Garden Journal

[Garrett Schantz]

Seems like some Gigante Hominy corn is germinating, Pod Corn, Speckled Parching Corn, Independence Corn (Purple and blues I selected from the packet), Independence Corn (Oddly shaped, nice markings rare in the selection I received). Some Dobronac is also coming up.

I planted some Japanese Black Sticky, Dzit-bacal, High Carotene Orange, Lofthouse Astronomy Corn awhile back too. They have three true leaves, suddenly putting on some boosts in growth.

Seems like one China Agretis came up, Borneo Jungle cucumber mixes I have are also both putting on growth. Sambar Cucumbers are quite big now in terms of their cotlydeons.

Cucumis hysterix has more seedlings coming up. Cucumis filiformis is now coming up as well.

I think the frosts harmed the Jelly melons? Hopefully more seeds come up.

Assam and Sikkim were trampled by dogs.

Hopefully Xylangouro and Armenian Cucumbers come up along with Apple Melon, Oriental Melon, Crack Melon, and the West India / Jamaican Gherkins soon too.

[Garrett Schantz]

It's basically a very small breeding block as I mentioned before. Because of the colder weather and how fast the corns germinating, I'm assuming that they still may flower at the same time.

I actually found the Pod Corn and saw I had like 3 seeds left.

Eventually I wanna get some teosinte as well. Dzit-bacal might be close to a wild or unusual corn I suppose.

[Jeremy Weiss]

May start my Borneo Jungles and West Indian Gherkins in a week or so. would LOVE to start my Russian Netted at the same time, but that relies on the seed arriving by then.

Probably about time to start the cool season legumes (peas, vetches etc.) around now as well.

WANT to start my various trans-Caucasian wild onion and garlic  seeds now, but they still haven't arrived. Beginning to worry that, by the time they do, it will be too hot and I'll have to wait for next year.

Guess I'll order the herbs pretty soon as well.

Suppose I'll sow the sunflowers a bit after I put the cukes in, so I know where to place them for climbing.

[Garrett Schantz]

I think it's recommended to plant beans two weeks after sowing Sunflower seeds and things if you're planning on using them as a pole. I wanna say cucumbers, squash and things are after sunflowers too. They're also allelopathic to a lot of species if I recall.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I think it's recommended to plant beans two weeks after sowing Sunflower seeds and things if you're planning on using them as a pole. I wanna say cucumbers, squash and things are after sunflowers too. They're also allelopathic to a lot of species if I recall.

I think it's recommended to plant beans two weeks after sowing Sunflower seeds and things if you're planning on using them as a pole. I wanna say cucumbers, squash and things are after sunflowers too. They're also allelopathic to a lot of species if I recall.

They are, but fortunately, not to cucumbers (they actually interact quite well, according to what I have read online.)

The actual order is less important than my ability to start the two in the cold frame separately, and then plant the seedlings next to each other. I have a lot of trouble when I try to direct seed two things to interact (due to some support seed not coming up or being eaten, or climbers deciding to climb in a totally different direction and not taking no for an answer. The whole Three Sisters concept makes it sound easy, but I have realized that that only worked for the Native Americans so well because they had centuries, if not millennia, to refine their varieties of corn, pole bean and squash so that they could count on each one to germinate at a time complimentary to the other two. It's not like it's "any tall plant, any climber, any scrambler" where you can slot in specifics randomly.   

[Garrett Schantz]

A lot of things likes sunflowers and the like do actually work well regardless.

Sunflowers grown for food, are usually bred to have firm singular stalks or just very thick ones that are wind resistant.

Farmers appararently let things grow up Okra in some regions.


It's usually a matter of "how fast does this grow or germinate."

Some corn seems to germinate faster than others, that's just a matter of knowing varieties.


The main issue seems to be natives from a lot of people's methods were lost to time due to being colonized or whatever else.


Few years of mapping things out makes things easy enough.

Some bean varieties do get too big for some corn, but most of its still mostly knowing and mapping out what you have.


I'm planning some tests with Melothria species and other things.


Fun tests.

[Jeremy Weiss]

I'm assuming you mean M. scabra, as that is the easiest to work with (Melothria pendula) also may be available, but since it's fruits will make you vomit if you eat them overripe, I personally would not like to play around with it.)

If that works, there is another species called Melothria japonica that supposedly produced somewhat larger (egg sized) white edible fruits. Not sure where to get it (Trade Winds had it, but sold out in 2020) but it may be somewhere.

[Randy Simmons]

Farmers appararently let things grow up Okra in some regions.

That's interesting.  I don't grow corn but I do grow okra.  I've also wondered about the possibility of using sorghum in a similar fashion.

[Jeremy Weiss]

If Okra works, maybe Kenaf might as well. Well, not for me (my Kenaf grew quite short) but in a good area.

Sunn Hemp too, maybe (though that is pretty thin, and does start to bend over at the top when the flowers show up.)

I still have seed for both of those, maybe I'll try it out. I've got a lot of Roselle seed as well, but, again, I think Roselle would not grow tall enough here.

[Garrett Schantz]

Zehneria japonica seems to be the actual name for "Melothria japonica". I bought seeds for it years ago and couldn't find any Melothria species outside of the Americas.

Can't find much about the species in terms of edibility.

I've tried getting Melothria pendula to sprout from the perennial cold hardier population that the experimental farm network sells. The big plus with that species, is that you won't throw up from the overripe fruit. And they go from green to somewhat yellow to black. Drastic changes.

While you won't throw up, it's said to be a powerful laxative. So, might be worse than vomiting.

I tried a perennial species I found in Mexico. Looked different than other M. pendula types I've seen. Fruits were tasteless. Just watery. No sour, bitter, sweetness or anything.

If I had small lots of seeds sorta stuff I could've probably tried getting some back with me. The vines seemed to grow up over 12 feet and they're perennials.


Sorghum, you'd need to check what types you're growing. If you wanna use the canes, beans would make harvesting a pain. Sorghum can be perennial in some climates, and it also grows semi fast. Of course beans might be more shade from Sorghum compared to corn due to how large they grow. Beans obviously grow quickly, but field beans or whatever that grow huge vines might be needed here.

If you're growing them for fodder, they'd work well.

Just need to figure out how early or late to plant them with each other. Plus Sorghum grexes or varieties can vary greatly in germ time.

Okra, I know you can grow beans up it - same thing with "ok, this is doable but when do I plant X after X".

There's tree-like Okra that probably work well in these sort of matters.

Okra isn't from the Americas, so there probably aren't a lot of people who have tried growing beans up them.

[Jeremy Weiss]

Zehneria japonica seems to be the actual name for "Melothria japonica". I bought seeds for it years ago and couldn't find any Melothria species outside of the Americas.

Can't find much about the species in terms of edibility.

I've tried getting Melothria pendula to sprout from the perennial cold hardier population that the experimental farm network sells. The big plus with that species, is that you won't throw up from the overripe fruit. And they go from green to somewhat yellow to black. Drastic changes.

While you won't throw up, it's said to be a powerful laxative. So, might be worse than vomiting.

I tried a perennial species I found in Mexico. Looked different than other M. pendula types I've seen. Fruits were tasteless. Just watery. No sour, bitter, sweetness or anything.

If I had small lots of seeds sorta stuff I could've probably tried getting some back with me. The vines seemed to grow up over 12 feet and they're perennials.

Okra isn't from the Americas, so there probably aren't a lot of people who have tried growing beans up them.

Common beans, maybe not (though there are a large number of common beans all over Africa currently, and have been probably for a few centuries now since Europeans introduced them.) But there are a lot of climbing cowpeas as well, and some of THOSE they might have used okra for. Though there are one or two I can think of that would probably be beyond ANY okra's (or corn's) support capacity (like the unidentified red one someone grew on my other gardening site we nicknamed "Landmaster", where one single seed produced a vine that covered the entire side of the person's house!)

Thanks for the name correction, I called it what Trade Winds (where I got it) called it. Maybe under the real name I can find it again.

You're probably right about no Old world genus members, but there are some odds and ends in Japan, like that pepper (Capsicum rhomboflexum) that make me think it was just possible. 

[Randy Simmons]

This will be my second year for my okra landrace.  There are at least two varieties in my grex than can get tall under the right conditions like Cowhorn.  Zambia Landrace II seems to have potential for height also.  Once I have gotten further along with my okra landrace I might try cowpeas with it.  Not sure how much I want to explore it right now though.

[Kadence Luneman]

Planted inside March 20, 21, and 22. Everything is coming up pretty good. Only thing with no wee sprouts yet is peppers. Even have 5 tiny sprouts from the red tetraploid mix TPS. None from Clancy outcross TPS.

[Randy Simmons]

Peppers all germinated and are under lights.  Isfahan, Moyamensing, and Rinon tomatoes all germinated but no Firesteel yet.  Waiting till next weekend to start the others.  Picked first tomato from The One! and put in to ferment last night.  Have some small tomatoes on MMR with more flowers coming.

[Kadence Luneman]

I think I planted 3 seed per cell, 2 cells planted for Neandermato. One cell had one sprout. The other cell had two sprouts. The two sprouts seemed to dry up and look bit off at the top. The single sprout looks fine.
Hmm.. the spoon and Cache valley currant sprouts look good next to them. And I see on the baker creek fb group lots of people have trouble starting spoon tomatoes, they go tall and scraggly next to nice sturdy heirlooms in the exact same conditions. So this is a bit surprising for the habrochaites. All the other tomato starts are in identical conditions in the same flat tray and one next to it.

Going to look closely in the morning and probably put two more seed in the failed cell. I don't recall anyone saying habro was that picky over regular tomatoes for starting conditions?