I have little dilemma with yukon chief sweet corn. It’s so fast that it will have silks same time with grain corn that is not far enough. Plan was that it would be about same time as other sweet corn and I would remove tassels to make hybrids. Now I have to cover them with cloth and I’m thinking that two I will cover and let pollinate to atleast get seeds. Other two I plan to cover separately and remove tassels. Hopefully I can get crosses from later cobs once other sweet corn starts to make silks and I have to remove tassels from grain corn. Quite curious variety this is. Didn’t expect it to be that short although it says that in discription, but it says same for some of the graincorn I have and they still get to little over meter with tassel. This might barely make it to meter tall. Now they are just over knee high. Those are now just about 45 days from when I put them to soak so it might make sweet corn in about 75 days from sowing. That’s really fast here. Already thinking of having two lines of selection, one short and fast for early season, other taller maybe little higher yielding that just makes it in time without plastic and cloth.
First open flower in direct sown tomatoes, 50 days from sowing. It did seem like it would flower earlier, but I think this cross had trait from large barred boar that it would grow size before flowering. It is still faster than direct sown siberian early that is fastest to flower big tomato. It seems to me that this cross has traits that makes it better suited for direct sowing than stable variety siberian early that made it able to take most of it’s conditions. If I had some faster varieties in the mix I think flowering closer to 40days from sowing would be possible. Plan is to cross some of the faster varieties once they have more flowers open.
Also peppers and eggplants have grown quite nicely once they got going. Peppers have flower buds showing and there is a change that they will flower in time to have viable seeds. Eggplant I didn’t check that closely, but based on size and growth it should have a change. If it looks in anyway likely to get seeds from them, next year I will have bigger direct seeding of peppers and eggplants with F2+ seeds.
It’s the time of the year when plants start to really get going, but also start to feel time running out. Most likely less than 2 months left for warm loving plants, maybe even 1,5 months. Many plants take 1,5-2 months from flower to ripe fruit and at the moment only tomatoes, tomatillos and summer squash are and have been flowering some time. Others are just starting, hopefully, if weather just is warm enough. June ended up being clearly warmer than average even with cold start. July started with rain, cold and wind. We got almost 40mm rain that is about half of monthly rainfall, but it’s also about the same we had in may and june compined. Even though I had watered quite a lot with pump, ground soaked up most of the rain straight away and in some places it looks like it could take even more. It might rain little more in the coming days, but otherwise forecast looks a little better. Highs around 20C (68F) and partially sunny days. Little cooler than average, but could be worse. Hopefully plants find it warm enough.
Sweet potatoes are starting to get going. Cloth is on to keep them warm and today when I took it off for a while it felt warmer under it. This year I had been diligent with watering sweet potatoes so now after rain pathways were little soaked. Hopefully it’s better little wet than dry.
Wilding panamorous is maybe the most impressive tomato both in terms of early flowering and how fast main flowering is coming. Big hill and exserted orange are about the same, but little less heavy foliage. From other new varieties there are maybe 10-15 varieties that are about same speed as well as few varieties that I have grown before. My own F1 crosses (5) plus one random cross are also fast except one, but that had both parents little later flowering. F2s are where the real test comes. I have now made little over 50 crosses and emasculated some more today. Some of the first attemps I checked today seem succesfull. I have used quite heavily the very fastest varieties, but I try give most varieties atleast a change to be part of the mix. Even the slower ones aren’t really much more than 10-15 days behind. Some also had incident with voles or frost that put them back. There are maybe around 10 varieties that seem really too late. Some of them are just for unusual colour.
One accesion of pimpinellifolium has quite interestingly low vining growth habbit. Have to see if others that were sown later grow like that once they are as big. All 3 accesions do look clearly different in some ways.
Tomatillos are growing better than I expected. There are only 2 fruits that I could see, which is probably good news as it confirms that they need cross pollination. Today was first time I could see bumblebee going trough flowers. At this time they start to be active when there is so many flowers available.
Melons and watermelons still waiting to flower. Sould get them pollinated by mid july to have change of ripe fruit, little later to atleast to get ripe seeds. If forecast doesn’t go any worse it should be just warm enough for them to grow fast enough to flower just in time. A lot can happen in 10 days.
My tps and some of my beans.
Ground cherries.
Grain corn has never been this fast. Not sure if this is a cross too as same seeds have dark stems and green stems. Next year will direct sow them without plastic or cloth. It’s probably 10-15days faster on average, but should be enough time to ripen.
Eggplants are looking really nice. Have removed some of the early flowers to encourage growth before fruiting, but now they can flower and hopefully I can make some crosses.
Wow Jesse great progress! Sooner than later sôme farmers must notice it or a journalist or something…
Your watermelons look five times bigger than mine. What kind of soil you’re at? Clay-like?
Last year I was contacted by 3 journalist, but I didn’t want to do at this moment for personal reasons and also because my plot is very close to city centre and I don’t need that much extra attention. There have been some stealing and sampling as it is. Luckily nothing that would ruin my efforts, but enough to be annoying.
Some people say it’s clay (just because it cracks), but I don’t think it’s that much clay. Partially yes. it’s an old lake bed from +100 years ago so there is some fine sediment in it. It does crumble quite easily. I have experince in some heavy clay soil. Here it’s clay after soil layer 30cm down. That’s like a brick wall and even weeds have had hard time with drought conditions. Once moisture is used from soil layer that’s it for anything can’t penetrate that layer.
When did you sow your watermelons?
Yesterday I had possibly missed one watermelon female flower or atleast today it was open. Almost missed it when taking picture too. I promptly pollinated it with new variety I have for this year so that I have it in the genetically diverse population. This one had first flower quite early on and plant isn’t that big yet, which is generally considered bad as it likely affects how much one plant can carry. I have previously removed early flowers before 8th node as is common advice, but this time (as with last years trial) I have used any flower. Time is of the essence. Might separate later on different populations for early/late season, big/small etc, but right now just gettings seeds is priority and lowering heat requirements. That was actually the same fastest plant I pictured 15 days ago and wrote it should flower in about 2 weeks. Seems like it wasn’t too bothered about cooler days in between.
First tps to flower is quite pretty. I don’t really like flowers by themselves (as in plant that is just for flowering), but I do appriciate pretty flowers when they are attached to something that is useful in other ways as well. Multitasking if you will.
I remember dates even if I don’t try to remember them. I also take pictures often to compere different years so I can use those also to remind me if I were to forget. Was just wondering why your would be that small with more favourable enviroment. Only thing that comes to mind is lack of water early on, unless it’s been weirdly cold there. Whatever the reason, they should grow fast once they get going. Mine were quite small just few weeks ago. My biggest pumpkins are just little smaller than your and corn is about same size.
People differ enormously in punctuality. I do however remember on the digital thermometer which has memory for lows and highs that the night températures remained close to 5 degrees Celsius for weeks on end. So there’s that.
I grow bigger seeds out on a flat level ‘table’ with ridges covered in plastic in a greenhouse in 4*4 cm pots. I don’t miss a lot of watering on hot days. I just dump a bucket in and everybody’s happy.
So thank you for helping me improve.
Couldn’t the journalists hide your identity and keep the gardenpictures without landmarks? I don’t think that xould be unusual.
Imagine some other Finnish growers get inspired, and start growing your seeds out. Would advance your lifeswork as well. Just an idea, i don’t try to push.
I’d do it given the chance, but I don’t water much, mulch with rotten haybales mainly causing quite some snail pressure, i grow lots of herbs and trees and flowers on poor soils. It takes longer to get spectacular results.
In your focused effort i do see great growth and hope to sée spectacular results harvest wise too.
Happy growing Jesse!
That was last year and there was many reasons not to do it, and still is. Place is just one of them. It would be really hard to conceal place as there aren’t that many public plot places like this. Now it doesn’t gather as much interest as people from street 50m away don’t know that there might be something unusual growing there. It’s mostly potaoes, onions, carrots etc on neigboring plots. I have also had bad experience with reporter on different matter. I don’t think I would like to be anonymous when I do it anyway. I do already publish in Finnish gardening groups, just not in more local groups where place might get easily recognized. I would say me and my trials are quite well know in gardening commonity, hence the reporters contacted me. I try to inspire and educate that way. Maybe do more in the future when situation is different.
So you used transplants for watermelons and not direct seeding? Wouldn’t direct seeding be easier there? I did get also weeks of night lows mainly +5C with some nights just above 0C. I had maybe 10% max 20% emergence rate. About half of those died in colder weather, were damaged by some bugs or came up too late. Some have grown too slow after that and been eliminated if there were better plants close by. There are still those that are quite a lot behind better ones. I suspect that they got either bug damage or root damage from cold. Maybe that’s the case for you too? Melons and watermelons aren’t too good with cold soil. I’m keeping those for the time being since most of them are only survivors in that area so they still outgrew maybe hundred seeds.
Just noticed that one of the new varieties, malaga F1, has quite huge flowers. Second flower is the next biggest I could find. There are some plants with similar to second biggest, but mostly they are normal size. That’s 1/2 to 2/3 from the second biggest. Have to see how that trait comes up in next generations and wether it’s easy to select for. Besides big pedals, it also seemed to have bigger centre with more pollen than average.
First summer squash cross I made last year. it’s a cross between green round and yellow long variety. Green colour looks to be dominant, otherwise it’s midway between parent’s. There is also another accidental cross where parent’s are most likely same, but other way around. It looks same as in picture and I think other possible crosses would have made something different as long varieties are what my neigboring plots grow. Now I’m planning on making lot’s of crosses. Besides these I have 2 f1 varieties and about 10 heirloom varieties. Plan is to have F1’s as other parrent so that next generation is already diverse segregating population and can do mass selection.
My TPS are blooming into my surprise have set berries to my surprise in this 90° weather
Those flowers are so beautiful. I love the two-toned petals.
Direct sown tomatoes, peppers and eggplant now 2 months from sowing. Tomatoes have first fruits forming and peppers flower buds. Peppers should have open flowers by now to have good change to make viable seeds. Have to see how long it takes and if they are lucky to have long enough season. For peppers and eggplant this year doesn’t matter if they make viable seeds or not since they are staple varieties. It’s just proof of consept for next year. On tomatoes I’m making lots of crosses to have more diverse, and hopefully earlier, mix for direct seeding next year. For them it’s not about if they make viable seeds but how much and how easily. Right now it starts to be quite late to make crosses and just now there starts to be more opportunities.
Okra are starting to flower. First was clemson spineless, but kandahari pendi landrace isn’t far behind. Once I get flowers open at the same time I’ll make crosses to clemson spineless. They should be so fast to make ripe seeds that I still have couple weeks to make crosses.
Sweet potato growth over 11 days. Weather has been fairly good for them with sunny days and highs mainly 22-25C (73-77F). Cloth does make it even more cozy for them. First picture has little light coloured leaves after rainy cold period, but that was short lived problem and rain was really needed. Now it looks like gonna be highs around 20C (68F) for the foreseeable future with possibly rainy cool days. Maybe not ideal temperatures for sweet potatoes, but rain would be really needed still.
Watermelons and melons are starting to grow fruits right at the last moment. Biggest watermelon is 10 days from pollination and there are maybe couple dozen that are just showing signs of growth. Melons have just started to flower a lot and there are some fruits forming. Right now they are starting to be little late. I’m counting 45days to ripen backwards from end of august and even that might be optimistic, but there is a change that they can ripen even early september. If nothing else I should get viable seeds from anything that flowers within next week or so. Atleast if it can ripen even in cooler conditions.
