Planted my okra transplants today. Varieties are kandahari pendi landrace and clemson spineless. This years plan is to get “pure” seeds from kandahari pendi landrace and make crosses to clemson spineless. It has warmed up, put still not quite okra weather here (never really is) and that’s why I’ll have clear plastic loosely on to warm up, but not too much, and cloth to insulate/keep plastic in place. Just want to make seed increase and after this years experience make plans for next year. I have grown okra two times before with not very good results.
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Removed cloth yeasterday from watermelons and melons when it started to hit 25C (77F). They would still like it as ground takes some time to warm up as well. Nights still getting to around +5C (41F) at ground level, but luckily nights are short. I rather have plants so that I can look at them and maybe still getting little selection pressure from cold without making big delays. Cold period might have had some casulties as I had marked if something from seed patch had germinated and now some of those are empty. Still should be enough to fill most of the area. There is only one 2m piece of bed that has nothing. Some places there are single plants holding the fort. Some of which have had damage to their cotyledon, but are making slowly true leaves. They might be little behing those that are fastest, but holes generally had around 30 seeds and so one like that might 1/100 survivor. So it likely has something that makes it worth saving seeds from. Fingers crossed they size up fast and are then better protected. So far best from direct sown, with trying not to be biased, are from my own seed. Maybe not by much, but still. F1 varieties of melon have done fairly well, F1 of watermelon not as well. In general it seems one side of the plot germination was better than the other. It made me think if there is something with soil structure that makes it harder/easier to germinate. Part might be that I sowed them little preferentially so that first I sowed some of the ones I had best impression last year. Have to check my notes what have done the best. Strange thing is that the best producing melon I had last year had hard time germinating even though I gave it more space. Only one hole had couple that came fast and are doing well, other 6 holes never had any. Really makes me wonder why? Not that it bothers me that much, but I like to make observations and hopefully someday pieces fit together. Weather for next 10 days looks really good for watermelons and melons. From last years experience biggest should be wider than those siccors at the end of that period.
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It’s now month from direct sowing tomatoes, peppers and eggplants. So far it’s going somewhat as expected. Biggest F2 tomatoes look like they should. Not that many days delay even with cool weather. Pure variety siberian early is quite clearly behind. It might not be because of less cold tolerance. Based on signs I have seen on plants part of reason might be drought stress. I have watered them some, but outdoors moisture tends to spread and small plants might struggle to get enough moisture. There is more moisture deeper down, but there soil has been really cool. So better plants might have adaptions to dry or cold, or both. Many F2s also struggled and I have removed them once they were clearly behind. Growth is now starting to pick up and still looks like they might flower just before end of month, or early july.
Best plant.
Some of the best plants.
Peppers and eggplants had slower start than I hoped for, but it’s no surprise with weather we had. Recent days growth has been really fast. They still have cloth on even though it’s quite warm. They still need any help they can get. I’m hopefully that they will make atleast viable seeds that is what hope as minimum. That would clearly indicate that it would be feasable to screen F2’s with direct seeding which would make a lot easier to breed them.
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Wanted to mention: the moschata seeds you sent me seem to be really good!
I planted them directly back in May when the temps were in the 20Cs… and then they stayed underground until just last week after the final frost. It seems it is probably near 95-100% germination (after ~3 weeks in increasingly cold soil).
The miscellaneous maximas and pepos I had didn’t fare nearly as well (maybe only like 10-15% sprouted… some even had plastic mulch so not sure exactly what was going on).
The moschatas now face a short remainder of the season, but I’ll see what I can do to pamper them and boost their growth the rest of the way.
Good to see how they fare that way. Quite unfortunate late start, but not surprised they came trough fast as mine came about same time as summer squash and maximas, and clearly faster than moschata varieties I had on trial. I started thinking direct sowing on bare ground next year like you did, but still a bit unsure. I might be getting other plot next year where I would have more space, but it’s futher away and no realistic way to water much so it would be a real survivor garden. Mine are now about same stage as I had from transplant last year and even then it wasn’t sure they would make seeds. With warm end of summer even canadian croockneck, that was behind others made some viable seeds, but there weren’t as many. So I would think those have a change if weather is somewhat reasonable till september, but there aren’t as many seeds. Easiest way to help them through would be with help at the start. Certainly possible to cover them late season, but there aren’t that much heat even with cover to get much growth. Early season it would be possible with something like fruit boxes you get from supermarket with 1kg packages of fruit. Last year I had atleast a week between first female and first male, and if those come about as fast it becomes a lot easier for fruit to ripen. Ground this year was really cool that it’s possible many seeds rotted. Plastic mulch does increase some degrees, but it still goes down during night. The mother plant to this line was direct sown survivor with black plastic mulch and cloth. They had bad germination and mostly struggled and best just barely made seeds dispite record hot summer. It was also very dry which might have slowed them down a bit.
Direct sown trial of tomatoes, peppers and eggplants now 38 days from sowing. I thinned tomatoes mostly to what I leave. Some where too good to discard so I ripped them out and planted elsewhere. In one of the crosses those were different leaf/growth type and might be just as mature as ones I kept. Biggest ones have flower buds forming and they look like they are well in schedule. Also peppers and eggplants have started to grow really fast. Interesting to see if it just speeds up like with tomatoes.
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Midsummer and growth has exploded from heatwave. Yesterday was up to +30C (86F), but luckily it cooled a bit and looks like it’s going to be more rainy in coming days. Since april forecast has only sown single days with chance of rain, but now it looks like any day might rain. If it does and how much is still unknown. It has rained 50mm (2inch) since april which is about 30-40% of avarage for the period so any rain is welcome. Have been able to water with pump, but rain is much more even for all. Temperatures should be highs of 20-25C (68-77F) for a while which is quite close to avarage for this time of year. These squash and sweetcorn are just over month from sowing.
Biggest summer squash starting to flower. No genetically diverse summer squash for this year, but I have some F1 crosses and next year should have lots of genetically diverse seeds.
Biggest of my maxima. This is own cross in F2 and it’s faster than pure varieties, some of them almost can keep up.
Biggest moschata is from my own seed ofcourse.
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Tomatoes, tomatillos and ground cherries are past planting shock and starting to grow really fast. First flowers came some days ago except on tomatillo that was flowering before transplanting. Tomatillos I will direct sow next year as they don’t seem to like being grown in pots that much. I have removed early flowers from tomatillos so that they root well before producing although I’m not sure how many pollinators find them now when there aren’t that many flowers. They do have quite a lot of pollen atleast.
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Biggest watermelon and melon direct seeded from own seeds. Same plants are also in pictures above taken 8 days ago. Growth is really spectacular. Should flower in about 2 weeks which is well in time. For ripe fruit they should flower before 15.7 and even that might be little late.
Eggplants are looking good. They have just gone past transplant shock and there has been clear growth in just last few days. One variety even had flower bud which is a lot earlier than I expected. Plant itself was still a little too small and I removed flowers from those. They still have plenty of time to make fruit.
Grain corn and cucumbers. Corn has started tasseling, about week earlier than previous years. I think it’s sunny clear days that have made the difference. Cucumbers are mostly from own seeds and I have quite a many extra plants to see if i can pick out crosses from first fruit.
Sweet potatoes have started to really put on growth.
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One of my arctic rose dwarf was different from the start. It didn’t look exactly like any other variety I had for this year either and it still doesn’t so I’m starting to be convinced that it’s a natural hybrid. Seed are my own from last year. Leaves aren’t as round as in ARD and it’s not as stocky, but it does have some dwarf like growth habit. ARD also has somewhat open flowers that crossing is quite easy. I’m thinking it might be cross to gold nugget since it has leaves that look similar and it was 2m away. Other varieties as close or closer feel like their cross would not look like that, but you never know. Maybe result is just not what I would imagine. Interesting to see what comes of it.
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Hi Jesse. Why the horizontal threads criss crossing for the tomatos?
That’s a lot of effort bring put in. I hope you get all the reward you are after. Good luck some more
That’s for support. Last year I used same style. I tied them once to bottom tread about this time and once to some of the higher treads couple weeks later. After that they criss crossed so much with tread and other branches that they stay up. Some of the dwarf types have more simple support, but mostly what I have will branch out some. I do hope I could grow without, but not sure how well that works in our normal climate with more moderate temperatures and higher percipitation.
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Something will succeed and next year shouls be easier. Just about to start crossing those that don’t cross that easily by themselfes. Next year should be even more interesting than this one. Still lot to look forward to this year also.
I got some bigHills in the hoophouse, they flower. I noticed their upright behavior. Thick strong stems, i have pruned them though.
I’m hoping to grow them outside of the hoophouse in the field without much support in the cloverbeds next year.
The whiteclover is a dew-attracting plant but it smothers plants which fall over partly attracting disease.
Valuable asset this upright trait.
I think my option would be hay mulch if I were to grow without support. Right now I just want to get crossing going on and making genetically diverse direct seeded population. After that I will try to select for what works without support. Probably will have several different types in different lines based on earlines, fruit size and growth habbit. One possibility would be a line(s) that is like many dwarf types and only needs central stem support. That would be easy enough to support. Some micro dwarfs could be upright without support, but that would more like early season taste rather than main production line.
Have done some crosses on tomatoes. 2 days ago I emasculated several tomato flowers and today I pollinated them. Couple had fallen for some reason (maybe too much bending?), but still got total of 24 crosses. After that I made another round of emasculating tomatoes and first ground cherries. Ground cherries are my first and I had to follow them daily for couple days to get idea when to emasculate. I thought it might be more delicate process, and they are small, but are easier to get hold off than many tomatoes. For crosses I developed system where I emasculate, put label and after pollination mark number and date. Then I marked the cross in notebook which I can use to label seed packs if I get seeds. Outside of the plant I have another mark to note that there is flower without pollination. Last year I noticed that I had missed several flowers that I had emasculated because it’s hard to keep track what I had already done. This year I plan to do a lot more crosses so I need to be more organized. In the picture is yantarnuy which is among first to have fruit growing this year also. Really trying hard to get it crossed onto something.
Exserted orange fairly consistently exserted for me (I think 8 plants). Interesting to see how well they self pollinate because at the moment I still havent seen that many bumblebees. There might be some, but they are very visible once squash is in full bloom and main flowering of tomatoes starts.
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I can tell you have passion in what you are doing. Have you grown sweet potatoes before? I thought Finland, even southern Finland would not be ideal for sweet potatoes.
A little off topic… I really enjoyed the first few seasons of the Vikings TV show. Is your ancestry from that area?
Yes I have grown several years. It’s still a bit of a struggle with timing, enough accumulated heat and water. Hot weather recent years has meant less water and rainy weather is traditionally also cool. Previously I have used clear plastic tunnel to get them going earlier and faster, but this year I left that and go more towards trying to find varieties and hopefully get seeds to improve on. Still at the moment I think it’s necessary to use black plastic mulch and cloth with little more mature transplants to have chance of getting decent harvest. With this method it does seem like there is growth even with more moderate temperatures (around 20C/68F) if it’s just sunny with varieties I have trialled. Really hope these new varieties i’m trialling are better than would be expected from them in my climate.
Climate change does make it easier to grow sweet potatoes and other more exotic crops here. Last 5 years have been clearly warmer than average with hottest and second hottest summer on record and this year doesn’t look that cool so far. Still even hot Finnish summer isn’t sweet potato weather, or atleast not when it’s as short as it is. Cool summer is always looming around the corner and that’s quite far from ideal for sweet potatoes.
Scandinavia (Sweden, Norway and Denmark) where vikings come from is genetically very distant to Finland dispite the proximity. Finland has ancestry more from eastern europe all the way to siberia whereas scandinavia is more central European. Around 10% of Finnish ancestry is asian from siberia. I found a funny quote about that “Europeans can be divided into Finns and non-Finns”. That said there were lot’s of important viking trade routes in and trough Finland that there certainly has been some genetic mixing. Finland was one of the few places where there weren’t viking raids or settlements. Western part has swedish speaking minority, but that came with christianity after viking time. Even that is more language than genetic divide. Personally I only know of my karelian ancestry, other half is from this area, but no idea how deep it goes or if there is ancestry from west.
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Little disappointment. What was sopposed to be p.viscosa seems like just regular p.peruviana. Did suspect it quite early on, but didn’t want to believe. The seed company that sold them sent also chili seeds that clearly were bad and didn’t germinate. Other seeds also had bad germination except for s.habrochaites, p.angulata and these p.peruviana. The picture for them wasn’t very clear either and might have had p.peruviana in it. Not going to order seeds from them anymore. It seems that the more rare species you want to get, the shadier sellers. P.peruviana is useless to me so I’ll just cut them off. This year I’ll just have to try make crosses with p.angulata and several more normal ground cherry species and varieties. Had to google to see if I could find p.viscosa from other seller in europe and found one that had right species in the picture atleast. Guess I’ll have to go through what else they have and make an order for next year.
