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[Leslie <cayadopi AT yahoo.com>]

Yes,,,, I am definitely switching to heirlooms only.

Although, I definitely had a very pleasant surprise crop from a hybrid seed 
that I planted.  I took a seed from a yellow spaghetti squash and planted 
it.... it grew 2 different fruits.... the yellow spaghetti squash, and these 
huge "orangetti" squash, which were even better.  They were the size of 
pumpkins and were slightly sweeter in taste.  It's just a lot of squash..... 
per each fruit.

I will plant those 2 onions (hybrid onions) to practice/learn how to harvest 
onion seed,,,, and meanwhile order heirlooms for my main crop and harvesting 
next year.

Q.  Last year I saw an onion grower not harvest his crop.  Last winter we had 
freezing nights, but not as many as this year so far.  This spring the onions 
regrew and I saw a lot of flower heads.    So I'm wondering if I can just 
leave a few onion (heirlooms) overwinter next winter to get my seed crop for 
the following year.




________________________________
From: Sage Austin | Eureka! Design <eureka AT hctc.net>
To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Thu, January 7, 2010 10:47:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] onion question

Nope, I'm too far south and west for any snow melt. We are high in the 
hills at the headwaters of three of Texas' rivers. If it doesn't fall 
here to begin with we aren't going to see it.

I think you were mentioning in an earlier post some of what you planted 
was hybrid seed (not open-pollinated heirloom), so I thought I'd point 
out that if you save seed from these plants what you will get when you 
grow them out won't be true to the original plant, but a mix of that 
plant's crossed heritage. If you are going to become a seed saver, which 
it sounds like you already have a great interest, you might consider 
buying heirloom seed in the future.

--Sage

Leslie wrote:
> Well, hopefully your underground water will be replenished in time from 
> heavy snow melting north of you at some point.  When I was driving home 
> from Chicago (which had a lot of snow & ice),,,, it seemed like the whole 
> state off Arkansas was under water.  There was a lot of flooding all over 
> the place.  I wouldn't have thought of some of the areas as flood areas.  
> It was sure strange.
>  
> There are many days when I only use 5 gallons of water in the winter.  But 
> that is only because it is just me, and I can do things in a way I might 
> not do if I were more than one person.  I think it would be hard to find a 
> like minded person !
>  
> Darn !!! I pulled out all the carrots, unless I missed some.  I'll have to 
> remember to plants some in a separate area next year.

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Date: Fri, 08 Jan 2010 12:20:55 -0600
From: "Sage Austin | Eureka! Design" <eureka AT hctc.net>
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That's what I've done in the past, let the onions (& carrots) overwinter
if I wanted seed. But usually I just buy onion sets each year as my
greenhouse has limited capacity. I get them from Brown's Omaha in east
Texas.

Surprises--that's certainly one of the fun aspects of planting hybrid
seed! It would be an interesting experiment to further plant those
plants seed and see what you get.

Also be aware, even if you buy heirloom seed those plants will
cross-pollinate and you will then have your own hybrid seed the next
season! You can get around this several ways. You can plant just one
heirloom variety of each vegetable, you can grow them really far apart
(some species this might be miles though), in warmer climates like ours
with long growing seasons you can offset your plantings (depending on
species) where they won't be blooming at the same time, or you can build
a tent and hand pollinate (if necessary) a couple of each plants.

Speaking of squash, there are 4 species, so you can safely grow one of
each type and not have crossed seed:
C. pepo (Zucchini, Crookneck, Scallop, Delicata)
C. maxima (Pumpkins, Hubbard)
C. mixta (Cushaws)
C. moschata (Butternuts, Japanese)

Hope this helps.

--Sage


Leslie wrote:
> Yes,,,, I am definitely switching to heirlooms only.
>
> Although, I definitely had a very pleasant surprise crop from a hybrid seed 
> that I planted.  I took a seed from a yellow spaghetti squash and planted 
> it.... it grew 2 different fruits.... the yellow spaghetti squash, and 
> these huge "orangetti" squash, which were even better.  They were the size 
> of pumpkins and were slightly sweeter in taste.  It's just a lot of 
> squash..... per each fruit.
>
> I will plant those 2 onions (hybrid onions) to practice/learn how to 
> harvest onion seed,,,, and meanwhile order heirlooms for my main crop and 
> harvesting next year.
>
> Q.  Last year I saw an onion grower not harvest his crop.  Last winter we 
> had freezing nights, but not as many as this year so far.  This spring the 
> onions regrew and I saw a lot of flower heads.    So I'm wondering if I can 
> just leave a few onion (heirlooms) overwinter next winter to get my seed 
> crop for the following year.
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Sage Austin | Eureka! Design <eureka AT hctc.net>
> To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Thu, January 7, 2010 10:47:52 PM
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] onion question
>
> Nope, I'm too far south and west for any snow melt. We are high in the
> hills at the headwaters of three of Texas' rivers. If it doesn't fall
> here to begin with we aren't going to see it.
>
> I think you were mentioning in an earlier post some of what you planted
> was hybrid seed (not open-pollinated heirloom), so I thought I'd point
> out that if you save seed from these plants what you will get when you
> grow them out won't be true to the original plant, but a mix of that
> plant's crossed heritage. If you are going to become a seed saver, which
> it sounds like you already have a great interest, you might consider
> buying heirloom seed in the future.
>
> --Sage
>
> Leslie wrote:
>
>> Well, hopefully your underground water will be replenished in time from 
>> heavy snow melting north of you at some point.  When I was driving home 
>> from Chicago (which had a lot of snow & ice),,,, it seemed like the whole 
>> state off Arkansas was under water.  There was a lot of flooding all over 
>> the place.  I wouldn't have thought of some of the areas as flood areas.  
>> It was sure strange.
>>
>> There are many days when I only use 5 gallons of water in the winter.  But 
>> that is only because it is just me, and I can do things in a way I might 
>> not do if I were more than one person.  I think it would be hard to find a 
>> like minded person !
>>
>> Darn !!! I pulled out all the carrots, unless I missed some.  I'll have to 
>> remember to plants some in a separate area next year.
>>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/homestead
> Change your homestead list member options:
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> View the archives at:
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/homestead
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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> Change your homestead list member options:
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>
>
>