A Seed Saver's Garden

[Branching Out]

Love the image of emptying a pillowcase on Halloween night-- so very exciting heirloom gal. Here's hoping for a long, warm summer of gardening.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I'm still trying to figure out which corn, spinach & cucumber to grow. Leaning toward Sikkim.

I should warn you, like a lot of the Indian khiva type cucumbers, Sikkim can take a lot of summer heat to do well; more than can be counted on this far north. Maybe try for a Russian khiva type, like Kaiser Alexander, Brown Russian, or Russian Potato/Little Potato. (I'd say Russian Netted, but, with the only source I know of giving out incorrect seed [which does NOT do well here], I don't know where to find that.)

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgal , do you have a squash vine borer problem? IF so, you might want to take contingencies for your cucumbers.
THIS PROBLEM has consumed me in the last year, as to how to solve it. I don't want to use chemicals, but I have looked into trap crops, like Hubbard Squash.
Did you know that kale can be a trap crop for cauliflower?
It's all about timing.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal , do you have a squash vine borer problem? IF so, you might want to take contingencies for your cucumbers.
THIS PROBLEM has consumed me in the last year, as to how to solve it. I don't want to use chemicals, but I have looked into trap crops, like Hubbard Squash.
Did you know that kale can be a trap crop for cauliflower?
It's all about timing.

Knock on wood, I've never seen those. Never even heard of them until I joined TEG. I have since read about them though, and what a formidable problem they can be in a garden. I wonder if horticultural fleece might be a way to protect the plants until the laying period has passed?

Unless I'm growing them in a pot, I have found kale the most bug resistant cruciferous veg. I was astonished last year at how buggy the cabbages were! Even in the same bed with the kales. Cabbage is one veg NOT on the grow list this year!! lol

Little geeky fact - the term cruciferous originates from the 4 petals in the flowers of this family, which resembles the cross. Crux or cruc & fer translates in Latin to mean 'cross bearing'. Kinda neat.

 

[heirloomgal]

Oh boy, ok good to know @Pulsegleaner. The last cucumber I saved seed for was in 2023 and that was a Kaiser Alexander. It did alright, though saving seeds for the fruit was a great way to drive the production right down. lol I did get the seeds though from someone considerably North of me, in Manitoba. So, there may be hope. I've also been wanting to grow Silver Slicer so there's that. I love the white cukes, find them very practical. Pet peeve of mine to get a monster growing in the foliage, miss it, and then have the vine's production collapse.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Oh boy, ok good to know @Pulsegleaner. The last cucumber I saved seed for was in 2023 and that was a Kaiser Alexander. It did alright, though saving seeds for the fruit was a great way to drive the production right down. lol I did get the seeds though from someone considerably North of me, in Manitoba. So, there may be hope. I've also been wanting to grow Silver Slicer so there's that. I love the white cukes, find them very practical. Pet peeve of mine to get a monster growing in the foliage, miss it, and then have the vine's production collapse.

Count yourself lucky. All of mine collapsed last year as soon as the first fruit showed up. By the time any got to a size where eating them was even possible, the respective vine was basically dead, And even if that one was allowed to ripen all the way, there were basically no viable seeds.

 

[heirloomgal]

Count yourself lucky. All of mine collapsed last year as soon as the first fruit showed up. By the time any got to a size where eating them was even possible, the respective vine was basically dead, And even if that one was allowed to ripen all the way, there were basically no viable seeds.

I have found watery fruits (except for tomatoes) harder species to save good seed from. Pumpkins, squash, cucumbers all have a tendency to have flat, not filled out seed if they aren't happy. And I don't find it that easy to keep them so happy that all the seeds get fat.

 

[Zeedman]

Knock on wood, I've never seen those. Never even heard of them until I joined TEG. I have since read about them though, and what a formidable problem they can be in a garden. I wonder if horticultural fleece might be a way to protect the plants until the laying period has passed?

Yes, ag fleece can be effective at preventing squash vine borer (among other pests). But for squash & other members of the gourd family, timing is everything. You need to cover the plants during the egg laying period, then uncover the plants to allow pollination. SVB is very bad here, and I've used spun poly row cover to protect winter squash - or I wouldn't get any. It does take close observation, to watch for when the adult moths are - and are not - active.

But light row cover is very effective to protect cabbage & other crucifers from cabbage worms, since those plants do not require pollination unless grown for seed.

Edit: Just BTW, when I cover squash to protect for SVB, I find that the plants are usually protected from the first hatch of squash bugs & cucumber beetles too. Win-win-win.

 

[flowerbug]

we do have squash bugs and SVBs, but i've not ever noticed a problem with cucumber beetles. for the other two i have gotten results by planting varieties which survive their damage. so far that would have worked had the groundhogs not decided to start eating them. at that point i gave up and did not grow any squash, etc last year at all and we still have packages of frozen squash in the freezer that we've not touched in the past year or so. makes no sense for me to do all that work and waste the space if we're not eating the results. i'm not throwing them out though because eventually i'll use it as worm food or garden fertilizer - there's a lot of nutrition in there...

 

[ducks4you]

I also haven't seen cucumbers beetles on mine, either.