I’m sure most of us want cold tolerance, in order to expand our growing seasons. Even people in more tropical climates probably have a few out-of-zone crops they’re eyeing. But how about the reverse?
Who’s breeding for heat tolerance in something they’re growing?
I’ll speak for myself. My springs and falls are very short – only about two weeks of mild temperatures in between the extremes of snow and scorching heat. So I want super cold tolerant peas, and I’m thinking I would also like a separate population of heat-tolerant peas. I want brassicas that are both, since if they can survive all my temperature extremes, they have the potential to perennialize and stick around for years.
I am aiming for heat tolerant crops. This past year we started hitting triple digits the first weekend in May and they carried through September. It also did not help that we had no rain in that period either. We basically had no chance to grow anything in spring. I had hope for a fall/winter garden since in my area we have “mild” winters but two out of the last three years we have had what they call once in a generation winter weather so that means everything I planted for fall is dead since we went from 80 to low teens in the span of a week. Landracing seems to be needed just to have any survive this new normal weather.
The sweet peas from Plants of the Southwest in ABQ are yummy into the heat. The plants look crispy, dry and horrible as they age, but they’ve kept producing for me (dry, hot, windy, drip irrigation and mulch) - for garden snacks, anyway. While they can handle a light frost, they’re not particularly cold tolerant given that our late spring lows can go below 20F. I plant them in early May and then cover when needed (and fret) until June.
Will peas ‘accidentally’ cross – anyone have experience with this?
You know, I just looked up their website to copy it in, but they are no longer doing online or mail orders. Weird. When they reopen in January, I’ll see if I can grab you some peas.
I think that a lot of success with my landrace crops, is that I wasn’t selecting so much for “cold” tolerance, but for a general tolerance to stress, whatever form that stress might take.
Yeah, Carol Deppe mentioned in one of her books that heat tolerance and cold tolerance seem to be correlated, rather than opposites. Drought tolerance is often correlated, too. Since all three of those are things I want, and I was thinking I would have to choose between them, I went, “Oooooh.”
I am! Our winters are mild-- it’s 71F currently-- but our warm season alternates between scorching sun and torrential downpours. So before I can even think about selecting for flavor/yield/shape/etc., I have to get everything selected for 93F temps, 70% humidity, frequent yard flooding conditions, occasional hurricane winds, and soil that dries up within hours from the heat. I’m realizing this has to be done even for crops that I wasn’t very interested in changing/improving. Like Kevin said, landracing is almost a necessity if I don’t want to baby everything.
My thing is that I want an absolutely minimalist gardening routine; I don’t want to germinate indoors and then transplant, and I also want to plant seeds whenever it strikes my fancy throughout the year. So, this means my crops will have to survive these weather conditions at all stages of growth. I don’t even know if this is possible, but I’m definitely going to try!
I really enjoy spending a lot of time out in the garden, but my favorite thing to do is harvest, so I’d rather spend less time on everything else so that I can get more beds ready, plant more, and spend most of my garden time harvesting. (Grin.)
I like having the option to grow things indoors, which is why I have a grow light, but I dislike feeling like it’s an obligation. And YES, being able to sow things whenever I feel like it through the year would be ideal! I want my garden to be something I can spend as much or as little time on as I want. That way, if life gets busy, it’s no big deal to let my garden take care of itself for awhile. And if other obligations fade away and/or I feel the urge to be out in my garden for awhile, I want to have the option to go out there and spend ten hours straight on some project that feels fun to me right now.
I find that, in general, my life is happier and more relaxed when I can take a freeform approach of doing whatever I feel like doing, out of many kinds of work I enjoy, with no deadlines and schedules. Not only that, I’m also more productive that way.
