink flowers, these were totally different.

Mr. Big. Lives up to the name, the pod is nearly the length of my hand. A nice shelling pea though later than most.

Bill Jump pea growing on a much too small trellis. Red seeded pea.

Beauregard snow pea. An ultra dwarf snow pea that’s purple. There were a dozen seeds in the packet so I’ve not eaten any. Looks like it’s not totally uniform yet as a noticed a green pod speckled with purple.

Carruther’s Purple Podded. Was planted late but it’s catching up. Curious what the shelled peas will be like for sweetness.

Gorah peas. Have no idea what these peas are for! I doubt they’re shell peas, a bit starchy. Got them from @jbosmith and I never got a chance to ask what kind of pea they were before he left the forum. Nothing to find online last time I checked.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

More beans, more long beans, more tomatoes, more cucumbers. No real big surprises (though there were more of my favorite bean pattern, the one I am most likely to re-grow, so that was nice. )

Still getting all flat pink long bead seeds, and not a lot per pod (one fully mature pod had no fertile seeds AT ALL.) @Zeedman, when YOU grow this long bean (the mottled seeded one with the pink fungicide all over it from that Asian company) what color seeds did YOU get back?

What news there is comes from the other side, as I collected the beans from the middle of the corn patch. As yet another surprise in this saga of bean segregation, all of the beans that came from there, which were all "flips" of the mottled one (that is, steely grey beans with tan streaks, rather than vice versa) came back white! Though one plant produced slightly mottled pods as opposed to pure green ones, so they are not all totally identical.

Of a bit more significance, one of the long beans plants in there now has flowers as well, so it looks like I have a good chance of getting seed from both types this year (I think those were the white seeded ones I got.)

 

[Zeedman]

Still getting all flat pink long bead seeds, and not a lot per pod (one fully mature pod had no fertile seeds AT ALL.) @Zeedman, when YOU grow this long bean (the mottled seeded one with the pink fungicide all over it from that Asian company) what color seeds did YOU get back?

The dry seed was speckled. Since it was part of a 3-variety trial, I only let a couple pods mature so I could observe its DTM. Of the three, the speckled one was the earliest & highest yielding overall. All three (white seed, red seed, and speckled seed) matured easily here.

Much to my surprise (given that the seed came from Florida) thus far everything I've trialed from AG2T has been day neutral, and has succeeded here. The luffa I'm growing this year is doing incredibly well... hopefully I can post some photos soon. I like that rather than posting DTM for the luffas, AG2T states the leaf number at which flowering begins.

Surprisingly, both of the pole hyacinth beans I'm trialing from them have proven to be day-neutral too, and are flowering now. This is a great year for my hyacinth bean trials, 3/3 for day neutrality.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I wonder what is going on. Did I get the seed mixed up?

Better luck than I'm having with the lablabs, I've yet to see bud #1 (both from what Russ sent me and from what I got from Ghana.) The Partridge pea is still the only thing flowering over there. I know I still have a decent amount of time (all of August, probably all of September, and possibly most of October as well, given how shifted forward the season are here now) but it is getting a little vexing (especially when most of what I threw in there would be difficult if not impossible to get more of until I finally got my Small Lots Seed Import Permit. Not that I'd buy from the person I got most of it from again anyway, I don't think anything he sold me has germinated)

 

[Zeedman]

Mr. Big. Lives up to the name, the pod is nearly the length of my hand. A nice shelling pea though later than most.

Wow!!!

Beauregard snow pea. An ultra dwarf snow pea that’s purple. There were a dozen seeds in the packet so I’ve not eaten any. Looks like it’s not totally uniform yet as a noticed a green pod speckled with purple.

Have you ever grown the purple-podded snow pea "Shiraz"? I can't remember if I sent you seed.

Gorah peas. Have no idea what these peas are for! I doubt they’re shell peas, a bit starchy. Got them from @jbosmith and I never got a chance to ask what kind of pea they were before he left the forum.

???

 

[heirloomgal]

Wow!!!

Have you ever grown the purple-podded snow pea "Shiraz"? I can't remember if I sent you seed.

???

I've heard of Shiraz, but not grown it. That's a rare one around here, I only know of one person in Canada who has that one.

Have you heard of that Gorah pea @Zeedman? I thought jb may have gotten it from SSE but I looked over there and it doesn't appear on any lists, but I'm not familiar with the site and don't navigate it well so it may be there and I just couldn't find it. He also had a friend that was very into seeds and he may have gotten it from that friend, though I can't recall if she was a seed vendor or not. I thought she was. I'm surprised I can't find anything about it, I do recall he had grown it the year before and liked it. I'm tempted to think it's a soup pea.