Voles can be terribly destructive especially when predators are absent. I would think about how to attract foxes and owls. Nesting habitat is very much the limiting factor for owls. Provide that and they will come. They prey heavily on voles especially during nesting season. Perhaps you could install nesting boxes tailored to whatever owl species are native to your area. And leave the trees they like to nest in. Humans tend to want to “clean up” the forest too much and remove vital habitat in the process.
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It’s meadow right outside the plot. If you look at the overview picture, you can see white and purple flowers all over. They are also in parsnip and carrot flowers on the plot. I didn’t mean that pollinators would be a problem, but at first you might not even have more than one of each flower open making more based on luck whether pollinators will visit them in the right order. I would also prefer more cross pollination if there are a few males open. Before there are a punch of males open, it might be more likely that they are selfed if those are available or pollinated with one male that is the closest.
It’s not my land so I can’t do whatever I want. There are predators present certainly as well as a cat from neighboring house visits the plot frequently. Did see some carnivore droppings on the plot as well, but I’m not experienced enough to say more than it was something that had had meat based diet. I have thought about having nesting sites for predatory birds, but that is not for this year. Have to see how it goes and make corrections for next year.
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A thing i like to do when i have the time and energy, is to dig swales to bring rain water into my garden. Then, over time i fill in the swales with leaves and other organic matter. Worms then aerate the soil beneath so that when it rains a lot, the ground doesn’t get waterlogged.
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Growth is starting to pick up, at least on those plants that haven’t been completely stressed out by the first 6-7 weeks of their life. Those are a lost cause. I try to cheer on those that still have a change. It rained a bit more over the week. Last time I didn’t look under the mulch, but this time I looked how it looks and it’s clearly moist in most places. Few places the ground might be someway different that it doesn’t hold or show moisture as well. Not sure why, but it doesn’t seem to be reason why some areas are barren (were sowings failed) as most of those had moist ground now. I suspect those areas might have been because of some very tough weeds. In many cases genetics are probably big reason for why some made it better than others. It was a tough ride. Now plants have moisture and weather is looking warm to hot (over +25C/77F is considered hot here) atleast until end of the month.
Maximas are starting to vine. There are about half a dozen of better plants that have started to vine. It shouldn’t be too long before they have female flowers too. That doesn’t leave many days to spare, but should be enough for at least these better plants to make fruits. Others are happy to contribute pollen it seems.
First summer squash flowered day or two ago and it looks like several of the other plants have had forced flowering with males to make it likely that it got pollinated. Another matter is if plant feels like holding the fruit until maturity. There is still time even if it doesn’t. Others aren’t too close to flowering. Only two plants had tiny female flowers showing, but there are total of around 10 plants that look like they might make it just in time. Others are more than happy to contribute pollen as well.
One of the better sweetcorn is tasseling, although it’s tassel is faulty. At least one other had tassel barely showing. Should be just in time to make cobs and ripen seeds.
Moschatas are also vining and the growth has really improved. There are at least 10 of better plants, but can’t say if they have time to make fruits within average time they have left. If I’m little fortunate they should have and definetely can contribute pollen to my back-up plan.
Cucumbers are probably the most improved, but they also had the most to improve. Maybe it was my watering before rains that gave them little head start to good growing conditions. Also moschata seems like it has improved more relative to what they looked before. Cucumbers have first males open. Don’t see any females, but should make them just in time. These 2 plants are clearly the best and should have just enough time to make some fruits. Other better looking plants might need little help with the weather, but could atleast contribute pollen.
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I was little too optimistic with my estimations last month. Besides beans and peas, only summer squash and sweetcorn look to make it to flower early enough to have a good change to make seeds. Sweetcorn is maybe more likely of those two. Summer squash still needs to hold fruits. First fruit in the fastest didn’t hold as expected. Plant was too small and conditions too rough, but now there is second fruit flowering and other plants are also starting to make females. As a back up I’m transfering some pollen to my little brothers summer squashes.
Fastest sweetcorn is making silks. Unfortunately it had a faulty tassel that didn’t make pollen, but by some luck one yukon gold (picture below) had made tassel dispite looking really miserable and only being some 40cm high with the tassel. I was able to collect some pollen and crosspollinate, which was my plan all along. That first cob might not have many seeds, but all should be crosses unless others that have tassels coming start making pollen in time. Should have enough time to get some more cobs.
Maximas have grown quite a bit. Still no signs of female flowers and it might still take some time. I’m still not loosing hope, but as a back up I’ll try to transfer some pollen to my brothers plants. He doesn’t have many plants, but if I could pollinate even one fruit that would be quite a bit of seeds that have gone some adaption.
First moschata is at least making males. Females in my other plot still aren’t open, but there are some that will open in a few days, likely just in time to make ripe seeds.
Some cucumbers look really fresh considering what they looked a month ago. Still no females, but they can’t be too far away. Whether they have enough time to mature fruits is another matter.
Favas are looking a bit rough, but at least they are making seeds.
Same with peas. Lot’s of different kind of pods.
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Finally fruits! Plot is sligtly overrun by grass, but otherwise not that many weeds. Just cut some hay and weeds to add to the mulch later. This time I really try to overdo it and also cover paths to supress weeds futher and hold the moisture better.
Best summer squashes are all growing fruit. Fastest and biggest plant needed a second try, but now it’s already making another female flower. Not sure if it has the energy to grow 2 fruits for seed. Leaving one might be better, but I just don’t dare to remove it unless it looks bad just to have a back-up. Hopefully the other 3 can hold the fruits on the first try as there isn’t days to waste for making seeds. All 4 plants are from the same seeds, but have nice variance in the fruit colour and leaves.
Some of the little struggling plants are trying to make fruits. Remains to be seen if they have the power to grow them.
Some struggle too much to make fruits for seed. Probably atleast some have donated pollen.
First maxima has a female flower ready to open in 2-3 days. It’s cutting it tight, but it’s very likely to have at least close to month before the first frost which should be enough. I’ll try to manually pollinate it to make it a mix of all the best plants that I have as others are likely to be too late.
A couple of plants are showing small female flowers, but those might take a week to open. Then it’s more like 50/50 that they have time to make ripe seeds as opposed 90% change that they make ripe seeds if they open now.
So far only one proper silk in sweet corn (stunted yukon gold is also trying really hard), but more tassels are open giving pollen and more silks should come in the next few days. Probably just in time to make ripe seeds. I have been wondering why this end is doing so much better than others and one possible explanation is that those are from my little experiment of sowing on bare ground and slightly neglecting them last year. I can’t be sure, but that’s about how long area I sowed with them and if I’m not mistaken it was right in this end of this line. Interesting to see if next year I can get more consistant results with these seeds.
One moschata is barely showing the first female flower. Might be too late for this season, but it’s good to know it’s not that far off. Back-up plan is also a bit late, but a couple of flowers should open in the next few days and if I can just find pollen from this plot I should be able to save some of the adaptions.
Cucumbers have had their first female flowers open and more is just about to open. Looks a lot more promising that just a few days ago. Several plants might make fruits just in time for seeds to ripen. Some are little more stunted, but they still try really hard to make fruits.
One a little stunted plant trying to make a fruit.
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I was thinking today was the day it opens and it did. Workers were already hard at work, but I helped them a bit by pollinating it with 5-6 other best plants to make it as diverse of mix as possible, but skewing towards the best plant. Now hopefully it will develop.
Collected first parsnip seeds that were looking dry. Already got lots and still gonna get lots more.
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Grass is taking over the plot and there isn’t much I can do at this point. It does look like the mulch has worked and on heavily mulched spots there aren’t much grass or other weeds. Problem is that last year I didn’t have enough and there is no real cover on the paths and side of the bed is also more thinly mulched. Also the sowing spots are mostly without mulch even if they don’t have plants growing. This year I’m trying to overdo mulch as much as I can and have been cutting a lot of hayI’ll soon remove all unproducing plants that don’t have time to make seeds or even something to eat and start cutting grass on preparation to mulching it. Hopefully I can slowly suffocate those weeds, but also feed and build up the soil. Still a few weeks I can proberly do that, except for a few spots that didn’t do very well and have some tougher weeds. Those will get especially thick layer of mulch. I’ll grow potatoes, and carrots for seed, if i get some of those, next year. Possible some peas or anything that is tough.
Some maxima fruits. With the current weather forecast, also the next 2 to pollinate have a good chance ripen seeds along the first to pollinate that is just over 10 days from pollination. Not going to be big fruits, but that was to be expected with stunted growth. If they make decent amount of seeds I’m happy. Also another 4 have just been pollinated. Those have a much better prognosis this year than on a average year. Unlike I planned, I’m going to put on cloth for cover. Just in case there is some early frost. Those might happen even if it’s warm. I’m also considering that I should water them as all the selection has been done. It’s getting back to drought conditions as it has not rained much since the early month. Today and tomorrow are some rains, but might not get a lot.
The first moschata is making fruit, 2 actually. I don’t know if it’s a trait or some random growth, but it has 2 vines that started about the same time. Would be really nice as there isn’t really time to wait for them to grow more vines to make more fruits. This looks like nepalise moschata I had last year, but fruit is different colour. Strongly spotted fruits are common in my main population. There is also another that is just opening it’s first female flower, but besides that there aren’t any fruits. As a back up I pollinated 4 fruits on my main plot with flowers from this plot, but it was a bit hard finding those flowers. Once it started raining, also male flowers were but on hold over growth. As with maximas, I’m going to cover these few plants with cloth and possibly try to put black paper mulch under to give them as good of a chance to ripen seeds as I can. I really want the seeds from the first two fruits.
Cucumber, at least some of them, are looking quite lush.
Some fruits are somewhere in there. I don’t know how many, but could find atleast a few bigger ones. One just about eating size that I had previously missed and almost missed this time also.
The 4 best summer squash are growing their seed fruit nicely, but at this poin don’t have enough water to develop secondary fruits. Might want to water them to get some harvest/taste test out of them.
Many of the smaller plants are also making fruits, although not as big and at least one was making a pointy fruit that I removed to eat before it fully spoils. Any seeds from these would be nice for the variance. This year I didn’t have semi-vining type that I really like and need to dig that out from somewhere.
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Plot earlier this month when I had pulled unproductive plants and started adding mulch. This time I really tried to overdo it even if that might be hard. It did seem to work quite well this year, on the spots were there was some. Now also the rows are covered. Some weeds are now trying to push through, but winter kill off should put end to that.
Harvest wasn’t huge considering the area, but I’m quite amazed how well some plants did when we had some 60% of the average rainfall may to september. Ground also isn’t the best and mulch didn’t have full coverage. Still yet to see if all I hope have viable seeds, but it looks there are at least some that I can resow for second year.
That’s the whole harvest from probably around 30m2, but there are some that made full cobs. I was only expecting to get grannys teeth. I was already planning on making seed increase on the other plot, but scratch that. This is enough even if I’ll leave about half as a back-up. Or possibly I’ll make a little seed increase as one of the cobs likely has some crosses with yukon chief.
The tallest/thickest plant had some serious air roots. Didn’t observe any slime, but didn’t spend that much time there either. They aren’t as high as in some of the plants though. The plant itself was clearly highest and thickest, and as you can see, it wasn’t alone. Even if the area were the best plants were was in some way favourable, this plant must have had something that made it the best of the best. Interesting to see if the results will be more uniform next year.
Maximas weren’t huge, but because of the very warm early september there are more fruits that possibly have viable seeds. I’m letting them cure to get the most out of the sweetness. I would like to open them to see right now, but there are too many more pressing issues.
Cucumbers really did a lot better than what it seemed at the end of june. The rains helped a lot and even when august didn’t have that much rain they still managed to produce some. Based on the colour many should have viable seeds, but you never know with cucurbits. Might have just empty shells even when the fruit is ripe. Also opening them later, but not because of the taste, but because they don’t need to be opened.
Only 2 fruits from moschata. They had about a month to grow, but not quite certain how ripe they are. Late summer, even if it’s warm, is not the same warmness as during summer. There is a good change at least, but how many is another matter. I did get couple of fruits from the main plot that were pollinated with some plants from the survivor plot so the bloodline will continue in some form. Still likely that mainly will plant moschatas to my main plot and probably some smaller area in the survivor plot just in case of a better year.
Summer squash didn’t make much more than one fruit for seed per plant. Many should have had enough time, but at least last some varieties were a little unreliable with making seeds. One had only one seed total and other had 4, none of which sprouted. I did have some of my own that made plenty of seeds and I’m hoping at least some will have good amounts of plump seeds. Should be enough for a another round.
Some of the potatoes that I grew from tps last year and one the year before. Already harvested and ate some that died way before. There were some plants that were alive untill the first frost. Pots have those that I saved and mixed in the bucket are the ones I’m eliminating. Not a huge harvest as all are from several plants, but these didn’t have any mulch. Some did have more that were faulty and went to eating bucket. I had about 30 different types to start with and I could have eliminated even more, but I’m doing it slowly. Next year they will have some extra thick mulch and maybe it’s going to be better yield, but that’s all the leeway they gonna get.
Huge harvest of berries too. 3 from my finnish mix and 3 from GTS+ mix. That’s still plenty off seeds.
Rest of the carrot seeds. Harvest almost as much before. No need to grow those or parsnips for seed next year. Plenty to share also.
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Just recently was able to process different squash from the survival plot. Results were quite much what I was expecting/hoping for, with some on the upper range of that.
Moschata (pictured) were the most uncertain as they started flowering the latest. The first to flower did still quite well. Could have had more seeds, but they were big which I prefer, and there were still closer to 100. The other had more empty shells, but atleast some that looked full. It’s still a good result and next year they will have better conditions to make a seed increase in with plan to put them back to survivor plot the year after. I have still some seeds from previous year that will go to survivor plot next year.
Maximas were more what I expected. Some shells and some full. Still some 100-200 full looking in total. I don’t have space in better conditions to make a seed increase in so they will have to survive another year. Will use just part of the seeds just to make sure and use some seeds from previous year.
Summer squash was the biggest success. The 4 best had total of a few thousand seeds. Downside is that they are all from the same cross, and depending on the amount of crossing, the genetic diversity might not be that great. Some of the other plants did also make smaller amount of seeds and there are some from previous year to increase diversity. All in all it’s a good start and I can sow them much more freely.
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Survivor garden starts to be open for business again. Potatoes from seed potatoes were planted earier this month, sweetcorn and favas middle of this month with graincorn a bit futher away to a distinct plot were I also sowed carrots and parsnips late last fall. Sweetcorn seems like it failed completely and favas at least to some degree. Might have been a mistake to poke holes to sticky clay and just loosely cover them. I suspect something found them as it took me a while to find any of the sweet corn I had sowed and even that had gone bad. So with sweetcorn ground under mulch might have still been too cold as well. Have to sow them again with the last sowings. Graincorn looks like it had better success as the soil was looser and not covered with mulch. Found a germinated seed with first try. Carrots and parsnips seem still slow to start. Parsnips I have found, but it’s hard to say if there are any carrots. Been a little cold even for them so we’ll have to see.
Yesterday I took advantage of rains that were forecasted (and arrived a bit earlier as can be seen from the picture) to sow what I can and avoid having to water them to get them started. Sowed maximas, tomatillos, beet and swedes. Beets and swedes to try and see if they overwinter. I did have some swedes overwinter that I sowed outside of the plots basically in grass. Not the best enviroment to grow, especially last summer, and only one looks healthy enough that it might produce seeds. Without crosspollination it’s not much use more than proof of concept.
With maximas I’m slightly concerned about how cold ground they can tolerate. It’s probably not much over 10C/50F couple days after the sowing. Next week it looks just a little better, but cool weather that started after near record hot april seems to continue for the time being. Barely getting highs of 15C/59F, 18C/65F if lucky. No point waiting much longer as there is no saying when it’s going to improve. Perfect way to test cold tolerance at least. Tomatillos shouldn’t have such issues. Those seeds that have gone through dry selection last year should enjoy better access to water. Not that it’s been wet, but with cool weather and average rainfall the ground hasn’t had the change to dry. For comparison, last year to get same amount of rainfall that we have had this spring took long into july. This years challenge might then be cool weather, at least to get started.
Learning from last years mistakes, this year I used more interplanting. Almost in checkered pattern so that there aren’t long stretches without anything growing even remotely like they should. Might be that some areas are more barren due to weeds, soil type or voles that dig holes, but that is what it is. At least weeds don’t look too bad besides grasses and some areas with blankets of particular weeds. Worst is the areas in the front. I’m not sure how much I want to battle with them. I’ll see how this year goes and go from there.
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Love all your notes, @JesseI . I also had issues this year with corn germination in a bed where I poked holes in denser soil and covered, rather than loosening soil before sowing. Only had a few of my initial sowing make it up, and most of them were pushing a folded cotyledon up through the soil, rather than the typical inrolled sheath spearing its way directly towards the sky, which makes me think a lot of them germinated but got caught on something and didn’t have the vigor to push through the dense soil.
A follow up sowing where I loosened the soil and planted a bit more shallowly has germinated well. I still think sowing deep and early provided valuable selection pressure, but I now know the soil texture may impact that. My other bed with looser soil had much better germination from the deeper earlier sowing.
Fresh healthy seedling on left, earlier seedling recovering from folded/shredded cotyledon on right.
Another folded/shredded cotyledon.
One of the few early seedlings in the denser soil that didn’t fold. Will definitely be saving seeds from these ones.
Early deep sowing in bed with looser soil had much better germination.
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That might be the case. Before I started sowing corn this year I researched a little about minimum temperature for sowing corn and it seems that somewhere under 10C/50F ground temperatures in the first 2 days after sowing corn easily gets a condition that will cause seedlings to be malformed. Not saying that’s the case with those, but something to concider. I have seen that kinda seedlings probably every year, even in better conditions. There has been at least one moth (or some type of flying insect, not sure what the exact type is) that lays eggs in the ground and the larva eat corn stem centre. Some cases it’s fatal, but I’m not sure if some survive it with some damage or if there is some other insect that causes similar damage. Or if it’s conditions. Some don’t seem grow out of it and have to be eliminated, some grow into healthy plants.
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Yeah, definitely signs of slug/insect damage, too. I don’t think the folded cotyledon directly causes the damage, just slows down emergence giving more time for them to be damaged, or preventing emergence entirely.
Soil temperatures were comparable between beds (~59F) in this case.
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@JesseI love this thread, i just read last season’s updates and it reads like a “will i have seeds or not” thriller.
I have clay soil and I use a russian flat cutter hoe(see pic) to run a furrow, i deposit the corn and then use the flat end of the hoe to cover the seeds back up.
Last year, I had terrible germination and I figured birds ate most of the seeds. This year, I added a birdfeeder and filled it on sowing days, to give birds an easier option of food, and it seems to have worked. Some idea to consider.
Maarten