A Seed Saver's Garden

[Pulsegleaner]

Finally an interesting find for a change.

I was over at the local H-Mart, and, to kill time decided to do what I haven't done in a while and check the herb section to see if there was anything interesting in the bags of senna seeds they had (I've basically given up on the actual beans, they no longer seem to have ANYTHING to look for.)

In one bag, I saw a grain of broom corn. I was going to put it back and call it a day (broom corn isn't good enough to justify purchase, when I saw a dark seed with a white slash, and realized that bag also had a wild (or nearly wild) mung bean. So into the cart, through the checkout, and home to the sorting tray.

To cut a long story short I wound up with three to four of those mung beans (there's one I'm unsure if it's a flat one or something else) a few broom corn seeds, and one of something in the bindweed family (which ,given it is shiny and wedge shaped, could be something like Japanese Morning Glory and worth planting to find out.) I guess I'll have to go back to checking there when I go (for financial reasons, I now only buy a bag if I can SEE something in there I want, so buying the stuff out isn't on the table.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Finally an interesting find for a change.

I was over at the local H-Mart, and, to kill time decided to do what I haven't done in a while and check the herb section to see if there was anything interesting in the bags of senna seeds they had (I've basically given up on the actual beans, they no longer seem to have ANYTHING to look for.)

In one bag, I saw a grain of broom corn. I was going to put it back and call it a day (broom corn isn't good enough to justify purchase, when I saw a dark seed with a white slash, and realized that bag also had a wild (or nearly wild) mung bean. So into the cart, through the checkout, and home to the sorting tray.

To cut a long story short I wound up with three to four of those mung beans (there's one I'm unsure if it's a flat one or something else) a few broom corn seeds, and one of something in the bindweed family (which ,given it is shiny and wedge shaped, could be something like Japanese Morning Glory and worth planting to find out.) I guess I'll have to go back to checking there when I go (for financial reasons, I now only buy a bag if I can SEE something in there I want, so buying the stuff out isn't on the table.)

Broom corn - I've always wanted to grow that. I've grown sorghum, and it was labelled as Witches Broom Corn, but it wasn't for making brooms. I've looked around for varieties that might be for that specific purpose but have never had luck finding anything. I'd love to do a broom craft or make an attempt at some of these with DD.

 

[heirloomgal]

Made my first ever Huckleberry Compote. This is the first time I've ever grown the plants, and while they were certainly incredibly productive I was a bit skeptical of the taste. The most common report on them is that they taste like blueberries, not much else besides them being bland raw. They aren't grown by many people it seems, and I wondered if there might be a reason for that.

I only used half of one branch.

I added about 2 tsp of sugar and 2 tsp cornstarch to a bit of water and added the berries.

I thought it was surprising how utterly nuclear purple the mixture was.

We cooled the compote to room temperature and added freshly whipped cream. It was good! I can see why they compare these to blueberries, there is definitely some overlap when prepared like this. But, I liked that these berries don't totally pop even when cooked to a soft texture. You can squish them when you eat them. I needed a bit more sugar than the 2 tsp, and could probably use only 1 tsp cornstarch (which I don't like to use anyway). I ate half my bowl then refrigerated it, then tried it cold later. It was even better.

I think my favorite thing about this fruit is - what other fruit is ready only in mid-October! Not much here, and I believe that the plants can also take frost. Some say it improves the flavor of the berries. That is a quality I can really appreciate.

Tackled the Lime/Lemon basil stems. My feeling was they may have dropped their seeds before I got to them. I kept a close eye, but didn't see much when I broke open a few pod clusters. I was happy to see I was wrong. I do think the pods need to dry more still, to be crumbled better before I try again.

I also processed this years cucumbers for seed, Salt & Pepper. Looks like there is well developed seed in most.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Broom corn - I've always wanted to grow that. I've grown sorghum, and it was labelled as Witches Broom Corn, but it wasn't for making brooms. I've looked around for varieties that might be for that specific purpose but have never had luck finding anything. I'd love to do a broom craft or make an attempt at some of these with DD.

Well, you have to bear in mind that, when I say "broom corn" I can't really tell just by seed broom corn from sorghum (or several of the millets, either). I think I already tossed those (they weren't of interest to me) but I'll make a point to put future ones aside.

But growing it shouldn't be all that hard. According to what I read, pretty much all of the broom corn in the US descends from four seeds Ben Franklin pulled out of an imported whisk broom he purchased (remember, back then the Founding Fathers did anything they thought was a good idea to advance the new nation, or why Jefferson risked execution to smuggle pockets full of rice out of Italy.)

In other news, I have confirmed the horse gram plant on the side is white (as opposed to simply pale tan) seeded. I'm just unsure whether I'll get any good seed off of it (the horse gram seems to have a sort of split personality when it comes to ripening. Some pods get fat and mature very quickly, while other seem to stay at the full length but never plumping stage until they go brown (and the seeds from those tend to be too thin and withered to look viable.)

Found a few more seeds in some coriander today, but nothing I haven't seen before (I think, at this point, I need to define what exactly I have to see before I buy a package, some of the stuff just isn't worth the price.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I took some tallies of soybeans this year, though it isn't much of a representation of how they did since a rabbit decimated half of them before I fenced it. I'm usually pretty clear about how many plants I have of what but I don't this time because of the marauding and the fact that the hardware cloth fenced me out as much as the rabbit for the season. I will say that, with the exception of Black Panther and possibly Musan, all the soybeans were well adapted to my length of season. The variety which stood out to be in particular was 'Hoseki'. For the production and the earliness to maturity it is a really great soybean. The seeds are surprisingly large as well. Next in line would be Tankuro, seeds were a good size and it matured in the ground too. I'm yet to open any pods for BP and Musan since they're still drying down. It does look like Musan will be a good producer, if late. Small seeds though.

Hoseki, probably 4-6

Tankuro, probably 4-6

Urga Saja, probably 3-4. One nice thing about this variety - while it isn’t super yielding per plant it is a sure bet. It dried down in situ at least a month ago.

For a fava, and about 7 plants at that, I consider this a pretty good yield. Fingerprint favas are the most heat tolerant of the 3 types I’ve tried so far. Not only that, I totally forgot to pinch the tips and still not a single aphid showed up. By October it was ready to make pods again with new growth and blossoms after I harvested the pods. It is slightly later maturing though.

A nice surprise. I didn’t think I’d get any Grenada Seasoning peppers this year, but I found these. The largest seasoning peppers I’ve ever seen, seasoning peppers are usually smaller. Hope there’s seeds in there.

The Orange Cayennes flushed again with peppers after I harvested the plant awhile ago. And I was going to throw the plant out!

 

[flowerbug]

...
The Orange Cayennes flushed again with peppers after I harvested the plant awhile ago. And I was going to throw the plant out!

the extended season gave us an extra round of harvest from the pepper plants here too. so nice when that happens.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Mostly sort of winding up here.

There are still one or two common beans covered with flowers, but I have to assume that, at this point in the year, it's a bit too late to expect more mature pods before a frost hits. The latest mungs aren't ready yet either, but that pot I can take indoors to finish.

Unsure about the horse gram, since I can't really see anything in the mat of vines. I suppose I won't really know my total harvest from that until the plants DO die from a frost and it's OK for me to tear them up and pull them apart one by one.

Think the long beans are now totally done (Dad took the cage away from the stump once the corn was gone, and the animals clear cut everything that was still in there, long beans, rice beans, and so on, to the ground in one night.)

I'm finally being able to harvest more than one mature lablab pod at a time, so those should be over relatively soon. I'm pretty sure I have by now gotten all of the partridge pea pods (found a few stragglers yesterday, with the vines climbing all over them it's hard to see exactly where everything is on the plants, and I can't pull the spent ones out without damaging those vines.

The one kicker is that it looks like the tall unknown in the middle pod with the upright shape and the simple leaves is finally getting its buds NOW. I'm already astonished it recovered from basically having the top half broken off (not in the sense of growing a new side shoot, but in the sense of that broken bit basically righting itself and keeping on going) but it is annoying that I am unlikely to see any seeds (that pot's too big to move inside). Maybe when it flowers I'll cut it off and put it in a vase if it looks nice; at least them I'll get SOME enjoyment out of it (as well as possibly an identification.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Yesterdays trip to the bodega was a bit more profitable than most. I managed to scare up a decent handful of fava beans with the "wood" seed coat pattern, in both brown AND purple.

Of course, this also means I'll need to set up TWO 12 inch pots in the early spring, as the favas are going to have the same weather problem as the peas will (more so possibly, since these are large favas, and the large ones tend to take longer than the small ones.) But I least they won't need a support rig, probably (since favas are naturally upright).

Also added two more beans to the bag of odd bolitas, including another with a pattern. Though trying to work out if those are worth testing is a little more complicated. There are only two bins of favas (brown and green), but there are about FIVE bins of common beans, and since people are sloppy (and there's only one scoop to go around all the bins*) every time I see something I think might be an off type I first have to check to make sure it isn't just a bean from one of the other bins that got mixed in. And that is occasionally tricky. They carry three colors of bolitas (white, maroon, and tan) so any color outside those I know to focus on. But if I find a yellow one, I have to check the shape as well, to tell if it is a yellow bolitas or a canary bean that got in the wrong bin (ditto speckled ones, since the fifth bin is Roman Beans).

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Two more bags of senna from H-mart, and I have a few more of the mungs, plus a couple of small cow peas to play around with. The pink one seems to be the same as the stuff I used to get bags of from the Malaysian store in Flushing (until they stopped letting me come in and buy), but the black one has potential. It's not the black kind I used to find in the rice beans (the one whose seeds were often peppercorn sized or smaller) but it is a tiny one, and bodes well for productivity (a mottled seed from one of those Malaysian packages was the start of the cowpea I call Bounty, the one that can produce about 1x1-200 even under MY conditions*

*Though, if I recall, my current Bounty seed is second generation (i.e. it grew from a seed I got from the first time I planted.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I managed to scare up a decent handful of fava beans with the "wood" seed coat pattern, in both brown AND purple.

On brown favas and purple favas? They must be quite lovely. If you feel some time like posting a picture I'm sure all us bean aficionados would love to see.