Thread: In the Garden 2018

French green beans and bhut jalokia chilis are coming along nicely!
The hard neck garlic is almost done! If I remember correctly the variety is called music.

Sprayed weed killer in a area of the garden, then planted three rows of bush beans, last Friday.



The seed was from the six plants that came up last year.
They weren't going to produce enough for consumption, but more than enough for seeding this year.

By far the fastest growing beans I've ever planted to date.
This pic is three days after planting, you can see three breaking ground, one still has the shell stuck to it. ( left )

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This pic is today, day six.

Were the original plants an heirloom or a hybrid?

I believe they were heirloom, but I really don't know for sure. I can tell u that this would be the 3rd generation, from the original seed, a blue lake variety from this area, that's all I know. I could always send ya some, got bush or stringless pole beans. The pole beans are at least 7th generation. They were called Kentucky wonder, when I bought them originally.

The one thing I can tell you is, the original bush beans were reddish brown w/ mottled black markings, now their tan n black.



The pole beans were a dark, rusty red. Some still retain their color, but most have lightened quite a bit.

My younger brother went to college and got a degree in agriculture and made a career with a company called McGregors. He tells me that if you plant seeds from a Hybrid one of several things will happen.

A. It won't grow

B. A plant will sprout and grow but no fruit/veggie will form.

C. The plant sprouts and grows but the plant/fruit/veggie will be from one of the parent plants.

I had 'C' happen when I had some green leaf lettuce bolt due to the weather turning quite hot. I just took an old lawnmower and hacked the things down. However about two weeks later I had lettuce growing. It actually made the winter! In the spring we had green leaf lettuce but it was very dark green (more of a Romaine Lettuce color) and the flavor was much more intense than the parent plant.

Haven't had any problems like that. Same for my tomatoes ( cherry ). I let it rot in the garden, rototill in the spring, whamo.! I get to pick the lucky winner..kill the rest. Been doing that with that plant for I think, five years.
Super sweet 100s is what its called.


From last year, one plant. Covered an area of about 50 square feet.

I had Roma Tomatoes do that one year. I couldn't tell if they were any different from what I'd planted the year before but if memory serves they were a bit smaller but still very flavorful and mom and dad loved them for canning. I had far too many for my family to use just for the table and the wife wasn't into canning/but mom and dad were.

I think one of the things that is worked on when Hy-breeding is to install disease resistance and some of that might be lost when a hybrid's seeds are planted. But I'm not sure.

As long as the seeds keep giving you great produce let 'em go.

Nice outback! Super sweet 100's are one of my favorites! Those and sungold are my favorite cherrys. I have tried well over 50 varieties and super sweet 100's are hard to beat. Heavy yields and tasty little tomotoes are your reward. Sweet!

Originally Posted by Toroblanco

Nice outback! Super sweet 100's are one of my favorites! Those and sungold are my favorite cherrys. I have tried well over 50 varieties and super sweet 100's are hard to beat. Heavy yields and tasty little tomotoes are your reward. Sweet!

I just pull up a lawn chair and a bottle of ranch dressing, once their ripe. I can never keep up with it, being how much it produces, and how fast. Most were a bit bigger than a golf ball. I fed it two raccoons and a skunk, last year. Harr.!!

I'd posted that I'd sent a bunch of strawberries home with my daughter and the two grand kids (they had done the picking)

She called and asked that since she was low on funds to drive to my place if I could pick berries, stem them, rinse then, then prep them for freezing she'd really appreciate it as she'd like to make jam with them.

I told her 'sure' but I'd damn well better get some of the jam since I was doing the 'on the knees' work.

Last night I picked 2.75 lbs of berries but I also tossed about a pound due to being over ripe or bug eaten. The good ones I picked were frozen in a single layer and are now in a gallon ziplock bag in the freezer.

I just thought that I'd show something that hasn't happened before and that is the wide range of the sizes of the berries. I don't know 'why' the huge difference in the sizes---but even the mini ones taste good.