A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

ETA: I have no idea why my post got split, but I can't edit it!

The Aji Exoticas are finally ripening, yay! This one and Aji Fantasy White are 2 I may regrow next year I liked them so much. Sugar Rush Stripey too. I have a whole big bunch of peppers to de-seed right now and need to find some oompah to get that job started. And I need to find that oompah soon because pepper seeds don't wait.
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I'm relieved that Black Panther is a soybean that will mature in my climate. Growing soybeans these last few years I've learned a few things about these plants which were totally new to me. The bigger the plant gets the more productive it usually is. They'll dry down from a shockingly early stage - I had a plant this year get mold and I pulled it out to dispose of and then forgot about it. A month later I noticed it was all dried up and I cracked open a few dried pods and the seeds were all dried up and of a fairly good size. I pulled them at the edamame stage because I checked when I pulled it and the seeds were still long and very green. I'm amazed they were still able to produce seed. Last of all, I learned this year that if a rabbit eats down the plant but still leaves some leaf matter it will continue to grow but it will never recover fully, it'll stay stunted permanently and will set only a small number of pods. P. vulgaris beans on the other hand will grow right back, and produce just the same if not better for the rabbit pruning.
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I find this somewhat puzzling and curious. This Bolita bean plants were put in rather late and clearly most of the pods won't produce mature seed, yet something is signalling to the plant to shut down. I thought mature seeds was the signal, but this proves that not to be the case. The yellowing is being triggered perhaps by the shrinking daylight hours. At the same time, I have a pole bean that was not planted late but is still green as anything and not yellowing in the least. I wonder if different varieties can have different triggers to shut down and start yellowing.
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I found this today when I was pulling leaves off the remaining pole beans. All these pods belong to one variety - the plant jumped both left and right from it's original pole. I haven't gotten any dried pods yet but I'm impressed with this level of production from 4 plants.
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Harvested some pepper seeds. Unfortunately I harvested the Aji Fantasies a bit early, several of the pods had far too immature seeds. Luckily, I think there is still enough viable seed in the rest of the peppers. I guess white peppers are tricky to estimate for ripeness. I thought this pepper was top rate.
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I gave all the de-seeded peppers to my neighbour who makes hot pepper jelly. I grow some of the hots for their beauty and colors as much as for pizza. My vegetable 'flowers' . I also love the jelly, which I usually get a couple jars of.
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Harvested the camphor stalks. I searched some of the seedheads looking for itty bitty black specks of seed and have not seen much yet. I've not saved seed from this plant before so all I can do is hope that they don't open up and drop the seeds, or at least not done that yet. I felt like it wasn't that far along since there is still plenty of green leaves on the plants. I need to dry it more indoors and check again I think. My hopes are high to get seeds for this plant.
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Tomato seeds @2024 here we go. Packing these up and labeling them was also an opportunity to teach DS about perseverance on a task which one loathes. He wasn't thrilled, but he was smiling ear to ear to see his final product in the end. Wants a cut now too. lol
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The last of the Morelle de Balbis fruits. These are the later forming smaller ones, the first ones tend to be biggest and they were huge this year. Even the later ones though are bigger than I've seen them. The taste this year has been stellar, just about as perfect as I've had them. Hot weather helped.
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[flowerbug]

ETA: I have no idea why my post got split, but I can't edit it!

if you click on the "more options" selection and then click on the "Toggle BB code" selection it should switch your view to text only which then should let you edit it easier than using the visual method. i hope that helps.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Another "seedless" watermelon, another mature seed. I must have some sort of supernatural ability to pick melons that have developed seeds when they weren't supposed to (or else, the percentage of seedless melons that actually do have seeds is a lot higher than I think it is (I know legally a fruit can have up to six seeds and still be considered "seedless"* but to find one or two each time seems excessive)

*Though I imagine the actual limit varies depending on the fruit, since, for a lot of fruits offered as "seedless" (like most citrus and grapes), six seeds would be about the same as a normal seeded one would tend to have, making the term legally meaningless (actually, assuming it is calculated per grape, six seeds would be quite a bit more than a given fruit would normally have, I think two or three is the norm.)

 

[heirloomgal]

The surprise Nicandra plant that showed up in the Goldenberries actually set seed. Ironically, I bought a packet this year but nothing sprouted. So, this was weird lucky. Pretty flowers, and I hope I can grow some in 2024. The seeds are odd, no juice, they just dry right up in the ball.

Best ground cherry harvest I’ve ever had, with 4 plants. Not sure how many pounds, but it’s several for sure. The ones for seed are set aside.

Decided to pull off the Tzimbalo fruits and be done with the plant. Many people talk about how delicious these are. Thus far, to me, ick.

@Suzee these are for you.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Not much new on the seed front. I DID take a seed hunting trip to my bodega spot, but basically came up empty handed (two Andean corn kernels with a bit of red on the pericarp, and one bean that may be a Bola/Canario cross.) Plus three more long lemony looking limes (how's that for alliteration?) and one lemon that has to be the flattest one I've ever seen (it almost looks more like big yellow clementine than a lemon.)

There IS however, some new news on the coming plant front. I found someone on Etsy who actually was selling Keppel TREES, and I could not help myself.

 

[heirloomgal]

Not much new on the seed front. I DID take a seed hunting trip to my bodega spot, but basically came up empty handed (two Andean corn kernels with a bit of red on the pericarp, and one bean that may be a Bola/Canario cross.) Plus three more long lemony looking limes (how's that for alliteration?) and one lemon that has to be the flattest one I've ever seen (it almost looks more like big yellow clementine than a lemon.)

There IS however, some new news on the coming plant front. I found someone on Etsy who actually was selling Keppel TREES, and I could not help myself.

What’s a bodega spot?

 

[heirloomgal]

Salt & Pepper cucumbers for seed saving. Not sure what the results will be, I only isolated them by about 70 feet. There was a lot of plants in that distance, which might have created a slight buffer effect.

A podded radish seeded itself and I let it be. Amazingly it’s still flowering. Pods are strangely short though.

DD did a ‘fall photo shoot’ with the dog today. Kids are so cute.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

What’s a bodega spot?

A bodega is Spanish for a small market, your neighborhood place you can pop into for basic groceries and such if you don't live near a huge supermarket. Since they tend to be run by Latin Americans, they'll carry the kind of things they'll need the big markets might not. In the case of this one, that includes bins for selling things like beans and corn kernels by the pound, so it's a good place to hunt for less common types of these that made it in in the shipments (or, at least, it used to be, sometime between when I stopped going there dure to COVID and when I started going back, nearly all of the interesting stuff in the bins started disappearing, so it's been slim pickings since then.

 

[flowerbug]

...In the case of this one, that includes bins for selling things like beans and corn kernels by the pound, so it's a good place to hunt for less common types of these that made it in in the shipments (or, at least, it used to be, sometime between when I stopped going there dure to COVID and when I started going back, nearly all of the interesting stuff in the bins started disappearing, so it's been slim pickings since then.

the optical sorters are now getting really good at air puffing out the strange stuff. i used to spend some time every week watching videos of them in action as a way to relax before falling asleep.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

the optical sorters are now getting really good at air puffing out the strange stuff. i used to spend some time every week watching videos of them in action as a way to relax before falling asleep.

Beyond the sorters themselves, the programming that runs them is a lot better. For one it IS programming, being done automatically, rather than needing an actual person at the lens (like when I saw one in college at the Ag extension.)
The extra programming also probably means it can exclude by more than one qualifier by now (or, conversely, it can look for more than one aspect). I suspect most of the old ones worked by noticing either color or shape, since they were designed mostly to get rid of weeds and spoiled seeds. Now, the machines can probably check both at the same time, so off color seeds generally get caught as well.
Add on that more farmers are probably getting their seed from professional seed breeders rather than saving their own (who, at some point in the process, are usually dealing with an amount of seed small enough it IS feasible to check over all of them and remove ALL impurities.) and you have a formula for a lot less "mistakes".