Here’s a little about Tourne-Sol co-operative farm where I farm View Post We’re in Les Cèdres,Québec (that’s in Canada) Tourne-Sol is a play on the French tournesol which means sunflower. The play on words is that it also means turn the soil. ???????????????????? The farm runs as a workers coop (I’m one of the founding … More Tourne-Sol – This is where I farm
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.
Back in July, I told you all about selecting some brassica plants and transplanting my favourites into big pots by the porta potty. We harvested those plants in mid-August and threshed the seeds. The plantless pots full of soil sat by that porta potty for the next 2 months. I didn’t pay them much attention. … More Reading Shattered Seeds To See What The Future Holds
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
Earlier in the year, I wrote about how we evaluate Tomato varieties with easy trials. Our lettuce trials are even simpler! Trial Goal I wanted small dense lettuce heads that didn’t take too much space in the garden but gave fantastic salads! That doesn’t seem like too much to ask for. We went through seed … More Evaluating Quick Lettuce Trials
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
Last night Tourne-Sol farm was featured on the TV show Les fermiers on Unis tv! Les fermiers is a show about what it’s like to be a farmer. The show follows Jean-Martin Fortier and the crew at la Ferme des Quatre-Temps through 2 growing seasons. During this episode I walked Annie-Claude and Justine around the … More Watch Tourne-Sol on Les fermiers TV show!
You want to have the best tomatoes, right? You might suspect that there are better varieties out there but the thought of doing elaborate trials to evaluate these tomatoes is just exhausting. Here is a way to run a simple trial to discover new great tomatoes! It is based on how we run our tomato … More Discover Amazing Tomatoes By Setting Up Easy Growing Trials!
This is the third post in the What seeds should you save series. During this series, you’ve been choosing the seeds to save based on what you need for your farm. Not all seeds will grow equally well on your farm. Focusing on the seeds that do best in your climate will increase your seed … More Make Seed Saving Easier By Choosing The Right Seed For Your Climate
If there is one part of seed saving I love the most, it is crossing 2 distinct varieties and unleashing a storm of diversity. I love working with the subsequent populations and seeing what happens after each generation of selection. I must admit that this love has resulted in boxes and boxes of seed envelopes … More How I Bred Rainbow Tatsoi