urban gardening

[garmonbozia]

a lot of commercial fruit is grown to be sterile, so don't be disappointed if they don't work.

on the other hand, if you want to grow coriander or potatoes or even garlic, you can use ordinary versions you buy to eat.  otherwise, get some seeds in a packet and grow them, cos that's what they're supposed to do.

I've been wondering about that business with sterile seeds.  Coincidence, or did they go to the trouble of making them sterile just to keep us from growing our own?  The worst thing that could happen is that I end up with three bowls of useless black mud that needs to be thrown out.  What made me decide to go ahead and try using those seeds was that I once heard of a sewage treatment facility that uses leach fields.  Apparently, all kinds of seeds pass through the human digestive tract and remain intact (tough little fuckers).  Then, after a leach field has dried out, the remaining seeds take root and grow, resulting in all kinds of cucumbers and tomatoes and shit growing in the fields.  I figure that since most people get their produce from the supermarket and that happens, then some of the seeds must still be good.

I am, however, prepared to get some packets of seeds if nothing happens in the next few weeks.  As for heirloom varieties, there's a particular type of tomato that I'm interested in acquiring - the size of a cherry tomato, but yellow and pear-shaped.  Somebody in a club that I'm in brings them to meetings once or twice a year, so if that happens again, I'll have to take a few home.

[Lucifer]

here you go:



or:



you can get them here:  http://www.chileseeds.co.uk/organic-heirloom-tomato-seeds.htm

or for one in the US, here's:  http://store.tomatofest.com/Beams_Yellow_Pear_Tomato_Seeds_p/tf-0043a.htm

sadly, they're not organic, though. 

[garmonbozia]

Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting.  Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.

[Lucifer]

yay!  that's so exciting - i always get completely spazzy and flappy when that happens, being a big kid.   

[DirtDawg]

Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting.  Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.

Not meaning to persuade you to dash them upon the dry rocks as yet, because gambling is how the original hydridisers came to successes.

Do you know how the seeds may have been developed.?. Do you know the parentage

Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.

If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!

[Peter]

Can't tell for sure yet, but it looks like the pepper seeds might be sprouting.  Should be more obvious one way or the other in a few days.

Not meaning to persuade you to dash them upon the dry rocks as yet, because gambling is how the original hydridisers came to successes.

Do you know how the seeds may have been developed.?. Do you know the parentage

Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.

If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!

I've been having trouble getting seedlings to survive our horrid no-sun summers, never mind the winters.  They do fine in spring, when we often get a nice sunny spell, but then the weather turns cold, dark and shitty and all the seedlings die or go leggy, even in the greenhouse.  It wasn't always as bad as this; it's just in recent years that we've really been struggling with above-average cloud cover and rainfall.

[Lucifer]

that's global warming for you. 

[garmonbozia]

Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.

If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!

I'm in Florida.  Hot like Arizona, but unlike Arizona it's very humid here instead of dry.  It's starting to cool down here, relatively speaking.  Around here, 60 degrees Farenheit is considered chilly.  That might sound wonderful, but hurricane season's a bitch.  I suppose I could bring the sprouts inside if it gets too cold, and put them back out in the spring.

I looked at them again this afternoon, and there's definitely sprouting going on.

If this experiment fails, I'll just try again in the spring.  (Remember, it was free.  I was cutting up a grocery store pepper for lunch and had some potting soil left over from the maple, so I figured "what the hell".)

[DirtDawg]

Where do you live, BTW. I could never get a pepper seedling, sprouted in October, past my climate's horrid, no-sun winter. Some sprouts from March have made it, but never even a February seed has done more than suffer in my area. I have tried (I'm serious - for years - with all manner of sun gathering equipment, soil warming devices and other blah, blah - it doesn't work) and it is mostly the May seedlings which come to mature fruiting.

If you live in Arizona - maybe. I would dearly love to try!!

I'm in Florida.  Hot like Arizona, but unlike Arizona it's very humid here instead of dry.  It's starting to cool down here, relatively speaking.  Around here, 60 degrees Farenheit is considered chilly.  That might sound wonderful, but hurricane season's a bitch.  I suppose I could bring the sprouts inside if it gets too cold, and put them back out in the spring.

I looked at them again this afternoon, and there's definitely sprouting going on.

If this experiment fails, I'll just try again in the spring.  (Remember, it was free.  I was cutting up a grocery store pepper for lunch and had some potting soil left over from the maple, so I figured "what the hell".)

Well, then, COOL!

I grew up in the southernmost tip of Texas, so I know a little about warm winters (and I've studied hurricanes and horticulture). I was eighteen when I first encountered snow. Still hate it! (I now live in Indiana ... )

You might be OK (- for some reason, I thought your were Eurotrash or something. SORRY!  It's the screen name, but we'll talk about that later.)

Beware the sneakiness of fungi! Don't allow seedlings to stay wet, and keep the air moving.

What I would do (if I had fresh seeds and a southern winter to look forwad to) is I would make sure to use only fresh, sanitized sphagnum moss and plant some seeds about every two weeks. That way, if you get an infection, you can control it with acidic sprays (citric or acetic acid sprays - low concentration) and likely many from less susceptible ages would survive. Then as the weather becomes more to the liking of the tropical pepper plants, some will have well established roots. Combine these efforts with warming the actual soil where they are to be planted and again setting them out in succession - what ever type of seeds you have - some should make it to maturity. No guarantee that they will produce fruit, but you will know with the first flower whether or not they are capable.

[vodz]

Hey Garmonbozia, try giving that maple the bonsai treatment.

[garmonbozia]

Hey Garmonbozia, try giving that maple the bonsai treatment.

It's not thick enough.  Interestingly, it's grown a couple of side-trunks out of the dirt at the base of the main trunk.

I brought the pepper sprouts inside the other day, since it's gotten cold very fast.  Not sure if they'll survive the reduced sunlight and the cats, but we'll see.

[garmonbozia]

That little cold spell's over, so I put the sprouts back outside.  However, there will surely be many more cold spells before it stays cold for the winter.  (Florida's autumn and spring weather is unpredictable.)

The sprouts are about an inch tall now, most of them with two leaves and the seed casing still hanging onto a leaf.  Those are green bell pepper plants.  I have since saved the seeds from a red bell pepper and planted them a short while ago.  I plan to do the same with jalapeños some time in the next few days.

[garmonbozia]

The green pepper sprouts are still alive.  Some tomato seeds I planted the other day have sprouted up fast, and the red peppers are just starting to.  The jalapeños haven't started to yet.

I'll have to start moving this stuff into bigger pots soon.  Their biggest predator is one of my cats.

I've got some tomatillos (like tomatoes but green and sour).  When I've used those in cooking, I'll be sure to save the seeds.