A Seed Saver's Garden

[flowerbug]

...
Everything else looks more or less steady, for better or worse. I STILL can't figure out why the black common beans are doing so poorly compared to the brown and mottled brown ones, and why the white aren't doing anything AT ALL. They're all the same age, so they should all have more or less the same viability. Also only the black ones are really getting attacked by the eating critters. Could the black ones and the white ones have tastier leaves and seeds?

yes, of course! i have certain bean plants that are loved by Japanese Beetles but they won't do much to the plants right next to them of a different variety. same for germination, different chemicals can act as a preservative within the seeds is my guess. as far as taste of leaves and seeds the herbivores also go for certain plants and ignore the rest. chipmunks go for certain beans, soybeans or peas and ignore the others, etc. those buggers can smell crocus bulbs down six inches... mice too only seem to eat certain seeds of some beans and don't go much for others.

 

[heirloomgal]

We have slept on “earthing sheets” for years; kinda opposite principals though.
We do remember earlier years while the Magnet thing was in vogue; don’t hear too much about it now days.

I've never heard of earthing sheets! But I looked it up, wow, that's pretty neat! I have no real idea about the PEMF beds, it's the first time I've seen them too. I just read the phrase 'cellular functions are influenced by electric potential' and thought hey! that's what the e-culture info sounds like!

 

[heirloomgal]

I've been released from icloud jail for some reason, so picture time!

The WHOLE garden is in!

And I feel like .

But I am very happy that everything is FINALLY tucked in. I had WAY TOO MANY pepper starts in the end, so a few will probably get tossed. Because of my excellent luck last year with the peppers that I stuck in odd, and seemingly unideal, places around the garden that's where I put all of them this year! I remain open minded to relationship causalities, as illogical as they seem.

The perennial poppies I planted 2 years ago bloomed for the first time this week (they're in part shade) and they are lovely. I'd describe the color as 'fluorescent red'.

A new delphinium I purchased for putting some color splashes in my 'edible forest' front yard. It's an unusual coral color and I was very eager to see it bloom for the first time. I got it a few weeks ago; I seldom buy well established perennials because they're too pricey, but this one seemed special and worth it. And then yesterday, to my utter horror, I accidentally whacked off 3/4 of the burgeoning bloom with a shovel while working in that vicinity. So these blooms are all I get for now. Maybe it will send out side shoots, I'm not sure if delphs do that? My heart hopes they do.

The only shrub I got for the re-design - a mock orange. Never grew one before, but I liked the blooms and the tag said they smell nice.....so that was that. Hope it doesn't get too big and I hope it really does smell fragrant. I don't detect anything yet! Apparently it fills with foliage right to the ground in a natural globe form and doesn't leave bare bottom stems, a quality I like in a shrub.

A new tomato I'm trying,, a hanging basket type, 'Shimofuri'. I get a kick out of tomatoes with variegated foliage.

I've had this periwinkle for 15 years in my front yard behind the, now gone, cedar tree. It never bloomed once. It never really grew at all. Too much shade I'm guessing. Last year, knowing that we'd cut the tree down, I dug it up and thought maybe putting the few existing vines elsewhere might be worth the effort. I think @ducks4you mentioned periwinkle and sort of motivated me to try and save them. I'm shocked that it bloomed so much this spring. I've never grown this plant before now with success, I like how it covers the ground (weed suppressant!) and the leaves are nice and glossy. I hope it blooms again later in the season. It lays at the feet of the new Oriental poppy.

I planted seeds for these in early spring, and nothing happened for over 30 days. It's an odd species, and I can't find much info about it (Solanum villosum ssp. alatum)). So, thinking it mightbe perennial I put the pot in the sunroom ( in late April) with a baggie strapped on top to expose it to nights slightly below freezing and high heat in the day in the window. Nothing. So I put it outside to dump the soil into my used soil barrel, dud seeds. And then I forgot about it completely until we were doing some cleanup in late May. I hadn't watered it in I don't know how long. And low and behold it was full of sprouts! Dry-ification motivated sprouting? I'm curious what this edible red berry will be like, supposedly has a grape/kiwi flavor, I read the plants get very large (2 m) so I sunk it into a very large pot. Heaven knows I don't need a plant that big in the garden.

The cedar planter. So far so good! All the Russian tomatoes went into this bed. I'm amazed that 2 of them are already flowering - 'Premus' and 'Betta'. That's shockingly early and I was a little late planting the seeds AND I had mega problems with my transplants this year, so much bad dirt. Seedlings were WAY small when they went in. So, flowering already is wild. They went out on the May long weekend. I'm VERY tempted to surround the bed with woodchips as it would keep the boggy type weeds that grow here down, and tidy things up. But I'm afraid voles will find that inviting. I had none last year and I'd like to keep it that way!

This little devil tomato gave me such trouble, not the least of which being it took SO long to sprout; my seed source had indicated that these were very old seeds indeed. So in the end I'm quite grateful that I got 2 seeds to germinate. But it's the smallest plant out there for now.

Top tomato in pic is Cherokee Tiger Black, which I'm growing for it's chartreuse foliage. I've got a couple wierdlies out there this year along with the 'normie' reds - Wagner Blue Green, Shimofuri, Scheherazade Woolly (thank you @Artorius! ) and a whole bunch of long keeper tomatoes. I didn't plant all the long keeper seeds I got, but close to half. It's a start, we'll see what these are made of. One variety I planted one plant in part shade, to see if slowing down it's maturity will help with storage, and one plant in full sun.

 

[Alasgun]

I've never heard of earthing sheets! But I looked it up, wow, that's pretty neat! I have no real idea about the PEMF beds, it's the first time I've seen them too. I just read the phrase 'cellular functions are influenced by electric potential' and thought hey! that's what the e-culture info sounds like!

Yea, we been on the earthing sheet’s for a good number of years. I cant say it has been a “cure all” for anything but i guess all the little efforts probably have a cumulative effect? On the subject of “grounding”; in the spring i really enjoy being able to sit out, bare foot and massage the sod with my toes!

 

[digitS']

periwinkle for 15 years in my front yard behind the, now gone, cedar tree. It never bloomed once. It never really grew at all. Too much shade I'm guessing ... Oriental poppy.

I like our periwinkle but am mildly surprised that yours would have too much shade to bloom. Still, a cedar would cast deep shade.

Our periwinkle was growing under the deck when we moved here, 30 years ago. They had a little afternoon sun but it was a difficult place for them and they were moved to the east side of a board fence.

Oriental poppies were growing all around the backdoor of the neighbor's house. They had spread in a large area and encroaching into our yard. The house was sold and the new owner began a major renovation which included putting in a driveway beside the fence. All poppies were taken out, except on our side.

They aren't nearly as colorful as yours but it was quite a change in view since it was a wire fence at that time. We were left with a narrow band of poppies and I was happy to put in the privacy board fencing. The poppies there are quite limited to sunlight since our house casts shade that far in the morning. The periwinkle was a little further south and had more morning sun.

Poppies spread. Over the years, they squeezed out several feet of the periwinkle. They are mowed over where they try to squeeze into the lawn but it took me awhile before I realized that they were out-competing the bluegrass and fescue. The periwinkle was moved this year to allow room for the new veggie beds. They are now along the same fence but north of the poppies. It is even more shady there because the peak of the house roof shades that spot. Transplanting went well and I believe that they will be able to handle the poppy invasion better since the poppies trail out while being very aggressive in the sunnier area about 15 feet and further to the south.

Your tomatoes and the beans in the bed beyond look good, HeirloomGal!

Steve

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Moved the Holy Basil to a bigger pot.

Harvested a few peas whose pods had dried out beyond any recovery. Will wait for seed to dry before taking picture, both to see if any are mature enough to dry down to anything useful and because they will look totally different dry than they do now (the "camo" patterns on marmorated peas are not visible while the pea is imbibed. They appear when it dries down, and disappear again when it re-imbibes).

Started 27 Night Sky beans (one of my own, don't try looking it up) to try and fill in the long pot with the bad germination (I really doubt the few plants there will do anything, most seem functionally topless). Will plant as many as germinate (the seed is at least ten years old by now, so germination is likely to be less than 100%). Also planted smaller box with smallest beans from last year (9 seeds, 10 if I can find the one that fell,) to see if I can get them to full maturity this time and confirm both full size and seed coat color/pattern for them.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I'm still adjusting to having all the garden put in.
It's a weird lull in the nearly frantic pace of the last 30 days.

Had some garden drama this weekend. The beaver dam way back in the bush gave out (probably from all the rain last week) and the creek on the north side of my garden started to flow higher and harder than I've ever seen since I moved here nearly 20 years ago. I thought my garden might wash out in a flood - the volume of water was insane. I've never seen floodwater like that. DH walked back there to see what the heck was going on (we thought the gov may have went back there and terminated the dam, being so close to the burbs and all) but no, looked like it just gave out on it's own. Beavers were very unhappy though, smacking their tails over and over as the drain was going. I'm sure this is where our little goose came from, the geese were nesting back there in the beaver's pond and she got separated somehow. I saw a big crowd of adult geese seem to fly from out of there the day before the dam broke. I wonder if they knew.

Anyway, did my first real full garden water tonight. Put on some easy listening jazz, got the watering can and went manual tonight. Took my time. Was wonderful.

 

[heirloomgal]

Early tomatoes.

I'm not sure I've ever paid real close attention to my tomatoes outside of how they taste, and the ones that produced buckets and buckets of tomatoes. But this year's trials of 'earlies' is proving to be rather interesting. I noticed a few days ago that one of them, a Polish variety (I think) called 'Betta' actually has tiny green tomatoes on it already. That is a wow-level of early for me and my garden, small fruits by June 10th. I am going to make a point to date the day I harvest the first tomato. Online info says maturity @ 78 - 83 days after seeding. Cocktail size.

Tomato Betta: characteristics and description of the variety

Tomato Betta: characteristics and description of the variety, reviews + photos, recommendations for growing and care.

gardenlux-en.decorexpro.com

My little log garden of these early tomatoes has a high percentage of plants already flowering. I haven't looked closely at the ones farther into the bed to see if there are any fruits, but one called 'Cesu Agrais' is flowering heavily and I think it will take #2 position for maturity. https://jandlgardens.com/xencart/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=423 Been awhile since I had this kind of fun tomato experiment. I am also trying a few new Cross Hemisphere Dwarf Tomato Project varieties; I've always enjoyed growing these tomatoes. They have all been uniquely good to fantastic tasting (most dwarfs I've tried have been quite terrible and often sour i.e. Tiny Tim, Rejina, Mano, Minibel, Red Robin etc ) , though I have steered clear of the earliest specimens in the project because they didn't seem to be rated as good as later developments.

 

[flowerbug]

i usually try to remove the first flowers on the tomatoes here because they are often so hard to get to in the interior of the plant that they are broken apart when trying to get them out of there. i had to do that the other day and i'm sure i've got a few more to remove but i got distracted and then on to other tasks... oops...

 

[digitS']

Every year, tomato volunteers show up in my garden and compost. At times, I have been inclined to allow several of them grow through the season. They seldom have time to ripen fruit so it was a bit wasteful of garden space.

Nevertheless, there have been lucky times when there has been ripe, volunteer tomatoes. With a strong tendency to choose early tomato varieties, the odds are a little better. A variety that was especially good as a volunteer was Coyote. I talked about it in this 2016 TEG thread .

A determinate aversion keeps me from those varieties that so often produce early. If the plant's development guides it to ripen fruit just before frost, that's okay but that's not early . I'm uncomfortable watching determinate tomatoes ripen a crop and then sicken and die. Kimberley is supposed to be a semi-determinate and doesn't quite rush to produce and conk out. It sort of, moves on to a late-season retirement. Hah. I grew it quite a few years so as to have some nice red tomatoes, early.

Steve