Greenstorm's Journal

I wrote this up for the short-season corn group, posting it for reference:

The crows left me some plants this spring, though not nearly as many as I planned to trial. It's been a late year, a cold spring, and I got everything planted very late in roughly mid-June, though the end of August has been warmer than is typical. Here are my thoughts so far, I haven't harvested anything yet:

Gaspe has been more-or-less reliable for me for three years now. This year the plants ended up relatively large, in the past transplanting them has stunted them, and some had as many as 4 ears that look well-shaped. It's more prone to weird hormonal things, like an ear that sticks out the top where the tassel goes, but even those were well-shaped. Planted June 10th, tassels showed up roughly July 18. I'm anticipating maturity shortly. My seed is from Great Lakes Staple Seeds, John Sherck, and Heritage Harvest Seed.

Saskatchewan rainbow is a hair taller than gaspe, and it is less than a week behind it. It also has the multi-ear form and looks happy and healthy. I'm anticipating a harvest before frost from this one. Seed from Heritage Harvest Seeds, does anyone have more information on this one?

Atomic orange & Saskatoon White are in the mid-range, maybe 5' tall. 1-2 ears per plant. Both tasseled in early August. My Saskatoon White is the only one the crows left alone; it ended up being quite densely spaced, comparatively, while the Atomic Orange was hit hard and thus very widely spaced but it did fill in some. These might squeak in to seed viability for next year but it'll be touch and go. My atomic orange was from two sources, Baker Creek and a friend in California; Saskatoon White is from Adaptive Seeds.

Painted mountain and what I understand to be selections from it, Montana Morado and Magic Manna/Starburst Manna, will squeak in under the line in most cases or at least some ears from each planting will. Starburst Manna is the earliest of the bunch, Painted Mountain is uneven as expected in such a diverse mix, Montana Morado is last and may not quite make it. My Painted Mountain was sourced from 4 locations and there was a significant difference in germination and emergence speed between all 4, then the crows ate all but two types. The Glorious Organics source came in earlier than the Sweet Rock did. Magic Manna is from Adaptive and self-saved, Starburst Manna is from Snake River seeds and self-saved, Montana Morado is from Siskiyou Seeds and I expect would have done well if planted early into cool ground.

Cascade Ruby Gold Flint (Adaptive?) is going to be just too late for me, and Open Oak Party (Adaptive) will be a hair after that.

Early Riser (Yonder Hill), New York Red and Homestead Yellow (Great Lakes Staple Seeds) are only now starting to tassel. They have maybe three weeks till frost. So, the trial weeds them out for future plantings.

It's time to begin inventorying my seeds.

Every year is another spreadsheet; I'd once thought I could have one spreadsheet for the garden and a couple columns for each year.

Then, I thought, maybe a tab for each category but still an enduring sheet (tomatoes. brassicas and greens. circubits. though non-overlapping categorization is hard).

Then, last year, one sheet for the annuals through one year, a tab per category.

Now, I start one sheet for 2022 with a tab for a simple list of carryover seeds and a simple list of incoming seeds that will no doubt be reworked into categories. We'll see how it shapes itself.

Annuals need a bunch of information: when did I buy the seed and from where? Do I plant it indoors, and if so when? When was it transplanted outside? What kind of food is it? If I plant it outdoors, when? Which garden is it going into? Am I doing any breeding work with it? When did it start producing? How many days to maturity does that make it? How much did it produce? When did it stop producing, when was it killed by frost? Did I save any seed? If I did, what are the likely parents? What was the plant growth habit? Do I want to grow it again? Was it particularly pest-susceptible?

Once I know what I have (I think I'll have at least a hundred varieties of tomatoes this year between trades, saved seed, and carryover seed) I'll need to decide what else to buy and what I'll actually put in the ground (tomatoes that didn't ripen last year will probably not be grown again, for instance).

I'd like to vacuum seal everything by planting date, so I can pop open Feb, March, and April's seeds just like that and have them all in one place.

It would be nice to sometime figure out how to organize all this in a very dry, cool place where I can access what I want, but that seems optimistic.

Meantime it's dreaming time. I'll plant a couple indoor tomato seeds and sort.

Ok, let's talk about something nicer. About corn.

Last year I grew several varieties of corn, and the ones that gave any sort of yield were Gaspe (flint) and Magic Mana / Magic Mana starburst (flour). The latter was pretty late-yielding but I suspect the seeds will sprout ok?

Lavender mandan parching corn did not do well. Cascade Ruby-Gold did not do well but it was in a bed that had a ton of aspen root which may have drunk all the water.

There's some daylength interference in corn, but for the most part I have a benchmark now. Gaspe is more-or-less the earliest known corn in the world. Something called Morden (of course: there was a Morden research station that turned out a tom of short season varieties) is maybe almost as quick as Gaspe but is basically impossible to find (it used to be maybe offered through Sherck seeds, which closed down last year). Saskatoon White (not to be confused with Saskatchewan White) is probably one of the next on the list, I should be able to get that from Adaptive Seeds. Other contenders may be Pima 60 days (ki:kam hu:n) from Native Seed Search, Alberta Clipper which may be available from Oikos when they reopen for the year, maaaaaaaybe unlikely Darwin John flint from Oikos as well, maaaaaaybe Baxter's Yellow from Sandhill, there's apparently a tiny blue early corn sold in a natural history museum(?) gift shop in the states that I might be able to track down, and I'd like to get a more robust gene pool for my Gaspe from Great Lakes Seeds.

I also have to figure out where things go. This will be contingent on which aspens I cut down to keep shade off the fields.

But, in the meantime, a sleuthing exercise to find all this stuff (and whatever I've currently missed).

Last night I started up the woodstove; it got down to -5C last night and the mud was frozen this morning for early walking. My house is warm; the pain/slowdown of joints and muscles that my mind is so good at sidestepping is gone and with it a lot of tension and unrecognised cognitive load. I still need to figure out what to do with the roof, but I have a heating system at least.

I think I've also decided on a truck. More about that when it's happened though.

Mom and my youngest brother are planning to come up this Thursday. It'll be good to have them here, though the perennial problem of where to put my brother to sleep still exists. I'm thinking of buying a folding cot to put in the pantry; he often sleeps on the sofa when he comes over but the sofa is in the kitchen/livingroom/main room and his sleep cycle is different than mine and mom's, so I'd like him to have room to be undisturbed.

My mind is a little slow right now, I just woke up from a nap and I'm enjoying the surprising mental weightlessness of my body just being able to relax. It's been awhile.

I'm also already thinking of next year's tomato trial, and next year's pepper trial. I got seeds for some peppers that survive down to a range of -2C to -15C, some are perennial on the gulf islands here. They won't overwinter here but they should tolerate much cooler temps. I'm very excited about those.

And there are a ton of little indie seed places popping up on instagram that have short-season tomatoes. I suspect I will not be growing fewer tomatoes next year than I did this year. I also wonder if these indie seed folks have always been there and I have only now discovered them, or if they're a result of the pandemic. Probably a little of each, I imagine.

I did manage to score both Lucinda, which is a silvery fir tree green-when-ripe cross I've been looking for. Plus I'm looking into microdwarfs, which I should be able to grow indoors under lights. It's fun.

I did a feed run and the next town over was full of hoarfrost today: half-inch ice spikes covered everything as water sublimated out of the damp air. Winter is here. Better bring in my hoses.

So the trial is mostly done, we had our first frost on the 15th. Things went out mostly June 10th and were planted indoors March 7th. I brought in a ton of green tomatoes. The early indeterminates Cabot, Cole, Minsk Early, Mikado Black and Katja and Taiga made up a huge % of the harvest, especially of the harvest-when-ripe-or-nearly-ripe. Leaving a fruit on the plant when it was transplanted really did slow the plant down until that fruit was ripe.

Tomatoes and notes:

Alexander B: ripened one fruit, brought in a couple more green ones, not productive.

Ambrosia Red: fairly prolific, some splitting, ripened late Aug. Grow again to test against another red cherry.

Big hill (lofthouse): several big beefsteak type tomatoes that didn't fully ripen. Brought them indoors to ripen but probably not worth growing again.

Bloody butcher: big vines, early (one of the earliest) with a gap before ripening a bunch more, medium prolific. Sprawling is annoying. Will grow again in indeterminate patch.

Cabot: one of the mid-august producers, slightly less prolific than Minsk Early but not too bad, fairly uniform fruit, not a bad flavour. Grow again against the early reliables.

Carbon: I wasn't expecting to get anything from this and found one ripe-rotten fruit under the plant in mid-Sept and several other green-ripe fruit. Oh well.

Cole: one of the mid-August producers, pretty prolific, reasonably tasty. Grow again against the early reliables.

Cherokee chocolate: big sprawly vine, nothing ripened before frost, reasonably prolific but really takes over.

Czech bush: had some of the very first fruits but didn't ripen any past that before mid-Sept.

Exserted orange: not a heavy producer but somewhat reliable, tasty fruit, early. Grow again. Also probably has some nice crossed fruits in the saved seed.

Galina: didn't start ripening until late August but very tasty yellow cherry. Reasonably productive, probably the most productive cherry. Grow again.

Glacier: another mid-august/early producer but very erratically sized fruit and not much for production. Try a couple again against the early reliables.

Gobstopper: didn't ripen before frost.

JD's special c-tex: didn't ripen before frost.

Jory: some big tomatoes just starting to whiten/blush before frost, prone to blossom end rot.

Karma miracle: started to ripen early Sept, lots of fruit that should ripen indoors so very late for a normal year but sweet and tasty. Hard to see if fruit was ripe. Grow again.

Katja: didn't do much to start, but pumped out a lot of very large slicers that ripen mid-Sept; prolific and tasty enough to try again, may need to ripen indoors on cold years. Definitely do again. Most fruits ripened indoors by Sept 18th.

Kiss the sky: one ripened and tasted amazing, kind of purple/brown/black? Not prolific. Try again for fun.

Lime green salad: Just starting to ripen in mid-Sept this year, compact dwarf plant, prolific for the space it takes up. Try again.

Longhorn: didn't ripen, made a fair amount of fruit that I brought indoors to ripen here. Not worth trying again just for season length constraints.

Manitoba: didn't ripen but lots of big green fruit that will ripen indoors. Neat looking calyx. Mediumish high productive. Grow again in the early indeterminates just to check.

Martino's roma: just starting to turn red in mid-Sept, haven't tasted it yet, maybe try again but it's probably not a keeper.

Maya and Sion's airdrie special: earliest beefsteaks but kind of shut down after that, I was impressed with this last year but barely got anything this year. Maybe try again? Compact indeterminate.

Mikado black: early (late Aug), beautiful, tasty, plant so many of these next year.

Minsk early: productive, early (early Aug), not the greatest taste but ok. Plant lots of these.

Native sun: started ripening early to mid Sept but has done better in the past, was mild then. A fair quantity of fruit to ripen indoors. Try again.

Northern ruby paste: pretty productive but not ripened by frost, brought indoors to ripen. Try again next year.

Old italian pink: a fair number of green fruit on the patio. I just like this one and want it to work but it didn't ripen anything before frost.

Ron's carbon copy: ripened a handful of cherry tomatoes but they were really good. Probably sad to discard or for breeding work? Looked like it would have been more prolific with just a little more time. I did bring in a bunch to ripen and there were some just turning. Try again next year.

Silvery fir tree: big producer, started ripening early Sept but the bulk is coming in green in mid-Sept. I'll always grow this one. It's just pretty.

Sugary pounder: huge tomatoes, didn't ripen by Sept 15 but may ripen indoors.

Stupice: fairly compact indeterminate plant produced a couple clusters of ripe/blushing/white fruit before frost even when planted late. Grow again with indeterminates.

Taiga: ripened or near-ripened 5 big hearts per plant, grow again, tasty and not super productive but relatively compact and very early for a gorgeous bicolour. Definite grow-again.

Store green cherry: we know I love this tomato. A little sprawly, crunchy, sweet-but-good, ripened a bunch fairly early on (mid-late Aug?). Will continue to grow.

Sweet apertif: it ripened some, it's tasty, but it's not prolific. A little sprawly.

Sweet cheriette: not as early as I thought unless it was in a pot indoors, but prolific and very good for patio growing. Fairly determinate indoors. Will grow to the size of container. Tasty. Very small fruit.

Alpharora: didn't ripen but did blush before frost, was planted late, set a couple fruit. Part of the citizen seed trial project.

Uralskiy ranniy: this one may have got mixed up with some others, I think it ripened some. Grow again.

Van Wert Ohio: super bushy, just very lush indeterminate bush of tons of foliage. Started to ripen by frost, not tasted yet. Grow again. It just has so many more leaves than other tomato plants.

Violet noir: I didn't have a sign for this one, did I even plant it?

Wildling polyamorous needs its own post.

Siberian: This ripened well and set lots of fruit but is a bit sprawly indeterminate. Grow again.

Rozovaya bella: first black to ripen, had a ton of weird crazing/russetting on the surface, not sure what's up with that? Waiting on the second flush for serious tasting. I liked this a lot last year and it ripened so it's in for next year.