Garden Journal

[Garrett Schantz]

Purple Mitsuba, Canadian Honewort seeds came in earlier. I'm hoping to find Cryptotaenia elegans seeds at some point somewhere as it's seemingly edible too.

First two species I mentioned have edible shoots and roots - used that way. Going to try seeing if they'll cross. I'm in zone 8, so I'm unsure how we'll they'll do. Both seem to be at the edge of their comfort zone here.


Purple Shiso seeds came in too.


These things will all be grown in the same space. Probably with Good-King-Henry, some greens and other things as well.

Very mild winters here. Shiso seems to be something that'll self seed readily here. Same story with some other stuff. So, I'm setting up a little spot for these things.


Also got a rare sunflower called "Sunspots", different from Sunspot.

Has variegated leaves - mutation seems to be an unstable type. This means, the seeds will probably never always give out 100% variegated seedlings.


I tried seeing if I had any leftover mutant sunflower seeds that the experimental farm network sold years ago. Doesn't seem to be any left, couldn't even find the old packet.

That one had sunflowers with short petals if I remember correctly. Was also in the same boat of being an unstable mutant.

Sunflowers have a lot of self correction genes.

Neither of the mentioned traits like leaf variegation or short petals are in any commercial varieties to my knowledge.

I'd probably use the variegated types for breeding with red flowered sunflowers or things, not large heading types. I feel like variegation weakens plants. So, this is more of an ornamental breeding experiment or it'll become one at some point.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Also got a rare sunflower called "Sunspots", different from Sunspot.

Has variegated leaves - mutation seems to be an unstable type. This means, the seeds will probably never always give out 100% variegated seedlings.


I tried seeing if I had any leftover mutant sunflower seeds that the experimental farm network sold years ago. Doesn't seem to be any left, couldn't even find the old packet.

That one had sunflowers with short petals if I remember correctly. Was also in the same boat of being an unstable mutant.

Sunflowers have a lot of self correction genes.

Neither of the mentioned traits like leaf variegation or short petals are in any commercial varieties to my knowledge.

I'd probably use the variegated types for breeding with red flowered sunflowers or things, not large heading types. I feel like variegation weakens plants. So, this is more of an ornamental breeding experiment or it'll become one at some point.

I'm growing two kinds of sunflowers next spring, Black Beauty and Envy (at least, I think that's what the green petaled one was called.)

Assuming both do well enough to give me seed back at the end of the year, down the road, when I have more time and space, it might be fun to try and do some crosses to get Black Beauty's near black petals into a pom-pom sunflower.

[Garrett Schantz]

Sunflowers tend to cross readily, so hybridization usually just requires planting them next to each other and next years seed will mostly be hybrids.

They prefer to outcross, so two Sunflower plants of different varieties would probably result in mostly all hybrid seed between them.



I found a small image of the Experimental Farm Network's Sunflower that I mentioned.

I might post the image.

It's named Tubular Ray Sunflower, luckily their order updates include images, so I found it in an old email from them in 2019.


The name came from the name its typically referred to in studies. Google image searching the term reveals how it looks, also comparisons with it using the Teddy bear type - standard type.

I dont think I used all the seeds, really hoping I find them somewhere.


https://hayefield.com/product/helianthus-annuus-sunspots-variegated-sunflower/

Link with images on the variegated sunflower.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Sunflowers tend to cross readily, so hybridization usually just requires planting them next to each other and next years seed will mostly be hybrids.

They prefer to outcross, so two Sunflower plants of different varieties would probably result in mostly all hybrid seed between them.



I found a small image of the Experimental Farm Network's Sunflower that I mentioned.

I might post the image.

It's named Tubular Ray Sunflower, luckily their order updates include images, so I found it in an old email from them in 2019.


The name came from the name its typically referred to in studies. Google image searching the term reveals how it looks, also comparisons with it using the Teddy bear type - standard type.

I dont think I used all the seeds, really hoping I find them somewhere.


https://hayefield.com/product/helianthus-annuus-sunspots-variegated-sunflower/

Link with images on the variegated sunflower.

Hmm, then the following year's flowers will be.....interesting (what color DO you get if you cross black and green? Brown?)

[Garrett Schantz]

Hard to say.

Depends what makes up the colors in the plant along with other genes I'd imagine.

Sometimes green in flowers is a lack of a color or just a ton of chlorophyll.

So, crossing the brown flowered sunflower might just make another brown sunflower or a bunch of green and brown ones in the F2.

Or, the two genes may have one that's completely or near completely dominant over the other so the other one wouldn't show up.


I'll try researching sunflower color genes later. I wouldn't be surprised if there's multiple green flower genes along with multiple brown ones.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Hard to say.

Depends what makes up the colors in the plant along with other genes I'd imagine.

Sometimes green in flowers is a lack of a color or just a ton of chlorophyll.

So, crossing the brown flowered sunflower might just make another brown sunflower or a bunch of green and brown ones in the F2.

Or, the two genes may have one that's completely or near completely dominant over the other so the other one wouldn't show up.


I'll try researching sunflower color genes later. I wouldn't be surprised if there's multiple green flower genes along with multiple brown ones.

Well Black Beauty is really more of a very deep mahogany crimson, so I'd guess a super dose of the red pigment.

The green is a pale lime green, which sounds like a little chlorophyll plus a lack of yellow.

So actually, if the two really did mix, you'd probably get more or less a very slightly brownish red, Or else more or less the same deep red with a slightly more brownish cast.

To get a fully brown one, you might have to first keep upping the amount of chlorophyll in the petal of the green one until you had one whose petals were the same color as the leaves (which, given that I have never seen a green variation of a normally non-green flower EVER get that dark, is probably impossible.)   

[Garrett Schantz]

Planted Lime Basil, Lemon Basil, Blue Spice Basil, African Numnum Basil, Holy Kaprao Basil, Indian Coriander, Coriander, Dill - I have some older parsley and cilantro that I planted early popping up too, they are on their first or second leaves.

Started 4 cells of Exserted Tiger, 1 Cherokee Tiger Large, 1 Cherokee Tiger Black, 1 Lutescent, 1 Green Ripper, 4 Chmielewsky, 1 Copper Currant, 4 Wild Hairy tomato HR, 4 Peruvianum Lofthouse, 1 Burnley Bounty, 1 Double Rich, 1 Keith Alissa Gold Leaf, 4 HR Peruvianum, 1 stick tomato, 1 Purple Smudge, 1 Alberto Shatters, 1 Wild Gem, 4 Arcanum Pink Cherry, 4 Heirloom Reviews Woolly Currant, 1 Wild Currant From Peru, 1 Weight In Gold, 1 White Beauty, 1 Island Sunrise, 1 Butter Apple, 1 Big Hill, 4 Exserted Orange, 4 Orange Hill, 1 Oscar Pearson Hard Fruit, 5 Costoluto Florentino, 2 S. arcanum, 4 Chilense Type 2, 4 J.F. Macbr's Wild, 1 Galapagos Island, 1 Galapagos Island #2, 2 Galapagos Wild Minor Type 2, 4 Wild Hairy Type 2.

12 cells of Pierce Lester, 8 cells of Mary's Niagra,  2 cells of baker creek ground cherry 2020 - unnamed, 2 cells of Denver perennial, 8 Queen Of Malinalco.


4 cells of Melazane Rossa Di Rotonda, 4 cells Kitley, 4 Japanese White Egg, 2 Gboma, 2 Upper Volta Garden Egg, 4 Chi Yei, 4 Chinese String,

2 HR Pepino Lloron, 2 WoodlandCreationz Tzimbalo, 2 Mycalasona Tzimbalo. First one is the species closely related to Pepinos "true species". Second ones the common type. Third has red seeds.

2 Matt's Peppers Cannibal Tomato, 2 HR Cannibal Tomato. One is slightly smaller than the other, different shade of color - none are the same color / size as the other seed provider. There's multiple types of that variety - accidentally bought a second packet since I lost the one at first.

2 Kangaroo Apple, 2 Large Kangaroo Apple, 4 Solanum linearifolium X Aviculare, 4 Solanum Vescum X Aviculare, 4 S. sturtianum.

4 Lulo, 2 S. stramniifolium, 2 S. ferox, 2 S. candidum , 2 Cocona.

4 Bombona, 4 Jiquiri.

2 Jaltomata sinuosa, 4 Jaltomata cajacayensis, 2 Back Serrated Jaltomata.

4 Everglades 41 Kenaf, 4 Kagawa Sunset Hibiscus, 4 Korean Silkflower, 4 Molokhia, 4 Red Roselle.

I'll be growing those last ones alongside the spot I'm planting Okra, maybe I'll toss in Marshmallow seeds into the area too.

Doubt I'll get anything "fun" from that, but the bees will probably like it.

[Randy Simmons]

At this time I am thinking descendants of The One! and Mission Mountain Rising for certain.  Also Exserted Tiger, Exserted Orange, and Mission Mountain Morning.  My plants of The One! are still flowering and producing a small amount of tomatos.  May try to plant them outside this spring.  Also, am planning Bison, Purple Zebra, Amana Orange, Galina, Lyana Pink, and possibly Firesteel. 

For peppers I am planning saved seeds from serrano tampiqueno, pablano, banana, and Korean chilis.  I bought a pack of Fish peppers.

For squash Lofthouse and Canada Crookneck I saved from last year plus Guatemalan Ayote, and Arabat.  Not sure what else yet since I have so many packs of seed!

For okra saved seeds from last year's group of survivors: Cajun Jewel, Dwarf Long Pod, Cowhorn, Baby Bubba, and Zambia Landrace II.  I have Catawba Freedman, Puerto Rico Everblush, Heavy Hitter, Ken's, Burgundy, and Zambia Landrace I plus most of a pack of Ultracross for this year.  I might try starting some in my grow tent this year and see how it compares to direct seeding.

I also have 3 kinds of garlic and 2 kinds of sorghum I am trying.

To my knowledge Cajun Jewel and Long Pod are both dwarf okras.  I watered my okra very sparsely last year and it was a drought year so these survivors are tough ones.

[Garrett Schantz]

I'm doing corn, beans, melons, corn - probably no watermelon or squash.

I have 3 Okra grexes from The Experimental Farm Network.

Motherland Okra from Bakercreek seems neat. Plus the heavy hitter okra.

Motherland Okra's leaves seem like I could carry a cat or two around in them judging from the images.

Believe the pods become woody pretty quickly. Seems like the variety was possibly used for its leaves and whatnot - heavily.

Description says 6 - 8 feet in some climates. 15 feet in other ones.

Mississippi is probably a decent climate with the humidity and whatnot, for Okra. Haven't grown it before, lived in PA till last year.


Also growing some beans.

Using almanac and locals estimates on when to start stuff.

[Garrett Schantz]

Did end up planting peppers. Someone else said I could get away with doing them still, few people did.

Believe they said starting them up till April is OK, they hardly ever get big frosts - long season. Pretty late for them, I guess.

Did plant two Tubocapsicum anomalum cells, along with the Cannibal Tomato and a bunch of other species  weeks ago with the tomatoes. Noticed the Tubocapsicum had some germination on it.


Ok, so for the peppers -

Did one cell of an old paper packet of C. flexuosum, one HRseeds flexuosum, and one from Brazil, sourced there.

4 Bullnose cells, 4 Orange Bell cells. 2 Murasaki Purple cells, 2 Elephant peppers (Not trunk or the other one - this is the embroidered variety), 4 CGN 19198, 2 Dwarf Tepin, 1 Dwarf Aji Charapita, 1 CGN 20800, 2 Alpine Poblano (Would've done 1 or two 4 packs - neighbors growing these too - but the standard variety), 2 or 4 Mountain Roaster Peppers, 4 Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm, 2 Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, 2 Cañoncito, 4 Ninfadora, 4 Sugar Rush Peach Stripey, 4 Aji de Colorado Alpino, 4 USDA Cardenasii, 4 Mini Olive Rocoto, 2 Dragon's Breath *2*, 2 Hellfire Chili Chocolate, 4 Carbanero X BBG7 Chocolate.

I have no idea what USDA accession one of these came from.

Cañoncito apparently has a precocious flowering thing going on. The Dwarf Types have some sort of dwarfing gene - figured I'd try an Annum and a Chinense dwarf.

CGN 19198 - said to be either C. praetermissum or C. eximium.

Fatali has it marked as Capsicum sp. and they claim they don't believe it to be either species.


Capsicum Cardenasii, appears to be rather interesting. Got free seeds from someone before.

Mini Olive Rocoto - You typically can't go and buy rocotos at the store here, let alone mutant green ones (these ripen to green).


Not growing a ton of each species - I will grow more in the future, I also may make more cells or things - split cells. I'll see.


Was hoping I still had seeds for a Chinense - Annum cross that goes back to either parent somewhat easily too.

A lot of these, I'm going to allow to cross.

Lot of the things like Flexuosum may be in containers or more permanent placements - ornamental spots.

I sorta wanna see if I can cross the little fruited guys before trying to mix them into domestics.

I'll try making arrangements to send seed out for this kind of stuff.

I'm not sure if anyone's noticed, but I purchased these with colder climate breeding in mind. Still works here, but I can only test certain amounts of cold.

[Kadence Luneman]

Went ahead and ordered some seed starting trays and things. Couldn't find anything in the store the other day when I was in town. Either crappy ones that fall apart or nicer ones way higher priced. So it made sense to order online for the pricing and get what I want.

A while back I planned out all the starting dates and put them in the calendar. To make myself not plant stuff way early and have enormous tomato starts and running out of space, etc. So nothing will get started here til after middle of March.

Just have to get some bag soil. Definitely need to up my composting game to be able to use. The garden soil is too clay and weed seedy to try to use this year.

[Steph S]

I did a crazy thing and started a load of pepper seeds around new years.  Just trying that out to see if I can get ripe peppers before the ants and aphids wake up and smell the party.   Lucky or not, all my seeds of favorite peppers were too old to germinate, but I ended up with eleven plants from a supermarket 'snack pepper' seeds.   They are more than ready to pot up at this point.  I managed to pick up an extra half dozen bags of compost so I'm okay for dirt, it's finding pots is the issue.  Small enough that I don't run out of windowsill space, cause that's all I have for them.  Hope it's enough, for the length of daylight this early in the year.

[Garrett Schantz]

Yeah, I mark trays and other stuff to make sure I have room for everything I want.

I order my trays and cells online. Usually order trays from greenhouse megastore. Trays there are firm, don't break really. Can get away with reusing them for awhile.


Did check stuff up for neighbors stuff and whatnot, they're confusing planting out dates and seed starting dates I believe.

Though, they haven't gardened in years, aren't originally from around here and others start at different times to my knowledge.

I'm going off Jackson's charts since most almanacs, websites and stuff give me that for my area.

Pretty accurate.

[Garrett Schantz]

Musa basjoo, Musella Lasiocarpa, Knifolia Lola, Coal Miner Elephant Ear and Cleopatra Canna Lily have returned.

Ordered them online late last year. Only one thing hasn't returned yet.


On the subject of "Musella lasiocarpa", there also exists a Chinese cultivar called Musella lasiocarpa 'Foxi Jinlian.


Here's some sites on the Red variations or that cultivar itself:

https://aucview.aucfan.com/yahoo/w90307878/

https://www.ahs.ac.cn/EN/Y2013/V40/I4/811

Images here show a red type too:

https://powo.science.kew.org/taxon/urn:lsid:ipni.org:names:585005-1/images



I believe I read it's an ecotype or something. I'm seeing a bit of variation in the species. If anyone knows of anyone who's imported Red types or grown out imported seed - please let me know.

The species itself was thought to be extinct in the wild at some point, is mostly found in isolated areas in the wild to my knowledge and its habitats are shrinking.

I'd probably let them freely cross - female flowers are the most visited by bees to my understanding. This increases the chances of cross pollination quite a bit.

My area is a hummingbird central at parts of the year, least that'sehst others say and what I saw when moving here.

Trying to plant things they like. Milkweed seeds were planted, just waiting to see if they come up.

[Kadence Luneman]

My social media is full of seed starting and lambing. 23 days until I can start some seeds. And I'm about to be two weeks into lambing due dates and still no lambs! Crossing my fingers for them to start this weekend...

I did pop an apple seed into a little cup because it looked like it was starting to grow already, right from the apple. It's now a few inches high. I've got it under a light and hoping it doesn't get leggy.