There are a bunch of spinach seed packs in the mail right now, travelling from different seed companies to Tourne-Sol farm. They are all in my crop plan spreadsheets – scheduled to be planted in the field this fall side by side in the same bed. We’re going to harvest the leaves in the fall … More Planning for some fall/winter spinach ?
These are some pictures of the latest stuff coming out of my winter radish breeding projects. You can see where these radishes all began in this post. I’ve been working a lot more with long radishes lately. They’re producing all kinds of beautiful things. It’s hard to keep it all though. This is the radish … More More Radishes Coming Out Of The Breeding Plots
Each bucket has the seeds from 1 lettuce plant. These were quickly cleaned in the field and then put in separate bins. These are the seeds of our 7 favourite lettuce plants from an F2 population of a cross between Jericho Romaine and Deer Tongue lettuce. The seeds I collected are the F3 generation. We … More Saving F3 lettuce seeds
Is this an exciting lettuce? This is an F2 population of Jericho Romaine lettuce crossed with Deer Tongue lettuce. What that means is that last year, I found one strange plant in our Jericho lettuce planting. In this case strange meant that it looked different from the other plants. And it didn”t look like any … More Jericho x Deer Tongue lettuce breeding
These corn poppies all started from some seed I got a while back through the Seeds of Diversity Canada member seed exchange.(@seeds_diversity) When I first grew them out they were all red and pretty similar to one another. I saved the seed and grew them out again. 1 or 2 pink flowers appeared amidst the … More Finding new colours in my Corn Poppies
Monday, we took a bunch of flags and marked our favourite Rainbow Tatsoi plants. When it’s time to harvest seed, we’re going to harvest the flagged plants separately. The seed from these plants will be our stock seed for next year. In this way every generation is a little more what we want it to … More Flagging Rainbow Tatsoi
Patience and hardiness. That’s what chicory is all about. Last fall we planted out a bed of Chicory and covered it with a mini-tunnel to see if that would be enough to get it through the winter. (We usually dig up our Chicories and put them in a cold room for the winter – but … More Chicory patience and hardiness
This week we took our spring radishes out of the cold room. (We put them in the cold room about 10 days ago, This is to help initiate flowering – we want them to all flower at the same time.) We planted 2 beds in the field with 2 rows per bed with 6 inch … More Time for spring radishes to go in the ground
A row of winter radishes in 3” pots. I spaced these out where I wanted to plant them. Then I dug my trowel into the ground and opened a hole. I removed the plant + giant solid plug from the pot and placed it in the hole. I snugged the soil up around the top … More Planting winter radishes for seed
Harvesting spring radishes for seed production. 1?? What is the perfect French Breakfast radish? Cylindrical with a bit of a narrow top. Nicely defined colours with a clear transition. A short white tip. It’s good to define what you’re selecting for right from the start. 2?? Radish beds ready to be pulled. 3?? Harvest begins … More Harvesting spring radishes for seed production