Does anyone want sweet pea seeds?

[UnicornEmily]

Adzuki beans come in more colors than red?!

Wow, that sounds fun.  I love the idea of having a rainbow of colors and patterns in all bean species I grow.

[Jeremy Weiss]

They do, but you're basically NEVER going to see any other color in any type grown for modern human consumption. Like I said, China puts a lot of cultural significance in the color red (to the point where the Chinese word for azuki is basically "red bean") so it is overwhelmingly preferred. Add on that the #1 use of azukis in China and Japan is to make sweet red bean paste, and you see the problem. I suspect that the ones I was finding were remnants of older strains being tossed into the fields first for use as green manure (In China, using a legume as a green manure for another legume to increased crop yield is not unusual).

There were a few places in Japan that had named non-red azuki strains, but most of those were remoted mountain areas where they had no red one that grew for them, and all have long since gotten ones that do (or moved out of agricultural production).

Also, being older strains, most of them are TINY, by modern standards. The salt and pepper one that showed up in the mung beans is decent size, and the black one is within industry parameters, but most of the seed I found is mung bean size or smaller. Nor do most compensate with more beans in total ("Workhorse" does, but it is the exception, not the rule).

Also, mottling often is a sign that it still has enough wild genes in it to make pod shattering a concern, so that's another black mark.

Of course, with the size thing, I also found out in my searches about a red azuki that makes ALL the standard ones look small by comparison; as it makes seeds the size of pinto beans!

[Diane Whitehead]

Are you growing the big one?

[Jeremy Weiss]

I'd try if I could, but the one seed I had didn't come up, and the last time I saw packages of it I had already spent my seed budget for that trip. If I ever bump into it again, I'll try again.

[UnicornEmily]

That's so cool.  Even if they're smaller, a rainbow of colors sounds so fun.  Are you growing other colors of adzuki beans and saving the seeds?

Yeah, I know adzukis are traditionally used for red bean paste, and I know about China's preference for red!    Red and gold are lucky colors in Chinese culture.  That's why lai si packets are red and gold, and -- I thought this was surprising and neat -- so are wedding dresses.

[Jeremy Weiss]

That's so cool.  Even if they're smaller, a rainbow of colors sounds so fun.  Are you growing other colors of adzuki beans and saving the seeds?

Yeah, I know adzukis are traditionally used for red bean paste, and I know about China's preference for red!    Red and gold are lucky colors in Chinese culture.  That's why lai si packets are red and gold, and -- I thought this was surprising and neat -- so are wedding dresses.

I am, every couple of years, but given that something like 99.9% of ANYTHING I grow ends up being eaten by the animals, I don't have anywhere NEAR the number of colors I used to (or, unfortunately, enough seed of any of the ones I DO have to share at the moment).(note, all the below names are my own, they are not the official ones.)

At this point, I have about five or six colors left, "Workhorse:, which is mung size and brown with black mottling (I call it "Workhorse" because it's the only one that has ever actually done WELL, here; out of one plant, it probably produced at least 50-60 seeds).

Then there's Salt and Pepper, a reasonably large one with a black and white mottled seed coat. It grows, but doesn't pass the "return slope" (the point where the number of seeds I get back equals or exceeds the number of seeds I plant)

Next is "Raven", a solid black/blue one (a bit smaller than Salt and Pepper, but still within commercial size) Again, grows, not at return point.

Finally, there are four or five light tan ones (which, based on appearance came from two different plants) at mung bean sized. eight or ten seeds of a mottled tan very long and narrow seeded small one (so long that, until I looked at the hilum, I thought I'd accidentally gotten a "dog bone" urd bean mixed in*) and final, one single seed of a dark tan  black mottled one that is so small the only reason I have it is my obsession with opening EVERY pod at harvest time (at any other time, the pod was so small I would have assumed it was one that had aborted about a quarter of the way through, and not bothered.)

I suspect it also may be why cha siu (roast pork) is red as well (well, the real reason is the kind of rice fungus they used to use to make the sauce, but I suspect that the significance of red is why they STILL make it red with food coloring now. Come to think of it lap cheong (Chinese salami) is pretty red/pink as well.

And, of course, since cinnabar (mercury oxide) is red as well (and a key ingredient in the Elixir of Immortality) a lot of Chinese lacquerware is red, or black (I was REALLY surprised a few years ago when lacquer items that were NOT red or black started showing up* mostly beads and pendants)

*Assuming they WERE lacquer. These days, telling actual lacquer from just carved plastic can be kind of tricky.     

[UnicornEmily]

Blue and white pottery is really, really popular in Hong Kong, too, though.  Or at least, it was when I lived there a few decades ago.  So, many colors get appreciated. 

Man!  Why does so much of your harvest get eaten by animals?  That sounds like a total bummer.

I like your phrase "return point" -- that's definitely an important point to reach and exceed, for a seed population to be sustainable.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Man!  Why does so much of your harvest get eaten by animals?  That sounds like a total bummer.

Basically it boils down to what I CAN'T do, and that's actually DO anything to them. Where I live is on the urban side of suburban (I'm only about 30 miles from NYC) and that means there is a neighborhood commission with rules, a big one of which prohibits any method I could use to HARM the critters. No poisons, no traps, no shooting, no predating animals like a guard dog (any dog who would attack an animal might also attack a child who wandered over). Deterrents only, and the animals have become pretty inured to that; things like chili oil and bobcat urine they just shrug off and ignore.

To compound, many of the people in the neighborhood think squirrels and chipmunks are cute, and so FEED them. Ironically, this actually includes ME, since I keep thinking that, if I leave big enough piles of leftover seed that I don't need out in the open, they'll take that and leave what I plant alone. It doesn't work, they always target what I plant FIRST, THEN go after the stuff out in the open (this also means they cache a lot of seed, so for some things, like the rice beans and the senna, I also have to deal with unwanted seedlings popping up in places I didn't expect and potentially messing up any pollination plans I had. And both of those are still wild enough to be able to stay dormant in the soil for YEARS if left on their own (I scarify any seed I'm planting, so it all comes up when I plant it)).

Plus, for those plants that make it past that gamut, they have a hard time anyway. Our area sucks for gardening. The soil is super acidic (due to the two commonest trees being oaks and hemlocks) beyond the remedy of normal amounts of lime (the vegetable garden which is only 12'x12' max, needs at least TWO WHOLE BAGS of lime each year to make the soil viable. Plus, nearly the ENTIRETLY of our property is in perpetual shade from the trees (which we aren't allowed to cut down without Village Tree Commission permission, which they only issue when a tree is actually dead and posing a danger.) The 12x12 USED to get a bit of sun, but now the shrubbery has grown over and plunged THAT into darkness (not to mention filling the area with innumerable thick tree roots).

Basically the only decent space I have are around the patio; the tiny strip of land at the base (which still needs a heck of a lot of lime to make ago of anything) and any pots I can set up on the pedestals on the patio themselves (which are both very limited AND now more or less permanently all occupied by perennial herbs.)

Oh, and the gardeners we hire to mow the lawn/collect the fallen leaves (and ONLY that) have a tendency to try and do "extra work", which usually means destroying anything we plant in the hopes we will give up gardening ourselves and pay them to do our landscaping as well, like most of our neighbors do.) (If you ask why we don't get new gardeners, EVERY group we have gotten has done that, or worse (much, much worse in some cases).

And of course blue and white porcelain is popular, It has been for ages. I don't have a lot of it (my collection of Asian antiques focuses on 1880's-1930's era Chinese cloisonne with Imperial Dragon motifs, mostly) but I have a few pieces (like some of my gaiwans.)         

[Diane Whitehead]

I can't imagine living under such rules.

How about the roof?  Would you be allowed to put a garden up there?

[Jeremy Weiss]

Allowed to, maybe, possible, no. We live in a house, not an apartment, and our roof is both slate and sloping in both directions. There's literally no way UP to them from the house (there ARE ways up to the two flat areas where the extra wings were added, but those wings are no bigger than the vegetable garden we have now. Plus, I really don't like the idea of having to crawl out my bedroom window every time I want to water the garden. Oh, and if you are talking about something like raised beds, they wouldn't hold the weight.

As is stands, my best bet follows a complicated chain of events that involves my therapist finding effective treatment for a host of anxiety and attention disorders, me actually being able to get a driver's license, and then me apply for work at the local center on the Rockefeller property. Once there, if I play my cards right, I can probably talk them into letting me use the land there to do some of my experiments, and have the added bonus of people to help me with the labor part.

Ultimately, moving somewhere else where the land is better and more abundant would be a good idea, but as it stand now I have neither the funds to do that, nor the inclination (since the whole seed finding thing sort of relies on me having easy access to a major city with numerous ethnic markets.)   

[UnicornEmily]

Man, that sounds incredibly trying.  Is there a community garden in your area that you could apply for a plot in?  My sister-in-law has done that for the past two years, since her condo's HOA doesn't allow her to plant anything there.

I hear ya about trying growing conditions.  My last house was a townhouse with a tiny full shade backyard, covered with plastic that we were forbidden to rip up in order to plant anything in, a tall wooden fence around the whole thing that attracted loads of wasps that made nests in it, and there was a landscaping company that took care of all of the front lawns.  I tried planting strawberries next to my house, and they ripped them out!  *Sob!*  (Oh, and there was a really high HOA with really strict rules, too.)

For years, I tried container gardening, but everything died.  I tried trees, vegetables, everything I could think of.  Everything died.  After three or four years, I gave up.  If I'd only known about our city's community garden back then (or what community gardens even were), I would've signed up for it!

Having land with full sun that I can plant things in makes such a huge difference.

We also have a bunch of feral cats in the neighborhood who eat all the rodents (like squirrels) that try to show up.  My sister, who lives in a different state, said that squirrels eat her entire garden every year.

Maybe you should get a cat and have it eat the rodents that visit your garden? 

[UnicornEmily]

I've read that human urine, especially fresh adult human male urine, is just as good as powdered wolf urine (or whatever) for deterring garden pests.  It's supposed to smell like "scary predator that could eat me lives here" (which is actually accurate).  Maybe you could try using it?  It'd presumably be free, and it's good garden fertilizer as long as you dilute it.

As for scare deterrents, I've heard that you have to move those around every day, and change the ones you're using at least one a week, if you don't want the animals to get used to them.  That sounds like a big pain in the neck to me, but perhaps it might be worth it.

I suppose there's always netting . . . maybe set up a hoop house over a garden bed and put a mosquito net over it?  See if that would let light in and keep the animals out?

I've heard that the Amish often put panty hose over things like squashes and melons to keep the rodents from eating them.  The texture is unpleasant to the animals and doesn't feel like food, so they won't realize there's food inside.  Could you do something like that with beans, maybe?  Maybe twisty tie the bottom so that a whole bunch of pods are inside and inaccessible from any direction?

[Jeremy Weiss]

Maybe you should get a cat and have it eat the rodents that visit your garden? 

We HAVE a cat, but he generally isn't allowed out without supervision due to the fact he has a DEEP sense of wanderlust, and if we let him roam on his own unsupervised, he'd never actually COME BACK. Also there is another cat out there that shows up to our house with some regularity, and our cat HATES that other cat with a violent ferocity so  in the interest of that cat not getting hurt (and us not getting sued as a result, it's safer to keep him in most of the time.)

Besides, cats, at least housecats, are not a great rodent hunters as they are made out to be. Feral cats are hunting for their food, but housecats are generally already well fed and tend to play with animals and let them go (our current cat DOES have an unusually high rate of success with mice when compared to our last two, but based on how I had seen him hunt, I think most of them die by accident, either him biting down too hard or him literally scaring them into a heart attack.) Those times when he has tried to get something outside, it's generally been limited to a chipmunk or two, squirrels are too big for him to take on easily.

I've read that human urine, especially fresh adult human male urine, is just as good as powdered wolf urine (or whatever) for deterring garden pests.  It's supposed to smell like "scary predator that could eat me lives here" (which is actually accurate).  Maybe you could try using it?  It'd presumably be free, and it's good garden fertilizer as long as you dilute it.

I suppose there's always netting . . . maybe set up a hoop house over a garden bed and put a mosquito net over it?  See if that would let light in and keep the animals out?

I've heard that the Amish often put panty hose over things like squashes and melons to keep the rodents from eating them.  The texture is unpleasant to the animals and doesn't feel like food, so they won't realize there's food inside.  Could you do something like that with beans, maybe?  Maybe twisty tie the bottom so that a whole bunch of pods are inside and inaccessible from any direction?

Urine, I might consider, though depending on my blood sugar at the time, my pee might just up the mold on  the soil.

  The hoop house idea might work for something low like strawberries (for which I have my own special trick for keeping the birds and animals off them.), but my #1 headache crop is corn (which the animals eat ALL of every year.) Building a hoop house tall enough to encircle corn plants that are going to get 6-8 or even MORE feet tall is a daunting prospect (and one downside of everything I grow being an experiment is that I have no clue how big anything is going to get in advance).

Also both the squirrels and chipmunks are perfectly capable of, and willing to, dig UNDER any enclosure I put up, as I discovered the year I tried to protect my corn seedlings by putting an iron cage over them until they were bigger.

As for bunching, the main problem with that is, with the extremally low number of plants that make it though to germination, the plants that make it are too far apart to bunch together. And planting the seeds closer together doesn't help, the more seeds are put in one place, the easier it is for the animals to find them, dig them up and eat them. And beyond the Squirrels and chipmunks eating the seeds and taking down the early seedlings (they don't actually eat the growing green part, they just bite or chew off what is left of the cotyledons, which leaves corn seedlings cut in half and bean seedlings topless.) there are also the rabbits to eat a lot of the later green parts (I've just about given up on soybeans for that reason) and deer, who will scarf down the WHOLE PLANT like spaghetti (which is why I love my "Sky Pointer" cowpeas so much, their odd quirk of having pods that stick straight up means the deer don't see there are pods on them, and makes them think it isn't worth their effort to eat what just seems to be tough stems.)

Oh and I forgot to mention the animals that aren't interested in eating the plants at all, but ARE interested in digging in any freshly overturned soil looking for bugs; uprooting and breaking any plants in the way in the process (if it wasn't for them, my habit of keeping seedlings inside the cold frame until the cotyledons are used up might actually WORK to up my success rate.)

[UnicornEmily]

Oh my gosh, that is a bonkers combination of pest problems.  No wonder you lose 99.9% of your seeds. 

It didn't even occur to me that squirrels and chipmunks can dig.  Arrrrrrgh.

Yeah, I can see house cats being too well-fed to be good rodent-killers.  Especially since kittens learn from their mother how to hunt.  If their mother didn't know, or they were taken from their mother very young (like most house cats are), the adult cat won't know much about hunting other than what their basic instincts say.  Our next-door neighbor's semi-feral cat had kittens a few months ago.  Once they were weaned and catching prey on their own, our neighbor took the kittens to her uncle's farm.  He told her he wants feral cats who know how to kill rodents all over his farm, so she should feel free to drop off kittens whenever her cat has new ones.  That seems like a cool approach to getting rid of rodents without using poisons to me.  My suspicion is that that's the purpose cats were domesticated for in the first place.

And yeah, if your cat is a pet, I can understand why you want to make sure your cat is safe and doesn't wander off and never come back.  Pets are different from friendly wild animals!

[Jeremy Weiss]

I'm not sure how long Juniper KNEW his mother. According to the shelter, they found him in a culvert quite young (he was only about four months old when WE got him, WAY younger than any of our former cats, and he'd been at the shelter for a bit then.)

But he has grown a little, as you can see.

Not to mention, I haven't mentioned the racoons, opossums, foxes and coyotes out there as well, which would make keeping a cat outside very risky. And it sounds like we are only a short time from getting our first local bear to show up. The animals are returning to our area FAST.