Besides my plans for The One!, Exserted Orange, Exserted Tiger, Mission Mountain Rising, and Mission Mountain Morning, I have added Sunviva to my tomato list as well as Rinon Rippled, Isfahan, and Moyamensing. I really need to stop buying seeds.
Started Korean Chilis, Poblanos, and Serranos saved from last year and some seeds a friend gave me, and Fish peppers.
I have squash seeds I saved from last year plus some Ayote seeds, and Arabat. I found a pack of Sucrine du Berry in my collection but not sure if I want to plant it because I will have to take space from something else at this point.
For okra planting what I saved from last year and adding Puerto Rico Everblush, Catawba Freeman, Ken’s, Burgundy, Zambia Landrace I, Heavy Hitter, Never Again, and Bamyeh Falastinia. May try some more Ultracross again.
For sorghum I have Mennonite and Nerum Boer.
Also have several packs of peas I’m going to mix and plant and an assortment of carrot seeds I got from Nikitovka with my small batches permit.
Not sure where I’m going to find room for everything because my garden’s not that big. Also, the only ones I have started are the peppers. I don’t start tomatoes until more toward the end of March and I may possibly have to go out of state for work so won’t be able to babysit the starts.
Ha ha ha! Yes, I’m familiar with the feeling of, “I want to grow all these things, but I have no idea where I’ll find the space!” I keep planning and re-planning and changing my mind on which landraces and varieties I want to grow of which species. It’s a problem, but it’s a fun problem to have!
One thing for me this year is starting tomatoes… I told two people I could give them starts. They won’t be ready for them until they can go straight to the garden. Tomatoes need the suckers trimmed, at least I have on my starts to not have them take over. Just take the trimmings and pot them up to give away/sell/trade. It doesn’t take much. It saves me time and space.
Also if I cull out plants I can plant trimmings of the plants I like and not have empty spots.
For growing out new generations of seeds obviously cloning tomatoes from trimmings isn’t moving forward. But it helps otherwise.
Also, I have 2 grow lights. Once early plants go out the tomatoes and peppers will be potted up and get more space. Hopefully not too much so I can plant more of other things to succession plant. Make the most of the two lights and the space.
There is another area that I used to use for my tomatoes and peppers and I still have the lights for it. With the April/May weather forecast for my area and with my possibly needing to leave the area for work I am just going to wait until early April to start tomatoes- especially William’s. That gives me time to clear out the other seedling area.
I’ve tried growing tomato plants before but didn’t have any luck. Maybe I’ll try again.
As far as planting more than I think I actually will need, that is my usual strategy. That way I am prepared in case of weather, animals, someone/something knocking seedlings off the shelf (that happened to some of my peppers this week), or whatever.
Since I’m in the Deep South of the US I already planted a big portion of my garden. Here’s some of what I’ve done or learned so far:
I kept my seed packets separate so I could plant one variety per hill as I went down a row. I over sowed, planting from 4-12 seeds per hill depending on how many seeds I had of that variety. That’s so I can thin to the best one per hill, while keeping the diversity.
I bought too many seeds. I have a bunch of types of tomato seeds but I ran out space and really am more excited about the other crops. So I might not even plant any of those tomatoes.
I’m planting separate populations. I am going to separate my Lofthouse mixes from my own brand new wanna be landraces. If his taste good and I introduce bad traits then I just ruined it.
I’ve had to adjust my goals down from growing one of everything I had. I’ve also had to adjust down the number of species. I’m trying to refine to be the most practical I can be and get the most results. That means focusing on the most outcrossing plants and only planting varieties I think are likely to succeed and taste good, for now. That also means not getting too carried away making unorthodox crosses.
Hopefully you can think on that while you plan your own garden.
Yeah, I know what you mean about adjusting down the goals from growing everything to growing only the most important things. Sometimes the decisions that have to be made are tough!
I’m planning to way oversow most species and plant a huge number of different varieties because I want to be stingy with watering and see what can survive that from year one. But I imagine you get three or four times as much water as I do in a year (given that you’re in the southeast, and I’m in the southwest), so that’s probably not a hugely important trait for you to select for.
Since you’re in zone 8b, are you planning to season switch and grow cool weather crops through the winter? In your zone, I bet you’d have a lot of options for winter crops.
We had a six week drought last fall, and I was busy so I didn’t get to start my fall garden until sometime in November. I planted a bunch of stuff and the only things that did anything were radishes, turnips, and carrots. Tons of stuff didn’t even germinate, some stuff like the parsnips germinated in the last couple of months. The radishes are flowered already and am waiting on the carrots and turnips to flower. Had bok Choi that made seeds but not plants. Saved them anyway. Gonna expand and continue work on the cool weather stuff again this winter, but with an earlier start. I’ll probably plant in September.
I also am going to keep my Lofthouse seeds separated from all others. I also will over plant so I can get some seeds to save and also get some items to eat and can and freeze and dehydrated from my garden, cause I can not afford to just let everything survive on its own. I am planning on putting all my sweet corn varieties together , except for the Lofthouse ones, and let them pollinate together. Yes I know I need to plant the Lofthouse varieties well away from the others. Has anyone bought the package of bean seed from the grocery store and planted those? you know, the ones that you put in a bean soup where they have many varieties of bean seeds in the pack
Yeah, I know what you mean. I really want to get food from my garden this year, too. That’s very important to me. Long-term is even more important, but short-term still matters. I know I can get a hundred pepo squashes quite easily, but I want a lot of other food, too. No matter how good my zucchinis are, I need more variety.
I seem to recall reading that a pack of mixed beans from the grocery store was how Joseph Lofthouse started his bean landrace! So I think we can say at least one person has done that to start a landrace successfully.
As I’ve worked on starting seeds and making my final final final garden plan I’ve cut down my list of tomatoes from one of everything. I’ve also started a few varieties of canning type tomatoes so I have some for food in addition to plant breeding. My pepper incident thinned the herd some for me so I don’t need to decide which peppers to not plant. I’ve also been thinking a lot about my squash. I bought way too much seed. Last year I shared some at work and have decided whatever I plant this year won’t to be too far off the wall so family or coworkers will eat them. It’s warming up a bit now and the snow bank in my garden has melted into a mud hole.
I guess spring has arrived here. Lettuce, radish, peas, some other things are already up and doing well. The brocco-lish are starting to gain height and will soon yield some tasty broccoli-like shoots. In the meantime, the leaves are serving as a substitute. I planted potatoes evening before last, just in time for a nice rain.
Our “official” last frost date is six weeks away and from past experience the warmth of the last few weeks isn’t a guarantee that it won’t still freeze again. The broccol-ish has proven itself pretty much bullet proof against freezing and I have plenty of seed of the rest in case it’s needed.
Potatoes is the exception, I’ve never mastered TPS nor do I have my own stored tubers. If they get frozen down as has happened before I have to buy new ones. If that happens later rather than sooner, I probably won’t because they don’t like the hot dry spells, we get now days.
Tom K. I like your sorghum project. Sorghum got my interest because 3 previous generations of my family grew it. One broom corn and two sugar sorghum. Grandpa always had sorghum syrup and I buy it now. This year out of curiosity I thought I would plant some. Mostly my goal for this year is to grow some and adapt it increase seed for a couple of years from now. So I am planting just a few plants for now.
From what I have found my great great grandfather grew broom corn in Oklahoma. My great grandfather and grandfather grew sugar sorghum and made syrup. In southwestern Iowa. I still haven’t found the varieties.
Right now I’m going to try two sugar sorghums. One of my main goals is to adapt it so I can share it.
I grow a little sorghum sometimes but unfortunately; I don’t have space to grow really useful amounts. Mine is a mix of some I’d had for a long time and some new ones I got from Southern Exposure a couple years back. They are Black Amber Cane, Mennonite, Iowa Sweet and Sugar Drip. It all grows really well and really big here.
I don’t understand the difference between sugar and grain types. The sugar types make plenty of grain. I wonder if the difference is really just that the grain types don’t make as much sweet juice. I think maybe the sugar types are fine for dual purpose and the grain types are just grain.
I got some broom corn sorghum seed from the seed exchange box. I’m excited to grow it. I have alot of things that I want to keep a close eye on and at the moment I’m more excited in a way for the sorghum and sunflowers and things that I’ll pretty much ignore and just check on now and then. Definitely the long term goal to have more things that I can ignore more until harvest time.
Here’s how it turned out.
Of the tomato varieties I grew Exserted Tiger seemed the most adapted. As a side project I direct seeded some Exserted Tiger in another area and got enough seed for maybe a pack from 10 seeds. Of the three Moyamensing plants in my garden one was the best tomato plant in the garden. Mission Mountain Morning, Purple Zebra, and one plant of Yellow Chariot seemed to do pretty well. All the rest of the tomato plants produced one or two tomatoes and died. Interestingly I started with 11 plants of a popular commercial hybrid from the farm store. I have them much more water and OMRI listed fertilizer and all but one died. The surviving plant still didn’t produce as much as the one Moyamensing plant which didn’t receive any extra care at all.
I replanted Korean chilis, along with banana peppers. A coworker gave me some nursery plants. All but one died. The one that lived grew to be waist high. It was very hot for our area this year and my plants didn’t produce many flowers at all until it cooled off in late August. The peppers from the waist high mystery plant didn’t ripen in time to save seed before first frost. But I saved seed from all the other peppers that came from flowers that were open at the same time as the ones on the mystery plant.
I planted half of my okra from saved seed. Roughly split between what I called “everything else” containing seed from everything grown last year except Zambia Landrace II. Then I planted Zambia Landrace II. The other area was new seed from various sources. Of the saved okra there was one pretty vigorous plant with pods that didn’t resemble anything I’ve grown before and I’m sure it’s a cross. Of the new varieties all but Bamyeh Falastinia were one pod plants or died. I think it has been the best adapted new okra that I have tried so far except for Zambia Landrace II. I used this crop mostly as a seed crop so I can expand my okra area next year, and hopefully to catch more crosses.
My moschata squash crop was almost a complete failure. At the end of the season I had a single squash from saved Lofthouse seed. It was shaped something like a Canada Crookneck so I am pretty sure it is a cross.
In the squash area I dug up all but two plants and replanted with a mix of seeds I bought at a local store. The only thing that grew from this mixed seed were 6 or so plants of yellow squash. They produced 5 or 6 per plant and I saved seed from the earliest one.
Sorghum was four different varieties. Broom corn was much more successful, followed by Nerum Boer, then Mennonite, and a former USSR variety from EFN. The fourth variety was a complete failure with no seed saved. My sorghum crop at this point was an experiment/seed crop. I have enough seed to plant a little larger area next year.
This year I saved the most seed that I ever have. I also found a canning type tomato that will produce fruit in my yard during a drought without coddling. I got a very small crop of direct seeded tomatoes. I found a variety of squash that will produce in my yard and have seeds from moschata that survived a really bad year. With my peppers I am hoping some crossing took place and some of the bell pepper cross pollinated with the other ones. I had more adapted plants of okra this year and saved plenty of seed from them and was able to grow two plant’s worth of okra with smooth pods. If I didn’t get much in the way of food this year I feel like I accomplished something because I now have locally grown and somewhat adapted seeds for all of the crops I want to grow next year. For the first time I won’t have to guess and hope for the best buying seed for the next year.
I am excited to hear that Exserted Tiger did well. It was one of my first selections from my own work. I made some F1 crosses with it for 2024 this year. My hope with it is that it will cross with other tomatoes for you and that those segregating offspring will adapt to your conditions even better.
