A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

Do you fence your garden in, and do you have animals that eat your harvest? We (AU) have rats and wallabies that are eating the new shoots!

I don't have a fence, and for the most part my gardens have not been raided. Sometimes a rabbit or groundhog hangs around for a little while and eats the newer parts of plants, or birds/chipmunks steal dried peas, but thankfully that hasn't happened often. Sounds like you need a fence though!

 

[Pulsegleaner]

The annual brassica is a twisted-stem mustard.

At least, that is how I think it would be classified. After buying that seed off a rack in an Asian market, the store stopped selling garden seed. Or, seed specifically for gardening — given @Pulsegleaner 's interests and evidence .

Seed selling is a bit odd in China. Since the CCP officially owns all the land, and actually controls what and how much of crops farmers can grow (to the point of sending people out to destroy fields planted in excess or with the wrong crops/varieties,) sell seeds commercially for home use is sort of rare. Most seed packets from mainland China are HUGE, designed for farmers. And the ones that get here are almost sold under the table some of the time (I've mentioned the man under the bridge).

Packets from Taiwan or other Asian countries tend to be more normal sized, but they also sometimes have a problem with the same stuff getting into the same packets each time. I think most Chinese growers treat a lot of vegetables as fungible, if it's the right vegetable, and it grows where they are, that's good enough.


I'm not even sure some of the places in Chinatown bother to check if the seed they sell will actually GROW where they sell it. I've found packets of winter melon seed with some frequency in New York, even in stores, but I am still looking for one that can take our day length. I also have to assume anyone else growing winter melons here would have the same problem I would (even on fruit is way bigger than one person or even a small family to eat by themselves, and a patch will produce many, many fruits.)

 

[Zeedman]

When you say plastic, is that a plastic frame you make, over which to drape the cover? Presumably it has to allow quite a lot of room for growth, or do you rely on the plant being ale to lift the light cover?

Yes, the frames are constructed of plastic conduit. They are 24 inches (roughly 60 cm) high, with smooth corners (the 3-way corners had to be ordered). I chose the plastic conduit because it is smooth & unlikely to tear the cover during strong winds. To anchor the cover, it is buried on 3 sides; the downwind side is held down by heavy rebar rod, to allow access for weeding & harvesting.

I chose to make square cages, which can be easily broken down & stacked, but plastic conduit is also well suited to hoop & tunnel culture.

Most of the peppers I grow only push slightly against the top at full growth, and the cover is loose enough to accommodate that.

I do tend to grow my peppers crammed together. They need polytunnel protection in our climate and so space is limited. Covering entire plants would take more generous spacing I think, but perhaps that is a direction I might need to go in.

From what I know of your climate, you probably need the poly tunnels for peppers. Even in my climate, peppers benefit from wind protection on cooler days. Peppers are tolerant of closer spacing than most vegetables, since they seem to be less susceptible to disease caused by reduced airflow than many others (such as beans & tomatoes). I've tried growing bush beans under cover to get pure seed, and had to remove the cover when the plants became sickly (they then recovered).

 

[Decoy1]

Ramillette de Mallorca. I do not have a lot of experience with blight, how does it affect the tomato fruits?

Thanks.
You’re lucky not to be too familiar with blight! If the blight attacks are severe, whole tomatoes just go squishy on the plant. If it’s more slight - some varieties are more resistant than others- rotten spots can appear slowly and gradually take over.
Air borne late blight is just about everywhere in England but growing in a polytunnel provides a certain amount of protection.
I’m looking forward to trying some longkeeping varieties, thanks to your generosity, to see how they fare.

 

[Decoy1]

Yes, the frames are constructed of plastic conduit. They are 24 inches (roughly 60 cm) high, with smooth corners (the 3-way corners had to be ordered). I chose the plastic conduit because it is smooth & unlikely to tear the cover during strong winds. To anchor the cover, it is buried on 3 sides; the downwind side is held down by heavy rebar rod, to allow access for weeding & harvesting.

I chose to make square cages, which can be easily broken down & stacked, but plastic conduit is also well suited to hoop & tunnel culture.

Most of the peppers I grow only push slightly against the top at full growth, and the cover is loose enough to accommodate that.

Some of the peppers I’ve grown this year have been almost five feet tall and almost as wide so quite a jungle in the end. As you say, they thrive on being close together which is a good thing as in most cases I didn’t know what size they would reach. It does make control difficult though, and caging whole plants would be challenging unless I were to grow far fewer.