Sample
I went looking for crop spacing info to prevent cross pollination due to this: GM corn set to stop man spreading his seed
Scientists have created the ultimate GM crop: contraceptive corn. Waiving fields of maize may one day save the world from overpopulation. The pregnancy prevention plants are the handiwork of the San Diego biotechnology company Epicyte, where researchers have discovered a rare class of human antibodies that attack sperm. By isolating the genes that regulate the manufacture of these antibodies, and by putting them in corn plants, the company has created tiny horticultural factories that make contraceptives. 'We have a hothouse filled with corn plants that make anti-sperm antibodies,' said Epicyte president Mitch Hein.
https://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3997095/posts
It's already hard to find corn that hasn't been affected/infected with Monsanto's GMO genetics.
Coming to the end of my second full year of gardening. I’m working with less than 300sq feet that’s shaded on 3 sides. It’s a struggle for a n00b like me. Successes, failures and things I’ve learned:
Tomatoes - Tried several varieties of tomato seeds. For the first time some tomatoes were over a pound each (Mortgage Lifters). They looked like little pumpkins.
Honeydews - Grew 5. First time growing these. I started the vines indoors and transplanted 5 to the garden. Each vine grew a full sized melon.
Cabbage - Golden Acre cabbage had the best balance of space used vs head size and it tasted great. Other varieties like Flathead Dutch had giant leaves that took up too much space for what they produced.
Beans - Bush beans worked great. Pole beans produced vines and lots of leaves with few actual beans. :(
Brussels Sprouts - The plants grew but the sprouts are too small to be worth the effort. Don’t know what went wrong.
Bell peppers - I planted 40 of these close together (1 per square ft), hoping to get more than last year. It worked but not as well as expected. I think they shaded each other too much. Next year I will try planting fewer and spacing them out a little more.
Corn - Unlike last year, the kernels reached to the tip because I went out every night and knocked the tassels around with a pole to get lots of pollen floating around. The texture of the corn was a bit thick and starchy like last year, not like the kind from the store. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong.
Motorcycle customized to look like Alien, from the movie
It is seed harvesting time around her in the PNW.
I am harvesting heirloom tomato seeds for next year.
Keepers
Brandywine
Chelan Heirloom (unknown tomato bought at Chelan markers market 2 summers ago)
Blush tiger
Rutgers (1st year, doing well and delicious.
No more here
Black Krim. Taste fantastic but 2 years in a row low producers and plants are not growing tall.....will try again in Texas in 2 years
Peppers
Poblano
Bell peppers (green, a stray purple) and whitish/yellow)
Jalapeño
Round of hungary
Capperino
Roccotto (very hot ecuadorian which likes cool weather. Plant given to me my “Marco” who’d grandmother smuggled one through customs many decades ago and thr family has kept this seed line alive here. Mine are green then turn red. Others stay green or turn orange or yellow.)
Hi there! Enjoying our lovely weather. Harvesting lots of seeds for next year.
😄
We have a few summer squash that have small one's left, struggling to survive; the rest were clean-picked Tuesday morning, along with the cukes. Except for a big stuffer cocozelle, that all went to the food bank.
That got cut in half, then the halves split and stuffed with jambalaya, for 2 night's dinners.
Also clean-picked the Kurzer's traveling lima beans. The pole & scarlet runners are looking like they're losing the struggle to recover. We'll probably pick them tomorrow.
Also this week, I planted the winter wheat cover/green manure crop. Today, I dug the last 3 hills of potatoes...russets...and again averaged 2+ pounds per plant.
Also today, I fired up the new chipper-shredder, and ran the corn stalks, the wife's iris trimmings, some squash & bean vines, and a bunch of pine cone through it, onto the wheat plot to mulch it. Pine cones are recommended for our soil.
Leeks and rutabagas are just plain happy; the Fall peas have immature pods coming, as well as actively blooming.
It took me quite a while to finally figure out what's been nagging me about this year's garden: other than early in the season, despite all my digging, I haven't seen any of our worms! Normally, we have lots of them.
I expect that I have a lot of weeds to pull in the garden.
Off to the sawmill this morning to retrieve a trailer load of stove wood.
When I'm done with that I have to get 2000 miles worth of bug guts off the grille of my truck.