A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

are these close enough?

Lady Beatrix Stanley Iris bulbs (the earliest blooming plant i usually have each year).

That's a pretty blue!

I've been considering these -

 

[flowerbug]

i like all of those!

i used to have a dwarf bearded iris version that was a light blue, but that was eliminated after i moved it and Mom did not like them so she took them out and replaced them with some taller irises instead. i can't really blame her. they were pretty to me, but you just would never see them in our gardens as all the rest of the plants and irises would smother them.

as a front of a garden plant they would have been ok and that was where i had them (the third time they got moved before they went to their last garden), they were earlier than the rest of the bearded irises.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

7/7/24

1. There are now two fruits on one of the plants in the cherry tomato pot as well. Oddly though, (since I seem to recall planting the oval green cherry seeds) the fruits are round. Maybe I just grabbed all of the packets marked "green cherry tomatoes Westchester Farms (where I got the tomatoes they came from). If I recall, their mix had both oval AND round green cherry tomatoes at different times (now, they don't seem to have either.)

2. Some of the common beans already have pods big enough that, if I was harvesting for snap beans, I would be harvesting. So, looks like a good crop on the way.

3. Looks like the rice bean plant will give me five or six pods total (one small one aborted, and there is one remaining that's about half the size of the rest and so could go either way). With usually four to five seeds per pod, that should be 20-30 beans at the end (not enough to eat, of course, but plenty to get a producing population back up and running.)

4. Most of the herbs are now also in full flower. Just noticed the Southwestern Oregano has put out its huge blooms, and the tulsi is also going strong (and smells heavenly when you walk by).

5. I'm STILL not sure if the plant I think is the rhombofexum pepper is, bu i CAN say the plant looks more like a member of the nightshade family than a member of any other family. It doesn't look much like a pepper plant to me (more like, but not identical to, a petunia). But I think rhomboflexum is on the pubescens side of the family, so the plant might be hairy.

6. Wild mungs are beginning to send out their runners. A bit behind everything else, but there's probably still plenty of warm weather for them to catch up (and I can bring the pot in to finish if there isn't.)

7. Only setback is the two mystery legume sprouts on the side has disappeared. Maybe clearing out the weeds made them more obvious to anything that like to graze.

8. The hair like stuff in the black pot HAS to be the mouse garlic, there's no way I could have missed that many Korean mountain garlic micro-bulbs and have them all show up THAT close together.

9. Most of the chestnut trees seem to have recovered from their grazing damage. Now I just have to work out how to protect them in the ground long enough let them grow tall enough to be out of deer reach (I have the wire cloches but that will only work for a very little while, and I can't really fit six trees under one cloche.

10. No flowers yet on the Hyacinth beans, but the vines are getting so long they're only about two weeks away probably from meeting in the middle of the railing!

 

[heirloomgal]

7/7/24

1. There are now two fruits on one of the plants in the cherry tomato pot as well. Oddly though, (since I seem to recall planting the oval green cherry seeds) the fruits are round. Maybe I just grabbed all of the packets marked "green cherry tomatoes Westchester Farms (where I got the tomatoes they came from). If I recall, their mix had both oval AND round green cherry tomatoes at different times (now, they don't seem to have either.)

2. Some of the common beans already have pods big enough that, if I was harvesting for snap beans, I would be harvesting. So, looks like a good crop on the way.

3. Looks like the rice bean plant will give me five or six pods total (one small one aborted, and there is one remaining that's about half the size of the rest and so could go either way). With usually four to five seeds per pod, that should be 20-30 beans at the end (not enough to eat, of course, but plenty to get a producing population back up and running.)

4. Most of the herbs are now also in full flower. Just noticed the Southwestern Oregano has put out its huge blooms, and the tulsi is also going strong (and smells heavenly when you walk by).

5. I'm STILL not sure if the plant I think is the rhombofexum pepper is, bu i CAN say the plant looks more like a member of the nightshade family than a member of any other family. It doesn't look much like a pepper plant to me (more like, but not identical to, a petunia). But I think rhomboflexum is on the pubescens side of the family, so the plant might be hairy.

6. Wild mungs are beginning to send out their runners. A bit behind everything else, but there's probably still plenty of warm weather for them to catch up (and I can bring the pot in to finish if there isn't.)

7. Only setback is the two mystery legume sprouts on the side has disappeared. Maybe clearing out the weeds made them more obvious to anything that like to graze.

8. The hair like stuff in the black pot HAS to be the mouse garlic, there's no way I could have missed that many Korean mountain garlic micro-bulbs and have them all show up THAT close together.

9. Most of the chestnut trees seem to have recovered from their grazing damage. Now I just have to work out how to protect them in the ground long enough let them grow tall enough to be out of deer reach (I have the wire cloches but that will only work for a very little while, and I can't really fit six trees under one cloche.

10. No flowers yet on the Hyacinth beans, but the vines are getting so long they're only about two weeks away probably from meeting in the middle of the railing!

Wow! Sounds like all your plants are doing amazing!!! Can you send some of that good fortune over here?

eta: If you ever grow Capsicum flexuosum @Pulsegleaner (which you likely won't since I think it's spicy) just a heads up - a vendor in BC told me after I had grown it from Feb 23 until this April and got no flowers to pollinate that it needs cross pollination with others. So, I got more seeds and am growing 8 more plants. BUT I just noticed tonight that my original plant IS actually self pollinating right now! There are a bunch of small orangey red fruits on the branches. So, you DON'T need more than one! Strange tho, it's able to pollinate itself outdoors but not inside despite my shaking and blowing on it?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Wow! Sounds like all your plants are doing amazing!!! Can you send some of that good fortune over here?

eta: If you ever grow Capsicum flexuosum @Pulsegleaner (which you likely won't since I think it's spicy) just a heads up - a vendor in BC told me after I had grown it from Feb 23 until this April and got no flowers to pollinate that it needs cross pollination with others. So, I got more seeds and am growing 8 more plants. BUT I just noticed tonight that my original plant IS actually self pollinating right now! There are a bunch of small orangey red fruits on the branches. So, you DON'T need more than one! Strange tho, it's able to pollinate itself outdoors but not inside despite my shaking and blowing on it?

Actually, I think that IS what I am growing! I got it confused with the pseudo pepper from Japan I tried to grow LAST time, Turbocapsicum rhomboflexum . So what I have and what you have (assuming what I have is what I think I have) would be the same thing. So that's good, as I only have one plant.

And I selected specifically becuase it ISN'T supposed to be spicy. So I'll have to hope that either you are wrong, or it is like when I got the grooved Amazonian muskmelon shaped peppers from Joe (which did turn out to be spicy when I grew them, but only mildly, so I could handle them).

And, while that situation is odd, I have experienced it before. Near the very end of one fall, I found a volunteer tomato plant flowering in a corner of the flower garden. It being way too late for it to ripen out there, I brought it indoors in a pot hoping for over the winter tomatoes. But while it kept flowering all through the winter, none of the flowers ever produced a fruit. But the moment I stuck it outside again in the spring, fruit started appearing all over it! (it was a commercial hybrid type, so the fruit was too ordinary to be worth saving seed from, but still.)

I've long since given up on trying to assume anything is obligate outcross versus selfing, at least based on flower type. My huge multi year mystery single plant that turned out to be Abelmoschus manihot I had assume would never make seed, since nearly all mallow types are outcrossing, but it produced seeds like crazy (I didn't even have to do the thing with the brush most of the time).

And I'll have to hope that whatever mallow I have growing this year can self itself as well once it flowers, since, again, I only have one. If it's Kenaf I'm probably SOL, since I recall that the only times I got pods there was when the two plants I had both had flowers at the same time and I could pollinate between them. If it's green roselle, who knows (The only other time I had a roselle plant, it already HAD pods when I bought it (it was nearly at the end of it's life) so I have no idea one way or the other.

And that's assuming it IS one of those two. The roselle seed I planted was professional, so I know it was what they said/ But the kenaf was all of the seed I pulled out of senna bags during the time I was finding it there (plus, I assume, the seed from my own, since I seem to recall putting that in there as well). It all LOOKED like Kenaf seed, but looks can be deceiving (as with the time I did the collected Crotalaria seed I had accumulated. One of them was indeed C. juncea, Sunn Hemp, but the other one (the one that never flowered) turned out to be a different one that was sort of the reverse (much smaller plant, but much BIGGER leaves.) I've had the Sesbania seed I have planted come up and flower twice, and each time it was a different species (I think S. augustifolia the first time and S. aculeata the second).

 

[heirloomgal]

Three years ago I planted 2 new currant bushes, red ones to compliment the black and white ones I have. I was going for a medicinal supply of berries that covered the Ribes rubrum color spectrum. Here at least it takes me years to get the bushes well established, long winters slow anything perennial down in a big way. At least 5 years to get a decent crop. This is the first year that my red currants are actually fruiting - and I realized tonight that neither are red!!!



2 more black currant bushes. Darn it. I know for sure those pots were both tagged for reds, so someone made a mistake somewhere along the production line. So..... the most culinary of the 3 berries is not to be had. I have no more room for more bushes, and I don't want to start all over again. Plus, I'm not feeling real trusting of tags right now. On the upside, the most medicinal of all the colors is now in plentiful abundance. In a big way really; that's 3 black currants and 2 jostaberry bushes, which are black currant crosses. My goodness, I have no idea what on earth I'll do with all those berries. They're not really usable in crumbles or pies. I don't even know how to can! Well, not yet. This may be the push I need. Then again, I could always test the water with selling them.

Ugh. Huge disappointment!

 

[heirloomgal]

Actually, I think that IS what I am growing! I got it confused with the pseudo pepper from Japan I tried to grow LAST time, Turbocapsicum rhomboflexum . So what I have and what you have (assuming what I have is what I think I have) would be the same thing. So that's good, as I only have one plant.

And I selected specifically becuase it ISN'T supposed to be spicy. So I'll have to hope that either you are wrong, or it is like when I got the grooved Amazonian muskmelon shaped peppers from Joe (which did turn out to be spicy when I grew them, but only mildly, so I could handle them).

And, while that situation is odd, I have experienced it before. Near the very end of one fall, I found a volunteer tomato plant flowering in a corner of the flower garden. It being way too late for it to ripen out there, I brought it indoors in a pot hoping for over the winter tomatoes. But while it kept flowering all through the winter, none of the flowers ever produced a fruit. But the moment I stuck it outside again in the spring, fruit started appearing all over it! (it was a commercial hybrid type, so the fruit was too ordinary to be worth saving seed from, but still.)

I've long since given up on trying to assume anything is obligate outcross versus selfing, at least based on flower type. My huge multi year mystery single plant that turned out to be Abelmoschus manihot I had assume would never make seed, since nearly all mallow types are outcrossing, but it produced seeds like crazy (I didn't even have to do the thing with the brush most of the time).

And I'll have to hope that whatever mallow I have growing this year can self itself as well once it flowers, since, again, I only have one. If it's Kenaf I'm probably SOL, since I recall that the only times I got pods there was when the two plants I had both had flowers at the same time and I could pollinate between them. If it's green roselle, who knows (The only other time I had a roselle plant, it already HAD pods when I bought it (it was nearly at the end of it's life) so I have no idea one way or the other.

And that's assuming it IS one of those two. The roselle seed I planted was professional, so I know it was what they said/ But the kenaf was all of the seed I pulled out of senna bags during the time I was finding it there (plus, I assume, the seed from my own, since I seem to recall putting that in there as well). It all LOOKED like Kenaf seed, but looks can be deceiving (as with the time I did the collected Crotalaria seed I had accumulated. One of them was indeed C. juncea, Sunn Hemp, but the other one (the one that never flowered) turned out to be a different one that was sort of the reverse (much smaller plant, but much BIGGER leaves.) I've had the Sesbania seed I have planted come up and flower twice, and each time it was a different species (I think S. augustifolia the first time and S. aculeata the second).

Well this is interesting, I had no idea that Cf might not be spicy! I actually have no idea where I came up with the idea it was spicy, I just found the thought in my head. So I went looking at the vendor site I got the seeds from and it looks like your right - they're not usually spicy! However, this is what he wrote in the blurb so I guess in my case we'll see what they taste like when they get a bit bigger. I'd prefer no spice so I've got my fingers crossed.

"The fruits are unlike any other pepper I’ve ever tasted. They’re extremely juicy, sweet, tangy, and possess a somewhat tropical flavour. Many Flexuosums are said to have no heat at all, but this strain is about as hot as cayenne peppers. The fruits essentially taste like spicy candy. Another unusual feature of this pepper is that it doesn't produce typical pods as it has no hollow cavity. Instead, it’s fleshy throughout, and more like a berry. Also, the seeds are black, not yellow/cream like most other peppers."

Very interesting this green roselle. Roselle's an odd plant to grow here, so many people seem to struggle with it, many saying it's won't bear calyxes in time. I've grown it a couple times, the first time was my only real success where I could collect a good amount of seeds. I grew more than one so I have no idea what the pollination was like. I ordered the seed from just a regular commercial vendor too, I think William Dam. They must have been carrying a selection adapted for here because they grew so darn well. Then again, I never seemed to be able to duplicate that success with the seeds I saved. Always wanted to grow them again because they are such a pretty plant and the flowers are gorgeous. But, so many plants out there to try.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well this is interesting, I had no idea that Cf might not be spicy! I actually have no idea where I came up with the idea it was spicy, I just found the thought in my head. So I went looking at the vendor site I got the seeds from and it looks like your right - they're not usually spicy! However, this is what he wrote in the blurb so I guess in my case we'll see what they taste like when they get a bit bigger. I'd prefer no spice so I've got my fingers crossed.

"The fruits are unlike any other pepper I’ve ever tasted. They’re extremely juicy, sweet, tangy, and possess a somewhat tropical flavour. Many Flexuosums are said to have no heat at all, but this strain is about as hot as cayenne peppers. The fruits essentially taste like spicy candy. Another unusual feature of this pepper is that it doesn't produce typical pods as it has no hollow cavity. Instead, it’s fleshy throughout, and more like a berry. Also, the seeds are black, not yellow/cream like most other peppers."

Another sign it's on the pubescens side; they all also have black seeds, of varying blackness (I've seen ones where they were dirty tan) but whether those were underripe (a lot of rocotos are sold in mixed colors, so getting red, yellow, orange and so one from one packet is normal, And at a farmer's market, they'll be green ones as well.)

Very interesting this green roselle. Roselle's an odd plant to grow here, so many people seem to struggle with it, many saying it's won't bear calyxes in time. I've grown it a couple times, the first time was my only real success where I could collect a good amount of seeds. I grew more than one so I have no idea what the pollination was like. I ordered the seed from just a regular commercial vendor too, I think William Dam. They must have been carrying a selection adapted for here because they grew so darn well. Then again, I never seemed to be able to duplicate that success with the seeds I saved. Always wanted to grow them again because they are such a pretty plant and the flowers are gorgeous. But, so many plants out there to try.

Well, as it is potted, time isn't an issue; so long as the flowers get pollinated, I'll get the calyces. It that pollination that's going to be the tricky part, I only have one plant, and if it isn't self compatible, I'm in trouble.

The whole thing is sort of an experiment. As you know people grow roselle for the calyces, to make the drink/tea. The red color comes from them, as does the anthocyanins and the flavor. So I'm sort of curious as to what one would get if one uses roselle that DOESN'T have the anthocyanins, flavor wise. The green kind isn't usally used for the drink, it's used for the leaves (as a cooked vegetable).

On the flip side, if I DID want the heath benefits, I'd try and get in contact with Joe Simcox again, since at one point he was offering a roselle variety called Ecuadorian Black, which I assume is SUPER saturated with them (I DID buy some seed of those, but none came up.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Given how many of my seeds failed this year due to age, I think I better plan to clear a LARGE area next year and re-generate the "sticky" chickpeas. They're getting pretty old.

As much as I hate to do so, it may be in my interest to also push the mini glass gem grow-out forward ANOTHER year and take care of the mixed sweet kernels pulled off Indian corn jar first. They're getting pretty old (at least some of them are, the jar has gotten added to every time I found more,) and I THINK sweet corn kernels don't last as long as popcorn ones.

Oh, for that four bedroom house on the couple of hundred acres (so I could plant everything AT ONCE, and not have to prioritize.)

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Well this is interesting, I had no idea that Cf might not be spicy! I actually have no idea where I came up with the idea it was spicy, I just found the thought in my head. So I went looking at the vendor site I got the seeds from and it looks like your right - they're not usually spicy! However, this is what he wrote in the blurb so I guess in my case we'll see what they taste like when they get a bit bigger. I'd prefer no spice so I've got my fingers crossed.

"The fruits are unlike any other pepper I’ve ever tasted. They’re extremely juicy, sweet, tangy, and possess a somewhat tropical flavour. Many Flexuosums are said to have no heat at all, but this strain is about as hot as cayenne peppers. The fruits essentially taste like spicy candy. Another unusual feature of this pepper is that it doesn't produce typical pods as it has no hollow cavity. Instead, it’s fleshy throughout, and more like a berry. Also, the seeds are black, not yellow/cream like most other peppers."

I just realized the obvious, I can take a picture of the plant and post it to work out what it is! If you are growing it, and my plant looks like your plant, then I have what I think I have.

Does this look right?