“Where did you buy those mini-tunnel arches?” was the main response to last month”s post about overwintering crops in mini-tunnels, Well, we bought some 10ft long E.M.T. conduit from a local hardware store and then bent the arches ourselves. It’s a pretty simple process that you can easily do on your farm. Come, let’s see … More Bend Your Own Mini-Tunnel Arches
We ran out of time to build caterpillar tunnels in Novemeber.
So we built mini tunnels to overwinter crops instead! … More Mini Tunnels To Get Seed Crops Through The Winter
Hey Kids, do you have any arugula that looks like this at home?
Did you know that if you just leave it there, all those flowers will turn into seeds pods?
… More What to do when your arugula look like this!
This week I’ve been walking the Rainbow Tatsoi to select what plants we’ll be letting go to seed. Overall, things are getting very stable. Some solid dark leaves with a lot of purple stems. Some diversity in savoy texture. Very similar growing habit. But then I come upon this. I haven’t seen an individual this … More Genetic memory or chance encounter?
Yesterday I went through my 2019 breeding notes from my Scotch Bonnet Remix project. I’m planning out what selections to grow this summer. (This was a cross between Scotch Bonnet peppers and some sweet Capsicum annuums. A cross that everyone tells me shouldn’t happen! Read more about the Scotch Bonnet Remix origin story here) The … More Planning out the 2020 Scotch Bonnet Remix breeding project.
Everyone tells me that different pepper species don’t cross. That’s not been my experience. Years ago I gave up growing our strain of Hot Paper Lantern Habanero because it got so crossed up with sweet peppers. (That would be Capsicum chinense x Capsicum annuum.) And last year, we started seeing a similar situation with our … More The Scotch Bonnet Remix Story – Crossing Hot Pepper From Different Species
I love growing out crossed up plants and selecting what we will save for seed. Brassicas are probably my favourite plant to select. Here are some pictures of what it looked like while I was selecting one breeding population last week. The plants I was selecting are the F2 generation of a cross between Tokyo … More 5 Steps To Rogue And Select Brassica Rapas
I’m excited to be part of a seed webinar this afternoon at 4PM Eastern. I’ll be talking about how we approach selecting seed plants on our farm. I’ve got some pictures lined up! If you’re interested in listening in all the details are below. (Or you can just register here: http://rsvp.momentumconferencing.com/RSVP/event/1243) There is no … More Seed Webinar today
Seed quality was one of the big topics at USC Canada’s Train the Seed Trainer sessions. All the participants had a lot to say on the topic. And though we had many conflicting opinions on other seed issues, we had consensus making a list of seed quality concerns. I’ve taken that list and broken it … More What Is Seed Quality?
This is the second part of a series on crop planning for seed production. Seed production planning part 1 covered growing small trials to evaluate whether a variety was worth growing to seed on your farm in your climate. Once you’ve decided the varieties for this year’s seed production, you need to determine how much … More Seed Production Planning Part 2 – Calculating Seed Needs