Shenanigans at Homestead Nowhere

[William Schlegel]

No I think if you grew a big plant it would be impressive because of its ability to set a lot of fruit but that fruit is just a mild yellow cherry. It is ok.

I have plenty of seed from Joseph's project if you want to send me a message and I'll give you my address for a SASE.

[Kadence Luneman]

No I think if you grew a big plant it would be impressive because of its ability to set a lot of fruit but that fruit is just a mild yellow cherry. It is ok.

I have plenty of seed from Joseph's project if you want to send me a message and I'll give you my address for a SASE.

Ahh ok. I mostly use tomatoes in sauces so  I'm just beginning to taste fruits to select for flavor. So bulk fruit can always be sauced.

Oh that would be fun! I'll message you.

[Kadence Luneman]

Cut open the Mellow yellow pumpkin. Wow. Sooo pale. Fed to sheep. I kept the seeds and drying them out. Partly to keep them from growing up in the sheep pen or bedding pile. Partly because it's an F1 variety and I'm wondering if growing the seed would possibly give anything interesting. It's a pepo. I'm thinking no.
Of course it was full of tons of seeds.

I also cut open the small hubbard. Pale but not so pale that I would also feed it to the sheep. That and I said I would make a pie and I didn't want to go back and get the butternut (and my last squash) to make the "pumpkin pie" that I had promised to make... It was a squash. Weirdly fruity smelling! Different than the usual squash smell. Dunno how to explain it other than kind of fruity and tangy (not like citrus or acidy).
Also saved the seed. Also not sure it would be worth growing. Seeds look good, some "bent" funny ones and percentage of empty hulls or "would-be-seeds".

I'm thinking of taking all these and the pale black futsu seed and planting them over in a rather inaccessible area. Above a terrace, along a steep area just below a hilltop. It gets brush hogged once a year and not really anything else.
This is probably about 1000 seed or more. Just the black futsu was over 300.
This would be an interesting test to see how many make it with no work after seeding. I would just walk it back and forth with a pointy stick. Jab, seed, heel in. And lots of pressure from deer, groundhogs, coons, possums, skunks,... Everything.

I'm working out if I can get a couple small pigs (like American guinea hogs, kune kune, Idaho pasture pig,...) because this area is ripe for running some pigs to get it growing something more useful than the multi flora rose, goldenrod, ironweed, poison ivy,... that is the majority of what it grows now. And having it full of squashes to finish the pigs on would be perfect.

[Kadence Luneman]

..Ok that's it.. I have officially lumped the corn! 😂 No more waffling over how to plant it. I'm leaving the rest to nature and it's ok not to plan out every single seed.

Colored grex. 60-100 day. Painted mountain, Atomic orange, Abenaki roy flint, Harmony grain, Lofthouse flour.

Main corn grex. 60-100 day. Abenaki roy flint, Harmony grain, Lofthouse flour, high carotene flint, and a few Painted mountain that were yellow or white. I will alternate rows of this with Re-pioneer dent (80-90 day).

The sweet corn I'm leaving each in the packets so I can alternate the rows.

[Kadence Luneman]

I may try out the "corn medicine" thing with tomatoes. I have wild Solanums.. driving me crazy.. Seems like it's worth a small experiment..

[Kadence Luneman]

This is one of the plants I'm trying to eradicate in my pastures.. or at least seriously lessen how much there is..
I must say I'm twitchy at seeing that people would buy seed and plant it on purpose.. but to each their own I guess..

https://edgewood-nursery.com/shop/cambridge-feral-datura-datura-stramonium-seed-packet?category=Seeds

[Kadence Luneman]

Is buttercup trait a simple dominant/recessive trait in winter squash? I did some searching and couldn't find an answer.
I got two packets of Nanticoke squash from EFN when it came back in stock. Their pic shows lots and lots of buttercup type. If it's going to make for less storage stable squash I want to minimize it in the gene pool.

Inside seed starting is going well so far. Excited to have more green to look at during early spring mud time.

Dad's gotta take off the tiller wheel to fix one little nick in it that keeps making the tire go flat. Can't till when it's flat and just wants to spin in a circle.

[Kadence Luneman]

Well.. had some flops. Overall not too bad since most of these I've never done before.

He shi ko- zip. The rest of the seed I'll direct plant.
Red welsh- good germination but way behind the rest of onions and leeks.
BLS Spinach- 10 of 22
GN Spinach- 5 of 20.. 2 of which have round cotylidons like kale but bigger?? Heart shaped. Waiting to see true leaves. Rest of sprouts have long grass like cotylidon. This is new starter mix so not contaminated, and the seeds looked the same.
Not going to reseed any of these. I have some more doubles in the tomato cells that I'll move to empties.

XL Red, 4 of 6. Reseeded.
MMR, 7 of 12. Luckily some are double seeded so have 11 sprouts can move seconds to the empties.
42 day (WS), 1 of 6. No more seed so just the one. Moved some other doubles over in the spots.
42 day (MIgardener), 3 of 6. Reseed 3 and seed 3 extra. 9 total.
Exserted Orange (WS), 2 of 6. No more seed, other doubles in the spots.
The One, 7 of 10. Reseeded.
Barry's crazy cherry, zip. Reseeded.
Neandermato, 2 of 4. Reseeded.
Great white, 5 of 6. Moved other doubles in the spots.

Everything else not listed is looking like about 100% germination and growing fine so far.

[Adrian]

I think that buttercup is recessive carachter.
I will sow some seeds harversted of a buttercup three colors blue, green and orage with some others squashs around.
-Unknow x ((blue of hungary)x(blue of hungary x tetsukabuto))
The unknow parent is the most probably red kury x blue of hungary or buttercup.
-Blue of hungary x tetsukabuto
-Blue of hungary
-Blue of hungary x (blue of hungary x tetsukabuto)
I think that the experience will be funny!

On tomato i will play with the f3 between tiny tim x green giant and tryed my f1 (canestrino di lucca x andine cornue) x roman candle

[Randy Simmons]

For me the seedlings of The One! and MMR grow pretty quickly, like ready to plant in 5 weeks.  My MMR had its first flower when the plant was 8 weeks old.

[Kadence Luneman]

Been working on tilling the garden. I have a master plan drawn up but it's going to get fudged in reality. The actual tilled space is a bit smaller than the nice neat graph paper... surprise, surprise! Oh well I'll figure it out.
For now my hands are sore and my arms are tired. Not as bad as shearing school but pretty beat up haha...

Oh and I had an enormous rock in the garden that is broke up and mostly out now. I'm thinking on what do do with the giant hole it left. Clay subsoil so simply filling it in will make a swampy spot from it holding water. Thinking about just making it nicer and letting it be a little garden pond. We'll see!

[Kadence Luneman]

Taking on the big rock...

Second pic all I can think of thinking back on it is "He budged! He budged!" from winnie the pooh. Trying to push pooh out of rabbits hole. I was worried the rock was bigger going down and we'd not be able to get it out... or be digging a pool sized hole trying... it's knee deep now as it is.

[Kadence Luneman]

Dad was trying to get it whole but it's sandstone and broke apart.

[Kadence Luneman]

Working on tilling. Good lord how people do this all the time is beyond me. I want to put the beds in and shovel the path width soil into the beds. I have lots of junk wool to mulch the paths with. Hoping to get more wood chips as well. Then I hope to not need to till this again.

First pic is from the hogpen end. A really old corn crib was taken down and moved here to use as a hog pen. This end is 50ft wide.

The second pic is the length of the garden. On the right side is some old roofing etc to clean up and where dad is putting in his little greenhouse. This is about 43 ft wide. After the indent is about 24 ft wide and there to the rock end is about 37 ft long. The whole thing is about 100 ft long.

Third pic you can see the hole left from the rock. There is lots of small rock chunks in there still to clean up. This is what's left of the big rock. One big slab. I broke up the upper layer that was softer and sheared off and broke up, the pile of rock next to it. But that big piece left is harder and wasn't breaking. Hope to get it all in a third, and hopefully last, bucket load in the tractor. I hate having the tractor driving in my field tearing it up and making big ruts but that was the only way.

[Kadence Luneman]

Happy birthday to me. I started 6 cells of Dahlias and 8 cells of teosinte.