The 2013 Garden, What are You Hoping For

[digitS']

That is quite a spread of peppers! I like how nice and fat some of them are .

Good growing weather is real important. You know, arid conditions aren't necessarily a terrible thing for some crops. Of course, it is what a gardener is set up for and what are already have around in the way of perennials which may suffer.

You may not want to be too strict with how you define "heirloom," MontyJ. I suspect that it mostly the seed-saving that you are interested in. Here are some examples of some open pollinated tomato varieties that I've grown and that have done well:

Bloody Butcher might be listed as an heirloom but isn't as best as I understand. It seems that it was originally bred in the Netherlands and released on the market in 1998. It does great for a full-flavored, very-early little tomato!

Legend isn't usually listed as a heirloom and is sometimes thought to be a hybrid (despite its "old-sounding" name). It isn't altho' I never thought to save seed. It might have been because it is known for having very few seeds. There was quite a bit of information about it beginning with its release in 2000. Jim Baggett of Oregon State University was responsible for its breeding and he is known for all sorts of new garden veggies. I didn't find it to be the most flavorful tomato but the plants were absolutely covered with lovely slicers! The plants are said to be resistant to late blight.

A lot of the eastern European varieties that have showed up after the fall of the Soviet Union were from their produce markets and came from commercial farms. The USSR was a big country and there are probably some that would fit right in with most environments in North America.

Thessaloniki will probably be in the heirloom section of the tomatoes. Still, it doesn't reach the criteria some folks set for heirlooms. Thessaloniki seed was imported from Greece and it was grown as a US commercial variety in the 1950's. It really seems to take arid conditions well.

I don't have any trouble remembering when the Berlin Wall fell. No one would be surprised if I was to say that I'm older than a Legend or a Bloody Butcher. I hope that no one will think that I'm older than St. Paul's letter to the Thessalonians, tho' .

Steve

 

[MontyJ]

I wouldn't have a problem with some of the OP tomatoes as many will grow true. I am definately avoiding any hybrids though.

 

[Gardening with Rabbits]

Earlier I said I was going to have a swingset greenhouse, but it is not going to work. It is too tall and no supports without buying long boards. My DH is going to make 2 small greenhouses with saw horses. I said I was going to transplant strawberries. I have a question. I had a spot that was great, but weeds took over, so we dug the strawberries up and made a different spot for them and tilled that all up and planted the strawberries. Weeds came again and I pulled weeds, used a hoe and got the weeds when small, I put straw mulch (not good, slugs came). The weeds are just bad in this spot. I was going to move them to a 4 x 10 box or even 2 boxes, but that is really not enough room for how many are out there. I am thinking of weeding again and could I use the pine wood chip horse bedding that has rabbit urine and poop to mulch the strawberries? If I did this then I would not be tilling the wood chips into the soil.

 

[897tgigvib]

I am hoping all or most of my berry plants produce at least some berries.

I am hoping to grow new bean varieties this year, and have a nice healthy crop of dry beans. Many little bean projects that could be a whole list of hopes!

I'm hoping the purple seeded peas either breed true or act as F2 segregations of a natural hybrid, which could only be Blauschokker X Golden Podded or Golden Sweet. Those have been the only ones of that pea species I've been growing lately. That they at least sprout and grow and produce!

I'm hoping that some of the grafted grapes took and grow.