Garden Journal

[Garrett Schantz]

Thanks!

Double checked and yep, Cuminum cyminum and Elwendia persica.

Seems like they mentioned in there that there's no need to ground the spice, as it's already small.

Further research says it loses flavor if grounded.


I did actually want the "Ultracross" Corn and the Maize Morado one.

Ultracross still has the nitrogen fixing lines in it, as well as everything from the other races / lines they're offering + more.

The Maize Morado one has the nitrogen fixation root nodules plus it's mixed with Maize Morado and seemingly somewhat stable.

I'm pretty sure some people on here were breeding with Maize Morado or antho corns, so one look at that could've been like eye candy to people. Root nodules already mixed in with Maize Morado.


I'm also interested in the "birds egg" patterns as well as the eagle ones or whatever others. They look quite nice.

[Jeremy Weiss]

If you are VERY lucky, Andean purple corn can also have a rare trait where the endosperm ITSELF is purple (at least, I was told so by one of my college teachers and, having seen it, believe this to be true. Other's have dismissed it as simply purple sap getting into everything and staining it.) Again, I DOES show up in northern corns occasionally as well (I had a popcorn kernel pop lavender) but it much scarcer here.

I actually have an ear of a sort of Andean Morado mix, but as it is PURE Andean, it's probably too day length sensitive to be of any real use here (in any case, it's the last intact ear I have from my "NYC Miracle Hoard", and I'd kind of prefer to keep it in one piece for reference.)

One thing you may want to keep in mind is there is also a tradeoff for those extra big kernels, you get a lot fewer of them per ear. About 200 kernels is roughly around the average for a full sized northern ear, for a lot of Andean ones, it's not even half that. Fewer rows as well, you get a LOT of 8 row ears (I even had one once from the hoard that was so strictly rowed that the ear, for all intents and purposes, was square in cross section.)

[Kadence Luneman]

One thing you may want to keep in mind is there is also a tradeoff for those extra big kernels, you get a lot fewer of them per ear. About 200 kernels is roughly around the average for a full sized northern ear, for a lot of Andean ones, it's not even half that. Fewer rows as well, you get a LOT of 8 row ears (I even had one once from the hoard that was so strictly rowed that the ear, for all intents and purposes, was square in cross section.)

This made me think of how teosinte is shaped. Could this shape/rows be a way of seeing more teosinte type traits than modern traits?

[Jeremy Weiss]

This made me think of how teosinte is shaped. Could this shape/rows be a way of seeing more teosinte type traits than modern traits?

Sort of. I was shown some "in between" ears of primitive corn back in college (or, more accurately, cobs, as the ears still had some shattering factors and had lost all of their kernels) and they did indeed only have 8 rows.

I think it may have a lot more to do with WHAT the corn was used for than any specific selection (since the primary concern would be maximum yield per acreage or per plant, not per ear. A lot of those "mountain" type Andean corn (basically, the pinecone shaped multicolored ears are mountain type, Cuzco Gigante is a bit more lowland.)corns end up being used for cancha, which are basically just toasted corn kernels. For that you probably want a very big, very soft kernel (most of those mountain type corns have kernels so soft you can crush them in your fingers with no trouble, and so light that, if you don't put a cover on them when you plant them, if there is a heavy rain, they can literally float away!.

Up here, corn was most commonly ground before use for all types. You might make some parched corn (what we now call corn nuts) by tossing some hominy in a skillet with some fat, but that was more of a trail/snack food, not your day to day carb. So smaller kernels, were OK, and, to make of the yield difference that would cause, you'd try and select for corns that had more rows, and hence, more kernels per ear.) It's sort of the same reason why (apart from my freaky finds) you usually aren't going to find miniature corn that isn't popcorn; If you are going to get more or less the same number of ears from a plant, but the total edible mass is so much less (not just in terms of raw kernel mass, but in terms of how much of that mass is inedible pericarp.) why grow it? Popcorn can get away with it because it increases in volume so much when you pop it, so it's handleable. And even there, there are limits (I HAVE popped Chire's Baby before, the popped kernels are the size of the bits on the BOTTOM of normal popped kernels. I think they just mention the popability of it just to stop people asking what they hell they do if they wait too long to harvest  and it gets too tough to use as baby corn.)     

[Garrett Schantz]

Believe I found some Urtica chamaedryoides and some some spearmint and some perilla in the same wooded patch.

I think there's some other interesting things too.

Always fun to investigate this sorta stuff.

Considering I pinched a small piece of the Urtica to root in a pot, and my fingers sting a bit - I'd say it's a nettle at the very least.

Very little stinging, lasted less than an hour. Took a few minutes to kick in. And, I was holding the stem and things on my finger. Hardly anything.

Took some mint pinches and Urtica back over toward the house.


Plus, like 4 oak tree seedlings that came up from PA acorns were shredded / eaten. I'm thinking planting some "dead" leeks, Urtica and some mint in their pots will deter those critters.

Extreme measures, I know. Maybe I'll even place peppers on top of the soil!


I'd say the Urtica was slightly numbing at best.

I'm beginning to have thoughts of "I want to try out woodland races of medicinal herbs - mint and whatever else".

I actually went back over to get more sprigs of the Urtica and yeah. It's not anything bad. I can't say it's causing me pain or discomfort.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Well, the old folk rhyme basically SAYS that, if you grab a nettle hard enough, it can't hurt you (you'll break off the silica needles before they have a chance to enter your skin and inject the irritant).

"Tender-handed stroke a nettle, And it stings you, for your pains: Grasp it like a man of mettle, And it soft as silk remains."

Wonder if any bold (or stupid) Australian has ever tried to see if that trick works on a Gympie-Gympie (basically, imagine a tree sized nettled with a sting so powerful you'll be in agony for MONTHS, if not YEARS from it. Animals (who don't have our access to painkillers often DIE from the pain.)

[Garrett Schantz]

Covered a lot of seedlings, herb bed and things with a tarp.

Believe it was around 25F earlier.


Tarp was big enough for both herb beds and the wild / odd cucumis types.

Some uncovered basil in another bed kinda. Became moosh.

Anyways, this is camp tarp. Costed like 21 - ish dollars. For some reason, almost no tarp made the move. Went underneath this a bit, to check on things, though it's nicer out now.

Cucumis hysterix, "Sambar Cucumber" (From an etsy seller, they also sold one of the Borneo Agretis), two "Wild Borneo Cucumbers", both Jelly Melon landraces, Zimbabwe and somewhere else - and a "small jelly rund", a few cucumbers are still alive / germinated. All of them survived in total. Yay.


I planted them by the herb bed (basically in the middle or spewing out of the middle), for a reason.

I also have / had branches and sticks over the sides of the tarp.


I kinda figured there was a chance we'd get a few random frosts still, here and there.

Believe that the last frost date is marked as the 24th.

But, I was aware that any frosts after another date were very scant / few after a certain date.


So, a small planting area that can be covered if need be.


Some of these will germinate as the weather warms up along with the soil.


Most of these did fine, no issues or death with 35ish nights.

It's usually when I see "35 / 25F" in the day, that I go "Ah, that's an issue".


Pretty easy to tell what the following night or day will be when the night temperatures the day before are lower than usual too.

I'll probably keep the tarp over this stuff for a few more days. Believe it's supposed to be a high of 70, lows are a minimum of 50F - usually 60 - 70F.

I think it got lower than expected, still a good idea to watch the weather.

[Garrett Schantz]

Copying this from my Instagram, mostly about Okra:

When I find a grex or most any things, I check the seeds and whatever to see what's all there.

I've found a red Borlotto Di Nano (can't remember the rest) bean before.

Sometimes you can find corn seed with off types, or mutants - etc.

These are seeds I seperated from the rest of the "Ultracross Okra" from The Experimental Farm Network.

I have a few Okra varieties, but I haven't grown Okra before. I checked their seeds and whatnot before.

All of the other seeds are either black or another common color. The other varieties I have, are about the same.

There's some bicolored seeds, half colored, striped or tan seeds etc. This was all of those types I could find in one packet.

The grex has a low percentage of possible interspecific hybrids to my understanding - I'm unsure if these would be interspecific hybrids, different species, varieties that happen to have different seed coatings that aren't largely represented in the population or if some are dead / duds.

But, I planted them together.

Mostly, in a somewhat closely planted ornamental sort of space. If there's interspecific hybrids, I'd prefer to up their numbers in this population or make them all cross before tossing them back in.

Or, they happened to cross with a variety that accepts pollen more readily or is genetically close to whatever species.

I also planted a few Motherland Okra, Lahague Okra Grex Okra and Kandahar Pendi Landrace in the same area - very small amount - maybe 3 seeds each just to ensure I get one plant of each.

Lahague will probably have multiple plants I keep there too.

Bagalhali Tetra Okra, Korean Silkflower and Kagawa Sunset Hibiscus were also planted in the same block (1 plant each / seedling, others get moved).

Then, there's a trellis for flowers (nothing there yet).

On the other side of that trellis, I planted some Red Roselle, Velvet Queen Sunflower, and "Sunspots Variegated Sunflower".

There's a chance that the Okra will be a perennial, as this is considered zone 8. Same with some of the other mentioned species.

So, I can probably move them by taking a cutting or digging them up at some point if I wanted.


Abelmoschus manihot is the name of the Bagalhali Tetra Okra - those I grouped in this post with it. Abelmoschus esculentus is the common name of Okra. Abelmoschus caillei, is the species that may be included in "Ultracross Okra". Researching this species Wikipedia seems to say an it originated as an allopolyploid hybrid of A. manihot and A. esculentus. Now, it also mentions the cross was recreated in Japan as Abelmoschus glutino-textile. A. caillei wasn't a species until 1988. Before then it was probably grouped as one or the other. It's probably in the same position of Rutabaga, which is a cross between a turnip and cabbage - "ancient hybrid", the cross stabilizes and has trouble crossing back to either parent, but it's stable which warrants an apparent species designation. Newer stable hybrids still get odd designations sometimes for some reason.

It's also worth noting, Lahague is apparently an odd Okra, and someone who's grown 100s of varieties thinks it's possibly another species of Okra from the common one - it grows oddly for an okra. And, in a USDA study of 1448 varieties of Okra, this one was in the top 1.5% of types with the highest seed oil content. 19.6% seed oil content. They also note, while Okra seeds usually grow in rows, this types seeds are scattered in the pods and the pods themselves are oddly shaped. With all of that, it's probably a hybrid or different species than the common one.


'Bagalhali' Tetra Okra (Manihot Hibiscus), was in that same study. A different species than "Common Okra" sure. But, they can cross. This one, was in the top 0.5% of the study - 20.9% percent oil content. With plant genetics, a lot of different things can make up for a lot of seed oil or other characteristics So crossing the two mentioned varieties / species, I could end up with something slightly higher or a lot higher of a seed oil percentage. The study involved a lot of Okra and Okra "cousins", meaning different species. It's very possible that Lahague was collected and it's some old hybrid, or it's a different species than what the collector labeled it as. Lahague also apparently has some, newer characteristics than from when it was first received by people who got it from the USDA. Pink pods etc. So, if it's a different species then it's probably crossed with the Common species and it's more unique characteristics are noted to be slightly reduced, but the large majority of the population should still have the traits.



I can also get away with growing blue podded peas or beans up these. Since I'm mostly wanting these just for seed and whatnot- not full on production, more as ornamentals, I can do the same with climbers. It seems with Sunflowers and Okra - it's about two weeks after planting / or germinating them that you plant out some beans, as they'd otherwise overtake them. I have some Scarlet Runner beans, some beans with red pods/multi-colored flowers - etc. These basically serve the same purpose as Corn in the three sisters method. Nitrogen. In this case though, I'm wanting flowers rather than a ton of production. Probably planting a lot of beans that are prone to outcrossing.

(The Sunflowers will hopefully cross and I'll end up with variegated red Sunflowers at some point, same with the beans and Okra - basically a crossing block that I can use as ornamentals at the moment).

Technically doing an edible flower/ pollinator garden there. I think Scarlet Runner beans are popular in those sorts of gardens in Britain or somewhere. Okra leaves and flowers are edible, same with its relatives in the same genus. Also the same case with Red Roselle.

[Jeremy Weiss]

If I grow any okra this year (I'm really a bit too far North for most types to do well), it's going to be a Ghanian one I got called Dabo, which is sort of unusual itself (the pods are VERY short and VERY wide, so they look a bit more like overgrown velvetleaf pods than okra ones. Plus two seeds I found in the Liberian limas.

I also discovered, to my delight, that the mung beans I got from Ghana are even MORE diverse than I thought. It looks like, short of full black ones, there are a few of pretty much every seed variant I have ever seen, mustard, gold, brown, mottled (though the mottled in there seems to be a much lighter one than the kind I got from India) It looks like there is even an errant bright green urd bean in the bag, which would itself be interesting to grow out (since the standard urd color, as far as I can tell, is somewhere between mottled brown and black.)

[Kadence Luneman]

Built a frame for the grow lights. Last two days been planting the flats. 4 of 5 done. The last one will be the potato TPS. Saved it for last to get used to seed handling and a groove of planting. Such tinyyy seeds.

[Randy Simmons]

Here I am still months away from planting most of what I want to grow outside.  Started peppers on March 5.  I have one nearly ripe tomato from The One! and another one ripening.  Getting flowers on my dwarf MMR plants.  I was hoping to plant seeds from my indoor The One! plants to grow outside but was worried the tomatos wouldn't ripen in time. So I am pretty excited to (hopefully0 have the seeds I wanted.

I'm still deciding on what to plant along with the moschata squash seeds from last year.  I am thinking Guatemalan Ayote right now.

Besides last year's okra grex I have some more varieties to add.  Thinking I will plant 50 positions instead of 32 this year.

[Garrett Schantz]

If I grow any okra this year (I'm really a bit too far North for most types to do well), it's going to be a Ghanian one I got called Dabo, which is sort of unusual itself (the pods are VERY short and VERY wide, so they look a bit more like overgrown velvetleaf pods than okra ones. Plus two seeds I found in the Liberian limas.

I also discovered, to my delight, that the mung beans I got from Ghana are even MORE diverse than I thought. It looks like, short of full black ones, there are a few of pretty much every seed variant I have ever seen, mustard, gold, brown, mottled (though the mottled in there seems to be a much lighter one than the kind I got from India) It looks like there is even an errant bright green urd bean in the bag, which would itself be interesting to grow out (since the standard urd color, as far as I can tell, is somewhere between mottled brown and black.)

I'm actually considering sending out some Okra seeds if the hybrid things and whatnot all go well.

If the Kagawa Sunset Hibiscus is actually an old strain bred or used in Japan, I'd assume it has nice adaptations and things, similarly to the Kandahar Pendi Landrace which is from a mountainous region.

All three of The Experimental Farm Network's types they sell seem to be slightly different, and one is from a heirloom population in north America, another is from India, another is from Japan, as mentioned.

I think there's perennial types on a lot of Japanese islands, even ones with heavier frosts and conditions that might resemble USDA Zone 6 or 7. So. That could be fun to mess around with.


https://www.etsy.com/listing/1380305912/african-green-okro-abelmoschus?click_key=eb2a74941de4a26a47c9b6cb6329c58c17e45730%3A1380305912&click_sum=66c077cf&ref=shop_home_active_105&frs=1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1394308165/african-dwarf-okro-abelmoschus?click_key=c8b11130f1a9eab81464f319343557164be12911%3A1394308165&click_sum=2575e4cf&ref=shop_home_active_104&frs=1

https://www.etsy.com/listing/1394295617/dabo-okro-abelmoschus-esculentus-200?click_key=168d78c5a17e13dfc45080d22610b89529431c2f%3A1394295617&click_sum=9f12a110&ref=shop_home_active_111&frs=1

The seller has a lot of nice stuff, as you've mentioned. Plus, he offers Phytosanitary certificates.

[Diane Whitehead]

I have never grown okra, or eaten it.

My grandchildren bought me vegetable seeds in Malaysia, so now I have a packet of an F1 hybrid okra with a maturity of 60 days. 60 days in the tropics - maybe 6 months up here?

[Randy Simmons]

Diane,  here in South Dakota 60 day okra tends to just start producing before the weather cools in September.

Garrett, thank you for posting those links.  Except for EFN most okra seeds I have seen so far have just been US heirlooms.

[Garrett Schantz]

Some peppers are finally coming up.

Zone 8, so I guess they'll still produce. Ideally, I'd have started them earlier and they'd all have leaves by now.

Looks like, Ninfadora, Dwarf Tepin, CGN 20800, Cardenasii, Carbonero x BBG7 Chocolate, Dragon's Breath type 2, maybe some HR Hellfire Chocolate type 2.

Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry has had seedlings coming up for awhile now - plus one purple off-type. Perfect Sweet Italian Swarm, Cañoncito, Mountain Roaster, Elephant, Murasaki, Mini Olive Rocoto, Aji de Colorado and Sugar Rush Peach have been up for awhile now.

Still waiting on, Doe Hill, Bullnose, Orange Bell, CGN 19198 and Dwarf Aji Charapita.

Tomatoes- including wilds like Solanum chilense, Arcanum and some others are doing OK (most are doing good). Chmielewsky, I've grown indoors before. It's growing fine.

All ground cherries except for Denver Perennial are up. I included queen of malinalco in the ground Cherry grouping, that's the only tomatillo I'm growing from seed this year.

All of my "Eggplants" (Multiple species), Kitley / Cannibal Tomato, Jaltomatas, Tzimbalo Melon Pears / typically sold species and HRseeds are up.

Waiting on Tubocapsicum anomalum, there's a single Dwarf tamarillo, also waiting on Lulo and related species.

Kangaroo apples are beginning to germinate.