A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

There are 2 annuals I've always wanted to grow, but never succeeded with seed - Torenia and Nemesia. They are easy to sprout but you have to be patient waiting for them to attain any size and actually flower. The waiting part wasn't my strong suit. So I cheated this year and bought plants. Gonna try and save seeds; they may be hybrids but it's probably just a matter of colour. I find there are so many fake 'hybrids' out there it's worth trying to save seed from them because there is a likelihood they'll come true (aside from corn and tomatoes maybe).

Torenia starting to bloom

Nemesia is a little further along. Would have picked a different colour, but there wasn't much choice. Reminds me of Barbie.

Beanz! Happy chaos. Can't wait to plant. Lots of birch saplings to cut before doing that though. Not many survived from last year. Poplar is better, the few poles I had cut of those survived better.

Rocket sprouts. Haven't planted rocket in years. I remember how shocked I was that 1st time, it tasted like walnuts & I expected a lettuce taste. Even though we've had cool weather and lots of rain, I do still find even these wee sprouts have nuclear radish punch to them. Like wrestling an alligator with your tastebuds.

Trying my hand at dwarf sweet pea flowers, 'Bijou' and 'Little Sweetheart'. Usually germ rates are poor with these, but this time I got lucky.

An experiment. All the hideous clay I dug from the pathway, I used to make a garden bed elsewhere. I read years ago in WWW3 gardening book that brassicas go for heavy clay soils. Well, we'll see how far that can be pushed. This is probably 80% grey clay. Late cabbage, dino kale, and regular kale in here. It's been raining like mad too.

 

[heirloomgal]

Morelle de Balbis is ready to start making some fruit!

The Caterpillar Plant seeds I got from Richters; I wasn't sure if they would grow for me. Anything from a speciality place like that I have found is a bit hit and miss, more miss than hit really. Exotic things are not the easiest to grow, especially from seeds, but these actually sprouted after what seemed a long time. Nearly all the speciality seed items I got this year have sprouted, though it took some time. The only problem is I planted them in compost and the weeds in there are really Did you get your 'happy alien' plants to sprout @Pulsegleaner?

A tomato whose seeds I got from a very nice lady in the seed exchange. I mentioned in our correspondences how I am drawn to varieties of anything with a unique or special name. Shortly after I received a packaged in the mail from her with some surprise seeds for a couple yellow cherry tomatoes with names that are pretty neat - this tomato is 'Coeur de Pigeon Jaune' (Yellow Pigeon Heart) and another one called 'Honey Nail' . I decided to grow them both.

Peppers in the greenhouse are finally adjusting to a different environment than the house. One of those instances where being larger was a disadvantage because of the heat wave we had. It was wilt city all over the place. Still have some transplanting to do for some of the peppers still in too small pots. Hope to get to that this week. My 'Ecuador Lemon' pepper seems to be pulling ahead of the rest. It's a year for the yellows I guess.

Excited to grow these 'Reisen Schnabel' dried peas. I got them from a small outfit in Quebec; it's appears to be a rather rare pea from the collection of Will Bonsall. Alongside it is 'Sutton's Harbinger', one of the sweetest shelling peas I've ever tried.

'Tigre Jalapeno' is getting a little more variegation as the heat turns up. I have no idea if the peppers will be good or not, but the plant is certainly vigorous (though seeds weren't, only one sprouted!) and is quite large already. I have been trying to keep all the flowers picked on the plants to avoid stunting and to let the plants get larger first but with all the other tasks to do right now I'm falling behind. So small peppers have formed on some of the plants, including this one.

'Fish' pepper is also increasing in variegation. Seems to be tied to heat.

Germination was 100% with this pea, the one next to it 'Avalanche' was 0%. It was a brand new pack too. All 6ft+ climbing peas I've planted have germinated - Monster, Brazilian, Yukumo (spelling?), Green Beauty, Mrs. Van's, Chinese Giant, except for Ne Plus Ultra. Not a single one sprouted yet, so I may have to replant that one. Another brand new packet that may not sprout.

First 'Purple UFO' pepper has formed. I wanted to repot first, and I missed picking these fruits off. Oh well, hopefully there will be more to come when I do repot it. The 'Reza Macedonian' peppers are making flowers too, which so far I've picked off, but they are huge! Biggest pepper flowers I've ever seen, at least 3X the size of regular ones.

Quaking grass is greening up in it's new planter with the compost. I hope it can make trilobite seeds!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Did you get your 'happy alien' plants to sprout @Pulsegleaner?

Haven't sown them yet, weather's been too irregular.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

To whoever it was I offered the Clove Basil seed to; I finally found the vial of seed. so if you want some, let me know in a PM.

 

[heirloomgal]

To whoever it was I offered the Clove Basil seed to; I finally found the vial of seed. so if you want some, let me know in a PM.

What's Clove Basil? Have you tried Green Pepper Basil @Pulsegleaner ? My seeds have germinated (only about 15% sadly) but they sure are taking their time to develop beyond starter leaves. I wonder if this is normal for this plant, or if something else is up. If find even the papalo, pepicha and quilquina are all REALLY slow going too. And they have been in the hothouse for a bit of time, which usually gives a boost. I wonder if the lack of reliably hot days, though we've had some, is partly responsible. Maybe even cold nights?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

What's Clove Basil?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_gratissimum

Have you tried Green Pepper Basil @Pulsegleaner ? My seeds have germinated (only about 15% sadly) but they sure are taking their time to develop beyond starter leaves. I wonder if this is normal for this plant, or if something else is up.

I would not try green pepper basil, for the simple reason that I do not like the taste of green peppers (except in a Philly cheesesteak, and even THEN, I prefer it with red ones.)

 

[heirloomgal]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocimum_gratissimum


I would not try green pepper basil, for the simple reason that I do not like the taste of green peppers (except in a Philly cheesesteak, and even THEN, I prefer it with red ones.)

My guess is that 'green pepper' basil will taste as much like green peppers as papalo tastes like cilantro.....but we'll see.

 

[heirloomgal]

The soil in my compost garden has turned out to have a wonderful, fluffy texture. I planted Gem marigolds at one end of a bed, and Kenikir flowers at the other end. (The smell of the Gem marigold foliage is really lovely). However, the wild sunflowers that were growing over the original compost pile have reached epic proportions in the beds. Coming up in sheets. Driving the tiller repeatedly through the pile probably didn't help, though it was necessary. The bottom of these sunflowers have a tuber, I wish I knew what they were. They aren't sunchokes but they are probably related. I'd try to eat them but they are pretty small really - about two grapes worth and maybe they're toxic, I don't know. The kids helped me clear 1 of the 2 compost beds, which felt great to get done. It occurred to me after weeding that the pH may be off in there, someone told me years ago compost piles have an off kilter pH. Wondering if I should spread some powdered lime since I have a bag from last year I never used. Was planning on planting watermelons tomorrow in the bed.

FINALLY transplanted all the tomatoes which really needed it. Plants were starting to look haggard. Added kelp, alfalfa meal and azomite. The tomatoes I transplanted awhile ago with that mix are doing fantastic, super green and robust. I haven't even used Muskie on them yet.

Not sure if anyone is interested (this isn't Tomatoville ) but here are the tomatoes I'm growing this year. Several come from Tatiana's Tomatobase and I think she tries to rescue varieties listed by only a few people with Seed Saver's Exchange. If anyone has info to share about any of these I'm all ears.

Bulgarian Tozala Egpu
Lenny & Gracie's Kentucky Heirloom
Valencia
Flamme
Mennonite (orange beefsteak)
Rodopi
Chittenago
Van Wert Ohio
Hugh's
Sart Roloise
Honey Nail
Yellow Pigeon Heart
Mule Team
Angelo's Red
Galapagos Wild
Casino Chips
Karma Pink
Huge Lemon Oxheart
Korol Sibiri Oranzhevyi
Monomahk's Hat
Korshun Ogromnyi
Cienski
Wapsipinicon Peach
Black from Tula - Spudatula version
Power's Heirloom
Nips
Verdal
May's Green Pineapple
Qiyanai-Huang

 

[baymule]

I finally got all caught up on your thread. I am always inspired by all the varieties you grow, both vegetable and flowers. You are amazing!

 

[digitS']

HeirloomGal , you waited a long time for a response to that list of tomato varieties (and received a well-placed compliment ).

At one time, I had a patch with 60 tomato plants and about 20 varieties. No More - this year, 15 plants went out and there are two in the backyard at the foot of the backsteps (I might sneak one more in there .)

A gardener can really be caught up in all the varieties. I mean, even some small seed outfits sell seed for over 250 varieties! It's a very reasonable hobby if a gardener is at all capable of making use of and have room for more than 4 or 5 plants.

Of all those heirlooms that you have listed, I have only tried Flamme - which I am just assuming is "Jaune Flamme" - Good Heavens, could there be more types of those Flamme available now! Anyway, I was very much attracted to the color of those listed on websites. The smaller size sounded like I could finish one in the garden with about 2 bites, turned out to be quite true . I finally grew it after several years of looking at the pictures and was pleased with it. It is very pretty and I appreciated that it didn't split in my garden. It also didn't have any problem with the climate in maturing a crop.

Steve