“Where did you buy those mini-tunnel arches?” was the main response to last month”s post about overwintering crops in mini-tunnels, Well, we bought some 10ft long E.M.T. conduit from a local hardware store and then bent the arches ourselves. It’s a pretty simple process that you can easily do on your farm. Come, let’s see … More Bend Your Own Mini-Tunnel Arches
We ran out of time to build caterpillar tunnels in Novemeber.
So we built mini tunnels to overwinter crops instead! … More Mini Tunnels To Get Seed Crops Through The Winter
Hey Kids, do you have any arugula that looks like this at home?
Did you know that if you just leave it there, all those flowers will turn into seeds pods?
… More What to do when your arugula look like this!
This week I’ve been walking the Rainbow Tatsoi to select what plants we’ll be letting go to seed. Overall, things are getting very stable. Some solid dark leaves with a lot of purple stems. Some diversity in savoy texture. Very similar growing habit. But then I come upon this. I haven’t seen an individual this … More Genetic memory or chance encounter?
Back in July, I told you all about selecting some brassica plants and transplanting my favourites into big pots by the porta potty. We harvested those plants in mid-August and threshed the seeds. The plantless pots full of soil sat by that porta potty for the next 2 months. I didn’t pay them much attention. … More Reading Shattered Seeds To See What The Future Holds
I love growing out crossed up plants and selecting what we will save for seed. Brassicas are probably my favourite plant to select. Here are some pictures of what it looked like while I was selecting one breeding population last week. The plants I was selecting are the F2 generation of a cross between Tokyo … More 5 Steps To Rogue And Select Brassica Rapas
If there is one part of seed saving I love the most, it is crossing 2 distinct varieties and unleashing a storm of diversity. I love working with the subsequent populations and seeing what happens after each generation of selection. I must admit that this love has resulted in boxes and boxes of seed envelopes … More How I Bred Rainbow Tatsoi
I’m excited to be part of a seed webinar this afternoon at 4PM Eastern. I’ll be talking about how we approach selecting seed plants on our farm. I’ve got some pictures lined up! If you’re interested in listening in all the details are below. (Or you can just register here: http://rsvp.momentumconferencing.com/RSVP/event/1243) There is no … More Seed Webinar today
Seven or eight years ago I planted some Bulgarian Carrot Hot Pepper seeds from Fedco. Most of the plants had elongated orange fruit similar to Cayenne peppers but with more flesh. One plant was covered with fruit that were round and squat though equally orange and spicy. This rogue pepper plant was likely due to … More Selecting/Breeding Hot Peppers
Seed quality was one of the big topics at USC Canada’s Train the Seed Trainer sessions. All the participants had a lot to say on the topic. And though we had many conflicting opinions on other seed issues, we had consensus making a list of seed quality concerns. I’ve taken that list and broken it … More What Is Seed Quality?
