GMO and all that crap.

[NeilMacleod]

Anyone try and grow from produce from the store?
Tried eggplant and not one seed came up, tried yellow onions and not a boo out of the roots. Picked up some Mayan Sweets from costco and a couple sprouted from the bag, planted them and hope to get seeds from them. Also ended up buying seeds for eggplant, got four going, seed packets not what they used to be. Two measly basils came up from the pack. Grabbed some Thai Basil seeds out side from the dried stalks, see how they go.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Some things like onions potatoes and carrots are kept in stasis for so long, that the trip to the store causes them to sprout and then they die from the mishandling.
The average store bought potato is said to be 14 months old....Carrots are about the same.

I tried to grow sweet potatoes slips this year and they were doing fine and then they all died. :idunno:

Many plants are sprayed with anti growth agents.

Companies like Wal-mart import food from china and other countries...They also sell a lot of counterfeits....Food that is labeled grown in usa or organic when it isn't

I saw a CBC production similar to our 20/20 that exposed some organic farmers selling at Farmer's markets who bought their produce off the truck same as a supermarket with international origins.

Big conglomerate food companies have production facilities all over the world ....so your "Nabisco" crackers can come from anywhere in the world....

Many seed companies are owned by large conglomerates....Like Monsanto....

I try to seed save....

There seems to be a shortage of Russet potato seeds this year. :hmm: at least near me...


Some seedlings don't like bright sunlight it will kill them.

 

[NeilMacleod]

Their was a great series called "Rotten", netflicks, about the food industry, real eye opener.
Have to be more careful now with seed saving.

 

[Kansas Jake]

If you want to seed save you may have best luck with heritage varieties that have a history of doing well in your area. Also non hybrid varieties If you want to save seeds. Check online for articles from magazines such as Mother Earth news or Grit on ways to grow from seed or seed saving.

 

[Ames]

Plenty of russets up here in Maine. I pick up my onions and 200 lbs. of taters at the end of the month. :grin: That harvests just over a ton.
Did sweet taters a few times. Just grew the slips and planted them in the hills. They need a lot of water. Mulch helps.
And we all know you can chop up store bought horseradish and plant it. Nothing kills it.
For perpetual patch vegies, try tomatillos. Once they reach maturity, you will have hundreds. More than you can harvest, many hit the ground. Next year you have volunteer plants everywhere they landed.

 

[tenngun]

Mostly I brought from burgess seed when I kept a garden. Bean and field peas I just bought at the store. Six pounds saw me theough the year... and I ate a lot of pea soup and beans. By the by pintos beans in the green shell were pretty good as green beans.

 

[coloradoclyde]

I'd love to do a perpetual garden experiment and see how many years it lasted....(Self seeders not rhizomes)

Last year I didn't plant any pole beans but they came up just as if I had....

Some plats are so well at self seeding they are invasive...
I've had cilantro, garlic, tomatoes, Egyptian walking onions, daikon radish, and bok choy all self seed. beans like pinto will often self seed and produce another crop in the same year.

 

[Hairy Clipper]

Some years ago, maybe 15 or so I gave a fellow some seeds from a muskmelon that we ate that was very, very sweet. He planted them the following year and the plants had half a dozen different types of muskmelons on the vine. It would seem that each contributor to the hybrid wanted to be represented during the harvest.

My grandmother was a great seed saver. She had marigolds that her mother had around her house when they came to North America in the 1850's all from saved seeds.

 

[NeilMacleod]

Was looking at Onions, with all these varieties its hard to decide what, so for me it boils down to what last longer in storage, globe Onions, red potato ? Etc

 

[coloradoclyde]

Was looking at Onions, with all these varieties its hard to decide what, so for me it boils down to what last longer in storage, globe Onions, red potato ? Etc

Yep!...This far north it's a yellow storage onion....I've had good luck storing russets and Yukon Golds....
Instead of digging a root cellar I use a chest freezer and STC controller to keep the potatoes at 40 degrees Fahrenheit. My taters picked last July are still doing well....

 

[Ames]

First thing after buying this farm was a root cellar. Dirt floor, corner of the basement. Put up walls, insulation, floating planked floor. Outside wall of stone. Fresh air comes in a 8" insulated duct with a damper, floor level. Exhaust leaves through a 4" pvc in the ceiling to the outdoors. Insulated walk in door. Remote sensor by the coffee pot tells me temp and humidity every morning.
Best thing I've put in here. Onions and taters still healthy. Airtight jars of bean seed stock nice and cool without eating up refrigerator space. As the taters get used up, the space gets occupied by crates of hard cider and beer. :grin:

Funny. Year after year everyone tells me yellow storage onions will win the storage wars. But here, for me, it's the large red globes that win out. Cabernet, Redwing or Red Zeppelin. Still solid after the yellows start to bolt.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Funny. Year after year everyone tells me yellow storage onions will win the storage wars. But here, for me, it's the large red globes that win out. Cabernet, Redwing or Red Zeppelin. Still solid after the yellows start to bolt.

Interesting.... :thumbsup:

I'm still learning...What's your opinion on cutting the tops or bending the stalks over during growth?

 

[Black Hand]

What does GMO have to do with ANY of this...?

 

[Loyalist Dave]

If you want to seed save you may have best luck with heritage varieties that have a history of doing well in your area. Also non hybrid varieties If you want to save seeds. Check online for articles from magazines such as Mother Earth news or Grit on ways to grow from seed or seed saving.

Yeah heirloom varieties you should be able to replicate from the seeds they make.

Some of the veggies are picked early and outwardly ripen during shipment but the seeds don't necessarily mature as well so.....

Wholefoods got busted when it was discovered that they were merely taking the word of "Bejing" that the milk they imported and sold as "organic" was indeed that. So in some cases the claim to be organic or non-GMO may merely be words.

Hybrids often only produce one crop, and the seeds from that crop may not produce fruit the next year. I planted pumpkin seeds from the previous Halloween's pumpkin, grown locally and bought at the nearby orchard....I got some great vines but NO flowers nor squash.

Even the heirlooms may be effected. I planted heirloom tomatoes from seed one year, and the following year I didn't get the same sort of tomatoes...they likely had "crossed" with other tomatoes in a neighbor's garden.

On the other hand my dog liked cherry tomatoes and would help himself from time to time. The following summer I had several "wild" tomato plants coming up in the back yard. Then the wife mentioned they were where "Duke likes to poop." :shocked2: Mystery solved. I marvelled that the seeds made it through the dog and germinated....well fertilized. :wink:

LD

 

[NeilMacleod]

Talk about pumpkins, I found 99% of the time their males, Use a qtip to gather dust and store till I find a female produced. Got five sweet pumpkin growing right now, hope my chances are better this year, also doing vertical growing for them.
The store tomatoes I used for seeds grew then died as was mentioned.

What does GMO have to do with ANY of this...?

They get bad fast and dont store well.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Your tomato seedlings died suddenly?

Nitrogen will kill young tomato plants over night.

 

[NeilMacleod]

I use spent coffee in my soil, maybe too much.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Young tomato plants are very sensitive to nitrogen....The wife killed a whole flat accidentally, 2 years ago, and I killed 36 plants last year....Wife watered them with miracle grow and I watered with nitrogen I was feeding to my onions....Onions love nitrogen....Tomatoes don't.

 

[coloradoclyde]

Regarding coffee grounds...
http://web.extension.illinois.edu/dmp/palette/110109.html

 

[Ames]

I not only bent over the onion tops, I walked on them. These guys, red and yellow' were at least the size of softballs. :shocked2: They wouldn't stop growing. I had to kill them before they got any bigger. I was selling 3lb bags of onions with 3 onions in each bag. If I let them go on their own terms it would have been 2 to a bag.
Non gmo seed, heirloom varieties when I can.
And worm castings. Indoor year round worm compost bins. They cycle the coffee and kitchen scraps, and junk mail, and Donnie's cabinet picks. Add 10% to the mix from seed starter mix to final transplanting. More than 10% hurts the growth.
And add molasses in the garden rows. But that's another story. :hmm: