A Seed Saver's Garden

[flowerbug]

...
Must now face remainder of hot peppers for deseeding.

and i see you survived!

i'm drooling over those peppers even if i don't know what they taste like.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Looks like I have an interesting problem to take care of before next year.

Apparently, while the Korean Mountain Garlic do not do well enough here to be a viable crop, it DOES do well enough here to be a bit of a problem to totally eliminate either. Every time I go out there are another half dozen or so shoots popping out of the ground from tiny bulbs I missed during my combing of the soil (no, I have no idea why they are sprouting NOW, maybe fall here it like spring the the Korean mountains and they think the weather is going to get warmer.

So I keep having to dig the opt top up again and again to get rid of them (since, if I don't next year when I plant the OTHER wild garlics, I'll have no idea which are what.)

With them sprouted (and so tiny) there's no real point in trying to dry those down to save them with the rest of the harvest. I suppose I could EAT them but 1. there are never enough to really make that worthwhile and 2. once I grab them and put them in my pocket, I tend to forget I did so, and by the time I take them out again at night, they're too squashed and withered to look all that appetizing.

I suppose I could also just empty the pot and re-fill it as well, but, as that is one of my biggest pots, that's a lot of expensive topsoil to waste.

 

[Zeedman]

Your Korean Mountain Garlic sounds a lot like this:


This is Perlzweibel. Apparently a relative of elephant garlic, as indicated by the grass-like foliage, and the tiny pearl-like bulblets which form beneath the bulb. The bulb was dug up in Spring; newly harvested, both bulb & bulblets are white. Those bulblets separate easily when dug; I have no intention of moving them, but total elimination would no doubt be difficult (its already hard to tell where I dug up bulbs earlier in the year).

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Your Korean Mountain Garlic sounds a lot like this:
View attachment 61935 View attachment 61936

This is Perlzweibel. Apparently a relative of elephant garlic, as indicated by the grass-like foliage, and the tiny pearl-like bulblets which form beneath the bulb. The bulb was dug up in Spring; newly harvested, both bulb & bulblets are white. Those bulblets separate easily when dug; I have no intention of moving them, but total elimination would no doubt be difficult (its already hard to tell where I dug up bulbs earlier in the year).

Habit wise, very similar, though not the same (actually, as far as I can tell, the KMG does NOT make aggregate bulbs. EVERY bulb I've ever seen has been a single, complete round, so I think new bulbs must arise a bit apart from the main one and be connected by a root bit. Either that, or the bulbs don't divide AT ALL, and the plants rely on their bulbils and seeds to increase their numbers.)

 

[heirloomgal]

Apparently, while the Korean Mountain Garlic do not do well enough here to be a viable crop, it DOES do well enough here to be a bit of a problem to totally eliminate either.

I have experienced this same problem with certain flower bulbs. My front perennial garden used to extend all the way from the house to the street, and there were several tulips etc. in there. When I got rid of half of it and turned it into grass, all the little bulbs that had grown on the original bulbs survived. Without fail those darn things still sprout in the grass despite being mowed all the time. I guess being so small they have the energy to keep trying to come back.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I have experienced this same problem with certain flower bulbs. My front perennial garden used to extend all the way from the house to the street, and there were several tulips etc. in there. When I got rid of half of it and turned it into grass, all the little bulbs that had grown on the original bulbs survived. Without fail those darn things still sprout in the grass despite being mowed all the time. I guess being so small they have the energy to keep trying to come back.

I wish our lawn crocuses had that level of vigor. They're still THERE, but the display is nowhere near what it was when I was a kid. We could, of course, simply salt the lawn with new ones, but having to did hundreds of tiny holes in the front lawn seems too much work to be worth it (especially since the gardeners, who apparently work by their own annual schedule, seem to be coming for the first lawn mow of the year earlier and earlier, and seeing the flowers relies on them showing up BEFORE that.

Actually, what tulips we still have probably ARE coming from bulbs of bulbs by now. We gave up planting tulips years ago (the deer eat nearly all of them anyway.) but we still got two flowers last year (well, one mature flower and one tiny one I accidentally broke off while planting the pansies.)

Speaking of pansies, those are also why any blue violet that can make it into the flower garden tends to get a reprieve. It's not that we want them there (there are more than enough violets in the old shade garden, the pachysandra and pretty much everywhere else on the property to meet our needs). It's that ever now and again a pansy or viola seed DOES manage to make it through the winter and sprout in the spring, and I can't tell the leaves of one from the other readily until they flower and I can move then around (I move them because I'm usually setting the new ones up in pollination blocks, and want to keep errant colors out of them) .

 

[heirloomgal]

I learned something new, and surprising, about beans today. Apparently, you're never supposed to cook beans and onions together. Ever. It makes tear gas.

 

[Zeedman]

I learned something new, and surprising, about beans today. Apparently, you're never supposed to cook beans and onions together. Ever. It makes tear gas.

Is that before or after consumption?

 

[flowerbug]

I have experienced this same problem with certain flower bulbs. My front perennial garden used to extend all the way from the house to the street, and there were several tulips etc. in there. When I got rid of half of it and turned it into grass, all the little bulbs that had grown on the original bulbs survived. Without fail those darn things still sprout in the grass despite being mowed all the time. I guess being so small they have the energy to keep trying to come back.

the worst ones i've got here are small alliums which have a beautiful deep purple almost burgundy colored flowers, but they get these tiny bulbs in the ground which are profuse and hard to get rid of by digging them up. repeatedly pulling off whatever grows does them in eventually but it may take several years and you do have to be consistent enough to exhaust the energy the bulb has stored.

i do try to dig them up and remove as much as i can of whatever bulbs i can find but i normally miss a few and i just keep cutting them back when i walk by and see them. i might have a few very small threads left now, but i hope i can finish them off this year. i don't want them anywhere. too hard to control.

other garlics i've been able to get rid of by mowing them every week or so. eventually they've given up. i used to have quite a few thousand small garlic plants growing in the NE garden but they're gone now - i ate some as green garlic and cut the rest back with the mower on a regular basis. whole area is now mostly grass which looks great, but i really want it to be bean gardens so i will hopefully get the grasses out of there and return it to gardens.

 

[heirloomgal]

Is that before or after consumption?

Lil bit of both?