Rogue! In the Garden!

...thought you out to know.

Magical movie quotes aside, this has definitely been a good year for rogues. While many will end up with their own space on the "Current Projects" page, until now they've existed only in my garden and as pictures on my phone.

So today I'll highlight one of them, which has become something of a personal favorite:

MAGPIE BEAN

(aka: Purple Peacock Pole Bean Rogue)

This dude appeared in my first trial sowing of eight Magpie beans in late April. The trial wasn't to test out the variety, but rather to see if this particular location in the garden would be suitable for summer bean growing.
  

It wasn't.

Palm-in-Bucket contraption attempting to keep the Rogue from cooking

Once our first 110°+ heat wave hit, the beans were toast. The trial bed turned into an oven. None of the varieties (Meraviglia Di Venezia, Calima, Red Swan, Magpie, and Purple Teepee) were happy, with most dropping blossoms and ceasing their growth. About half of the plants died outright.

The eight Magpie (small bush bean with white flowers) exhibited a wide degree of diversity, more so than any of the other varieties. Some plants were very tall bush, some short bush, some covered in jungle-thick foliage (and producing no beans) while others put out scarcely a leaf.  However, the few dry beans I was able to collect looked true to type.  So despite their differences, seven of those eights plants I would qualify as Magpie.

This guy, however:

Not exactly bush.

Almost immediately after putting on his first set of leaves, he sent out a long tendril and started grappling for a hold on anything nearby. When all his bush buddies started setting blossoms, he showed no interest, instead sending out more vines and attempting to conquer as much of the Monopoly board as possible.

I figured he was just a "pole rogue" of the common Magpie. Cool, sure. But I often find bush and pole rogues on varieties claimed to be stable. However, the day before our second 110°+ heatwave hit, he put out his first flower:

Though the blossom quickly crisped and dropped, the color was worth it.

Now I was paying attention. I quickly pulled the rest of his half-dead trial buddies and erected the stupid looking palm awning to try to keep him alive. I also removed all the bricks from the bed wall to help keep the ambient temperature as low as possible during the hottest hours.

Then I bit my nails, and waited.

For the rest of June and most of July, he pumped out blossoms - and they all fried. Or they were aborted just as the tip of the baby bean emerged. The ground was a graveyard of crispy purple petals. But he kept on keeping on - putting out more vines, more leaves. More suicidal blossoms.

And finally, when we had a week of temperatures never cresting 100°, he did the thing.

Though we're still a long way from viable seed, and even that isn't guaranteed, I'm letting cautious optimism reign. Magpie was actually one of varieties that inspired me to begin this garden in the first place. I'd always found beans fascinating, and something about the look of those dried, B&W filet beans really appealed to me.

Apart from any practical purpose, I liked their aesthetic. Which is to say... i thought they were purdy. Which is also to say (since it's me we're talking about) I immediately began to wonder what I could cross them with.

It seems happy coincidence did the work for me. Because although I keep referring to Mr. Peacock as a "Rogue," odds are he's probably accidental F1 cross.

After Mr. Peacock's discovery, I poured out my remaining Magpie beans and examined them. The differences between beans were astounding. In my haste to get the first trial bed planted, I hadn't even noticed. Alas, I did not take a picture.

Some beans were exactly on point, just like the photo above. Others were filet shaped, but all black. Others were correctly marked, but shaped almost like cutshort beans. Others were plumper and had a slightly purple gleam. Still others were tiny, jet black Tic-Tacs.
 
Curiosity not satiated, I picked thirteen of the most differing ones and planted them in a new (slightly shadier) trial bed. Germination was good, but several were devoured by mysterious somethings. I re-seeded the gaps with more off type seeds.

So far, everyone looks pretty normal. 

Except this guy.

Off-color stem.

Meet Peacock Jr.

The picture is terrible, I know, but our morning sun is truly a force to be reckoned with when it comes to photoshoots. What's important to note is the stem. Difficult to see, since it's about the same color as the soil. But to give you some comparison, here's Peacock Jr's neighbor.

Green stem

And here's a photo taken a few days ago, with the two side-by-side:

Curious even before they sprouted, I did a little light digging. Even as infants, I noticed that Peacock Jr.'s coloration was different than the others. 

Purple flushed stem and cotyledons.

Typical green stem and cotyledons.

Though Peacock Jr. hasn't shown a tendency to vine like Mr. Peacock, I'll definitely be watching him closely in the days and weeks to come. A single mutant in a batch would not be unlikely, but two in twenty-one sharing similar characteristics makes me think that there was likely some crossing between Magpie and the neighboring variety. Score.

~~~~~~~~~~

That's it for today, though I'll be sure to post more Rogue Spotlights soon. Happy Friday!

a funny thing happened on the way to... OMG IT'S RAINING

You know that feeling when you're standing in a hot shower, washing away the remains of a dirty gardening day? Those times when you crank up the water temp somewhere between hot tub and sterilize, allow the steam to build, and then wallow in that hot, blissfully humid hug.

Yesterday was a lot like that.

Outside.

A very irresponsibly taken photo while driving to a friend's birthday dinner. It was a strange sensation to have both the air conditioning and the windshield wipers going full blast.

Exactly 100° outside... and pouring.

And OF COURSE... I'd just finished watering the garden.  I didn't even check the weather yesterday. I hardly check the weather in summer, period. It always says the same thing: hot. Hot and dry. Our average monthly temperature in July is 95°. Average rainfall? 0.01 inches. That's basically a single cloud sneezing over a few houses. 

But since yesterday was technically August 1st, I guess all bets were off.

So instead of a sneeze, we got a violent thirty minute pissing downpour accompanied by moderate wind gusts. The wind was nothing compared to what we endured back in April, but it was still enough to snap one of my precious wibbly K'uyu stalks. Consequently, anyone over six feet tall was forced into mason line lockdown.

Mush!

Which made gathering pollen from the tassels this morning like a scene from a bank heist movie, with me ducking and dodging, trying not to trip any of those laser beam alarms.

The tallest White Nighting points accusatorially at me for not trenching them deeper .

Now for those of you living in monsoonal or southern US climes, such a summer storm is probably no big deal. But here, rain anytime between April and October is a hella big deal. Firstly, because we usually need it -- it greatly reduces our chance of catching on fire that week. Secondly, because our ground has no idea what to do with all that liquid, especially when it comes down fast. Flash flood warnings went into effect immediately basically everywhere.

Sure enough, within five minutes of the downpour starting all curb-sides were gushing with water. Potholes became surprise gysters even at slow speeds. Freeways and surface streets transformed into unsanitary slip 'n slides as months of baked on oil, dirt, motor grease and god knows what else lubricated the asphalt.

Lovely run-off from the brief storm, taken about half an hour after it passed.

And that, combined with the triple digit temperatures, made the entire valley smell very strongly of urine and hot rubber.

Which was just lovely.


IN OTHER NEWS -- The first White Nighting silks emerged:

Silks from the first of five ears forming on this single plant.

Although I don't plan to use any White Nighting mothers in the Misty Mountain project, I decided to go ahead and shmear some K'uyu Chuspi pollen on this wild haired thing anyway, and then left it uncovered. The kernels will be a mix of K'uyu crosses and selfings, since only this one Nighting and several early K'uyu are tasseling right now. If nothing else, it will be interesting to see the visible differences between pure Nighting and Nighting X K'uyu kernels later this season. 

And while there's a lot of garden stuff I still want to update you on, there's also a ton of work I still need to get done today. So until tomorrow, here's a picture of Peter pepper mantis on the Paradicsom Alaku Sarga Szentes Pepper. Ten times fast.

'Sup.

Harvest Monday Virgin

So here I am, in all my newness being new, doing my first Harvest Monday ever. Daw.

I actually posted today already, but then I stumbled on this "Gather ye Veg and posty about it" thing everyone was doing and, naturally, I wanted to play. 

Here's today's spread:

Left to Right, Top to Bottom: Herbs, Ajvarski Peppers, Corbaci Peppers, Georgescu Chocolate Pepper, PASS pepper, Rainbow Chard, Casper Eggplant, Mitoyo Eggplant.

(I'm unsure if the harvest has to come from just Monday, or if it can be from the whole week. So just in case the blog cops are on patrol, I decided to post only what was harvested today.)

Here's the breakdown:

HERBS

Left to Right to Bottom: "Argenteus" Thyme, "

Icterina

Read more at Gardening Know How: Golden Sage Care: How To Grow A Golden Sage Plant https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/edible/herbs/sage/grow-golden-sage-plant.htm

Icterina" Sage, Common Variegated Thyme, "Aureus" Rosemary

While I find herbs lovely, I don't cook with them much. I don't 'cook' much in general, actually. Though when your kitchen is the size of mine, cooking anything more than a fried egg is an adventure in creative contortionism. Because this is literally my kitchen.

Regardless, these herbs help make my attempts at grown-up dinner time a more pinterest-y perfect affair, instead of just hungry hot yoga. While I originally bought them for ornamental and aromatic purposes, they've definitely pulled their weight in the pan.

SWEET PEPPERS

Booty-burned Ajvarskis

I really, really, really, really DON'T like green peppers. I'm a bad American. Unfortunately, due to a weird gap in my pepper bed, the Ajvarskis are prone sunscald. I've also got issues with blossom end rot, on top of that. So the constant battle is whether or not to leave them on the plant until ripe, then cut off the yuck bits, or cut them green and let the plant put it's energy into better fruit. Today, it was cut.

"He went that way!"

This is my first ripe harvest of peppers all season. I've strugled through a few salvaged green ones like those Ajvarskis, but these Corbaci will be the first I'm actually looking foward to eating. And while I'm a HUGE raw sweet pepper fan, these have very thin walls and lots of seeds and are supposed to be better grilled or fried. So, after an obligatory raw nibble, I'll commit the rest to the pan and see where it leads.

derp. 

My first ripe Georgescu of the season... a feast for kings. A king. One very tiny king. While I'm excited to try this pepper, I was sorta hoping I'd have a bit more to, you know, try. Luckily, there's a ton still ripening that are of a more substantial size on other plants. The plant this one came from is also quite short. We'll have to see if it's just slow to mature, or if it turns out to be rogue. Here's to hoping for a wee Georgie.

He's sad I picked him.

Like the Ajvarski peppers, I've had to eat a lot of green PASS peppers (hover for the full mother of dragons name). These plants are on the end of the pepper pit, and also have a habit of thrusting their fruits ass-up toward the sun. Yet, while these peppers ripen to yellow, they seem to be veeery slow in doing so. One of the first plants to set fruit, they've been taking their sweet time thereafter.

This will be the first Mitoyo eggplant I've harvested. For the record, they apparently get a lot bigger than this. I picked it small because it was growing close to the ground, and I didn't want any of the other garden denizens to eat it before I could. I'm also still deciding it I even like eggplant, so I figured I'd ere on the side of caution and ensure it was 'young and tender' for my first go.

Spoopy.

I picked the first Casper of the season last week and accidentally cooked it to mush. So I'm not really ready pass judgement on its flavor value just yet. Decent mush, though. I mixed it into a last minute butternut curry thing and had no complaints. Which may have been because I didn't taste it. Regardless, I'll have another go with these three hooligans, and I'll be a little more diligent with the cooking this time.

a weed in beets' clothing.

Don't get me wrong, I'm cool with chard. But after devouring my way solo through a 3x5 beet bed earlier this month, I'm really regretting growing as much Rainbow chard as I did. On the bright side, the bugs love it too. And, segue from that, so does the compost. While three nearly flawless leaves rest before you, it took about ten rejects to get there. Luckily, this chard is both prolific and scrappy - this won't be the worst haircut it's bounced back from.

That's it for this week!

Since my garden functions mostly as a veggie hacking/breeding ground (not a kitchen garden) my harvests are usually failures or side effects of growing out rogues and regetables. Hopefully, that will make for some fun (if meager and infrequent) Harvest Mondays in the future.

If all this harvest nonesense has got you confused, head over to Dave's blog at Our Happy Acres - there you can see his own harvest, as well as links to everyone else participating this week. Happy ogling!

Mystery Squash, aka. Myself

Don't you just love when you leave a special present for your future self, a secret little something tucked away somewhere that you're positive you'll remember what it is, and what it's for, when the time comes...

This morning I found this in the bottom of a storage tub.

No idea.

Clearly, it's a squash seed, but as to what species (or what variety) I haven't the foggiest. I don't even understand why I would put this super special little turd in a ziplock baggie (of all horrible seed storing places) and then leave it completely unlabeled and abandoned for, probably, years.

So, in the spirit of science - LET'S GROW IT.
Or try, anyway

...but where to put it?

As anyone who's planted squash knows: a single seed can conquer the known universe. Bush squash have some manners, sometimes, but vine squash -- no fucks given. They don't care about your garden plans, your tidy little maps. They do what they want. They're like cats: the world is for them, and they'll have any part of it they choose. Including, all of it.

Case in point: meet my North Georgia Candy Roaster squash vine. One seed. Terrible location. Infrequent watering. Singular purpose: provide pollen for bush buttercup. That's it. That's all he had to do. Didn't even have to make fruit, just pump out some man dust.

If my math is correct, current length is hella stretchy.

AND WOULDYA LOOK WHERE THAT GOT US. Kid's literally climbing up the walls. Apparently, he didn't like his time-out corner of no sun and old construction crap. So he decided to go on the slow motion prison break.

The anti-gravity field appears to be holding.

Clearly, my hypothesis that low light and limited watering would keep his vines small was, how do I say... a really, really stupid theory. Science! Forgetting how far the roots stretch, he's clearly been getting drunk off his neighbors' moonshine and using his own cross-fit tendrils to climb anywhere he damn well pleases.

All your bump are belong to squash.

Regarding Mystery squash -- I unfortunately don't have another crappy fence/wall gap to sacrifice. What I do have, however, is...

*drumroll*

...a bucket.

As you may have noticed in the blurry backgrounds of most my photos, I have blue things. Everywhere. Some are storage tubs and kiddie pools converted into raised beds, but the majority are Lowes 5 gallon buckets. I have a lot of them. Like, dozens. Why?

Because half my garden (and the best sun spots) are an old concrete parking pad; aka, the "stove." While this area gets nearly full sun it also gets full death (a subject I'll expand on more in a later post.) This makes it the best place for most vegetables and the worst place for tubs, pots, and raised beds. A bit of a pickle, really.

But, for the low low price of around $3.50, I can buy a bucket, drill holes in the bottom, fill it with dirt, plant something, and then proceed to drag that sucker anywhere I want it, depending on how oven-y the weather plans to be that week.

While the price point per gallon is cheaper with the tubs and kiddie pools, they are also nigh impossible for me to move once I fill them. A fact I realized when my melon leaves turned into potato chips during two different, week long, 110+ degree heat waves in June. I had minor success pulling, shoving, and grunting the 20 gallon tomato tubs to the cooler side of the stove. Which is kind of like saying I turned the stew from rapid boil down to simmer. But moving the kiddie pools? 30 galloners? Nope, they screwed.

But I digress. As for Mystery squash.

The deed is done.

Hopefully the root limiting confines of his new blue jailhouse will curb any world conquering vine tendencies, at least a little bit. It will also allow me to drag/waddle the future plant anywhere there's free space at the time.

And... in case you were wondering why the label "Myself" = I initially wrote this post on my phone, and my mind often gets ahead of my fingers when typing. Consequently, I often skip or rearrange letters in my attempt to type the words before I forget them.

Turns out, each time I wrote Mystery, I was actually typing Msytery. Auto-correct narcissistically decided this meant Myself. So, reading it again later, I enjoyed a lovely tale of finding myself in a baggie, sticking myself in a bucket, and dragging myself all around the yard.

Ergo: Myself, the mystery squash.

I'm certain this will not cause any confusion in the future, none what so ever.

When a Book is a Book; and Corn, Corn.

I remember reading a book review one summer while I was home from college. I had decided to attempt, in 2.5 months, to read my way through the entire chronology of the English language's most influential works of Fantasy. Which happened. And it was pretty much all that happened that summer, considering most of those books are the size of cereal boxes.

I read a lot of words. Which is ironic, because:

Of all the words in all the books I read, the line I remember most didn't come from a published novel, but from that short, scathing book review. It was a very old review, reviewing an even older book. I can't even remember which one... Well at the End of the World? The Faerie Queene?

What I do remember is the highlight of the review:

 "Words, words! It's a veritable word factory!"

And I think I sat there for a minute, reading it again and again. Because

yeah, dude

it's a book.

In all likelihood, he was just trying to imply that the book was pedantic. Even so, that phrase always stuck with me. Words, words... how dare you novel, how dare you have so many words.

If you haven't already noticed, I'm the type of person who writes a lot. When I edit, somehow more words get added then cut, getting exponentially greater with every change. It's everything I can do to keep a single blog post from taking over the universe. In my mind, there will never be enough time to share all the things we could possible share with each other in all the ways we could possibly share them. And that annoys me.

But often what annoys other people -- are people like me. The word long-winded comes to mind. And anytime I go to compose something, whether an email, a blog post, or the next chapter, it's these people that haunt me. My fear of them used to be nearly debilitating.

They're judging me, I think, get to the point. They're bored. I'm boring them. They don't care. Your metaphors are stupid. Shut up.

But these days, when those feelings rise up, I just remind myself: 

Chill --
remember when dude got pissed because a book was a book?

Because, inevitably, somewhere somebody is going to get upset about something.

Yes, I'm wordy. This blog is bloggy. And wordy. With lots of words. And bad language. Bad language, too, even. 

However, all jokes aside (and in retrospective pity for one angry 1900's dude) I will try to give other things a chance to be themselves, without words. Or be pictures of themselves, at least.

So without further a word:

"Oh look, organic!" - said every bug ever

Ever play SimSafari?

AKA: the three faces I make most while gardening

I have fond childhood memories of hunching toward the 2'x2' beige box they once called a computer and diligently ensuring I had enough Thompson gazelle to feed all my hungry lions. And enough grass to feed the hungry gazelles. And enough lions to show-off to the safari-hungry tourists in order to earn one of those 'big five' awards.

But then I had too much grass. And it took over and killed all the trees. And all the elephants died. And the tourists went home.

Or something like that.

So, while people can claim video and computer games are bad for the youth, I gotta say -- shit got real in SimSafari. And boy did it help prepare me for organic gardening.

The dark truth is that, as much as you hate aphids, loopers, and spider mites, unless you have at least some of them, you'll never have any of the beneficial insects like ladybugs, syrphid flies, and lacewings. Why? Because of the most important lesson in SimSafari: everybody's gotta eat.

And right now, everybody be eatin' my shit.

       

But before anyone asks me why I insist on growing organic and don't simply spray a little whatever on those plants, let me introduce you to my organic gardening pest policy:

You can't burn the house down then wonder why no one comes to dinner.

If SimSafari taught me anything, it was this. Because when the lions are overpopulating and eating all the gazelle, and now the grass is taking over because there aren't gazelles to eat it, which threatens the trees, which threatens the elephants... then what?

You don't drop a nuke on the safari, that's what.

You adjust the balance. Not obliterate it.

Gardening organic means accepting the annoying fact that balance is everything, yet things will never be perfectly balanced. There will be highs and lows, ebbs and flows. That's how nature works. That's how life works. That's how roller coasters work. What makes us think gardens work any different?

Frankly though... this whole organic mantra would be a lot easier to accept if it played out as romantically as it sounds: some good bugs, some bad bugs; a few bitten fruit, a few holey leaves; ultimately, a happy, healthy, imperfect but symbiotic vegetable plot. Voilà.

Yeah... not so much here at the Shandy Dandy.

At the moment, it's a vegetation massacre. But I'll tolerate my audience of 8 trillion spider mites and all the 'too-quick-to-stomp' grasshoppers, by consoling myself in the knowledge that I have over a dozen ever-growing mantis guardians that magically established themselves in strategic places around my garden.

This one here is Bean Bob.

(bottom: Blurry Bob) (top: Bob's yesterday pants)

Maybe not the hero my pole beans need, but the hero they deserve. Anyway, more on bugs later - right now I've got another post for you: Corn Tassels!

Don't all crowd in at once.

A Gardening Manifesto, or something

Before I dig deep into the current state of my garden (har har) I want to make clear what my passions, intentions and motivations are regarding vegetable growing. I also want to define a word I am going to be using a lot...

Regetable. Yes, regetable.

Regetables = your staple, backyard vegetables. Regular Vegetables: standard, safe, reliable, normal. Sold on most seed racks, grown by most everybody. Blue Lake bush beans, Early Girl tomato, Straight Eight cucumber, etc.

Now, there's nothing wrong with regetables. They're regular for a reason: they tend to produce well, are tasty and reliable, and are usually resistant to some of the things that want to kill or eat them (besides us).

But as for the second reason I call them regetables... Regret. Though you wouldn't pronounce it this way, it's exactly how I say it in my head: regretables.

Why regret?

Because each time I grow one (unless I have an ulterior motive of crossing it with something else) I always end up feeling... kinda depressed. Why? Because watching the plant grow may have been fun, and eating it may have been tasty, but ultimately I'm left with exactly what I started with: a regetable. Or, at best, seeds from a regetable slightly more adapted to my personal garden.

What's wrong with that? Nothing! Nothing at all.

It's more about personal motivations -- I need change, evolution, growth. I need to put bricks in a wall, walk an overgrown path, create something that wasn't there before. While saving seeds from a regetable is not a passive process, it's nevertheless not enough for me, personally.

Don't get me wrong: I enjoy the simple act of gardening and eating what I grow. But when it's 106° and I'm double digging a new bed and fighting an invasion of spider mites and trying to pay my water bill, I start to wonder if it's all worth it... why am I doing this to myself? And simply saying: Yay! Good job Day. You grew the thing and then you ate it. Now, do it again...

...forever.

Just isn't enough. On the other hand...

...using the amazing genetics of regetables to try to create new, fun, resilient, and tasty variations? Now you've got my attention. What can be crossed? What new rogue can be found if we plant the funny look seeds, instead of the uniform ones? What shiny new edibles can be born through luck, cleverness, and determination in a single urban backyard?

I'm enraptured with the weirdos, the late bloomers, the sports. My gut reaction is to rouge out the regulars and keep the rogues. After all: the mutations that evolved to become our food crops today needed stewardship once too -- otherwise we'd still be enjoying grilled teosinte at the family BBQ. Yum.

Of course, I don't intentionally want to grow crappy, non-productive, bad tasting vegetables. I'm not a masochist. But I am willing to let the rouges be rogues. To let them develop beyond the stage normally culled by gardeners. Let them show me what they're got. And, if they're got something, I'm willing to save seeds and plant the next generation: let the genes fall where they may.

I'm also passionate about crossing regetables, both with each other, and with rare and uncommon varieties from around the world.

For Example:

Love the cool Andean corns? But... alas! You're the King of the North. And those daylight sensitive bastards won't set cobs before winter. Boo. To address this, I've crossed Painted Mountain with K'uyu Chuspi. With a few generations, maybe we'll have an Andean style corn that doesn't take from April until the apocalypse just to tassel.

Left: Painted Mountain, Right: K'uyu Chuspi. (Photos from rareseeds.com)

Or maybe you love winter squash. And guess what? It loves you too!... and it loves your squash bed, the neighboring bed, your yard, your fence, your tree, your neighbor's tree, and your dog, if he sits still too long. But besides growing exclusively bush buttercup and gold nugget,what other maxima options are there?

In response, I've let Bush Buttercup promiscuously pollinate with Candy Roaster and Turk's Turban (Gold Nugget and Gete Okosomin adding to the mix in a few weeks when they start flowering). In a month or so I'll have F1 seeds from the Buttercup mothers. Sure... the F1 offspring won't be true bush, and the fruit might taste a little off, and potentially the squash could look like penises... but hey! Those short-internode genes are in there somewhere. With selection and a few generations, and we could have cute, compact Turbans for the kids (with vines that won't eat the kids) and a banana squash that doesn't require its own zipcode.

Or, maybe we'll just end up with weiner squash. The price of science.

Left to Right: Bush Buttercup, North Georgia Candy Roaster, Mini Red Turban. (Photos from rareseeds.com)

In conclusion, I look forward to awesome gardening experiences this season, and in seasons to come: cool successes, cool failures, and tons of vegetable hacking adventures. And I can't wait to share them with you.

So if reading any of the above got you excited, stick around: You're my people.

If not... well, that's OK too.
I'll make a pirate out of you yet.

Let's hack some veg.

Seed List

Right, so. I did have every intention of chronicling this epic voyage from day one, but clearly... that didn't happen.

I considered doing a super long these last months in review post, but... honestly, that sounds horrible. And a lot like homework. And since I didn't freeze my ass off in Wisconsin for four winters (and graduate magna cum whatever in two majors) just to go right back to writing crap I don't wanna write...then yeahhh, pass.

So alas, you'll have to go without a succinct summary of the previous months' vegetable observations and scientific findings.

...scientific findings, please. I'm dicking around in the dirt playing with seeds.

Speaking of seeds:

haul, 2017 #fightme

All my 2017 seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (apart from a few random gifts/seed rack finds.) Having no stockpiled seeds from previous years (and having an immense desire to grow pretty much everything) I knew I needed to buy a lot and grow a lot in order discover what I wanted to buy and grow a lot of in the future. There's a legit justification of my buying habits somewhere in that sentence, I swear.

So while I will not be ordering exclusively from Baker Creek in years to come, they are a great OP/nonGMO seed company with a diverse catalogue where I could place a single, embarrassingly large order (merry xmas self annnnd you're broke) and then get planting. Also, I found the product reviews at Baker Creek to be extremely helpful; I intend to return the favor by reviewing the ones I grow this season.


So here's my OFFICIAL FULL AND DAMN LONG LIST of 2017 SEEDS. Not all will be grown out this year (whatever a 'year' means in so-cal) but most will. Herbs & flowers not listed.

* = unplanted/not growing yet

~ = not from Baker Creek

2017 SEED STOCK (Vegetables)

BEAN

• Calima
• Fort Portal Jade
• Good Mother Stallard
• Magpie
• Mayflower
• Meraviglia Di Venezia
• Purple Teepee
• Red Swan
• *Nonna Agnes's Blue

 BEET (+ Chard)

• Bull's Blood
• Cylindra
• *Flat of Egypt
• Golden
• *Mammoth Red Mangel
• *Sugar
• Rainbow Chard

 CABBAGE

• *Brunswick (free gift)

 CARROT

• *Chantenay Red Core
• *Cosmic Purple (free gift)
• *Oxheart
• *Purple Dragon
• *Pusa Asita Black
•  *St. Valery

CORN

• *Glass Gem
• K'uyu Chuspi
• Painted Mountain
• White Nighting

 CUCUMBER

• Dar
• Miniature White
• *Suyo Long

 EGGPLANT

• Casper
• Mitoyo

 FAVA

• *Aquadulce
• *Broad Windsor
• *Extra Precoce A Grano Violetto
• *Ianto's
• *~Robin Hood (Renee's Garden Seeds) 

 KALE

• *~Red Russian (Ferry~Morse)
• *Scarlet
• *Tronchuda

 MELON

• Charentais
• Escondido Gold
• Crane
• Golden Jenny
• Petit Gris de Rennes
• Rich Sweetness 132
• "Snow" - (weird white-ish store melon seeds)
• Zatta

 ONION

• *Ailsa Craig
• *Bianca di Giugno
• *Violet De Galmi

 PEA

• *Cascadia
• *Golden Sweet
• *Sugar Magnolia Tendril
• *Sugar Snap

 PEPPER

• Ajvarski
• Corbaci
• Criolla De Cocina
• Georgescu Chocolate
• Paradiscum Alaku Sarga Szentes (P.A.S.S. to save a life) 
• "Stripey" (striped store pepper, why not)

 SQUASH

• Bush Buttercup
• Candy Roaster - North Georgia
• Gete-Okosomin
• ~Gold Nugget (Botanical Interests)
• Mini Red Turban

 STRAWBERRY

• *Alexandria
• *Attila
• *White Soul

SUNFLOWER

• Mammoth Grey Striped
• Red Sun

TOMATO

• Barry's Crazy Cherry
• Black Vernissage (free gift)
• Blush
• Mary Robinson's German Bicolor
• Paul Robeson
• Riesentraube
• ~Sungold (Renee's Garden Seeds)

 WATERMELON

• ~Congo (Ferry~Morris)
• Sugar Baby Bush

Wow, I haven't had to sing the alphabet song that much in a long time. You're welcome, future self. (Note to future self: Future selves love lists. Trust me.)