that’s so CORNy April 14, 2013

I have 4 types of corn. 2 are heirloom varieties, “festivity” and “truckers favorite”. I would really like to save seed from the festivity because it is a fairly unique variety, having multicolored kernels at the stage when sweetcorn is picked and eaten. Most multicolored corns do not develop color until well past the eating stage. Corn can cross polinate with other varieties from miles away because the pollen is carried on the wind so having pure seed to save and growing other varieties at the same time poses a bit of a challenge. If I have other corn on my tiny property with pollen at the time my festivity corn is being pollenated I will have a hard time getting anything but hybrid seed. There are a couple of different ways to tackle this problem. One is to plant the corn at different times to make sure that the festivity corn is not being pollenated at the same time my other corn is producing pollen. The second way is to cover several ears with bags as they form and do the deed by hand and then recover those ears. I have never tried either method before so I don’t know which is best. When in doubt try everything, right? I am going to try planting just the festivity this week and wait a couple weeks to put in the other varieties. I will probably try hand pollenating a few ears anyway just to help ensure seed purity. Luckily I am not in an agricultural area so there is not as much pollen from outside sources to worry about. Wish me luck because I will not know if it worked for a year and a half! The other corn I bought seed for is hybrid. These 2 varieties are a silver queen hybrid and a peaches and cream hybrid. With hybrids it is nearly impossible to get any seed true to the parent plant but modern hybrids are usually far superior in flavor and production to heirlooms. Corn is one of the few things you will ever hear me say this about. I don’t mind buying some seed every year to have delicious, extra sweet, sweet corn. I am really hoping that my heirloom varieties do well here but planting a diversity seems better to me than just crossing my fingers.

Today’s flower seeds

This is far from being everything for the day, but here are the flower seeds I plan on planting today. Some are being planted for specific purposes. An example of this is the marigolds that will help keep root nemotodes away. Others, such as nasturtium, will hopefully act as a trap plant drawing pests away from my fruit and veggies. Some of these flowers have medicinal uses as well. The purple coneflower is a great example of this. It is also known as echinacea, known worlwide for immune boosting properties. Even the flowers with no specific purpose will add beauty for us humans and a varied food supply for beneficial insects throughout the year. Some insects have a relationship with specific plants such as swallow tail butterflies and pipe vine. Others have more general needs such as european honey bees, which will take just about any nectar or pollen they can get. This makes it important to plant a diversity including native plants in your garden. I have some transplants and veggie seeds planned for today as well…..let’s see how far I get 🙂 I’ll try to remember to update as the day progresses but my regular readers know how that goes sometimes.

If at first you don’t sucSEED March 11, 2013

Remember the post about damping off?….well it only got worse.  I will spare you the grewsome details but let’s just say “total loss” would be an appropriate term for my baby tomatoes and peppers.  Some of the tomato seeds I did not have extra of so I guess I will not be growing them this year.  I have restarted Cherokee Purple, Roma, Rutgers, and Chadwicks Cherry varieties and still have the tree tomatoes and italian heirlooms growing.  I also restarted all of the peppers and a couple other varieties of hot pepper as well.  Now I have Serrano and Ancho (Poblano) in addition to the Early Jalapeno.  The sweet peper varieties are Jimmy Nardello’s Sweet Italian, California Wonder, and some sweet baby bells from seeds I saved.  I am not sure of the actual variety of the baby bell peppers but I saved seeds from yellow, orange, and red ones.
I managed to get a good population of fruit flies going in addition to the bacterial problem and ended up pitching most of my baby citrus.  What I didn’t pitch some nocternal critter was nice enough to destroy for me.
Enough bad news….the Dragon Fruit plants are really starting to take off. 

I ate a delicious pineapple and have started the top, based on the directions from last month’s Lowcountry Fruit Growers Society meeting.

Chris Carnevale sent me some “Ruby” blood orange seeds via USPS and I have them and some grapefruit seeds germinating.

I have some sweet potatoes soaking, hopefully depeloping slips for me to plant.

I have a cutting from a LSU fig rooting (hopefully) in some damp peat.

Last but not least, I bought myself a cute garden sign 🙂

Trying to make tomatoes happy January 26, 2013

This is the warm tray with the cucumbers and okra already moved into larger pots. The closest peat pods have peppers, which are just now germinating. The rest is tomatoes which for the most part germinated within a few days of being planted. The caro rich and marmande super were slower to germinate than the rest but are finally coming up now. The weather has been quite cool for the last week or so and my tomatoes have been stuck indoors. Even next to a window there is just not enough light for these full sun summer veggies so my little tomato stems were all turning purple. On older plants this could be a sign of lacking nutrients but since these do not have any true leafs yet I knew something else had to be stressing them out. After a little research I learned that lack of light or lack of warmth can cause the stems to turn purple. I decided to go back to using a heat mat and also to go buy a grow light.

I have had it for several days now and most of the purple has gone away. The new growth on the stems is green like it should be. I gave them some very diluted fish fertilizer as well, just to be sure. In addition to turning purple a lack of light can cause spindly plants with weak stems. For about the price of a few tomato plants at a nursery (about $12) I have helped all of these little tomatoes to thrive one more. It needs to be quite close to the plants so for now I am just setting the ends of the light on the edge of a taller tray and a tub of oxyclean. Nothing fancy here but it works and that is all I care about.

What a fungi January 25, 2013

I bet you don’t see many gardeners bragging about how well their mold is growing but that is exactly what I am here to do today. I innoculated this peat with soluble mycorrhizae (available from bountifulgardens.com ) and also mixed in a small amount of vegetable and tomato granular fertilizer from Jobe’s Organics. This fertilizer is 2-7-4 and has a wide range of beneficial fungus and bacteria in it. It has a little bit of all purposse fish fertilizer (2-2-2) from “Alaska”. I found this and the Jobe’s both at Lowes and both are labeled for organic agriculture. My original purpose for making up this mix was to have a good mix for moving seedling into when the peat pods were getting too small. So far only the cucumbers and okra had to be moved. Since I put the mix into a tray of 18 pots and only needed 9 for seedlings I decided to use some of the pots to start citrus seeds. This left me with just 2 empty pots. The beneficial bacteria and fungus live on dead plant matter, which is exactly what peat is. I wasn’t sure how it would go without any plants but it seems to be doing great all on its own. Now I can use bits of this to innoculate other soil. I have never been so happy to see mold growing in a pot before in my life. These beneficials are what brings soil to life. They help fend off harmful fungus and and bacteria and also add to the plants root system, helping the plant take up more water and nutrients. This makes them more drought tolerant and disease resistant as well as increasing growth and production. This is my first year using soil inoculant but I can already tell the difference, especially in the roots of young seedlings and cuttings. I especially recommend the soluble mycorrhizae from Bountiful Gardens. It was cheap and it does wonders for root growth.

Good gardening weather January 14, 2013

Today is so warm and lovely that I decided to drag out all of the seeds, trays, flats, peat pots, etc and get some stuff started. I am starting both cool and hot weather plants. They will be the last of the cool and the first of the hot. Since it is so nice I set the dragonfruit cuttings and grapefruit seedlings out as well. I plan on bringing in everything except the tray of peatpots started with cool weather veggies and the tray with potting soil and lettuces in it. The one tray has tomatoes, peppers, okra, and cucumbers in it and will not only need to come inside but be set on a heat mat since I have been snuggling with my dog at night instead or turning on the furnace. I have been keeping the dragonfuits inside until now. They could have gone out yesterday for sure but when I am busy I neglect such things. Some of the cuttungs have roots escaping the bottom of their flat so I know it iis nearing time for their first transplanting even though only one actually shows any signs of new growth on top. I am happy to see good root growth and will plan to start giving some appropriate fertilizer after I get them transplanted. I will be asking more about them at the Lowcountry Fruit Growers Society meeting this Sunday coming up to make sure I am doing the right thing. I’m off to work as soon as I get cleaned up.

I ordered more seeds today too :D December 18, 2012

and I mean a bunch more….like a quarter million seeds 😀  http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=150967290630  If you scroll down it tells you what all is in there.  I only have .3 of an acre so I don’t think I will be using all of these this year.  They are all heirloom so I can do some seed saving and never have to buy seeds again.  The seller has a great store with many heirloom varieties, including some I hadn’t seen before.  http://stores.ebay.com/Mozybeau-Auctions