Seed Conspiracies
I started believing conspiracy theories in the early 2000s. Twenty years ago I discovered Linux. As a public school technology teacher I quickly recognized the hoards of educational applications in server systems and software packages. And it was all free to download. What more could a school want? Great educational tools that didn't cost anything. And the students could also download them at no cost.
The long greedy arm of Microsoft was far more powerful than I imagined. Microsoft and other propriety software companies paid for the technology conferences. Eventually a Gateway sales rep told me, "we can't put Linux operating systems on our computers because then Microsoft will charge us more for Windows."
Monopolies. Conspiracies. Greed.
This past year I have started to think more about Big Ag and seed conspiracies. Probably not all is conspiratorial, some is just public laziness. It started last spring when I went into our local Tractor Supply store to view their selection of shrubs and small trees. They were bare root plants that came in colorful boxes and were really inexpensive. If you could get them to grow, it would be a bargain. Looking over their selection I realized that most of their plants would not grow in the local alkaline soil. I chose 3 figs trees and 3 blackberry bushes. The figs and one blackberry went on to do very well. I knew better than to plant the blueberries, raspberries, peonies, wisteria, etc. that need acidic soil. The larger percentage of their offerings would not grow locally, so why were they selling them?
In November I became enlightened about the fact that we need to grow short day onions in Texas for them to bulb out and become huge. So last week when I noticed Tractor Supply had onion sets for sale, I checked the varieties. None of them are short day onions. None of them are appropriate for our growing season.
Last year I discovered Italian cucuzza squash as did others who blog here. Wow. They are delicious and prolific. Why had I never heard about them before? Why don't they sell cucuzza seed at the big box and local farm stores? Laura, SchoolForge friend, NowThePathForward teacher, avid gardening and former Fort Worth resident told me that yard long green beans and peanuts grow well in this area. Why can't we buy yard long bean and peanut seed locally? What other vegetables should we be growing here?
This weekend I went to my seed collection and sorted out the traditional seeds that I have never gotten to grow here. I took out all of my green bean seeds. About ten years ago I had a good crop of green beans in a highly amended small garden that got afternoon sun. Remembering back to those days, I planted a variety of Italian green beans that I have never found again. Even in round bales and raised beds, my green beans have provided a few meals but were always small mean looking things. Cucumbers and zucchini never do well so I ditched them too. Cucuzza replaces them.
This year I am researching and plan to try veggie seeds I cannot purchase here.
We know that Big Ag has a serious seed conspiracy going on. They want to replace all seeds everywhere with their patented seeds. They want to collect royalties.
Here is evidence from the http://rareseeds.com catalog:
Bateekh Samara Melon
95 days. Oblong fruits are brownish-green and netted outside, lime green within. In our trials the flavor was an unusual, a very delicious, sweet-tart combination with a distinct citrus taste. The name simply means “old melon from Samarra,” which is a city in northern Iraq. Original seed was furnished by our friend, Iraqi seed collector Nael Aziz, who writes that this variety is known to have been grown in the Abbasid Period over one thousand years ago! Endangered due to war and America’s aggressive promotion of patented seeds in Iraq.
This is a plague wrecking havoc on the planet. We hear about it in India and Africa. GMO and patented seeds replacing the indigenous open pollinated crops. I am horrified when I hear about Big Ag suing farmers for saving their seeds.
This is what I want to know. How deep is this conspiracy embedded into our daily lives? Of course we have all grown complacent in gardening since it is just so easy to go to the store. How much of it is planned? Is some evil big brother promoting seeds and plants that do not grow well here, so we will all give up every year?
I watched all of the square foot gardening videos that StudentofEarth posted recently. An interesting point that it's founder, Mel Bartholomew, made was that it was the Department of Agriculture that promoted traditional row gardening = which made many despair mid-summer due to weeds and management difficulties.
This year I am starting to move to Ancient and Asian vegetable species. Thanks to Lookout for the link to http://southernexchange.com. That will be a source. Also http://rareseeds.com. And I will use the evil Amazon because I can find Asian seeds there. Also looking for local tips everywhere I can find them. The checkout clerk at the local Dollar General store says she starts her black-eyed pea seeds in June and plants them out in August with great success. Now that is my plan for a whole array of dried beans and peas.
I will try these:
- Jicama or Yam Bean
- Costoluto Genovese Tomato
- Solar Flare Tomato
- Jubilee Watermelon
- Mammoth Red Mangel Beet
- Armenian Cucumber
- Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry
- Dwarf Tamarillo
- Mango Melon (Vine Peach)
- Bateekh Samara Melon
- Boston Marrow Squash
- Jumbo Pink Banana Squash
- Green Giant Tomato
- Hungarian Heart Tomato
- Butternut-Orange Squash
- Kaho Watermelon
Hope to find comments and suggestions below. Thanks!
Comments
I always use heirloom seeds,
some of which I buy directly from the Amish. Stuff I've found on-line include the Black Krim tomato (amazing, and now popular in France), French radishes, and ME snake cucumbers.
"Obama promised transparency, but Assange is the one who brought it."
Thanks for the recommendations!
I will definitely check these out! Thanks!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Linux
That's still the rub: you still have to Linuxize the computer yourself.
But, IMHO at least, it's worth it!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
I agree
Absolutely worth it and so easy to do. Boot the install from a flashdrive now.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Booting Linux on windoze
I used a live distro (the jargon's coming back) of Linux on a cd and booted from the key combo that let's you switch primary drives during the boot process, intended as a service/repair operation. Very simple, once you have the external medium with Linux. Linux will build dedicated application space on the internal hard drive as a file, not a partition, IIRC. Interrupts the boot process and sends it to the Linux disk or thumb or whatever. Or has the standard BIOS been modified to prevent that now?
Not as flexible as a dual boot, but lets you run Linux without burning out (destroying? defecating?) windoze. I'm talking from old, possibly obsolete, probably faulty, memory here.
I used to do that with Knoppix
I used to do that too. I would imagine there are still live DVDs with that feature but have not tried it for a while.
One beautiful thing about having live DVDs on hand was that I never had computers in the lab that were completely down. Pop in a live DVD and it's working again.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Great post!
You've inspired me to start planning the veggie garden. I've grown Constoluto Genevese for the last three years here in Southern California. They're very productive and taste wonderful. Have also done well with Nebraska Wedding. Maybe I'll try Solar Flare this year too -- and some of your other choices.
Big Ag is a monster, but probably not worse than Microsoft. I used to live in the Pacific Northwest (acidic soil) before I moved here (alkaline). Most nurseries in both places would push stuff that would NEVER grow locally.
Emmet
Glad to hear you have tried them
Glad to hear you have tried Constoluto Genevese. I chose them just because the catalog made them sound good. Will check out Nebraska Wedding too!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Good, 2 topics, seeds and linux!
I buy a lot from rareseeds.com. They will give growing tips, and throw in free seed samples with the order. That's how I grew Black Vernissage tomatoes last year: free sample, larger than cherries, green stripes, dark flesh, very tasty - my most popular giveaways. Although I've successfully grown seeds from hybrid veggies, heirloom is the way to go. Keep those strains alive. We need crop gene diversity.
I suggest visiting a local farmer's market and buying heirloom seeded vegetables which have grown locally. That means they're proven to the ecotone. That's how I started growing the striped roma tomatoes (tough, pretty, delicious) I describe in another comment: I bought a couple at a market and saved the seeds, and I've been growing that strain for years now. Got hundreds of pounds of tomatoes from those couple starters. Save seeds from heirloom veggies and grow them.
Ah, Linux. The only real problem is that there were over 600 versions last time I checked, makes it a little confusing. I worked on UNIX systems, so I got used to the interface and commands. Very powerful, and lean. I used Puppy Linux booted from a cd, a stripped-down but fully functional version of Linux. Since the OS is on a read-only medium, it can't be attacked or corrupted. I ran it on an ancient windoze laptop that can barely boot WinXP, it's so slow. Running Puppy Linux even from a slow cd drive was like lightning compared to running windoze from the hard drive, and that's with the graphic interface and Open Office installed. Windoze is an overburdened, overbuilt, overhyped piece of unsecure garbage. And if you don't believe me, I'll tell you what I really think (grin).
BTW, booting a windoze box from a linux cd lets one go into the windoze files and change the password. Very secure system, there.
Good essay!
Glad to find a rareseeds.com user
I ran across Rare Seeds when searching for yam seed. Once again, it is great to discover that someone else here uses them. Those Black Vernissage tomatoes sound yummy.
600 distros. That is part of what I love about Linux. When I was teaching, I used several live CD/DVDs often. That way I could go into a windoze lab and boot to Linux. Knoppix was the best of those, but my favorite was Musix, which specialized in music, graphics, and multimedia apps (music teacher stuff). And at the end used a live CD version of Sugar OS, the little kid friendly os that went on the One Laptop Per Child machines. I even found a live DVD OS that helped me build a render farm. All of it so cool and far beyond what anyone else was doing in technology.
Not sure that I ever did anything with Puppy Linux, but knew of it's reputation for being lean and fast.
Thanks for the info!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Baker Creek and puppy
I wrote to Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) (beautiful print catalog, btw) with some questions. They sent me voluminous material on growing peppers, and pointed me to disease-resistant tomatoes, talked about soil amendments, and discussed how to fight squash vine borers. I love the freebies. Not always what I want to grow, but it's a great idea: give samples and get reaction. They gave me both Green and Black Vernissage maters. The greens -- kinda blah. The blacks -- beautiful and delicious, tho small. I go for low-maintenance crops, too much back pain for constant attention and work. Gotta pay helpers for tilling, etc. For example, I love Cherokee Purples, but they need daily tlc to keep going.
Yes, Linux has diversified into an amazing number of niches in the OS ecosystem. I used the Puppy Linux box for telework, but the PL cd turned an obsolete piece of hardware junk into a perfectly adequate general purpose computer. I was very impressed at how it can be used to extend the life of old hardware, saving money and reducing e-waste. One of these days I'll install some form of Linux on my ~20 year old G3 Mac and get another ten years out of it. Right now I'm too lazy to fool with it much, so I just use OSX, which has UNIX at the core. But it's ridiculous that Linux isn't a dominant player in the OS game of scones. Tells you a lot about class whore-fare right there, and I ain't talkin' music class (grin). (I have a habit of strategically misspelling key words as a form of sammies-dot, to fog the Yenisei.)
I want to plug again the idea of saving seed from veggies at local farmers markets. This tells you that you get heirloom varieties that do well in your soil/latitude/climate regime, since it was grown locally on a commercial scale. It's worked for me.
Good to hear from you, maybe you can spare some time to teach more about the current state of Linux. Maybe another essay?
Definitely want to use your farmer's ...
...market idea!
There is a small local farmers market but I have never attended. I'll be surprised if I find anyone doing anything interesting or creative, but shouldn't judge it til I see it. Definitely want to learn to save seeds! Thanks!
I should see if I can get Laura from nowthepathforward.us to write a Linux state of the union essay. She is still in the business and completely up on what is going on.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
This would be great!
what about veggie triggers for No-class Snoopy Assholes?
I seem to recall that to ma toes are on the list of 'trigger words'...
Edit: we are, of course, all being watched and all of us here will be on countless lists among various repressive groups. Silly buggers... guess it's all good (public) money for those at the top of this, paid by the victims of this.
Hell, just now had a weird phone call on a slightly crackly line, I said 'hello' twice, got a funny fax-ish-style beep, said 'hello' again and had a computerized voice say, 'goodbye', with the 'bye' part kinda stretched out and inflicted rather oddly. WTF? Kinda wondering if anyone's collecting voice-prints from innocuous internet commenters and snickering about it; wouldn't surprise me. Nothing would.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I've had calls like that
over the past few years. I think it's just faulty robocalls, there have to be flaws in such a massive effort by low-skill perps.
Turnip, you hear me? I said TURNIP! (that'll git 'em) (grin)
Heh, as soon as that trigger list got published some years ago, I was getting lots of emails containing the full list.
Yeah, probably futile to try to confuse the Yen Issei, with all their resources, but the more smoke the better. Keep adding processor cycles to the overhead. I refuse to surrender _all_ of my privacy.
Wonder how much of that will get privatized? Hi, Eric!
Seriously, for many years now I've worried about privatized power (yeah, mercs). Deniability! Rules of engaugement (none). Etc. Shades of Pinkertons. If there's anything that the shreds of democracy we have left can do, limiting their power would be a good use of the machinery.
The lists are insane, I couldn't possibly remember them all
Lol, turnip's on there? They probably figure we're all just fallen off a truck-full or something and believe it to be a secret signal among ebil organic farmers and the like.
Yeah, anything you can do to confuse the issue is a good thing. All this urge to snoop and micromanage people is so very rude, sick and creepy in itself... people have told me very personal and hurtful things on the internet which were not intended to be heard and perhaps mocked by others...
Well, one highly active solar flare period or EMP burst of any kind might knock all that out for some time; dunno what we'd do without internet, but we could certainly do without the snooping!
No, I've had screwy robo-calls before too. This one was weird - and so was the call I got from a human shortly after. This person asked for some unfamiliar name and I said sorry, you have the wrong number, but instead of saying 'sorry' and hanging up, he asks me if I'm sure, sounding almost rather like a thuggish cop questioning somebody questionable - as though I might not have noticed some stranger with an unknown name moving in, lol. So I explain that, yes, I'm sure, and he won't take reality for an answer. He repeats the name and starts spelling it, (as though this would magically call this guy up, like Beetlejuice,) I explain again that I don't think I've ever even heard that name before and he rattles off a postal code, province, city and the address, saying isn't that where I was - but if he'd got the number through the phone registry using the address, he'd have seen my roommate's name and he wasn't asking for her, thank goodness. Very weird person and I felt that he was trying to intimidate me.
But he was still sure that guy must be here; I explained that I had no way of knowing who might have lived there before, as the house was a rental and he said "I'm aware of that," and his whole voice changed when he said that, dropped a slight accent he'd been using, voice clarified and dropped in tone a bit and came through quite differently for that one phrase, but he was still insistent that this person must be here and he was still talking after I'd repeated that that person doesn't live here and I have no idea who it might be and as I hung up the phone. We moved in last summer, for Pete's sake... but out of suburbia into a bad area, although people on our block seem nice. So who knows what kind of problems a previous tenant might have had - or been, although that seems to be rather a delayed response to whatever issue.
But after that call, I also started wondering about the astounding number of calls we'd been getting, purportedly from another internet provider,(although now I'm wondering) offering all kinds of deals, even to buy out my roommate's existing 2-year contract, just sounding desperate and unlike anything I've ever heard before from a business. I could see a few repeats if the company's having a hard time, but this was absolutely nuts, and every time I explained that my roommate couldn't change over for a couple of years, so you'd expect that some provision would be made to avoid wasting time on fruitless repeat calls at some point, although I haven't had any for a bit now.
So now I'm kinda wondering if someone who used to live here, or who randomly gave an moving-to address that turned out to be ours, owes money to some drug dealer somewhere or something (why use a postal code, if this guy was in the area?) who figures they're in hiding here, because why on Earth would anyone expect that anyone would pretend that they'd never even heard of someone if they actually were living there? But there definitely is something weird going on, and all I can do is to amuse myself guessing and hope I never have to find out, lol.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
wow, weird offensive call
I've had some similar (tho not so aggressive) calls from what I think are bill collectors, over many years and at various locations. If someone had that phone number in the past, the repo men or creditors will have it and try it. They can also use a cross-index with address. Up to 10+ years later, I've had people call looking for the previous occupant, who was a real deadbeat. Heh, people chasing money are not inclined to be nice.
I was just being absurd with "TURNIP!" (grin).
Interesting essay, thanks for sharing.
Just visited my brother with the green thumb and his onions not done well. Will have to let him know what you found.
We are on the move traveling so much of the year that the best we can manage when we are home is jakkalbessie growing sprouts on the kitchen counter near a window from seeds. Great addition to salads and on avo sandwiches!
OT but saw this:
A truth of the nuclear age/climate change: we can no longer have endless war and survive on this planet. Oh sh*t.
I want to learn about sprouts
I would love to learn how to do sprouts! Wishing you well on your travels!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Turns out there are helpful gadgets for sprouting
My father had a green translucent plastic thing with several levels for different varieties of sprouts, where you just added water and left them on a counter or wherever to sprout, covered so that no greens-seeking cats (or fruit-flies) could get into them. If you can find something like that, that sucker was really handy.
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
Cool . . . I will look for one of those
Thanks for the tip. Sounds good. Anything to make it easy!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
MS told Dell if you sell Linux boxes, no Windows licenses
Windows 10 makes installing Linux very difficult; though supposedly the features that make it difficult make it easier for network admins. So they say.
WinDoze 10
That's crap.
If you're willing to just trash WinDoze outright and run a nice, clean all-Linux box, it's no harder to do than if WinDoze wasn't there.
You may need to go into the BIOS and disable "Secure Boot" (a BIOS feature which won't let the system boot up without a "Mother, may I?" from Microsoft) and you may have to set your BIOS up as a fully conventional BIOS rather than a UEFI one. Also, you'll need to set your Linux installation medium as the first boot device.
Once these items are done, Linux should install without difficulties.
OTOH, if you're talking about dual-booting with WinDoze, especially 10 and after, you're spot on the money. Microsoft seems to be a jealous god......
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Thanks. Installed on Win7 which was very easy
I would gladly buy a dual boot system from a vendor rather than just windows.
Even dual-booting works just fine.
Just installed CentOS a couple weeks ago next to Win10.
Will have to check that out!
Never played with CentOS. I'll have to check it out! Thanks.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
dual-booting
Thank you for that tidbit! As I've not used Windows in roughly a decade, this is great to know!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
School districts required me to set up a dual boot system
Unfortunately. Early on it was pretty easy to do, but at one point it became more difficult. When resizing the partition to create a new partition for Linux, the original partition refused to resize properly. I messed with it and forced it, but it was a pain in the ass. That was near the end of my teaching years. Now of course I just reformat the partition and eradicate fucking windoze on my personal computers.
(I can freely say fucking since I am no longer a public school teacher.)
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
eradicate windoze
hee hee hee!
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
Yes . . . they did that to all the hardware folks
Dell, HP, Gateway were all given that ultimatum.
I appreciate the philanthropy of the Gates Foundation, but find it hard to forgive the billions school districts wasted on windoze. (Although some of the motivations of the philanthropy appear to be suspect as well. Mixed feelings there.)
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Then there's the
billions of hours wasted trying to learn simple operations in their bloated software. I had spreadsheets and word processors that did everything you'd need that ran fine when the 128k computer was the hot thing.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
It is certain
that MS has a department with the task of reviewing any software for having an intuitive interface. They quash that instantly.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
LOL
Absolutely = bloated software!
IMO Gnumeric is the best spreadsheet and I use Lyx for all documents.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Bloatware
I miss MacPaint, MacDraw and clarisworks. MacDraw did great, simple vector graphics; I can't find anything comparable now. I drew circuit schematics and flow charts quickly and simply, just kept a file with a library of symbols to cut and paste. I never used 1/10 of the features in M$ Office -- I think they kept adding them to break old file formats and make you buy new stuff.
Gates is not a philanthropist, imo, but a spreader of Monsanto
He's in on the spreading of GMO bullshit the world over. If he were a real philanthropist, he'd give away real seeds to needy farmers in 3rd world nations, not require them to sign their lives away in order to get "help". He's as evil as Monsanto, and unless he sold the 500,000 shares he owned when the following article was written, he's part of the seed conspiracy. He makes my stomach churn!
https://usrtk.org/gmo/what-bill-gates-isnt-saying-about-gmos/
Sorry, I just had to say that. I can't stand the man, or his foundation. He and Killery should be best buds. Both are disgusting.
Love the essay, though.
When I was a kid, way up in Lubbock, we grew all kinds of squash, including zucchini, several types of tomatoes, corn, okra (my fave!), green beans, black eyed peas, cantaloupe, watermelon. It was sandy.
Down here in Southeast Texas, just last year, I threw a zucchini out the back door one day because it was going bad. Then, I realized I had a couple small plants. Was going to just leave them there, but it rained and flooded a bit. The water stayed standing for a few days, so I donned my mud boots, took a big serving spoon (I have no gardening tools), sloshed back there, and dug them out. My brother told me about the squash vine borers, which we never had when I was a kid, that I know of, but that was a long time ago. I ended up taking the plants to him, but the borers got them. He's into saving seeds, and everything organic. He has an urban garden in Houston. There are nematodes that eat the borers if you get to the plant before the borers do, to lay their eggs.
Anyway, I really like your essays!
Is part of a conspiracy, using American's resources.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ap-monsanto-strong-arms-seed-industry/
From 2010:
http://sierrapermaculture.com/?p=129
https://www.permaculture.co.uk/articles/monsanto-buys-heirloom-seed-supp...
Still find it as hard reading of these crimes against humanity and the environment as it ever was; this following demonstrates the horrors of the fascism imposed on Iraq.
http://mnchange.org/monsanto
Psychopathy is not a political position, whether labeled 'conservatism', 'centrism' or 'left'.
A tin labeled 'coffee' may be a can of worms or pathology identified by a lack of empathy/willingness to harm others to achieve personal desires.
I love Baker Creek, AKA rareseeds.com.
They are in Missouri, so have more seeds for Southern gardeners than for us northerners, but I do usually buy some things from them. Cukes are hard to grow, I have found. They need shaded roots, sun and air for the vines and plenty of water. I have had some success planting them with sunflowers.
For Texas, look for long maturity dates, 80-95 days, for tomatoes. You can also grow good peppers.
My favorite summer squash is Ronde de Nice---fancy name means nothing more than Round from Nice--which has excellent flavor, IMHO, but is not productive enough for market growers.
Any sort of melon ought to do for you. You could try a watermelon and a canteloup, which are different species, and still be able to save seeds.
Of course there is a conspiracy, or rather a long term business plan, for corporate control of the world's food supply, the object being to force farmers to buy their proprietary seeds for which the farmers have to use their proprietary fertilizers and pesticides. The nursery issue is sheer laziness, nursery owners buy wholesale from a limited number of dealers, Monrovia is one, who offer a limited number of plants. I no longer buy plants from big boxes or non-organic nurseries because of their use of the dangerous pesticides which are implicated in bee deaths.
Mary Bennett
Thanks for the info!
Thanks for this squash recommendation:
Wouldn't it be fun to go to a Baker Creek Festival?
Or maybe go to the National Heirloom Exposition in California.
And I think you are correct =
In this area everything comes from Bonnie's Plants. They are allied with or owned by the Miracle Grow people now. Yes . . . the big box stores are all just lazy mostly. Sadly, this morning I discovered that my favorite farm store in Athens, TX is out of business. They got their plants from a local guy. The store was owned by her parents and it appears it is being sold now as part of an estate. However, not all is lost because there is a small greenhouse near me that I just discovered last year. It is literally at the end of a gravel road many miles from the nearest town. They had common plants but some unusual varieties. Hillbilly Tomatoes is an example.
Thanks for commenting!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Don't talk to me about Bonnie's Plants.
A few years back, New York State gardens were infected with deadly late blight. Come to find out, the blight spores arrived on wholesale nursery stock, courtesy of Bonnie's Plants. Fortunately for us, a good hard winter freeze killed the spores. Tomatoes are super easy to start from seed outside. Start anytime now as soon as the winter storms are over and since your growing season is so long you should get a good crop. Start and grow them outside so you don't have to spend on grow lights and such and mess with acclimatizing. One good windstorm will knock out all the plants you spent time and money on starting inside. That is the voice of sad experience speaking.
In NYstate, the extension offices are operated by Cornell University. They sponsor plant festivals all over the state in spring, where I can find a much better selection of plants than the boxes have. Maybe Texas A&M does something similar?
I went to one of the Baker Creek festivals when they were having them in Connecticut, it was lots of fun. I got to hear William Voys Weaver, whom I greatly admire. Missouri is a little far for me.
Mary Bennett
tomatoes in Colorado
Unfortunately, those of us who live in otherwise civilized latitudes (north of the 37th Parallel) don't have much choice here. We don't have the growing season to start tomatoes or peppers outdoors. And I know what you mean about windstorms et al; indoor started tomatoes depend on external architecture (green poles, trellises etc.) for their entire lives. But with frost safety non-existent until Mother's Day, as it is here in the central Front Range of Colorado, choices are few.
"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar
"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides
LOL
Yep.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Not surprised about Bonnie's Plants
I am pretty sure our squash bug infestation came from Walmart a couple of years ago who exclusively uses Bonnie's Plants.
Thanks for the tip about TAMU (Texas A&M University). I downloaded their fall growing guide last summer and found it to be very helpful. I should get in touch with them. They developed the very successful short day 2015Y onion variety. Just went to their site and plan to peruse it before bedtime.
I started Big Red Cherry tomatoes outside last year and got a few. However, unfortunately, we do not have a long growing season. Wish it were so! We have two very short growing seasons. Starting inside is imperative. Good size tomato plants must be out in the garden by March 1 for them to produce enough. Be prepared to cover them with insulated fabric during cold bouts. Then hope and pray temps don't reach the 100s by the end of May. Hopefully June is still moderate, but you can't count on it. For the fall garden you must start plants indoors in June and plant them outside in August. Shade them at first if necessary. Make sure they have enough water.
You guys up north are lucky! My parents had a gigantic prolific organic garden in northern Iowa. Pretty much nothing is the same here. Uffda. (Iowegian for "Oh Crap")
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Fun to read and reply to comments!
This is one of my favorite things about being on c99. The comments are always fabulous!
Thanks to all who have or are yet to participate.
Adding content here. I may have mentioned this in SOE's OT last week. I am so curious about yams. Searching for information about how to grow yams is how I discovered rareseeds.com. Like many, I always thought that yam was another name for sweet potato. This year I experimented with growing sweet potatoes and decided they are better grown east of here. From what I have read, yams are quite different. They are crunchy and sweet. Some taste more like a conventional potato than a sweet potato. I have ordered two varieties of yam bean seeds and they both come from Asia.
This first is from China.
The second is from Thailand.
And I plan to order the Mammoth Red Mangel Beet from the rareseed.com folks.
Sort of enamored by large vegetables after experiencing cucuzza squash. One cucuzza = about 4 quarts of cubes that I have been putting in stew this winter. Delicious!
Now I am going to go to nowthepathforward.us and include this essay in my gardening journal.
Sleep well everyone!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Desi squash
On the other end of the size spectrum: the Desi squash from rareseeds. Very early crop, suitable for short season. Small roundish yellowish squash, basically one is a serving, very tasty, very prolific. Must be picked small and greenish, or the rind gets crunchy and the meat gets mealy. I dried a bunch in the oven with pilot light, thin slices. They reconstitute well in stews and curries, even tomato sauce. Much better fresh, though. I like them better than zucchini.
Never tried yams, looks interesting. I want root crops to rotate with Solonaceae, been using garlic and onion so far.
Desi squash ... got it!
And what is Solonaceae? I'll have to look it up.
Wow. Thanks again!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
Solonaceae
The plant family containing tomatoes, potatoes, peppers, tomatillos and many more. A lot of diseases cross-contaminate, especially between taters and maters. Good idea to rotate with other plants like the alliums (garlic, onions) or grains, since a lot of spores overwinter on the soil.
Wow, great threads you started!
oops- edited spelling. Nuns would crack me knuckles!
I have been sloppy with those
higher level gardening techniques.
I'm really just in gardening first grade = still learning to read.
Will keep it in mind!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
A website listing areas
and suitable crops must exist somewhere. Or would be a great idea.
Orwell: Where's the omelette?
That's part of our goal on nowthepathforward.us
http://nowthepathforward.us
The gardening course/space has a section for recording best crops per soil type and hardiness.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
We have a couple of great local seed options
For one thing, our local library system has a seed exchange program. It's free. Some states won't allow this kind of thing, but you should definitely check your local library.
And then, there's a local company that specializes in local native crops: Native Seed/SEARCH. They have a retail store in Tucson, a seed bank/exchange/mail-order & education facility north of town, and an experimental farm in far Southern Arizona. They have two-way communications with the local Native American groups where they record and archive techniques (to pass on to us), and provide programs to help them educate their own young folks.
Nothing exotic (except as far as the fact that some local food plants aren't what we had back in Ohio), but the emphasis is on what grows well around here, and low resource use (such as water & chemical fertilizers). Their experimental farm also explores new varieties of the local stocks. They also have a free seed library.
They're really terrific.
“We may not be able to change the system, but we can make the system irrelevant in our lives and in the lives of those around us.”—John Beckett
What a great link!
And wonderful resource.
Thank you!
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
You might enjoy this corporate seed conspiracy story
It destroyed his life but he fought Monsanto...and won!
https://modernfarmer.com/2015/09/seeding-fear-the-story-of-a-farmer-who-...
Here's the 11 min video produced by Neil Young
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YZGueeao0tE]
Those of you having difficulty planting out early starts, you need to harden off your small plants first... here's a short 4 min video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM0LgcsJQpM
Straw or hay bales in combination with a light row cover is a simple way to make a protective spot for young plants.
Hope the new sister site is doing well Marilyn!
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Thank you!
I will watch them when I get home this afternoon.
I was conscious of the seed thing when I was a kid. My dad (dairy farmer) turned to only open pollinated seed in the 60s and 70s. Have to say that other farmers thought he was nuts, doing all of that extra work spreading manure and cultivating the corn. Weeding the oats by hand.
I am going to do an essay on nowthepathforward.us here soon. We are moving slow - as was intended - but the holidays added to that. Plus, I think I should encourage lurkers more. The idea of a "course" projects an image of a time table, assignments, and grades, etc. This is only a space. I hope to encourage gardeners here to keep simple journals over there. Also, with this essay you can see there are quite a few Linux enthusiasts here. We have a fabulous Linux person there who wants to collaborate with others on writing Android apps in C++ (think that's it).
Gotta go. Thanks again for all of the support, information, and advice you provide. It's so great.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
I'll look forward to your essay
Let me know if I can be of help.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
I watched it
In my mind this is the far bigger issue, even above whether or not GMOs are bad for your health. The second biggest issue is that of GMOs contaminating native species and crops.
They suck.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo
You can start many seeds with winter sowing, except in early
spring for tender varieties like tomatoes and peppers.
https://springcreekhomesteading.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/milk-jug-sow...
Cheapo potting soil works just fine, especially if you this is your first time trying the method. Potting soil is heavier than seed starting mix. It can be mixed with coir (coconut husks) to make a lighter mix. I live a bit north of the 45th parallel, so for me, using the solstices and equinoxes for a rough guide works very well, probably not so much in sub tropical climates. I WS onions, brassicas (cabbage and relatives) lettuces and perennial flowers after Dec. 21. I start the tender annuals after March 21. There are is a FB WS group and also a winter sowing thread at gardenweb.com where you might be able to connect with WSers in your area.
Mary Bennett
I am very interested in this
Thank you. Never heard of this technique. Cool.
I have collards, cabbage, carrots, and parsnips out there right now covered. However, we have had an unusually extreme cold period. Halfway through they were still ok. Your winter sowing method may make more sense.
Marilyn
"Make dirt, not war." eyo