Just back in from inspecting the gardens here at our house. We are just entering the most explosive growth period of the year now which is very interesting and fun to watch. 12’ rhubarb row is filled out despite 3 major pickings already. Strawberries, yarrow, garlic, onions, asparagus, beets, carrots. Row of tomatoes growing on a single stem. Flowers and strawberries growing under apple trees. Lettuces, kales, spinach, volunteer hosta, asparagus, and strawberries which grow where ever they want to grow which makes a good edible natural ground covering to keep away weeds. Polly-culture including lupine, chive, forget-me-not, a rose, daisies, asparagus growing under apple tree. The growth engine of the entire operation.
My buddy just dumped a small (1/4) load of leaves off next to the garden. I'll be mulching with leaves this summer and in the fall he'll be bringing me a few more loads for composting. His vac trailer is 7x12x 6'.
Just got back from camping. Plants are looking good. Put on some nice growth since Thursday. Potatoes started popping up, and some sunflowers
Peppers 2 - Jalapeños 1 - Ghost 1 - Scorpion 1 - Habanero 1 - Sriracha Tomatoes 2 - Jet Stars 1 - Florida 101 1 - Better Boy
I'm sure by now most everyone has heard of back to eden gardening by Paul gauchi. If you haven't, you gotta watch this.
Well... the greenhouse trip was a bust... They had a few varieties of different tomatoes but not the black krim. There was a black beauty, and it looked like the black krim, but there were only a couple and the plants were laying over and beat up.I will order seeds next year
Got watermelons in. Some more pumpkin plant seeds. The pumpkin plants, sunflowers, and marigolds are taking off. Still to plant some potatoes and sweet potatoes. I ran out of time. With two tractors and plenty of implements I swear next year is going to be more mechanized in this garden annex. The main garden in raised beds, mulched pathways, and close fences makes a pretty one but everything that goes in or out is carried by hand or wheelbarrow. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Fooled around most of the day in the garden. Got the ground wire in for the electric fence charger, insulators, 2 rows of continuous wire, moved my 2x4 welded mesh wire to the inside of the posts (of course I came up a few feet short), made the wire connections on the charger and secured the charger for tonight on top of the post. And tomorrow I'll put some aluminum foil with peanut butter on the hot wire to sucker the deer in...
Anyone into savings seeds? Heirloom? Faves? Starting hybrids? Organic? What say you, veg gardeners? I'm still learning seeds. I just requested seed catalogs from Gardener Scott's fave list. Where do you get your seeds?
I've been saving seeds of varieties I like for years. I really like Mortgage Lifters for the size, and black cherry for the flavor. This site has been my go-to for obscure heirloom and hard to find varieties: Rare Heirloom Seeds| Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds One unintended consequence of saving seeds year over year from open-pollinated plants is the accidental hybrid. Last year I ended up with some small sized hybrid HOT bell peppers from a batch of seeds that came from 2020's crop. I've had hybrids happen with tomatoes too. There was a year when I planted what I thought were Super Sweet 100 cherry tomatoes, only to find out they were a hybrid with what I think were Big Boys from the previous year, planted alongside the cherries. The heirloom varieties are great because you can try varieties that are otherwise near impossible to find. One downside I noticed is some tend to be more susceptible to disease though. I do grow a few intentional hybrids from seed, but they're varieties widely available in the big box stores.
I have saved seeds in the past, but from a small garden with mixed varieties and hybrids, you never know what you're gonna get. Putting nets over flowers and hand pollinating might be a fun thing to do but it can be horribly time consuming. If hybrids tend towards their humble beginnings, I'd rather have what the experts have come up with. I've grown 3rd and 4th generations from Wave petunias and you end up with rather plain old mundane petunias. I have some (maybe hot) peppers from a hot banana pepper from last year - but they'll be mystery peppers until they're big enough to pick. Weird pepper, they never turned red from yellow. Never really knew what they were as the one plant was supposed to be a bell pepper.
