A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

I cannot imagine having so many beautiful peppers in my garden to chose from. Your family must be eating like kings!

The nice thing about peppers, as oppose to nearly every other vegetable I grow, is you can save the seeds AND eat the whole pepper!

 

[heirloomgal]

As I was munching a carrot outside today, the leaves were falling from the trees, I was reminded again this season of how utterly different home grown produce is from store bought. The corn, the beans, the tomatoes, peas, cucumbers, fresh coriander - all so delicious and fresh. Nothing compares to it. It really is such a blessing to have good, good food. And then of course there is the things you can grow that you can't buy anywhere. I just can't imagine ever being without a garden. I'm so glad that my kids are growing up seeing a garden as an important part of life.

The small, new clematis I planted in June has actually set a flower! I'm kinda shocked really, but happy to see a bloom. The picture on the tag is all I had to go on. I'm hoping this is a good sign that it'll flower a little next year. I'm thinking the timing of the blooming is off because it was from a greenhouse. The new pink one bloomed next to it also, but those blooms were much smaller.

Saying goodbye to all these fuzzy tomato guys tomorrow. They were darn good tomatoes, but they've all gotten soft now and too sweet for eating. I will grow these again for sure though.

By lucky chance I noticed in one of the pole bean's foliage that a ground cherry plant had volunteered, a regular Aunt Molly type from last year. So I could take a picture with the jumbo! I read last night that these guys may not actually be the same species afterall, it might be Physalis peruviana as oppose to Physalis pruinosa. That would explain how they could be so different!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Looks like there may be more to that "hybrid" pear that I thought. I looked over the bag I was storing all of the fruit I collected in, and, while all of the other "normal" pears had rotted completely, that one is still as intact as when I picked it (barring a wrinkle or two) Whatever genes it got from the small inedible ones below it seem to have given it really good keeping qualities!. Better save seed from that one separately (same with the inedible ones).

 

[Pulsegleaner]

And yet another surprise this morning. I harvested two of the last 3 Phantome du Laos tomatoes yesterday, as they were basically ripe. I did notice a slight blush on one, but I didn't think much of it. This morning, I look again, and the blushed one is now clearly turning pink! So we either have a sport or another off seed mixed in.

The sad part is that, at this point in the season, it's unlikely I'll get a second fruit off that plant (they are still healthy, but comparatively few of the plants are still making new flowers, same as with the beans.) So whatever seed is in that fruit is probably all I will get. It's a decent size, but I have learned good size and lots of seeds do not necessarily equate.

 

[ducks4you]

On Mid American gardener I was reminded to start tomato seeds correctly. The guest was using a clear canning jar and a piece of old window screen and a screw top, I was feeling badly that I didn't Have any old window screening, and I wanted ventilation and fruit fly prevention.
Then, I remembered that I had an old pair of underwear which was about to be told, "Thank you for your service," before throwing away.
I cut it into pieces are covered the top of the two jars I started yesterday, with seeds from a very nice orange tomato AND I am willing to save the hybrid beefsteak seeds, too, just to see what might grow from them.
This is what the jars look like:

 

[heirloomgal]

On Mid American gardener I was reminded to start tomato seeds correctly. The guest was using a clear canning jar and a piece of old window screen and a screw top, I was feeling badly that I didn't Have any old window screening, and I wanted ventilation and fruit fly prevention.
Then, I remembered that I had an old pair of underwear which was about to be told, "Thank you for your service," before throwing away.
I cut it into pieces are covered the top of the two jars I started yesterday, with seeds from a very nice orange tomato AND I am willing to save the hybrid beefsteak seeds, too, just to see what might grow from them.
This is what the jars look like:
View attachment 69097

Hahaha, A+ for creativity in repurposing!

 

[heirloomgal]

Some carrot weirdness!

The red night shade berries, finally got them harvested and rinsed! Sometimes I suffer 'seed guilt' because I get overwhelmed with all the stuff ripening and I struggle to get to it all in time - I was afraid I'd miss my chance with these, I triaged for priority and the tomatoes came first. But these were not so far along that I couldn't save them all today. A new berry in the collection, yay!

I cannot correctly remember the name of this weird tomato, something like 'Quatre Morrose'? Need to look at the envelope, wherever that is. Such an odd shape, it must be a bell pepper type tomato. It's totally hollow! Such a high yielding tomato variety.

Tinga peas are 3/4 harvested! Another bunch of seeds that were haunting me to pick them soon. The rains we had rushed me to get them in, and I'm glad I did as when I was pulling pods off the vines I noticed that these were starting to explode or shatter themselves. Clearly, these are wild-ish. These were such a lovely plant to grow - charming abundant flowers, nitrogen fixers, easy to harvest, high yielding. A real gem. Rare too. There's still flowers growing on the vines!

Bugs finally found the dino kale! It didn't help that these weren't watered for over a month. Or two.

Been several years since I grew these little stinkers, but I may get some this year...

So darn proud of my little (very little) cabbage growing accomplishment! Aside from the first outer leaves, the heads were perfect, no bugs!!

One lone pumpkin, but good enough for one pie!

 

[heirloomgal]

Had some of the 'Cuzquerio' peppers on pizza tonight. I thought 'Red Lanterns' were the best pizza pepper, but these have them beat. Less heat, and also more traditional pepper flavor. I actually didn't realize there was any heat in them until my second slice of pizza, I thought these were 100% sweet but I guess not. Delicious. Great texture and crunch raw.

Spent the evening picking semi-dry bean pods and putting poles under cover, seeing as 2 days of rain is arriving. We've really lost a lot of daylight hours at this point, I can barely get anything done in the evening. Then shelled dry pods during our Magnum PI time. 'Tis the season to be shelling.

Cleaned up the front yard garden today with DS, he wheelbarrowed for me. To my glee, the wild tuberous sunflowers and chinese lanterns seem to be defeated in only one year. The first month was crazy having to hoe every 2 or 3 days as they so aggressively returned, but I drained those tuberous roots of energy eventually. I didn't think I'd win in so short a time, they're formidable opponents. Added a bunch of guinea bedding to the soil and hoed it in. We'll see in spring how well all the new perennials I bought survive. I learned how formidable the new rose thorns were in cleaning up debris. Yikes.

It's time to get to the greenhouse peppers, de-seed them. So many things to do, hard to keep up. Leaves are everywhere and I wanted to rake and shred & spread all of it across the garden beds before fall really sets in. Plant the new tulips. Want to dig up and replant the sunchokes in rows. Looking at the weather there is still some bit of summer left, coming this weekend but the trajectory is downward from here on. Can't complain though, it's nearly October.

 

[Zeedman]

By lucky chance I noticed in one of the pole bean's foliage that a ground cherry plant had volunteered, a regular Aunt Molly type from last year. So I could take a picture with the jumbo! I read last night that these guys may not actually be the same species afterall, it might be Physalis peruviana as oppose to Physalis pruinosa. That would explain how they could be so different!

I agree. Much too large to be ground cherries.

 

[Zeedman]

Cleaned up the front yard garden today with DS, he wheelbarrowed for me. To my glee, the wild tuberous sunflowers and chinese lanterns seem to be defeated in only one year. The first month was crazy having to hoe every 2 or 3 days as they so aggressively returned, but I drained those tuberous roots of energy eventually. I didn't think I'd win in so short a time, they're formidable opponents.

Don't be surprised to see some Chinese lanterns emerge next year. I fought that battle a few years ago. Thought I had them wiped out, but apparently some roots went dormant, and the battle resumed the following Spring.

The wild ground cherries that popped up in my rural garden were even worse, spreading 5-6 feet from my fence line in one year. Since I've abandoned that plot, I'll never know how long it might have taken to eliminate them (or not).