Washingtonians

[Cowgirlgrace]

I called flip flop thongs too.

I tried Brandywine one year. Ripened a few but seems not many heirloom tomatoes are very productive and very few are short season. Sure were yummy though. I reserve my space in the greenhouse for the heirlooms. Most my other tomatoes are short season grown outside.

I grow a combination of heirloom and hybrid veggies. True, you can't save seed from hybrids but they do have their pluses like being able to germinate in cold ground or disease resistance, growing in cold wet weather when an heirloom just won't survive, and productivity, yield. Some hybrids are developed for holding up to handling and to ship long distances but are flavorless etc but there are lots of other reasons hybrids are developed, they are not a bad thing. If it's something like a pepper that an heirloom usually needs the long hot dry summer but a hybrid bred for cool short season areas allows us to grow them successfully. And they don't usually breed out the flavor in hybrids, only commercial supermarket varieties!

Illia, I have had seed for that Oxacan corn for a few years but never planted it. Too hard to keep it isolated from the sweet corn. Need to find an out of the way place to put it but then I would have to haul water to it too! Also need to get a grinder. Do you have one? what do you use? I checked on a few and they were really expensive.

 

[jbear]

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I get about 5 hours of sun total here. We are getting ready to take down some cottonwood trees though that are blocking the sun to the garden AND I swear, gonna fall on the house any windstorm. That should help, so I am actually pretty excited to start the garden this year, once those trees are down. We DID have like a two week period of very hot weather, which accounted for our 'summer' last year... we were gone during that whole time, and the person housesitting didin't water the 'maters well... they shocked and were set back pretty hard on fruiting. I can only find Brandywines mail order around here.. I keep looking at the local expensive greenhouse and have yet to find them. I might try them from seed and start them NOW.

I believe my dad's seeds are Brandywines-originally. I think my parents did some cross pollinating and now have a tomato that produces really well in their garden... neat huh?

I am curious to know how your grains do..



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True but if ya keep yer eyes open it yeilds many treasures too.

TRUE!! I always lose my tank vent hose... ALWAYS find another one.

AND i found my favorite riding shirt--an Answer long sleeve one, in the sand. Dune Treasure! lol! I have not seen mature green tomatoes. I will keep an eye out though

glad your trip to Portland was a success

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good point!!

 

[jbear]

Cowgirl--did you want any of that starter?? I have some in the freezer, and I need to divide up what's in The Jar as well.... I will have a lot of extra here shortly

 

[Ogress]

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Can you run it through an old hand-crank coffee mill? I have several old mills that I bought on eBay for next to nothing, and I grind everything that will fit through them.

 

[DIYSeattle]

Hybrid seeds dont produce tue to type fully, there may be some that are close there may not be, its a free for all. Most wont have the properties youa re looking for. However if you take two varieties you lik ethe properties of and cross them and plant those seeds you can start looking for the plants that you want through selective breeding and isolate them.

I do not know how to isolate corn but Im sure there is a way to do it. Someone was telling me once that they planted several kids of corn but I dont remember what they did.

I am working on this kind of setup at the moment. Im halfway finished. I was growing peppers and tomatoes year round but I moved things around and the old setup was hodgepodge and took up too much room. It doesnt take long to strt over though as it grows really fast in hydroponic setups. Tomatoes and peppers bear for a year or more, its the cold that kills them here in North America.

 

[Chickielady]

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As a kid I called flip flops thongs. This is before I knew about the other type of thong.

In California in the 60s they were called 'Zories".

I got almost all my seed:

From Totally Tomatoes:
00678a...... tomato stupice
00768a.......... tomato tigerella (these look great ! Fast and indeterminate both of them!)
02109a .......cucumber early burpless
02175a....... cucumber sweeter yet
02359a ......basil aristotle herb seed
02722a.... candy onion seed
03586a .......sunny delight paddy pan


I also have seed from 2 other places, including a pack of candy onion plants and a pack of Italian torpedoe onion plants
sweet meats squash, knob goblin warty pumpkins and regular jack o lanterns, and yellow roma pole beans to go with my saved seed from my champion Pacific county fair green roma pole beans !!

We gotta go look at a house for Cheryl, be back soon~

 

[hallerlake]

She's back east. I've no business getting eggs, but brabanters are just so cool. I probably won't buy them. I'm just teasing myself.



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where is this person located at ? I just avoid far away egg sales...
There is always someone closer, and I believe buying local is A-OK anyways...

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

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Oh ,sorry, meant to get back to you. Was going to go back to the original post but was way back. Well, I realized it wasn't Amish Friendship cake. I have one recipe that is called just Friendship cake and the other called Moonshine Cake, both identical recipes and you use a starter JUICE. Thats why I thought it was so different than a sour dough starter. It's a yummy cake made in a bundt pan with fruit in it, pineapple, peaches, cherries (so not like fruit cake, yuk) with cake mix and vanilla pudding. Got to figure out how to do that fruit starter though. Thanks, appreciate the offer though. Maybe if I can find a starter for this cake I can get it to you.

 

[Cowgirlgrace]

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Can you run it through an old hand-crank coffee mill? I have several old mills that I bought on eBay for next to nothing, and I grind everything that will fit through them.

I don't have one of those but if it would work I'd be worth a try. It would have to grind it like corn meal and would be nice if it also ground grains into flour. I have one of those big commercial coffe grinders they have at the coffee beans in the grocery to grind flax in for horses. Cost a bunch of money and not sure if I want to try corn in it in case it messes it up. The dried corn is so hard.

 

[hallerlake]

That green corn is really cool looking. I was looking at some very ornamental quinoa seeds the other day. They sound like they should do well here. Unlike a lot of stuff, they don't like hot summers.



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