Suppose fairly good for late blight with some days little more rain and some with occasional rain. Total 30mm in last 5 days. Nights fairly warm and days 20C/68F or little under. Not really anything unusual this time of year, just warmer nights than average. Until late july it was really dry, then it rained about sama as now and then couple weeks without rain that it was fairly dry again. Total august rains were average.
Melons starting to be done dispite fairly warm weather for this time of the year (highs at 20C (68F) or just below). Effects from rains late last month are starting to show and Iâm sure couple cooler long night isnât helping. It looks like itâs been +4C (40F) last night at nearest measurment point at ground level. Itâs few kilometers away, but itâs quite the same where my plot is. Yesterday I picked good patch and today continued. Some had ripened, but mostly picked fruits from plants that had withered. Luckily most of them had first signs of ripening and were going to change colour in the coming days. Also picked some watermelons that had suffered the same fate. Not sure how ripe those are, but they did have less than ideal amoumt of days to ripen. Should be enough to have viable seeds and possibly edible flesh. Some plants are still looking good, but for how long? Weather should be dry and fairly warm for the coming week. Still have some more to pick that I wait as long as I can wait for.
Best melon plant produced 7 melons and 7,6kg in total (in clear plastic box). Biggest 1,5kg with many close to that. All but one looked like they were going to ripen within next few days. It was little later than some others, although not much behind in that size range. Plant looked very good just 2 days ago and went just like that. Might have to check if there is some rodent damage or is there just rot like in others. Still very good overall. Skin is smooth with very little signs of cracking. Smallest fruit was just mildly sweet, but flavourful. It might have had sligthly forced ripening and bigger might have more sweetness. Flesh is white.
One damaged stem.
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Couple days ago there was little frost scare when forecast was +5 (41F) which on a clear night might be over 5C colder. Forecast was quite accurate, but it only went to +2C (36F) at ground level. Besides that itâs been fairly good weather considering time of the year. Itâs a quite a low bar. Now were on a little (relative) heatwave when temps get up over 20C (68F), maybe as high as 23C (73F) which is quite rare this time of the year. Also nighs should be fairly warm so no frost scares atleast. Average for this time would be 15C (59F) and nights close to freezing often. It looks like 5 days of good weather and thatâs it for this year. Days get shorter and sun weaker so fast that late september best case is frost tender plants stay alive, but canât expect much progress. Need to start picking anything that is frost/cold tender in the coming days so that I donât have to do it all at once in case there is frost in forecast. Besides frost hardy plants, Iâm going to leave potatoes, squash and yacon last as their harvest isnât affected even with little frost and they might get little progess.
Yesterday I harvested almost all melons and watermelons that were either ripe or plant had died. Still few plants hang on. Might be partially just lucky place. Atleast better looking watermelons are in same row. Maybe shouldnât pay as much attention to those that survive than those that succumb first, but this year Iâll just collect whatever I get.
Also collected some eggplants and peppers that had started to turn colour or had started to spoil. It was little surprise that some of those eggplants had colour change as some had been pollinated only around 20.7. I made crosses to those. Itâs not going to be a huge harvest, but there are few varieties that have really proven themselves. Crosses have taken with fairly high rate so next year should get interesting. Just few more days to get them as ripe as they ever will get this year. There also seems to be some natural hybrids from last year, but those are unlikely to have viable seeds. Itâs still good to have proof of promiscuous pollination. It was only few plants and there are more plants that look like typical to variety.
Best varieties from last year werenât as fast this year and all best this year are new varieties. Last year august was record hot that might have helped those to produce. Iâm still going to keep those as well atleast as long I have crosses with them.
Kvapik
This came from 20 variety pack and there were several of this variety that survived my early season selection. It looks to be kashmiri brnjal. itâs not at the variety list of the mix at the moment, but there arenât any other variety that would have same shape/colour combination on that site. It also had discription of being early.
This was supposed to be bella roma, but thatâs not it. There might have been another plant that was right, but that never got to production early enough. Maybe I mixed seeds or they had been mixed before. In any case, this one has couple huge fruits, possibly over 500g. Hopefully they are early enough to have seeds.
Robin hood. Not hugely productive because fruits are on smaller side and later fruits didnât start to form. Possibly too cold weather. Still early compared to many.
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Summer has come to an end about week or two later than usual. Yesterday was still 23C (74F), but now itâs unlikely to be over 20C until next april or may. Still itâs continuing fairly warm for this time of the year and it is likely to be one of the warmest september on record if not the warmest. No frost in sight although that might change fast. Started bigger harvest with some of the maxima that had flowered almost 2 months ago, sweet potatoes and sweetcorn. Also took drybeans and radish seed pods inside to dry. Itâs going to get wet so I need to harvest some even if there isnât frost. Sun is so weak that it takes long for any moisture to dry up. Gotta pick peppers and eggplants soon. Later developed maxima and moschata Iâll leave for later as they might still develop. Moschata harvest is looking now much better when fruits that started to form after mid august are sizing up, but I still think they need some time to form seeds. Might have to check that they donât sit in water if we get lot of rain. Potatoes also have to wait as I can easily store them on my balcony for couple more months before putting them in fridge. I did accidentally step on some tps tubers and so I had to check them to see what I got. itâs lot more than just plain white skinned potatoes, even on my finnish mix.
Variety from F2 crosses, normal yellow/orange maxima and likely candy roaster.
Some of the sweetcorn Iâm saving for seed. Was little harder to select best plants as this year most had 2 good cobs per plant. I tried to select for those that had the biggest/fattest and took piece from bottom, but I also took smaller piece per cob from anything that had 2, didnât have deformed cobs and cobs that had developed until end for speed test. Gonna be plenty of seed for some hard selection next year.
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Sweet potato harvest was quite poor, but that was a bit expected when I started this trial. They need quite a lot of heat and just black plastic with cloth generally isnât enough here, especially with about average summer in temperatures. But there was one variety that stood out. I only had 3 plants of it, but it produced just under 5kg (I think thatâs 11 pounds) which is far better than any other variety and what I was hoping for. Itâs one of the 3 unnamed varieties I got from a Belgian breeder. There were otherâs that had some promise, but nothing that really stood out. Results might have been affected by early season drought and overall management so others might do better and that one even better. Next year likely to have lotâs from that one variety for production and some of the others as sample trial or in pots for flowers. This year only 2 varieties have had any significant flowering, best variety being one of them. Havenât got any of them crosspollinated dispite many tries. Have some of them in pots in my classed balcony and might take them indoors later to see if I can induce flowering and get any pollinated.
Radish seed pods.
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Picked last of melons and watermelons couple days ago when I noticed few small late developers had gone bad. Some watermelon plants were still fairly good looking, but also started to have enough days for ripe fruit. Also cut open one fairly late developer that wasnât that far of, maybe week. Close enough to be pleasant seed saving. Had total of almost 80kg of watermelon and little over 50kg of melons. Which is fairly good after couple areas failed early on. Seed harvest is whatâs importand and thatâs plentyful. Tomatoes are starting succumb to late blight. Still few varieties Iâm keeping close eye on, but harvest is mainly lost from this point on. Just saved some crosses I made when fruits started to spoil before or just when they are ripening. Itâs the worst itâs been in recent years. Atleast itâs good weather to see how it developes instead of bringing it all inside to spoil.
Saved F2 seeds from what I grew from last years seed.
S.cheesmaniea recovered from rodent damage just in time to have some fruit. Itâs quite fast as I know it only flowered after mid july because it started to be little late for crossing. Itâs starting to get yellow possibly because of cold. Not sure if it has any definite late blight damage on leaves, but fruit are ok. Same mostly on pimpinellifolium and habrochaites. I think only habrochaites had one fruit damaged by late blight, but both have healthy foliage besides one pimpinellifolium accession that started yellowing already a month ago. That might be from early blight and not late blight.
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Summery weather decided to stick around a bit longer and so there hasnât been that much need to harvest. Couple days ago it was high of 21C (70F) that is quite unusual, but at the same time there was one night -1 (30F) at closest measurment point. This time my plot must have escaped worst of it due to proximity to lake and favourable airflow from right direction. Still few more days of up to 20C (68F) before october sets in and all hope for growth is lost and rent period ends in any case. Which is just as well. September is going to be record warm, only question is by how much. Still that isnât enough for good progress, but atleast there has been some.
Picked first patch of peppers week ago as little panic reaction when it looked like warmth is going to be finished and rains would spoil them as some had started to spoil. Forecast changed after that and now I started picking as I need to finish before end of month and there isnât much progress. Peppers are also mostly at technical ripeness so seeds are ripe and there isnât much to gain. I like underripe and ripe just as much. It looks like I got pretty much everything I hoped for. Crosses have worked better than I expected. Some mistakes were made, but this year september saved much of it and next year I can be better prepared.
One patch of F4 seeds, but this year I also randomly cross pollinated some so there is is going to be more diversity.
One pheno of my own F2 crosses. That line was generally quite productive although with some variance in speed.
Inferno F3 best plant. Couple plants werenât as productive, but Iâll save all seeds from this.
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Some more of the better producing plants, but these are stable varieties.
Padron yellow.
Kirnu vins (cherry vine). Iâm not sure if this has different name as those names give only place where I bought them. Might be russian variety and more common to be in russian name.
Alba regia
Chinese wall
Bulgarian red
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Also harvested finnish mix tps. Mostly little over/under 500g per plant. Some plants got closer to 1kg and one even little over which I think is quite good considering season was slightly cut short (technically tps season here is always cut little short). Last years small trial best had just under 500g and this year itâs been giving 1,5kg per plant so I had that as cut off. Had little over 30 plants and saved 19 separately, rest either didnât produce or had weird tubers. Will see over winter how they store and taste. Didnât see much evidence of late blight damage on tubers, but if they donât store then they will be eliminated. Going to harvest gts and other mix in coming days. Some of them are still alive, although have lost some leaves. Finnish mix all lost all leaves, but some did have healthy looking stem to suggest some tolerance to late blight.
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Rent season for my plot, and at the same time summer(y) weather, finished at the end of september. September was record warm and by a mile. For Helsinki that has 180 years of records average for the month was almost 1C (2F) higher than previous record. Probably similar to my location although records donât go that far back. In any case it was 4C (8F) warmer than 30 year average which did make huge difference in overall results for many crops. Still itâs not really that summery weather as days are short and sun doesnât have strength, if itâs sunny. Many times it remained quite cool and cloudy/misty long in to morning and even whole day in some cases. It did help enough that probably got more viable seeds from my moschata that seemed to have trouble setting fruit with drought conditions that continued until mid august. Many of the fruits I got started only around mid august and seem like most are ripe enough. Only nepalise moschata had many immature or barely mature fruits, but it seemed like once it started making fruits it just kept going. I discarded atleast 3-4 fruits and still harvested 5 from single plant. It might have had help with having corner spot and not as much competition. Other new varieties north circle butternut and south anna produced some fruit while other new varieties failed miserably.
There are also some later maxima from new/staple varieties. Not as productive as my own, but there should be some crosses and smaller size to mine is preferred. Eggplants didnât make huge harvest, but some varieties did quite well and I was able to get quite a many crosses for next year.
Variety from my own seeds (one fruit I picked earlier). They only produced 1-2 per plant (mostly 1), but most of plants I had left did produce and they had the fastest to produce also. Many new shapes appeared. Colours are about same, but green striped cushaw type of colour/pattern has gotten lighter this year also. Biggest, green on top, was 9kg. Itâs the same zucchini like fruit on 21.8 pictures above. Did not expect it to grow that big or look like that.
Tomatillos made a great crop. Didnât really expect them to do this well. There was some variety how well different varieties did, but quite a many did very well. Only a few Iâm not saving seeds from, but they have likely crossed to some I save from. Plan is to preferentially sow which did very best as well as yellow varieties, but also sow some which did ok and year after that mix it all up and have huge hybrid swarm grow-out.
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Tps from gts seeds and some other colourful mixes that I got mixed up. There is more variety both in looks and yield compared to what I got from Finland. Still some produced quite well and were alive even after month of late blight. My favorite purple leaved didnât produce more than few small ones. Not sure how much it was affected by having most of plant broken off during storm even before late blight hit. Did save those tubers although mostly I discarded anything that had below average. There were still few purple that had good yield.
Plant that looked like a rose had good yield of very interesting looking tubers.
Some had produced in numbers instead of size, but with little longer season grown from tubers those should size up nicely.
Storage for autumn with some tubers I got from last years tps.
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Chilies in baccatum species did not have time to ripen more than few fruits, but some did make quite a good harvest of fruits that just barely didnât get fully ripe. Best varieties were aji imbabura, aji rico, aji colorado and what I had marked as sugar rush cream. It later turned out it is not sugar rush cream, but looked more like sugar rush peach. Well, now it turned red so itâs not sugar rush peach either. It might be sugar rush red, but I didnât sow any of that. Possible that it has gotten mixed up some time when I saved seeds or then itâs a cross. Weâll see next year if it will grow true to type. Also got some crosses, but not as many as I hoped because it got late to cross and even the ones I made were furtunate to have enough time. I did have the foresight to plant preatermissum in pot and used that to make crosses. probably made 30-40 attempts and now have 5 fruits with cross growing indoors.
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Grew variety of parsnips, carrots and beets for seed next year. You would think that there are some varieties that have been bred here, but no. Perhaps there are some beets for animal fodder, but for human cunsumption there arenât other than sugarbeets. Parsnips were quite a succes with only one variety performing poorly. Otherwise too small sample size to make accurate comparison of yield and target was just to get roots to grow seeds from. Carrots I have had huge problem with carrot root fly and this year wasnât exception. Even one F1 variety that is supposed to be tolerant had extensive damage. There were some in other varieties that had less damage. Big white and yellow seemed quite tolerant with just little damage that is easy to remove while preparing, plus roots are big to make relative damage smaller. Beets first had trouble with hare that probably got in when I didnât have fence door properly fixed and massacred tops. Later rodents made damage like I have never seen before in beets. Not the amount of variety I was hoping for, but atleast some that hopefully make it till next year. There are some more that I picked earlier.
Couple of basil were still going storng at the end of september, ocinum kilimandscharicum (kilimanjaro basil) and ocinum tenuiflorum (holy basil, tulsi). Most were finished earlier in the month. Most still made atleast some seeds.
Late blight damaged most tomatoes and made it quite nasty to save seeds. I didnât want to completely waste seed from F1s and F2s so I buried them in shallow trench next to my plot which is not tilled. Also put last fruits from wilding panamarous there. Hopefully some volunteer and make fruit.
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Have you considered extracting tom seeds from blighted fruit with TSP?
(Trisodium phosphate)
For what I gathered, it sits on the seed coat but not in the endosperm. But do your research on that, in case I missed something.
I did save seeds from blighted fruits normally, but just didnât do big F2/F3 patches like I planned. I saved some from earlier fruits and later concentrated on crosses I had made. Quite a few of those were made to F2 plants and those along with small patches of F2/F3 give me plenty to trial with, just not that much to share. I did that trench just to give those atleast some chance to make it to next year.
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Took indoors few weeks ago dwarf chilitepin, c.praetermissum and one eggplant that was natural hybrid. With c.praetermissum I had had the foresight to put it in pot to start with and it was a bit late with flowering that it was quite necessary to bring it indoors to ripen fruits. I have now 5 crosses to different baccatums growing in it. Other two maybe I didnât need to dig up and bring indoors, but just to make sure even the last cross/fruit has fully mature seeds. Dwarf chilitepin has now matured about crosses in total and eggplants should be as ripe as they get.
It was really fun making crosses to c.preatermissum. Maybe not as difficult as size would suggest, but it was quite tedious work. I had to make something like 6-8 crosses for one to work so it did take quite some time for each successful cross.
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I really enjoy following your journey! Thank you for the reports and photos. One of my goals here in upstate New York zone 5, is to breed/select for direct seeding tomatoes, peppers and⌠yes, okra. Maybe Iâm deluded, but I know Iâm not alone. Thereâs a whole thread here, of dreamers and theyâre ideas, called âImpossible Landrace Project Ideasâ. I feel very at home there 
Thank you. If itâs possible here, it should be possible in lower latitudes with as long or longer season. We have a saying here that loosely translates âyears are not brothersâ and I think itâs good to be awere what kinda year itâs been and how it might reflect next years. Even with general trend of climate getting warmer itâs always possible to have years that are colder than you hope for your plants. At the same time itâs always good to know that you might be overestimating what plants need and problem isnât bad summer, but bad genetics. We have had now many years in a row that have been little or much warmer than average and still local growing groups people complain about âcool summerâ because it rained or there was cool period. Okra might be quite hard even if you have little more favourable climate, but you should have better access to wide variety of genetics. Okra hasnât really been grown in Europe and what I could find is about half a dozen varieties. I donât think I updated what happend with my direct sown peppers; they barely made ripe fruit this year and seem like they would have had fairly high chance to make viable seeds even with more average end to the season. It took quite excatly 4 months from sowing to ripe fruit which was what I was expecting more or less. Good luck with your projects in years to come.
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Have been preparing new project for next year. Was offered free use of land (pay with harvest) where I have freedom to do as I like so I can go no dig. Just deweeded best I could and made shallow paths to retain some water. Unfortunately didnât take picture before starting, but backround gives some clue what it looked like before. Got access to load of horsemanure that I added on top off beds, hay on top of that to supress weeds and retain water. One bed remained without hay when I run out, but should get some more next year at latest. Paths I put some brances which were available again to retain moisture and feed soil. Had mustard growing there as green manure and to supress weeds. It didnât grow as well because it was so dry to start with, but better than weeds. Itâs a bit futher away and access to water for watering is nonexistent if itâs dry like itâs been. Thatâs just change to go dryfarming, besides early season if there is need for it. Still need to get them started fast so they make it in short season. Next year itâs mainly going to be all types of squash, sweetcorn, beans, cucumbers and potatoes, although potatoes might get another location. Will have some smaller trials just to see how it goes and to plan for next years. Now I planted carrot and parsnip roots for next years seeds. Got tiny bit of snow and winter is coming sooner or later so itâs nice to have it ready for spring.
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Looking great! Youâve got acces to straw or hay throughout the growing season?