SeedO's 2014-2015 Garden Journal

[annageckos]

Just wanted to clarify, male calico cats are normally infertile. Females can have kittens. But I will always have a female spayed. Older female cats that are not spayed are prone to pyometra, it is an infection in the uterus. It will kill them. I've had to deal with it twice and it's not cheap. Even thought the surgery to fix it is a spay. Also unspayed females are more likely to get mammary cancer. I lost one of my cats to cancer a few months ago.

 

[baymule]

Baymule, you mean that picture where the tomatoes are a mix of green and dark black - the one from the Seed Saver's Exchange (I think )? I've seen more pictures where they look like a Cherokee Purple tomato. Should be interesting, I'll post pics.

Yeah, that's the one! I just wan to know if the real tomatoes look anything like the pictures. Post on the heirloom tomato thread!

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

I'll make sure to post pictures on the heirloom tomato thread as soon as I get a ripe one!

And we'll make sure to get that cat spayed, thanks for clarifying!

Some quick kind-of-sort-of updates:

I found something interesting in my pea breeding material. It's a yellow snap pea, what you might have trouble seeing in the picture is that it has a sort of salmon-ish pink speckling up and down the pod.



The radishes are going berserk and producing lots of seedpods.



I nearly mistook some winter-sown poppies for weeds, until I realized that they weren't weeds and actually poppies. I have no idea what kind of poppy they are, it will be interesting when I do find out.

The Garbanzo flowers are open - they're pretty small but a (sort-of) glossy pink-purple (magenta?). I couldn't get picture as my battery ran out of juice.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

A few quick updates (no pictures, at least not in this post, maybe tomorrow) -

The peas have been flopped over for a while now due to the very strong winds and stormy weather weave been having. The good news is that they aren't touching the ground, are loaded with pods, and are starting to dry down. I might need to pull the vines and dry them inside if it keeps raining like this though (nearly two weeks with barely a days break) so as soon as I get a dry period I might go out and do that. Marshall, from what I can see through the shells of your golden sweet's drying down pods a lot of the seeds will be dark, can't wait to break them open, very tempting to pick them early.

The garbanzos for the most part aren't producing much as Marshall warned. However I do have one plant that is doing great (has about 30 pods on it, still flowering but I don't think that I'll get much more out of it) and is starting to dry down, so you should get at least some seeds, Journey (you might need to do a seed increase). The pods don't look as big as they should be (at least to me), I'm starting to wonder if I should have thinned the pods down, It has to take a lot of energy to make that many pods. What amazes me is how well they are doing despite all of the rain - garbanzos aren't supposed to do good with excessive moisture, they're more of dryland plants.

Out of time, I'll update on anything else tomorrow or the day after. Busy building goat barn so could be a while.

 

[journey11]

SeedO, if they turn out well for you, I'm sure I'll have something from my grow-outs you may want in trade. I've got 39 planted this year. I've enjoyed the seed train in the past when it was moving, but really the bean network has been the coolest thing ever on here. I'm taking good notes this year and having fun seeing what grows best for my area.

I was curious, so I did a little surfing. I know they're different, but I really didn't know anything about them. Here's some info I found on growing the garbanzos:

Garbanzo beans are native to the Middle East and Mediterranean regions, and are popular in the cuisines of these and surrounding regions, including north Africa and India. They require a long growing season, approximately 100 days as a dry bean, and are a cool season annual that should be started early in the growing season prior to the last frost of the spring. If possible start indoors 4-6 weeks before final expected frost in biodegradable pots that can be placed directly into the ground once temperatures exceed 60 degrees F. Transplant outdoors just after frost, and for best results 'harden' plants prior to transplanting by gradually acclimating to outdoor conditions. Space plants about 6" apart, with 18-24" between rows. Garbanzo plants do not typically exceed a height of 20" and will produce larger yields in subtropical regions.

It surprised me that they would prefer a cool season. I think for our climate, we might do better starting them indoors. I started some of my beans that I had very few of indoors because I was afraid of something bad happening to them. And although beans typically don't like to be transplanted, I found the peat pots worked really well. I just peeled apart the sides and carefully set them without roughing them up much and those beans are doing great and really got a head start on the others.

A raised bed planting might benefit from the drier soil too. At least you'd have a little more control over the moisture. I had some horrible failures last year because of the excessive rain and poor drainage of my native red clay soil. I found out the hard way that beans really hate having wet feet. I also found out that really ugly beans will still sprout.

At least we are lucky to have a long growing season around here! I can usually afford to experiment with just about anything.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Updates -

Cowpeas are just starting to flower, the first pod appeared about 1 day after the first flower.

Cukes and tomatoes should be ready soon. The beans are loaded with pods, just need to get out there and do something with them.

The sunflowers are making a lot of flowers. Mystery poppies from grandpa's house are flowering, did some research found out that they were the edible species - 6+ main petals, blue-ish seed, 2-3ft plants, petal color is pinkish-purple.

And I found some volunteer wheat growing in the garden. The farmer that we get straw from (that's were I think it came from, straw I mulched the garden with) is organic, so I'm thinking that it should be safe. Although it seems to be a shorter wheat so probably isn't that old a cultivar.

Pictures coming later.

Journey - if what does well for me? The garbanzos or the peas? More confused than usual here, just came in from the high humidity and blistering sun.

I just direct seeded the garbanzos shortly after the last hard freeze. Then I left them there and forgot about them. They do take quite a while to come up, giving them a good soak overnight would really help.

I might see if I could get a few raised beds up. Thing is that my garden is a pretty big area (just under about 1,000 square ft) and we're so busy with everything else that it might be hard to get time to do that. I know that I want more heavy duty and permanent trellises in the garden for next year.

The long growing season definitely is a good thing.

 

[journey11]

Journey - if what does well for me? The garbanzos or the peas? More confused than usual here, just came in from the high humidity and blistering sun.

Oh, I was talking about the garbanzos (aka. chickpeas). Maybe you should go get a popsicle and go relax on the porch swing. That's what I always do when I get so hot I think I'll pass out.

 

[baymule]

@TheSeedObsesser what kind of cowpeas? Down south we never call them cow peas. We pay them proper respect and call them by name......purple hulls, silver skin crowder, pink eye purple hulls, lady cream pea, black eyed peas and so on. But the seed catalogs call them cowpeas too.

 

[TheSeedObsesser]

Bay,

Well... I think that one is a crowder type (Grey Speckled Palapye from BC). The plants are nice and short (few vines) and take strong winds very well, seems to be producing well (lots of flowers).

One has white peas with brown eyes so my guess is that it is a "brown eye pea?" This is the only one that had pods the last time I checked, and they were solid green. I originally got the seeds from Pulsegleaner, nothing sold commercially by seed companies. The brown eyes are making lots of vines.

And another one (Torkuviahe from Richter's) has solid red peas, I have no idea what kind they'd be. They're making lots of vines.

Most of us here call them black-eyed peas. Everybody's used to the California black-eyes that they see at the store and have no idea that there are so many other kinds of them. Why I call them cowpeas, I have no idea. All that I know is that I'll be growing a lot more of them if they turn out well (the plants and flowers are so cool looking!)

 

[digitS']

I'm encouraged to comment!

Garbanzos? They are becoming a bigger and bigger deal around here. The wheat farms seem to be able to adapt in that direction.

It is interesting what is said about higher yields in subtropical regions for a cool season crop. I wonder if there are longer season, larger plants that are more suitable for home gardens ... 120 days/36" plants. I found them to be a little "unproductive" but think I could do better for them than dry farm conditions IF there were suitable varieties.

Cowpeas? I'd be pleased to use better terms! I like black eyed peas but I'm not clever as to what to do with them. We grew cowpeas with oats for a dandy hay crop in southern Oregon. I was disappointed that vetch seemed to be the substitute here. So! In the garden there may be an appropriate choice for a higher latitude grower??? I've already failed once in the garden trying to grow black eyed peas.

Variety, variety! Life of spice, you know .

Steve