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  • From: EarthNSky <erthnsky AT gmail.com>
  • To: homestead AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Homestead] varieties of this and that
  • Date: Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:37:53 -0400

Thanks for the garden info..
Comments interspersed..


Leslie wrote:

This year, I planted 12 diffferent potato varieties.

Where did you get your potatoes?



WINTER SQUASH Last year the spaghetti squash was planted 150 feet away from
the zucchini and blue hubbard in the other garden. I have very happy very
busy bees.)

I planted some varieties I've never heard of, in addition to acorn, butternut, blue and warted hubbard. I planted Georgia Candy Roaster, and Pink Banana - these squash are huge ! and prolific. They have grown right over and thru the garden fence and are still putting out new "babies" (I just discovered the vines can have a diameter of 80 feet, so that explains why I couldn't contain them in the garden). Last count there were 14 large ones (about 3' in diameter, but shaped like a torpedo).
WOW!
It is good to have busy bees. Since my neighbor got bees, I can see a difference in pollination here, in a lot of crops..






CORN
99% failure this year. Apparently I am still not getting corn enough fertilizer; the stalks are short, the ears are down by the ground, and didn't get pollinated correctly. Found a local who grows corn and he's going to help next year.

I am also failing at getting a lot of corn. Lodging is my problem-or maybe it is a symptom...windy location? not enough sun to make thick stalks? I dunno.


ONIONS
Grow great here, just toss the seed in the ground (3 seeds per inch) in November according to the professional onion grower down the road from me. My sweet onions are nearly all harvested now. I remembered the professional farmer lost a lot of onions to too much rain a couple years ago (flooding), and since we're under a flash flood watch, I pulled up all the onions that have broken over - time to pull anyway, and I'm hoping the onion patch doesn't get too much more rain as the soil here holds water fairly well 4" below the surface.

I can't seem to grow big onions...timing just isn't right...


SWEET POTATOES
I'm at about day 90 for a 110 day variety........ I've wiggled a finger into the soil here and there but I don't really feel any sweet pototoes. How deep are they?

right at the surface. Mine grow literally at the base of the plant, and often you can see the orange poking out of the hill, especially if a good rain has eroded some soil off the hill.

Red Mexicans....... wow! very prolific and nice dried beans. Can't wait to cook some up.

Black Coco are also very prolific for dried beans.
Where did you get the seed? I'd like to try these.




TOMATOES
Lost the entire crop this year to that virus that many had last year.
I'm getting lots of tomatoes this year, but I'm seeing a virus in my Roma X Amish paste that I have never seen before. The plant and fruit looks perfect, but inside, there is a black, hard, atrophied area at the seed core where there are underdeveloped seeds. I've been slicing the tomatoes lengthwise and scooping out the dime sized bad area, but I would like to know what caused it. I've been saving these tomato seeds for a few years now. They are good paste tomatoes, mostly a cross between Roma and Amish paste-pear shaped and larger than the average Roma, but I haven't seen this problem before. Is it a bug, a climate-related disease, or a virus? I haven't seen this occur in any of the other varieties.


Bev






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