A Seed Saver's Garden

[Decoy1]

November 11 and I'm still not done with seeds! Ha! I'm inching closer though. Definitely played a game with myself - done, oh wait not quite, ok done, no but almost there, yadayada.....it's the peppers that really hung me up. I had a full banana box of them to do, mostly small stuff (!), and I got a bit too reliant on outdoor refrigeration to hold them for me until I was ready. Tackled them this week, the whole box minus about 4 large Ziploc bags worth. (The hot wee ones, which I'm not looking forward too....) Sheesh, that was a job. I hang my head in shame that I lost 5 - 10 % of them, I just prioritized computer work too much doing seed entries for 2025. Some went bad. Anyway, that's that.

There were some star performers in there for sure though. 'Piquillo', 'Kampanaki', 'Portuguese Goat Heart', 'Morron de Fabrica' and a variety called 'Sonora'. That's a big pepper that one. Oh, and 'Bola', those were really mega producers. More a paprika pepper though. All mostly sweet. The 'Ajo Mochero' little yellow hot peppers did really good too. I'd say the 'Wiri Wiri' peppers were amazing, cause they were, but it wouldn't be fair because I overwintered that plant. I can't realistically compare to the others. I'll be so glad when this pepper seed job is totally done.

I'm also trailing behind on dealing with pepper seeds but have nowhere near as many as you. I only save seeds from the ones I've successfully bagged, but seem to think you've said elsewhere that you're happy to let them open pollinate and haven't found much, if any, crossing. Is that an accurate memory and am I right in thinking that you've not experienced crossing?

It would be hugely helpful to be able to ease up on the bagging of flowers as it has to be done relatively early, and quite frequently the bagged flower doesn't set and simply drops off in the bag. I do grow my peppers rather close together and I have wild bees nesting not too far away so perhaps I'm particularly prone to cross-pollination, but I've read that it's often considered that there's about a 7% chance of crosses occurring. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts and experiences on this - and apologies if you've explained very fully elsewhere.

 

[heirloomgal]

I'm also trailing behind on dealing with pepper seeds but have nowhere near as many as you. I only save seeds from the ones I've successfully bagged, but seem to think you've said elsewhere that you're happy to let them open pollinate and haven't found much, if any, crossing. Is that an accurate memory and am I right in thinking that you've not experienced crossing?

It would be hugely helpful to be able to ease up on the bagging of flowers as it has to be done relatively early, and quite frequently the bagged flower doesn't set and simply drops off in the bag. I do grow my peppers rather close together and I have wild bees nesting not too far away so perhaps I'm particularly prone to cross-pollination, but I've read that it's often considered that there's about a 7% chance of crosses occurring. I'd be very interested to hear your thoughts and experiences on this - and apologies if you've explained very fully elsewhere.

Have you tried using some of the netting that's out there? I haven't ever bagged flowers, but I wonder if the netting for the whole plant(s) might be easier? I know a few tomato growers who bag flowers and they tell me it's not uncommon that the bags fly off as well. The netting is no guarantee either, as I've seen people covering rows with it, and still getting some crosses. Sort of a catch 22 I think; if a bee does manage to get in, he's going to get busy under there and visit a lot more flowers than he would if he were flying freely because he's trapped.

So far @Decoy1 I have not seen a pepper cross, but I do grow most of my hots in a greenhouse so that provides some protection. I have started to leave the door open though because the last few summers have just been so hot, and still not seeing crosses yet. There may be some, but it seems like the % is low. With all the seeds I move no one has reported back to me a pepper cross yet. I know of 3 bean varieties where a cross was reported, that's about it. And a cherry tomato that was crossed, so I started pot growing those scattered around instead of in ground. Outdoors I have tended to grow short rows of peppers in differing locations so that if I bee did visit he's probably 'wiping his feet' across other species before finding my others rows tucked around.

Cross pollination is an interesting, and in my view, rather unexplored topic. It does seem like the greater number of peppers one is growing your chances start to really go up, and I've observed this mostly with pepper seed companies I've dealt with, those who both grow in open ground as well as in poly tunnels. I have gotten a high number of crosses from these companies, probably because they're growing hundreds if not thousands and the bees might just be deciding to camp out because there are so much groceries available in the one spot.

 

[Branching Out]

I think I'm going to try this! I need to find some horseradish though...maybe I should get a root and grow a plant.

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Our friend's communal vegetable garden has a good sized patch of horseradish and it's lovely-- until it's not. There are tenacious horseradish shoots popping up all over the garden, and even in the pathways. Those that appear in the middle of summer crops are often left alone rather than disturbing the plants that we wish to grow, and then by the autumn their adventitious roots are firmly established. Personally, I am not enjoying trying to stay a step ahead of this plant-- and I would think long and hard before allowing it in my garden.

 

[Decoy1]

Have you tried using some of the netting that's out there? I haven't ever bagged flowers, but I wonder if the netting for the whole plant(s) might be easier? I know a few tomato growers who bag flowers and they tell me it's not uncommon that the bags fly off as well. The netting is no guarantee either, as I've seen people covering rows with it, and still getting some crosses. Sort of a catch 22 I think; if a bee does manage to get in, he's going to get busy under there and visit a lot more flowers than he would if he were flying freely because he's trapped.

So far @Decoy1 I have not seen a pepper cross, but I do grow most of my hots in a greenhouse so that provides some protection. I have started to leave the door open though because the last few summers have just been so hot, and still not seeing crosses yet. There may be some, but it seems like the % is low. With all the seeds I move no one has reported back to me a pepper cross yet. I know of 3 bean varieties where a cross was reported, that's about it. And a cherry tomato that was crossed, so I started pot growing those scattered around instead of in ground. Outdoors I have tended to grow short rows of peppers in differing locations so that if I bee did visit he's probably 'wiping his feet' across other species before finding my others rows tucked around.

Cross pollination is an interesting, and in my view, rather unexplored topic. It does seem like the greater number of peppers one is growing your chances start to really go up, and I've observed this mostly with pepper seed companies I've dealt with, those who both grow in open ground as well as in poly tunnels. I have gotten a high number of crosses from these companies, probably because they're growing hundreds if not thousands and the bees might just be deciding to camp out because there are so much groceries available in the one spot.

Thanks for your thoughts. I haven’t had any trouble with bags blowing off, probably because I’m growing in a polytunnel sheltered from the wind. I think to cover the whole plant would need quite a lot of supports other wise growth would soon be inhibited and distorted. The main trouble with bags is that the flowers often simply don’t self-pollinate and the flower just drops off. I guess my success rate is somewhat under 50%. I try to move the bagged flowers around when I pass through to create wind-type movement. I’ve been successful with about ten varieties this season which isn’t too bad.

I’m interested that you’ve not experienced as much pepper crossing as bean crossing. And I’m not sure why I worry about my peppers crossing far more than I worry about beans crossing. I think statistically they are more likely to play fast and loose, but I guess it depends a lot on individual conditions. I’m thinking I should experiment more, let nature do what it wants and see what happens.

 

[flowerbug]

... I think statistically they are more likely to play fast and loose, but I guess it depends a lot on individual conditions. I’m thinking I should experiment more, let nature do what it wants and see what happens.

just beware that nature can and will rapidly provide so many future projects that you need some kind of way to figure out which are the ones you want to go forwards with...

my own pepper growing this past season gave me at least three different peppers than what i started with and all of them were edible, but i don't have the space or time to continue with them so i forced myself to not save the seeds. beans and peas are enough already (and i have a bunch of new ones of those too!) !!!!!

 

[ducks4you]

Our friend's communal vegetable garden has a good sized patch of horseradish and it's lovely-- until it's not. There are tenacious horseradish shoots popping up all over the garden, and even in the pathways. Those that appear in the middle of summer crops are often left alone rather than disturbing the plants that we wish to grow, and then by the autumn their adventitious roots are firmly established. Personally, I am not enjoying trying to stay a step ahead of this plant-- and I would think long and hard before allowing it in my garden.

Illinois is a popular place to grow horseradish.
NEVER.GROW.HORSERADISH.OUTSIDE.OF.A.POT!!!!
If left undisturbed horseradish can grow a taproot straight down of up to 15 ft long!!!
Rather deal with mint, or even bindweed.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thanks for your thoughts. I haven’t had any trouble with bags blowing off, probably because I’m growing in a polytunnel sheltered from the wind. I think to cover the whole plant would need quite a lot of supports other wise growth would soon be inhibited and distorted. The main trouble with bags is that the flowers often simply don’t self-pollinate and the flower just drops off. I guess my success rate is somewhat under 50%. I try to move the bagged flowers around when I pass through to create wind-type movement. I’ve been successful with about ten varieties this season which isn’t too bad.

I’m interested that you’ve not experienced as much pepper crossing as bean crossing. And I’m not sure why I worry about my peppers crossing far more than I worry about beans crossing. I think statistically they are more likely to play fast and loose, but I guess it depends a lot on individual conditions. I’m thinking I should experiment more, let nature do what it wants and see what happens.

What do you think is happening with the bagged flowers? Is it a micro climate of heat from bag material maybe? I have found pepper flowers very fussy on heat, I once had the whole greenhouse drop every flower and small fruit because of temperature. 10 varieties, that is a good amount, are they all sweet?

I think that I've seen more beans cross than peppers is a ratio issue; I've only grown maybe 200 or 300 individual plants in the last few years of peppers, whereas I've grown thousands of individual bean plants. If I grow a pepper variety I seldom grow more than a single plant, especially hot peppers. With beans it's a minimum of 3-4, sometimes 20 for bush beans. I don't know which flowers bees would more naturally gravitate too, I'm thinking peppers perhaps due to flower structure. Both species though are cleistogamous and I'd be tempted to think that they'd naturally not have much outcrossing as a result in most conditions. In fact, I focus and track down almost solely species that exhibit cleistogamy so I can have maximum diversity with the least amount of issues. Probably a touch of laziness in there too on my part since pollinating flowers with paintbrushes seems such a chore to me!

The national seed exchange hosted an interesting talk that touched on this, and how even the biggest seed growing companies with acreage have a % margin for acceptable amounts of crossing in retail packets, it seems impossible to eliminate totally even when you isolate by the kilometer. I think this is mainly due to, going to descend into geek world here big time, but the evolutionary capability of the thorasic muscles of bees. It's those muscles that gives us purity gardeners a really hard time!

 

[heirloomgal]

Whoa!! Horseradish can be that invasive??? I had no idea. Thank you @Branching Out and @ducks4you for alerting me to this. The LAST thing I want is to introduce another explosive species. I'll have to ask around and see what people are experiencing here in Northern Ontario with this. Our bitter, long winters seem to keep a lot of terribly aggressive plants in check (not strawberries though, those come back with vengeance). I had fair warning from a few gardeners here when I tried chufa nuts, apparently those are a real problem too in more southerly locations, though they can't overwinter here so I've never had issues. I'll just have to hope that horseradish is really kept in check in Northern Ontario and see what I can find out.

 

[Alasgun]

Horseradish is invasive in Alaska; just like any where else!
I dug out all my plants last fall but have zero confidence that “it is gone”.
Even the smallest root bits grow back next year.

 

[heirloomgal]

Horseradish is invasive in Alaska; just like any where else!
I dug out all my plants last fall but have zero confidence that “it is gone”.
Even the smallest root bits grow back next year.

Are the plants you dug out ones that you planted? If you want to be able to harvest horseradish every year, what do you do?

eta: I checked the invasive list for my area, wow, horseradish is on it!