I’m going to do this with cantaloupes where I live. I’ll keep the two distinct. Having one as spring sown and summer sown.
I have grow two plus generations of melons, watermelons, pumpink and zuchini unintentionally. I did not have enought seed from the original packaging and just sow the seeds from the fruits that i harvest. I am in zone nine b.
For example my melons:
First generation was one seed package.
Second generation was melon seed harvested and four new seed packages of different varieties.
Third generation was mix of first generation, second generation, remains of other packages and five new varieties.
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That’s awesome! When are your first and last frost dates? Mine tend to be around April 15 and October 15. (I’m in zone 7b.) Most people around here wait until May 15 to plant anything because there can be surprise late frosts, but I prefer to take risks and hopefully get an extra month to grow my summer crops. (Laugh.)
I am in zone 9b plant hardiness but near the sea, so the temperatures are more mild/soft.
I Just checked the historical weather of 2023 and map frosts.
My fist frost is early January. This year was 20 January.
My last frost date is late February. This year was 4 March.
I do the same, I already make my mind that more than half of my seedling will die, so I just plant from seed a lot and just enjoy the process.
I grew two generations of fava beans this year. Standard advice here is that you can’t do it, the season not being long enough. I just grew the second generation for edible shoots and flowers. But they managed to set fruit and mature just before the frost.
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Hi I’m in zone 7b but it’s here in Maryland and I usually plant my seeds around the first of May but this year there wasn’t any rain to bring the seeds up in May so everything got set back home month but we haven’t had any Frost yet it looks like we got a few days left temperatures are getting cooler and we’ve had rain this time of year but nothing seems to grow very fast this time of year and my Teosinte just starts tasseling and putting out silk the first of October so can’t grow it here without short day treatment because it hasn’t started dropping pollen yet and it won’t have time to set seed before the frost is probably about October 15th at the earliest it could be a little later than that thank you I love this network you got here bye-bye
Wow, so your frost-free growing season is ten to eleven months long! It might be a fun project to see if you can grow things like squashes or tomatoes even in your winter. I bet varieties (or landraces) that are selected for short, cool summers in really cold zones would have a chance.
Do you grow any tropical perennials? I bet you could get away with zone 10 plants if you put them near a south-facing wall. Or wrap them in frost blankets for a few months. I’d totally plant an ice cream bean tree if I lived in zone 9b! 
(Actually, I’d totally like to grow one now. I’d just have to put it in a pot and store it inside over the winter.)
I’m trying for a second generation of fava beans and a second generation of peas right now, too. So far, I think it’s working; however, it’s a lot harder to get cold season crops to germinate in autumn than it is to get them to germinate in spring!
I harvested and then grew out the second generation around early august for fava beans.
Hey, that’s good news! I planted my second generation of fava beans in early August, so I hope that means I did it at the right time!
I harvested those seeds in April. But of course, I planted the original seeds outside in January. I figured they wouldn’t set pods in my summer, so I would need to start them in midwinter in order to get pods forming in spring.
It would be cool to have a continuous population going – if I could get them to grow through my summers, I could likely grow three generations per year. But at least for right now, I’m simply assuming they’re a fall / winter / spring crop and won’t accept my very hot and dry summer weather.
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I was thinking something similar. Buying seeds for spring/summer from colder countries and try them on my fall/winter. For now I just plant off season and see whats happens.
This week I planted 6 avocado tree. One is from a seed of a local tree. Also planted in spring a papaya one. I do not know if the placement is is correct, but the holes for the trees are already there, so I plant there.
I did not know about it, I should get some seeds. Got more recommendations?
Oh, goodness, you just asked a plant geek who likes research about all the perennials she’s been salivating over and trying to think of a way to grow! (Laugh.)
I have so much to say on this subject that I’m going to answer in a different topic. Hopefully then more people will see it and can chime in with ideas for you.
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I check today and I got some volunters tomatos. The tomatos that got some damage I just left on the ground and they sprout. So, If they grow enought this autum probably I get another crop and a new generation.
I will try with squash for sure, and probably with zucchini too.
You could put yourself on the serendipity seed swap Europe. There are seeds in from @JesseI in Finland.
https://goingtoseed.discourse.group/t/serendipity-seed-swap-eu-version/1507/17
I sow carrots in March and again in July or August; broad beans in October and again in February, peas ditto (round-seeded peas will generally overwinter okay in my climate, wrinkly-seeded ones will rot in cold wet soil); beets and chard successionally from March to August. I find spring spinach usually bolts and summer spinach gets eaten, though.
I also grow pea shoots, broad bean shoots, baby spinach, baby chard, radish leaves, sunflower shoots etc etc as microgreens inside my kitchen windowsill for much of the year. This isn’t a crop grown to maturity, of course, and some of the seeds just come from the supermarket (500g of peas for 80p grows a lot of greens), but if you’re willing to eat the leaves instead of the fruit/root you can get quite a few crops in as maturity doesn’t really matter. So that’s tangential to your original question, but does achieve the goal of growing at least something year-round.
Based on averages that you have atleast january-february is too cold for warm weather crops to grow even if there isn’t frost. Here cucurbits start to die august-september when it’s going under 15C average. Sun is at that point weak, cool nights long and days warm up (if they warm up) later that it stays moist. Cucurbits get all sort of bacterial/funcal infections and stems rot from combination of moist/cool. Even the ones that would survive if there is no frost till october aren’t really doing much and don’t look healthy. I would plan cucurbits to crop there before new year and if they crop futher fine. Tomatoes and peppers could regrow after frost, but I would not expect much growth and cropping during frost is not recommended as it will spoil fruits. I think it would be possible sow them now or little earlier so that they don’t start cropping before frosts and then hopefully regrow after frost and are ready to start cropping once it warms up. Out of peppers rocotos might be best suited for this as they actually prefer slighly cooler weather and especially cool nights. If you want to crop before frosts 4 months with fastest tomatoes and little more with fastest peppers. With cucurbits it would be enough pushing it if you start them in march. Then it’s about same as here early season (late may/june). Even then they start slow if temperatures are in the cooler range.
Jesse i completely agree of your observations. I’d like to add something i’ve noticed. Sometimes we have dryspells hère. I think maxima and moschata have great ways of surviving these. The leaves get limp during the day, panicking most gardeners into watering. I have limited accès to water so i’ve observer what happens if you dont. Early mornings they look pumped up again… I dont know what that is. Maybe they try to profit of maximising photosynthesis with thé dew they’ve collected.
After longer drought thé leaves start to die back. But comes rain, they grow back. Usually at thé end of stems. Never as vigorous as before, but enough to provide some smaller pumpkins and seeds.
I’m theorising hère. What if in nature there exist pumpkins which have a more radical approach to heat waves. Instead of limping their leaves, they pull back all energy and water into their roots. Would make sensé, since no one in nature will panick and start pooring tons of water.
And when rains return they resprout from the rootstock.
Screening for these qualities would surely help towards creating a more robust and independent land race pumpkins.
I know this takes time, but any effort undertaken in this direction could benefit millions of people unlucky enough to live in conditions with eratic weather conditions.
Maybe the pumpkins remain smaller, but i for one have been selecting for those. As a one person household it’s much more convenient to have smallish pumpkins than to have these giants going to waste.
Overwintering could be a similar trait couldn’t it?
I’m not familiar with the rootstructure of Cucurbitaceae enough to know it is even possible to require anything of a rootstock, or if nature provides such a mechanism somewhere, but i wouldn’t put it beyond her capabilities always pushing boundaries and experiencing millions of years of sudden dry spells.
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I’m totally in favor of pushing boundaries. Especially when you have way more seeds than you need – then it’s, “Hey, why not try it?”
I think the explanation is quite simple; roots can’t provide water fast enough to compensate evaporation. Plants breath with their leaves, but while doing so they open up spores and loose water. Plants that live in hot dry climates have adaptions in that process as well as how they get water with roots. Certainly cucurbits should be able to have adaptions to tolerate dry better. I would think that roots are easier to adapt like having stronger nodal rooting for wider root network.
Overwintering for cucurbit definetely could be possible, but I doubt there is clear advantage as they are so fast from seed as well. Even if there is some damage from winter they might not be as strong as from seed. Sometimes there are seasons that are better used with other plants.
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One thing I haven’t had a chance to do here (although I did some at my old house) is planting in fall for spring emergence.
Potatoes, for example, often resprouted the following year if left in the ground. I could plant them in the fall and they would emerge in spring earlier than I would normally plant them.
An additional benefit was that I didn’t have to use as much space for saved seeds, since many of my “weeded” crops (brassicas, lettuces, spinach, arugula, amaranth) just reseeded themselves year after year.
I had oats and wheat returning every year and had just started a fall grown corn trial when I sold the house.
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