Tech metaphors

I've been doing a dive into open-source seeds, modern landrace creation and grexes, and deliberate crafting of locally-adapted species. This is definitely my kind of thing: my land philosophy sits comfortably in the "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks/the land is your partner in selection/change the genetics to suit the land and not the land to suit the genetics/lots of different locally-adapted cultivars" space that a lot of these experiments live in.

I definitely have a direction to take my tomato trials next year: whatever produces this year, plus some of the multicultivar groups. Seems like one of the holy grails of this style of tomato breeding is to get tomatoes that cross-pollinate easily rather than self-pollinating. There are a couple varieties that do this (the specific flower architecture is recessive) and if I pull one of those in with my survivors from this year, then at the end of next year I should have some crosses, and some of those will be heterozygous for the cross-pollination flower architecture but won't display it, plus have a bunch of my survivor tomato traits. Those will self-pollinate, and about a quarter of them should be cross-pollinators with a bunch of my incorporated trailts.

So that's a bit of a direction, which is nice.

It means I really want a tunnel greenhouse, though. I mean, for other reasons too: birds in winter, snow-free area for hay storage, not dealing with these weird last frosts, etc. The cheapest I can find that'll handle snowload is ~$3500, which would be manageable but not this year.

Anyhow, for next year when buying seeds: wild mountain seeds and the experimental farm network, and maybe lofthouse if he's selling them. They're a bunch of high-altitude, cold-night breeders of squash and tomatoes who release biodiverse sets of seeds that can hopefully adapt to what's going on up here. At least they'll have a leg up.

Tech metaphors

I've been doing a dive into open-source seeds, modern landrace creation and grexes, and deliberate crafting of locally-adapted species. This is definitely my kind of thing: my land philosophy sits comfortably in the "throw shit at the wall and see what sticks/the land is your partner in selection/change the genetics to suit the land and not the land to suit the genetics/lots of different locally-adapted cultivars" space that a lot of these experiments live in.

I definitely have a direction to take my tomato trials next year: whatever produces this year, plus some of the multicultivar groups. Seems like one of the holy grails of this style of tomato breeding is to get tomatoes that cross-pollinate easily rather than self-pollinating. There are a couple varieties that do this (the specific flower architecture is recessive) and if I pull one of those in with my survivors from this year, then at the end of next year I should have some crosses, and some of those will be heterozygous for the cross-pollination flower architecture but won't display it, plus have a bunch of my survivor tomato traits. Those will self-pollinate, and about a quarter of them should be cross-pollinators with a bunch of my incorporated trailts.

So that's a bit of a direction, which is nice.

It means I really want a tunnel greenhouse, though. I mean, for other reasons too: birds in winter, snow-free area for hay storage, not dealing with these weird last frosts, etc. The cheapest I can find that'll handle snowload is ~$3500, which would be manageable but not this year.

Anyhow, for next year when buying seeds: wild mountain seeds and the experimental farm network, and maybe lofthouse if he's selling them. They're a bunch of high-altitude, cold-night breeders of squash and tomatoes who release biodiverse sets of seeds that can hopefully adapt to what's going on up here. At least they'll have a leg up.

That's a lot of potatoes

So my ex-coworker gave me several crates of seed potatoes: amarosa, Russian purple, and pacific russet. Basically I'm using the new soil to put them in, where the berry bed and asparagus will go. So, once again I am using potatoes as groundbreakers. Even at 1' spacing in a wide bed (3-4') this is a lot of potatoes.

Once again I wish I was having a thing in the fall so folks could come help me with a pig and pick potatoes out of the ground for me. This actually, if I keep it watered and hilled, would be enough to support another person or two here calorically.

In other news the greenhouse fluid seeding carrots came up well, as I think did the parsnips, but maybe not the other outdoor carrots. Beans are up.

Asparagus has been planted in flats; if all goes well I can transplant it where the potatoes come out in the fall.

I have a bunch of harvesting to do: stinging nettles and mint for tea, lamb's quarters starting to come ready for the freezer. Also I need to string lines for the tomatoes, which are starting to flower. Believe it or not, I'm still getting squash in the ground (and it's finally warm enough).

I also need to redo the pig fence to make my neighbour happy.

But, the garden is pretty great right now. It's full of promise. It's a good feeling. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are so, so happy looking.

I've also almost got the deck done: I add a pepper or tomato here or there are I find a new bucket. It's such a huge deck that it still feels pretty empty. The purpose of plants out there is to cool the house, basically to intercept the lowering sun with foliage and add some evaporative cooling from leaves. The plants need to get a little bigger for that to work.

I cleaned out the brooder today, it had some lovely quail compost in it that I topped up the pots with. Hopefully it won't burn them.

Ooof. Warming up in here. Time to go outside.

That's a lot of potatoes

So my ex-coworker gave me several crates of seed potatoes: amarosa, Russian purple, and pacific russet. Basically I'm using the new soil to put them in, where the berry bed and asparagus will go. So, once again I am using potatoes as groundbreakers. Even at 1' spacing in a wide bed (3-4') this is a lot of potatoes.

Once again I wish I was having a thing in the fall so folks could come help me with a pig and pick potatoes out of the ground for me. This actually, if I keep it watered and hilled, would be enough to support another person or two here calorically.

In other news the greenhouse fluid seeding carrots came up well, as I think did the parsnips, but maybe not the other outdoor carrots. Beans are up.

Asparagus has been planted in flats; if all goes well I can transplant it where the potatoes come out in the fall.

I have a bunch of harvesting to do: stinging nettles and mint for tea, lamb's quarters starting to come ready for the freezer. Also I need to string lines for the tomatoes, which are starting to flower. Believe it or not, I'm still getting squash in the ground (and it's finally warm enough).

I also need to redo the pig fence to make my neighbour happy.

But, the garden is pretty great right now. It's full of promise. It's a good feeling. The tomatoes in the greenhouse are so, so happy looking.

I've also almost got the deck done: I add a pepper or tomato here or there are I find a new bucket. It's such a huge deck that it still feels pretty empty. The purpose of plants out there is to cool the house, basically to intercept the lowering sun with foliage and add some evaporative cooling from leaves. The plants need to get a little bigger for that to work.

I cleaned out the brooder today, it had some lovely quail compost in it that I topped up the pots with. Hopefully it won't burn them.

Ooof. Warming up in here. Time to go outside.