In article , Charlie wrote:

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 12:24:30 -0700, Billy
wrote:


So, I presume your funky shui thing doesn't include seed saving OR are
the beds 500' apart, or do you bag, or cage? Fertility and entropy
make purity difficult. Think I can get my funky shui aligned if I just
rotate the hill 45 degrees to the west and invert the slope.

No, I'm not saving pepper seeds this year, for several reasons,
proximity to one another the prime reason, I have lots of different
pepper varieties in cold storage, I wanted to try a bunch of new ones
this year to determine habits and yield, etc....and.....
I think next year I'll have to start baggin' some of the squash,
cucumber, tomato and, the pepper flowers. I definitly need to
reduce the number of varieties and sweet peppers and tomatoes will
be the most difficult to reduce in number. Sweet millions cherry
tomato was the first to produce and has set a large crop to ripen )
and they are definitely competitive in quality with store bought (
Unfortunately, it, the Sun Gold, and the Yellow Pear have collapsed
on my dwarf Meyer lemon trees, which they are now using for an arbor.


My damned labels faded when I transferred them outside this spring and
other than six varieties, I dont have a ****in' clue what most of them
are yet and may have a hard time figgerin' it out....
Seems we have similar administrative skills vis-a-vis identifying and
marking. Fortunately, most of my herbs are perennials and I'm starting
to get a handle on what they look like.

Gnnna be some good eatin' though! ;-)

Monapa spinach seed is being harvested now and have a big old Nimba
Zuke conditioning for seed. Going to save at least one tomato, Black
Brandywine, which is delicious and looks to be more productive than the
regular Brandywine and a more compact, less vining plant than the
regular.
How did you manage to save pure seed from the Black Brandywine? Think
I'll cut back to three types of tomatoes; cherry, mid-sized, and
large. Unfortunately, the selection won't just be just based on taste
but the visual spectacle, via the different colors, as well.

Saving the Empress beans and Rattlesnake pole beans. Have sevearl
varieties of lettuce and the Mizuna making seed and the Love Lies
Bleeding Amaranth is being saved and going to be used in landscaping
next year.
Not as flashy as your amaranth, but I like the spectacle of my dent
corn towering 12 - 14 feet up into the air. Now I just need to refine
my processing skills to turn it into grits.

Planted four varieties of cukes, so they are out for saving seed, but
if the danged Armenian "cuke" ever produces anything other than lots of
vine and a gazillion blossoms and if we like, will save it.
Same here. It's a decorative sucker but I wish it would get of the pot.

THe vining 'tunias save themselves quite well.
Mine were sluggish in their sphagnum rich germinating soil. Then they
got into the program, when I put them into regular potting soil. Now
they've locked up again with potting soil in sphagnum lined hanging
pots(

Gotta run and try and get some outdoor stuff done before the heat gets
up there and then spend the hot time taking care of business and trying
to makes sense of this mess of an "office".......
Ha, I was lookin' for "Seed to Seed" yesterday when I finally spotted it
in my room/office/log. Only trouble was, there wasn't anyway to get to
it safely( The resulting tale would be worthy of Indiana Jones.

Speakin' of gardening, for a change, I see that your evening temps are
running about 20 F higher than here. Yesterday we had a temperature
swing from 52 F to 97 F. It's a miracle everyone doesn't have the flu.

Gardez la foi, le Frère
Charlie

jusqu'à la prochaine

"The number of people out there today seriously worried about the
health of all the plants and seeds on which modern agriculture depends
must be very limited, and the number of people actively campaigning to
protect them vanishingly few. ... Of the Earth's 250,000 plant species,
only 200 are cultivated for food on any serious scale."

"Even more extraordinary, the vast majority of the world's food comes
from just 20 crops, in just eight plant families. Most of these
monocultures are dangerously vulnerable to diseases (both old and new),
pest infestations, and a rapidly changing climate."

"Yet the "genetic pool" on which plant breeders might need to draw to
build resistance and adaptability is being constantly eroded as older,
non-commercial varieties disappear. ..."

"[S]eed banks can only do so much in this massive salvage operation.
The seeds they store need to regularly germinated, otherwise they too
die. The best way of maintaining an active and vibrant seed bank is to
ensure that farmers (and gardeners) are planting out those 'land races'
and rare varieties of plants which are now so endangered."

"More often than not, that sets small-scale, subsistence farmers (on
whom this kind of "active conservation" depends) in conflict with the
juggernaut of industrialised, intensive agriculture.""

~~Jonathan Porritt, founder and director of Forum for the Future, in
the Nov. 7, 2007 edition of BBC News
--

Billy
Bush and Pelosi Behind Bars
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9KVTf...ef=patrick.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo...eature=related