tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-15152427395628552782024-03-06T12:01:20.400-08:00The batata gardenerOn sweet potatoes and other gardening obsessionsAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-27296974381587175732018-02-24T09:45:00.001-08:002018-02-24T09:55:28.752-08:00Results from 2017 and a sweet potato hiatus<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I've been getting some requests to write down the results of my 2017 sweet potato grow-out, so I decided to share the below harvest table (yields in kgs) I made back in October. The numbered plants indicate sweet potato seedlings, mostly from my own seed, which is primarily a cross between Bonita and Purple. There is also some traded seed in there, though that generally did less well than my own. Though the difference in yield between individual plants of the same variety can be substantial (hence the table is somewhat biased against varieties of which I grew more than one), it's quite clear that some of these seedlings are performing at least as well as their parents. S17-022 stands out so much that I'm wondering if I made a mistake somewhere (though I really doubt it), so I'll need to confirm its potential in future seasons.<br />
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All plants were grown outdoors, without plastic mulching, and with the application of a floating row cover until the first day of flowering.<br />
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I also harvested much more seed than I did last year, probably more than 300-400, I didn't really count, but plenty to work with.<br />
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You'll notice that things have been a bit quiet around here lately, which has to do with some accumulating research obligations in my non-sweet potato life (it does exist!). I'm currently away from my garden for a year due to a visiting research stay abroad, which means my sweet potato breeding work is on hold until 2019. I've however shared my material with a number of other growers and hopefully I'll be able to report on their results in Fall. I'm eager to continue working with this material after that, it feels like we're making some early but promising progress on developing more cold-tolerant sweet potato varieties. I'll be back!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-33723575991748719572017-08-12T08:02:00.000-07:002017-08-12T08:02:09.247-07:00Sweet potato breeding project - generation 1<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">First to flower and first to set seed - <br />seedling from a purple-leaved variety.</td></tr>
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Let's talk batatas! Last year I managed to get some of my sweet potatoes <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.be/2016/11/seed-seed-seed-or-bright-beginning-to.html">to flower and produce seed</a>, a first step towards breeding new, and in the long-run hopefully more cold-adapted sweet potato varieties. Since true sweet potato seed is a bit of rarity (at least in these parts of the world) and plant breeding significantly benefits from collective efforts (and since my own gardening successes tend to be somewhat erratic), I figured it would be wise to spread the responsibility a bit and so I distributed about half of my seed to other growers. I also received some seed back in trade, so that in total I had seed from 4-6 parent varieties. All of these were sown sometime in the beginning of April (if I remember correctly). Germination rate was high (it helps if you scarify the seed first), probably around 90%, and I ended up with some 50-ish seedlings of varying leaf types and growth habits. These duly went into the garden in the second half of May, a bit earlier than the varieties I'm propagating from slips. I took cuttings from most of the seedlings so that I would have at least two plants of each new variety, just as an insurance policy against unforeseen circumstances - think inadvertent gross neglect or sudden rodent mayhem.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Flower bud abundance</td></tr>
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I cover all my sweet potatoes with a floating row cover until they start flowering, which happened surprisingly early for the seedlings. The first flower buds appeared at the end of June, when most of the plants were still fairly small, and by the end of July some of these seedlings were flowering prolifically. I'm not sure if this has something to do with the fact that seedlings were raised indoors, and that they were therefore subject to a fairly large change in temperature when they were planted out (though to some extent so were the slips, and they didn't respond in the same way), but it's something I plan to investigate further. Most of the plants that are flowering are putting out an abundance of buds, not unlike the variety Purple, which is likely to be one of the parents. In fact, all of my own seed is probably a cross between Purple and Bonita. I noted four flowering varieties last year, but I've since become convinced that the variety I named 'Nordic White' is actually Bonita, while Georgia Jet really only produced a handful of flowers at most, and even then late in the season.<br />
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Except for some hesitant hoverflies, the bees and bumblebees didn't seem all that interested in the flowers at first. I suppose that's what I get for seducing them, right next to the sweet potatoes, with a generous patch of lacy phacelia (<i>Phacelia tanacetifolia</i>), which is a veritable bumblebee-magnet. For a while I also didn't see any evidence of seed formation, but something has been busy with those flowers, because after returning from a trip abroad and rushing out to the garden today I found some seed pods on the plants that were flowering first (top picture). Bless you, loyal mysterious pollinator. To be fair, now that the phacelia is done flowering I've seen a number of white-tailed and red-tailed bumblebees on the sweet potato flowers. Together with the fact that the diversity of <i>I. batatas </i>genetic material<i> </i>in my garden this season is a lot higher than last year, I'm hopeful I'll get a good amount of seed by the end of the season. Since we're having a fairly average summer so far, with plenty of rain and so far very few really warm days, that would be a significant indication that I am able to get true sweet potato seed under normal environmental conditions here in southern Sweden. A few seasons of that and I might have reliably-flowering breeding material from which to start selecting for early and temperate climate-adapted tuberization. We're not quite there yet, of course, and it seems like temperatures will be staying below 20℃ over the next two weeks. Fingers crossed!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">True sweet potato seed forming</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Part of the sweet potato patch - 12 August</td></tr>
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Apart from the seedlings, I'm also again growing the best from last year's varieties - Bonita, T65, Nordic Orange, Georgia Jet, Purple, as well as one of my Papua New Guinea seedlings from last year (Papua White-16), an old heirloom called Patriot, and two improved American varieties called Orleans and Bellevue that I received through the people at SLU Alnarp (the Swedish Agricultural University, who are currently also doing tests with growing sweet potato in southern Sweden). As last year, I noticed flower buds appearing on some of these plants by the end of July, and today I saw that Bonita has started flowering. Overall, I would say that things are going pretty well for the sweet potatoes. I lost three seedlings, probably to the voles, but that's it so far. To be continued!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-45362977415410641582016-11-26T00:47:00.000-08:002016-11-26T03:48:54.714-08:00Seed!, Seed!, Seed!, Or: A bright beginning to batata breeding (for beginners)<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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So. Things have been a bit mad around here for the last few months, what with defending a dissertation and all, which means a lot of things became hopelessly delayed, including harvesting things, and writing blog updates about harvesting things. I'm slowly getting there though, even though I will abstain from making promises of more regular future updates. It is what it is, my tiny cohort of somewhat-loyal followers!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sweet potato plot in late August - with bagged pods</td></tr>
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First up, this year's great <i>I. batatas</i> success. Damnit.. now I already gave it away. To recap, I had <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2016/05/sweet-potatoes-and-some-sweet-sweet.html">13 different sweet potato varieties at the start of this growing season.</a> Burgundy never made it out of the house, so only 12 of them ended up happily populating the batata plot, together with some 20 seedlings derived from seed originating in the Papua New Guinean highlands (don't ask...). Of these 12, the two Papuan tubers I had (unsurprisingly) proved somewhat too exotic for these latitudes (the fact that they were late to produce slips probably didn't help) and didn't yield any offspring that I could keep for next year. This left me with 10 varieties that all considering did rather well I think. The table below gives the yields, and my rough attempt to evaluate how much space I allocated to each variety, in order to give an estimate of the relative yields. I should underline that the space allocations are <u>estimates</u> that probably have a significant error margin, since, well, I completely failed to measure them properly prior to harvesting. Still, it should give a general idea of what varieties did best this year. At least the general direction of these numbers corresponds to my (very unbiased, naturally) subjective impressions of the harvest.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet potato harvest table - 2016</td></tr>
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As you can see, the most productive variety in my garden this year was not T65 (surprisingly, given its reputation as one of the most cool climate-tolerant, and given its indisputed domination in previous years), but Nordic White, followed by an unnamed variety originating from Telsing (and that might, in fact, be T65 - you didn't think this was going to be easy or straightforward, did you?). Georgia Jet and its clone, Mystery - those sweet potato superstars of the temperate Americas - again failed to live up to its promises here in Sweden. I suspect that even though GJ is a short-season variety, it requires fairly high temperatures to produce decent-sized tubers, and we certainly have cooler summers here than in much of the northern US and southern Canada. That being said, this was in many ways a dream year (in relative Swedish terms) for sweet potatoes here, with a very warm spring followed by a fairly decent summer, followed again by an unseasonally warm September. I've added a temperature analysis below: overall this growing season was about 1.2°C warmer than the same period in 2015. As for a bit more details on my cultivation practices, all of the listed varieties were grown outside, on ridges, without ground cover. Plants were covered with row covers for the first half of the season, until around the end of July, when the first flower buds appeared.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76eud5PT_SB1HwpL7RWszJ8HYXAioSHtXWQN1RIpkYj5RbrqqPEDUx3Ag_7BYuGQXO6-L7_owO_ZrWe1ZkwX5nfoSsDiVm0eScLHEAICxeztqAmB088tEr3KbmLG3BKkZkDQcW1bgkyM/s1600/IMG_0678.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi76eud5PT_SB1HwpL7RWszJ8HYXAioSHtXWQN1RIpkYj5RbrqqPEDUx3Ag_7BYuGQXO6-L7_owO_ZrWe1ZkwX5nfoSsDiVm0eScLHEAICxeztqAmB088tEr3KbmLG3BKkZkDQcW1bgkyM/s400/IMG_0678.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is most of the harvest except for Bonita, Nordic White and Nordic Purple</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwForS24Jm_doIs5BQ7szxG7mJAJun8TFbdX1mRB2s3qjd4QfTul3aP8O9v2rwfJ9QDiWFzdvfr5s-I5W4xmjO2rxxzZlDLRCD-bcvF1aXyTp92LWnkqwpMerEpse_xdLCsNY7DM55ZY/s1600/IMG_0680.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqwForS24Jm_doIs5BQ7szxG7mJAJun8TFbdX1mRB2s3qjd4QfTul3aP8O9v2rwfJ9QDiWFzdvfr5s-I5W4xmjO2rxxzZlDLRCD-bcvF1aXyTp92LWnkqwpMerEpse_xdLCsNY7DM55ZY/s320/IMG_0680.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpur_zSdgbNxccW_oYIprq8KTTxbhQIfJn4NxtOsNmwMR3rDaIKWuzfjrflSl8T1Y82AScU1KfBnVoilZpYd5GBSb5KHU6BZyvPFiitVucCY2y-3hmJotFWjWP3nhqL0q2h68Zc7Ba6-c/s1600/IMG_0696.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpur_zSdgbNxccW_oYIprq8KTTxbhQIfJn4NxtOsNmwMR3rDaIKWuzfjrflSl8T1Y82AScU1KfBnVoilZpYd5GBSb5KHU6BZyvPFiitVucCY2y-3hmJotFWjWP3nhqL0q2h68Zc7Ba6-c/s320/IMG_0696.JPG" width="240" /></a>As expected, the PNG seedlings didn't produce all that much. Nevertheless, it was an interesting little experiment. There was large variety in terms of growth habbit, leaf shape and colour, tuber morphology and skin and flesh colour among the seedlings. White, cream, purple-ish and various shades of copper-coloured roots were all present. One plant yielded three medium-sized white tubers, which I will attempt to keep for next year. The rest will be discarded. All of this gives me little reason for sorrow because, my friends, I now also have more promising seeds to play with! The (F) behind Georgia Jet, Bonita, Nordic White and (Nordic) Purple indicates that these varieties flowered and set seed this year, which, as the internet might have told you, is somewhat of an anomaly in batataland. Georgia Jet produced only one pod (I believe), but might have contributed pollen to the others. Bonita and Nordic White were earliest to flower and put out quite a lot of pods in the end, though the absolute flowering and seed-producing champion was Purple, which flowered some two weeks later but when it did made the others pale in comparison. I should note that Bonita and Nordic White, which I obtained from different sources, appear very similar and I'm not entirely sure anymore that they are in fact distinct varieties. For the time being, however, I will treat them as such. None of the seeds fully matured on the plants before I needed to harvest the tubers in the first week of October, so I cut off all of the stems with pods on them and put them in water indoors, until they had fully dried. I've tallied up the totals last week, and in total I now have 104 sweet potato seeds to play with next season. Excuse me while I make a little victory dance. I also got my hands on seed from three other varieties, produced by a fellow batata enthusiast in the US, so there should be a bit of diversity here to start working from. Now it's just a matter of upscaling seed production and growing out tens of thousands of seedlings in order to start selecting for adaptation to northern Europe. Easy! Maybe someone wants to contribute with some land and some long-term research funding?</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Sweet potato seed pod</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr9lwjj5NVUigw-Wfv2Mm5m0GgQwiG3pfsBMNo_t13pJRpN1ft2WwHcaQINTCCtQhKTos1Gt86sNWtXlTiM7HJnGjY102x8sLnhvdFQxwVSZqHLlg8Bu02cShi49HkaNOk6nuJHjErkg0/s1600/Malmo+weather+ANALYSIS+2016.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="372" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr9lwjj5NVUigw-Wfv2Mm5m0GgQwiG3pfsBMNo_t13pJRpN1ft2WwHcaQINTCCtQhKTos1Gt86sNWtXlTiM7HJnGjY102x8sLnhvdFQxwVSZqHLlg8Bu02cShi49HkaNOk6nuJHjErkg0/s640/Malmo+weather+ANALYSIS+2016.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Malmö weather - 2016</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtGMb83yTdWNk-ttscpflR-3GRLvVsrJLvJWhJzPoxBQu9u9ieJXNqQTnKNY_-XIuQgYEKZ6bqk9wecfkYkvSgMClosWszV14180VZapiHfOLWE04k70NQdrDI1Fqz46C93_eTfamaVU/s1600/Malmo+weather+ANALYSIS+COMPARE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhGtGMb83yTdWNk-ttscpflR-3GRLvVsrJLvJWhJzPoxBQu9u9ieJXNqQTnKNY_-XIuQgYEKZ6bqk9wecfkYkvSgMClosWszV14180VZapiHfOLWE04k70NQdrDI1Fqz46C93_eTfamaVU/s640/Malmo+weather+ANALYSIS+COMPARE.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">2016 compared to 2015: avg temp between June and October 2016 was about 1.2°C higher than 2015</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-15777656295527466112016-10-04T23:04:00.001-07:002016-10-05T01:26:17.151-07:00A leguminous verdict<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTXaOXsIhj-u-6WCwhxffqV0TnLW35YkTMp8-nfhiUHgMO0JqPSmRU7W-ToXbSukqgK6W5PLSVfD4soxaQRrlqm5UZiRAEkeAKCdyrR8C1bT0ib09BrnHCMoXiVCWvlXNKWuxOv-0Lv44/s1600/IMG_0708.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTXaOXsIhj-u-6WCwhxffqV0TnLW35YkTMp8-nfhiUHgMO0JqPSmRU7W-ToXbSukqgK6W5PLSVfD4soxaQRrlqm5UZiRAEkeAKCdyrR8C1bT0ib09BrnHCMoXiVCWvlXNKWuxOv-0Lv44/s320/IMG_0708.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Wolverines's orca bean</td></tr>
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Summer's over, though it took a while before I could say that with some confidence this year. 26 degrees Celsius in the middle of September is certainly out of the ordinary for this part of the world... If it wouldn't be an indication of a rather ominous trend, I wouldn't have minded so much. As it stands, I can't help but think that I'd rather have my sweet potatoes adapt to the Scanian climate than the other way around.<br />
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In any case, it's time for some harvest updates. I'll start with the legumes, since these are all in, fully dried, shelled, sorted and weighed. As you might remember, I had <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2016/07/peas-on-my-mind.html">a few different legumes on the trial table this year</a>: favas beans, peas, beans, lentils, chickpeas and some lupines. As in any good story, this turned out to be a tale of heroic successes (well, kind of), epic failures, and everything in between.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilvFMmf7piuZPpxgR278xiop0Ldva1QMbRMGwbt3Aq_rDH8dv66Gq9CYlyoI8EjiCKJhDzUyA0vEA5GKZ3optpQlUv5kpBQn30tcAGbdBHWY3R2fH81m5hkcxBoKsyxPjfhXSu6klxSec/s1600/IMG_0588.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEilvFMmf7piuZPpxgR278xiop0Ldva1QMbRMGwbt3Aq_rDH8dv66Gq9CYlyoI8EjiCKJhDzUyA0vEA5GKZ3optpQlUv5kpBQn30tcAGbdBHWY3R2fH81m5hkcxBoKsyxPjfhXSu6klxSec/s200/IMG_0588.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickpea pods</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXlUgXu-SSNd6EaLzz6aRybddpimRPJ0m47Qq24rGlqwKyGhoscXuJWIIMUPcQXTM5V7Ttl2egebxIC6kCU5k4qRYG3h2_VxeIlCAkz4zxvL5adOOjQEQmdLlK0w9tNrToVaBqFcUNqM/s1600/IMG_0518.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaXlUgXu-SSNd6EaLzz6aRybddpimRPJ0m47Qq24rGlqwKyGhoscXuJWIIMUPcQXTM5V7Ttl2egebxIC6kCU5k4qRYG3h2_VxeIlCAkz4zxvL5adOOjQEQmdLlK0w9tNrToVaBqFcUNqM/s200/IMG_0518.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickpea flower</td></tr>
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If we start with the epic failures: I've discovered that something or someone inhabiting my allotment likes chickpeas at least as much as I do. My chickpea plants did fabulous in the beginning. They germinated without much of a problem in fairly cold soil, happily grew on during the warm spring, and were soon filled with cute-looking pods. Quite a few of these pods appeared to be empty, which I had read could be due to bad pollination (in turn due to low temperatures perhaps), but a lot of them seemed to have good-sized chickpeas in them. But then the disappearances started occuring. Somehow a lot of the pods just vanished before they fully matured. I didn't make much of it at first, as I've learned to accept that the various non-humans I share the garden with demand some form of tribute from me, but when the empty pods started piling up between the plants I realized I was dealing with more than your average chickpea thief. Soon I had no pods left. I'm absolutely clueless as to who or what the culprit is. I covered the plants with netting for a while with the idea that the finches might be to blame, but the chickpeas kept disappearing. Since even the pods at the top of the plants were stolen, it feels like it can't have been a mouse or vole either. Whoever it was ate a decent-sized hole in the pods, ate both the immature and the nearly-mature seeds, and then left the empty pods in provocative-looking little piles at the foot of the plants, as well as in the adjacent pea row... Any help with identifying the rascal responsible for this greedy injustice would be much appreciated! The result of all this is that the entire chickpea harvest this year consists of half a handful of tiny seeds. Not exactly hummus material, sadly. But don't you think that I'm giving up yet!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm768q4A8S7RLZPxyIIPLApwm6Q9K0l05r52CTKh5-WHOkGWiyd5Zdpmjnd9fL4fMwV9lTvOJqlyEKa3IxBggWz95p2npjU5Ar4dOTkj1SFXQmMNNnAGnCvQndLs8mOvdLhq2p8Phd0MQ/s1600/IMG_0665.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm768q4A8S7RLZPxyIIPLApwm6Q9K0l05r52CTKh5-WHOkGWiyd5Zdpmjnd9fL4fMwV9lTvOJqlyEKa3IxBggWz95p2npjU5Ar4dOTkj1SFXQmMNNnAGnCvQndLs8mOvdLhq2p8Phd0MQ/s320/IMG_0665.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chickpea massacre</td></tr>
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This year's lentil story unfolded in rather similar ways. One way or another, the lentils pods developed and then just vanished in thin air. I didn't even bother looking for survivors, since I had already decided that lentils are a bit too finicky to work with anyway. I dug them all into the soil, may the lentil project rest in peace.<br />
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The fava beans did well and I enjoyed a decent amount of them fresh. I left plenty on the plants to dry as well, though here too I had to sacrifice some to the local fauna. The bigger problem manifested itself when I starting shelling the dried beans. The majority of the pods had been invaded by what I surmise is the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruchus_rufimanus">broad bean weevil</a> (<i>Bruchus rufimanus</i>), whose larvae eat their way into the bean and then emerge from the dried seed as an adult (and rather confused-looking) beetle. The result in my case was a majority of seed with beetles or beetle-sized holes in them... While probably still edible, they're a bit of pain to sort and clean that way. I'll probably stick to eating my fava beans fresh.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTQPhM7i-nWyye5qbG7kijU7a_FkRjbSif2N-gugX5vCtjW-X-5FhC-s7V_0OHQc7kq2BCbqaS-C_suOm2JpmE5CfYrsPVlXvK05yBxkkm54HVB0iK82-bklZ0OZC6GcvXHvyD0r5Ymk/s1600/IMG_0695.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="311" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFTQPhM7i-nWyye5qbG7kijU7a_FkRjbSif2N-gugX5vCtjW-X-5FhC-s7V_0OHQc7kq2BCbqaS-C_suOm2JpmE5CfYrsPVlXvK05yBxkkm54HVB0iK82-bklZ0OZC6GcvXHvyD0r5Ymk/s320/IMG_0695.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="320" /></a>On to happier news then. Dried peas are susceptible to weevils as well (<i><a href="http://www.agroatlas.ru/en/content/pests/Bruchus_pisorum/">Bruchus pisorum</a> </i>to be precise), but luckily this species is a bit less common in these regions (for the moment) and I haven't had any problems with it in my garden the past year. The different pea varieties did very well, even though the cursed pigeons decimated everything that grew out above the trellis that I had constructed. Luckily, since the trellis was pretty high anyway, the damage was fairly limited. Some of the peas had larvae of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cydia_nigricana">pea moth</a> in them (<i>Cydia nigricana</i>, - one certainly learns a lot about insects and their insecty habbits as a gardener), basically a small white larva that eats its way through some of the peas and then leaves a trail of web and excrement behind. Thank you very much! Overall it wasn't too bad, I think I eventually had to throw out between 5 and 10% of the peas. What was left was the following, in brackets is the approximate (and I want to underline approximate) space I had for each variety:<br />
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- Govorov - 45g (I only had a few plants of this)<br />
- Klosterärt - 600g (a 2 meter row)<br />
- Biskopens gråärt - 340g (1-1.5 meter row)<br />
- Bjurholms småärt - 840g (2 meter row)<br />
- Gotländs blåärt - 710g (1.5-2 meter row)<br />
- Solleröns gråärt - 300g (1 meter row)</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh__ilYte1M_I8ZFTcWuW6esh06dmJA-nDm-GWqg4Kaozw_E2o0VPB9lO48YdKecM-RPbAgd1L83oJyhyphenhyphenJtEgWAgSWr2g_bRe32SKWM0ci35_iKuJWYfYzGHMwTx6V4Ig2DvPNPW-7FLY/s1600/IMG_0690.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh__ilYte1M_I8ZFTcWuW6esh06dmJA-nDm-GWqg4Kaozw_E2o0VPB9lO48YdKecM-RPbAgd1L83oJyhyphenhyphenJtEgWAgSWr2g_bRe32SKWM0ci35_iKuJWYfYzGHMwTx6V4Ig2DvPNPW-7FLY/s200/IMG_0690.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Klosterärt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKMgCa4oI0vHpLi1wZ76HMWWX46MVSncLjKXp5X6jEYXupu07YXWsN6Ng1Q30UILhtt6F7aUVixmi168qMeUTAMpRhNnWf7skDKMIYh9DHBjc6abB3S7tq5yhURlG6chxsNgwSSNdgBI/s1600/IMG_0692.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqKMgCa4oI0vHpLi1wZ76HMWWX46MVSncLjKXp5X6jEYXupu07YXWsN6Ng1Q30UILhtt6F7aUVixmi168qMeUTAMpRhNnWf7skDKMIYh9DHBjc6abB3S7tq5yhURlG6chxsNgwSSNdgBI/s200/IMG_0692.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Biskopens gråärt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYojMlma_TXeht53n87F5I1cCjKQIUv0G7cU6YHEjGq9xSJC1b8mx2GqTEoI-K41o-vFSHaD1jeM46vQhBM_J8dHHD3aatH5u6MjG-NIBjFPgjLltIgI0x7H6DKGR5Jig8IA7vazoPY3o/s1600/IMG_0691.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYojMlma_TXeht53n87F5I1cCjKQIUv0G7cU6YHEjGq9xSJC1b8mx2GqTEoI-K41o-vFSHaD1jeM46vQhBM_J8dHHD3aatH5u6MjG-NIBjFPgjLltIgI0x7H6DKGR5Jig8IA7vazoPY3o/s200/IMG_0691.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bjurholms småärt</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdbk5mUfrFvNuoZLQzd4T6wVOfsyBTuDg9kLshInwRaWXC5LOFHndU-GONn-q-aCDSqAX4PPFfCaoRrDPK41idIbfTyji0qLrjmaE7oo_Mv1Haoj4AtE17i4X9cl0T_8ZGI1xKVFUgSw/s1600/IMG_0693.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHdbk5mUfrFvNuoZLQzd4T6wVOfsyBTuDg9kLshInwRaWXC5LOFHndU-GONn-q-aCDSqAX4PPFfCaoRrDPK41idIbfTyji0qLrjmaE7oo_Mv1Haoj4AtE17i4X9cl0T_8ZGI1xKVFUgSw/s200/IMG_0693.JPG" width="150" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gotländsk blåärt</td></tr>
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That's a total 1790g seeds for some 8 meters of peas, or a space of 3 to 4 m2. I'm pretty happy with that, and I look forward to the taste test.</div>
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And then, of course, for the beans. Not many problems to report here, the beans were pretty much pest-free and due to a dry and warm late August and September they dried well on the plants. The results, again with an estimate of the growing space for each variety in brackets:<br />
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- Huttiternas soup bean: 280g (1.5m)<br />
- Borlotti: 1500g (6.5m)<br />
- Brightstone: 910g (2.5-3m)<br />
- Stella/Bruna bönor: 760g (3.5m - these were supposed to be 2 distinct varieties but they are almost identical and ended up together.. woops)<br />
- Wolverine's orca: 310g (2m)<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRD_6fa95CqEJVamjANKraMWhmbTcDDip6JmKaB7ikoRK-LBVdqASGeKyeR1aaL0vmiik6TkBbTBqeWItaaO-ufUFfUcmTiEsxSy78GqWmD-5t0Jzzw0g5FVwNZ562QIlUPGwc16PVXA/s1600/IMG_0713.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQRD_6fa95CqEJVamjANKraMWhmbTcDDip6JmKaB7ikoRK-LBVdqASGeKyeR1aaL0vmiik6TkBbTBqeWItaaO-ufUFfUcmTiEsxSy78GqWmD-5t0Jzzw0g5FVwNZ562QIlUPGwc16PVXA/s320/IMG_0713.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Borlotti</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfTmlsCGNVIVZb0JMAimKdlxPbEOXz3VTHJ7cKUWkdqkFCjr0OKVdgMIgQLMtUcnsu_Vvhn41WBff8lnRxy7C3ZQvMuYq9AY3Mt-IWimQtExFBUtqNHtkd1QykfTr3mUufe4px_EykoI/s1600/IMG_0715.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAfTmlsCGNVIVZb0JMAimKdlxPbEOXz3VTHJ7cKUWkdqkFCjr0OKVdgMIgQLMtUcnsu_Vvhn41WBff8lnRxy7C3ZQvMuYq9AY3Mt-IWimQtExFBUtqNHtkd1QykfTr3mUufe4px_EykoI/s320/IMG_0715.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Brightstone</td></tr>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEili66leZU4JHnp9XhwxC4KFBCQSrrV6LnXZ2o65ITq175vzSfQPuxMpoobZCVB67jIwF4sJlsWJ_9Sop4ZbeWVcPe80LXkhz6zSxK5bsbp5Da19R94R4On2rteRLC1SDXXPKjXwoYArYw/s1600/IMG_0714.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEili66leZU4JHnp9XhwxC4KFBCQSrrV6LnXZ2o65ITq175vzSfQPuxMpoobZCVB67jIwF4sJlsWJ_9Sop4ZbeWVcPe80LXkhz6zSxK5bsbp5Da19R94R4On2rteRLC1SDXXPKjXwoYArYw/s320/IMG_0714.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Stella/Brown bean</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Summed up, that's a grand total of 3760g of dried beans for 4 rows of 4 meters, or about 6 to 8 m2.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR_FvtEBkmOI5cR77hJyvNJsZ7N_Su9A8fNHXsF3J4tCD-OBAV_lap57qZq7UVuEc63fQx68thlaYbkfNT5r-U0hTcPn2vASHK6lsh6aiwJp-2wnjaD5W9kmLqivuTAxZv72wCgqpR_9o/s1600/IMG_0611.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgR_FvtEBkmOI5cR77hJyvNJsZ7N_Su9A8fNHXsF3J4tCD-OBAV_lap57qZq7UVuEc63fQx68thlaYbkfNT5r-U0hTcPn2vASHK6lsh6aiwJp-2wnjaD5W9kmLqivuTAxZv72wCgqpR_9o/s320/IMG_0611.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lupin bean (L. albus)</td></tr>
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The lupine, finally, is still out there braving the current autumn spell we're having. I only have a couple of plants and my objective is just to see if the seed is at all edible. No big expectations there.<br />
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The final verdict of The Great Legume Project? I'll be growing more peas and beans next year, drop the lentils and stick with fava beans as a summer crop. I'm definitely trying chickpeas again, against all ods, simply because I'm biased towards chickpeas, but I'll probably be guarding them closely. Think the batata garden, annex chickpea fortress.. something along those lines. </div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-72126294985246461082016-07-30T23:44:00.001-07:002016-07-31T05:51:50.419-07:00Mixing up the maximas<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
You might remember that I <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2016/03/early-spring-musings-2016.html">threw all cucurbit seed-saving advice in the wind</a> this year in embarking on something of a C. maxima landrace adventure. I've let the bees do their pollen dance and then saved and planted whatever crosses they've come up with. Since I garden in an allotment, and some of my neighbours grow winter squash as well, there's bound to be some cross-pollination with varieties that I've not selected myself. As I'm fairly picky about my winter squash, I should confess that this instilled some doubt in me at first. If I've understood the science behind this correctly, however, cucurbits are mostly pollinated by themselves or by neighbouring plants, so most of the genetic material should in fact come from within my own winter squash patch. And anyway, it's fun to try and mess things up a bit to see what happens.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn-zOVTkPt9HgNDolajdgCQ1e09_nQqS7yxUcQ6uSLKiJpLd7mZGbQJI__q8LFSb04liYG36UxMc1LE3VRBtkCsdCJdwymkkaQisV4pnS9X0s1b1sGdXIhR6iNxDGJxWYI8nFVM_6XmA/s1600/IMG_0649.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn-zOVTkPt9HgNDolajdgCQ1e09_nQqS7yxUcQ6uSLKiJpLd7mZGbQJI__q8LFSb04liYG36UxMc1LE3VRBtkCsdCJdwymkkaQisV4pnS9X0s1b1sGdXIhR6iNxDGJxWYI8nFVM_6XmA/s1600/IMG_0649.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"> </a>The squash are starting to mature now, which makes this an appropriate time for a first evaluation of what the bees have been up to last year. My main selection criteria, of course, will be taste, but based on growth habbit and appearance I think I can already draw some preliminary conclusions. Without further ado, here's this year's winter squashes. Let's start with the crosses:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Bf_iztzGGjwj7F7P6FAhseMB2qrxibaUDPw4zIgQyxvf6J8B6lZn8KLnFu45yjcBWMCLJZrJgwiC907yunj5pQOrVoDr9-7jK7LJEUSwnpsFDfz0PWbEO10I4O6TgXvimVDL9KHHyFo/s1600/IMG_0633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn-zOVTkPt9HgNDolajdgCQ1e09_nQqS7yxUcQ6uSLKiJpLd7mZGbQJI__q8LFSb04liYG36UxMc1LE3VRBtkCsdCJdwymkkaQisV4pnS9X0s1b1sGdXIhR6iNxDGJxWYI8nFVM_6XmA/s1600/IMG_0649.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBn-zOVTkPt9HgNDolajdgCQ1e09_nQqS7yxUcQ6uSLKiJpLd7mZGbQJI__q8LFSb04liYG36UxMc1LE3VRBtkCsdCJdwymkkaQisV4pnS9X0s1b1sGdXIhR6iNxDGJxWYI8nFVM_6XmA/s320/IMG_0649.JPG" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqLo0mxPIQmGhM4RSD2fes_BDG0RhYNUTaOlSazAksC3zwABBT7463Azu1SqYlbVY0yFQxETOH0ksKzxfA5vjAF6yMnLAPx8-JiI6aZPswd2iFayW0VLdFAR8_GATGb538IzMrjqCtavg/s1600/IMG_0654.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqLo0mxPIQmGhM4RSD2fes_BDG0RhYNUTaOlSazAksC3zwABBT7463Azu1SqYlbVY0yFQxETOH0ksKzxfA5vjAF6yMnLAPx8-JiI6aZPswd2iFayW0VLdFAR8_GATGb538IzMrjqCtavg/s320/IMG_0654.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Both of the above are a cross of Sweet Mama (F1) and an unknown paternal line. Because of the salmon-coloured spots on the squash on the left I would speculate that there's some Galeux d'Eysines genes involved (which is a pity since I didn't think it was very good, but that's the name of the game of course). Since it's a fairly round squash however, which is unlike either Sweet Mama or Galeux d'Eysines, there might be something else going on here as well. The squash on the right looks like it might be cross with Sweet Meat (because of the colour) and/or Marina di Chioggia (because of the pronounced ribbed structure).</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXgY7dddHYJfj5905c4xNjS0RZJCasNLEh5Y9Pj6aC1heBaRM4kUcQEuqDRA5UAh5lT8OUQYh94uaUly9j3j_ne0yJ03U9jMelKpBBpYaiaO-jAPSFAu7zDu9wAy5GKRuUdzVyUrJvXiU/s1600/IMG_0646.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgXgY7dddHYJfj5905c4xNjS0RZJCasNLEh5Y9Pj6aC1heBaRM4kUcQEuqDRA5UAh5lT8OUQYh94uaUly9j3j_ne0yJ03U9jMelKpBBpYaiaO-jAPSFAu7zDu9wAy5GKRuUdzVyUrJvXiU/s320/IMG_0646.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is another Sweet Mama (F1) cross. I'm not sure if you can tell from the picture but this is one big squash, at least half a meter in diameter. This poses a bit of a mystery since I didn't grow anything this big last year. The only variety that comes close is Galeux d'Eysines, which can, apparently, get quite large. Now genetics isn't quite as straightforward as that; you could very well cross two medium squashes and up with a larger one, but still, there's a likelihood that this is actually a cross with something from one of my neighbours. It's also definitely more yellow/orange than the Galeux d'Eysines I grew last year, though apparently there's a bit of colour variation in the latter as well. The stripes are probably from Sweet Mama (it shows up in quite a few of the crosses, could be a dominant allele?). I'm selecting for small to medium-sized squash, and I've yet to come across an orange-skinned squash that rivals the green or blue ones in taste, so it's unlikely I'll be saving seed from this monster. It looks impressive though.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1OC_P2cyBuGEwKL3Y846Egg4rGyqOCQ-AzwL3IlAAt1CBRJikvgE5KLF0IDyUVNv7dlc9tlFYIEBgbUNyAJ8W2sZ8sppn-5MHMOIUENAenMRNfAWTrB7yU8cUEI-FLFX1Y6wGfmx67U/s1600/IMG_0647.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgU1OC_P2cyBuGEwKL3Y846Egg4rGyqOCQ-AzwL3IlAAt1CBRJikvgE5KLF0IDyUVNv7dlc9tlFYIEBgbUNyAJ8W2sZ8sppn-5MHMOIUENAenMRNfAWTrB7yU8cUEI-FLFX1Y6wGfmx67U/s320/IMG_0647.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This Burgess Buttercup cross more clearly includes some Galeux d'Eysines genes. It has the stripes and shape of Burgess Buttercup, and the skin colour, size and some of the warts of Galeux d'Eysines. I hope it inherited its eating quality from its mother...</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6_kiP_pN4e9v8iGRD3pcIla6GMhLrb-WEAdigLFlDV9VZvCODyWY9wXoZp78i9YKJHUUwMMytShd6IR8j3CIHA7rPWTtgmQaXMd3tjTDoeOcSFj-O8ZejTdof27ceaUvKhLV5BJS778/s1600/IMG_0648.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv6_kiP_pN4e9v8iGRD3pcIla6GMhLrb-WEAdigLFlDV9VZvCODyWY9wXoZp78i9YKJHUUwMMytShd6IR8j3CIHA7rPWTtgmQaXMd3tjTDoeOcSFj-O8ZejTdof27ceaUvKhLV5BJS778/s320/IMG_0648.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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More Sweet Mama offspring. This squash has a slight teardrop-shape, which makes me suspect that it might have crossed with a hubbard squash. I only grew Blue Ballet last year, which is a scaled-down hubbard, and this is one is quite a bit larger than that, but still, that would be my best guess.</div>
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Then there's also some less exciting crosses:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1__tnnB_UMcIdZL8Ti0ZFJwMC5BxSUjQCWp8uAgxTnX_4HP6ZWSe5dl9fxFCZTDKd3AMJ7zYjOoZqPIRLCtirjTAG719aL8ESNwny1d-Vyxe-dpC8m7fxd_eO72Pbi3aoL513Lhp4h6A/s1600/IMG_0642.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1__tnnB_UMcIdZL8Ti0ZFJwMC5BxSUjQCWp8uAgxTnX_4HP6ZWSe5dl9fxFCZTDKd3AMJ7zYjOoZqPIRLCtirjTAG719aL8ESNwny1d-Vyxe-dpC8m7fxd_eO72Pbi3aoL513Lhp4h6A/s320/IMG_0642.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This looks pretty much like a Sweet Mama squash, but it's more vining in its growth habbit and perhaps a bit more squared than your average Sweet Mama, so it might actually have crossed with Burgess Buttercup. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkfe_COSuTydO_rC8Iwmiwd4sLv0wMyca2ErFwyw_U-7ymW9yBfXpSXr_4nCHxCd7Zcj0-btu3FlWxJOfFAv5e9a9N3NQSH8eK-zVeIS_aNxQ4GLrtBiIFlo4UpUs0Z1d9s-3GfocSrWM/s1600/IMG_0645.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkfe_COSuTydO_rC8Iwmiwd4sLv0wMyca2ErFwyw_U-7ymW9yBfXpSXr_4nCHxCd7Zcj0-btu3FlWxJOfFAv5e9a9N3NQSH8eK-zVeIS_aNxQ4GLrtBiIFlo4UpUs0Z1d9s-3GfocSrWM/s320/IMG_0645.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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A Burgess Buttercup cross that looks exactly like a Burgess Buttercup, if perhaps slightly less block-ish. It probably crossed with itself.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjs_EeJPp9UhQ_iYk_rjqKYZlnPjchyqviGHi7YEa5hUs3Or2ZUxkBz_yrfwuV6dfXgXepT444wEldlFeJxYs0db-vVo0JaGyO5w8PhzL6MgLTWbEifkkpdqr6TeAbfjxGzjpBfHtZSY/s1600/IMG_0652.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjRjs_EeJPp9UhQ_iYk_rjqKYZlnPjchyqviGHi7YEa5hUs3Or2ZUxkBz_yrfwuV6dfXgXepT444wEldlFeJxYs0db-vVo0JaGyO5w8PhzL6MgLTWbEifkkpdqr6TeAbfjxGzjpBfHtZSY/s320/IMG_0652.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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This is a Green Hokkaido cross. Again, I fail to see the difference with the original Green Hokkaido at this point.</div>
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Finally, I'm also growing a bunch of named varieties this year, mostly to add some more (supposedly) excellent squashes to the maxima mix, and also simply because I seem to have an unquenchable thirst for trying new winter squash varieties. I've only got one plant of each of these:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HqyBKtgF3rzbsiPwskT2RN7HrdUnbz8HF2X9fIaRz7n4wByNQV5OLCtgLOXbqQE3q25cpj5NGdlDnsE6Sv-g2a6yRRrbkJcwo_wsUDqr0zUF5Iy_MbK-jLOO330D2cngh06xySciPrU/s1600/IMG_0636.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5HqyBKtgF3rzbsiPwskT2RN7HrdUnbz8HF2X9fIaRz7n4wByNQV5OLCtgLOXbqQE3q25cpj5NGdlDnsE6Sv-g2a6yRRrbkJcwo_wsUDqr0zUF5Iy_MbK-jLOO330D2cngh06xySciPrU/s320/IMG_0636.JPG" width="240" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdjakNxn_CoiVah50Q8EVtl5axMRVqSpEhtjG3gsy4a8J9GieTJU9gaX3v2wblcD8QfT75S7eTxJKgjlGQmuI-ZJs4B10dOe2Kc5vnS2XzVOMYj0DRM29EiJJIvd4Noz3X7STGPvGt_c/s1600/IMG_0640.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixdjakNxn_CoiVah50Q8EVtl5axMRVqSpEhtjG3gsy4a8J9GieTJU9gaX3v2wblcD8QfT75S7eTxJKgjlGQmuI-ZJs4B10dOe2Kc5vnS2XzVOMYj0DRM29EiJJIvd4Noz3X7STGPvGt_c/s320/IMG_0640.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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To the left is Sibley, to the right Guatemalan Blue. Both are banana-type squashes with supposedly excellent eating quality. Guatemalan Blue is significantly larger than Sibley (it's probably about 40-50 cm long), but not nearly as productive (I've counted 4 medium-sized Sibley squash on the one vine that I have, which is quite good for a Maxima squash, at least in my garden)</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Bf_iztzGGjwj7F7P6FAhseMB2qrxibaUDPw4zIgQyxvf6J8B6lZn8KLnFu45yjcBWMCLJZrJgwiC907yunj5pQOrVoDr9-7jK7LJEUSwnpsFDfz0PWbEO10I4O6TgXvimVDL9KHHyFo/s1600/IMG_0633.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3Bf_iztzGGjwj7F7P6FAhseMB2qrxibaUDPw4zIgQyxvf6J8B6lZn8KLnFu45yjcBWMCLJZrJgwiC907yunj5pQOrVoDr9-7jK7LJEUSwnpsFDfz0PWbEO10I4O6TgXvimVDL9KHHyFo/s320/IMG_0633.JPG" width="240" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTxCPcWc9KwDD_xQXkYmkgdFQ3MijgtScrD1eEZVAY1VKSiNiD2dC_D3QVVQp14Dn6vsboppsyewy_ZPj8HYq1xcssgtS6CC5qAxbd_nOJTNPuB9xCfldJx5smJsb7rX2uroRNDcfkBE/s1600/IMG_0637.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitTxCPcWc9KwDD_xQXkYmkgdFQ3MijgtScrD1eEZVAY1VKSiNiD2dC_D3QVVQp14Dn6vsboppsyewy_ZPj8HYq1xcssgtS6CC5qAxbd_nOJTNPuB9xCfldJx5smJsb7rX2uroRNDcfkBE/s320/IMG_0637.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
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Ah, Marina di Chioggia (left), one of my absolute favourite maximas so far (taste-wise) but frustratingly late to set fruit and mature. I can't give it up though, so I'm hoping to transfer some of its genes into my proto-landrace. To the right is Bon Bon (F1), a Buttercup-type that I'm quite impressed with so far. I'm not sure if it just happened to get the best and most fertile spot in the garden, or if this is really just a superior variety, but this is one healthy-looking and vigorous plant. If I'm not mistaken I've counted 7 decent-sized fruits on this one vine, which would make it by far the most productive maxima I've grown so far.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoVh4-Bv8QMWZof6_ggkkLecM-X0v4de8ezyJA8dwfRn6VE_KNXFCf1lI3WHaV0_kIGX68yPrR4nzckIC3E5sem6x6Oi411BdaS1fNOeEvZVm-G2j5mOHd-maVlkVThZlBa0jLpj1ccM/s1600/IMG_0638.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjDoVh4-Bv8QMWZof6_ggkkLecM-X0v4de8ezyJA8dwfRn6VE_KNXFCf1lI3WHaV0_kIGX68yPrR4nzckIC3E5sem6x6Oi411BdaS1fNOeEvZVm-G2j5mOHd-maVlkVThZlBa0jLpj1ccM/s320/IMG_0638.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Hokkaido, from Real Seeds. This seems like a pretty standard orange Kabocha squash, though it was probably one of the earliest to vine and set fruit. The leaves on this plant have a silvery appearance to them, which is a bit unusual.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvq47Rgwl_asyGCvIEIqNjszF47IEK2KmEMJ3_2eGcP8N6AwlfTnyX6JGRNaGMmQrH1zZNdBqeRtmzRsmocY87otWZalzqO3hJLLH-ah2Lc8iqr86Pc2zrt1Uih5oo2BJcReYbz4a62cA/s1600/IMG_0639.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvq47Rgwl_asyGCvIEIqNjszF47IEK2KmEMJ3_2eGcP8N6AwlfTnyX6JGRNaGMmQrH1zZNdBqeRtmzRsmocY87otWZalzqO3hJLLH-ah2Lc8iqr86Pc2zrt1Uih5oo2BJcReYbz4a62cA/s320/IMG_0639.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead or Blue Kuri. I'm growing both, and they seem similar enough for me to have forgotten taking a picture of the other squash. At least Sweet Meat, whichever of the two it turns out to be, seems to be doing much better than last year, so hopefully I'll have the opportunity to evaluate the fully-matured squash this time. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8sqHxkv53VGK_Yyl0mh3iCzQyYIq4I-l5HzfltjF0xykw0YgbxLx9GhGEameR_Np6TGi7qokxOqaxgiNmeQST34XCwvPrV9cGGvcxI42CFji2Mh39-c6G1p6pFFoiNQm22jJEQcsJFXw/s1600/IMG_0641.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8sqHxkv53VGK_Yyl0mh3iCzQyYIq4I-l5HzfltjF0xykw0YgbxLx9GhGEameR_Np6TGi7qokxOqaxgiNmeQST34XCwvPrV9cGGvcxI42CFji2Mh39-c6G1p6pFFoiNQm22jJEQcsJFXw/s320/IMG_0641.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Crown Prince, a squash with a royal reputation. <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi50xY67GX9ECg-qD1UKtjk2uHAyRoJ1plXxQ2EL-cj85UzY6MSi2IOavZRBhQbUtnO2LZ7dvoKhvYA0hN9d5dFqHKyONxFRBizbD8vOxFTGUc-_lw2MJtWftt0V91_CDaMV5qHQKCVrMU/s1600/IMG_0643.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi50xY67GX9ECg-qD1UKtjk2uHAyRoJ1plXxQ2EL-cj85UzY6MSi2IOavZRBhQbUtnO2LZ7dvoKhvYA0hN9d5dFqHKyONxFRBizbD8vOxFTGUc-_lw2MJtWftt0V91_CDaMV5qHQKCVrMU/s320/IMG_0643.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Blue de Hongrie. Not so much Blue as white though...<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_qMbWfxZzyYdXU0YU2SODJzWcZJhd9m16QAKj9TxEtKvr23zodc4zKH7xBRtj2x-GZj8gYA8fQkdqrJtIJ5h2v-sJte0CgbmwOlPsCK6Dc23lvxqF7t1wbKUGSUPs7E3pFQ0UXYp3a0/s1600/IMG_0644.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR_qMbWfxZzyYdXU0YU2SODJzWcZJhd9m16QAKj9TxEtKvr23zodc4zKH7xBRtj2x-GZj8gYA8fQkdqrJtIJ5h2v-sJte0CgbmwOlPsCK6Dc23lvxqF7t1wbKUGSUPs7E3pFQ0UXYp3a0/s320/IMG_0644.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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Buen Gusto de Horno. I'm not terribly impressed with this one so far, though I had read a lot of good things about it. This plant isn't particularly vigorous and it has only put out one fairly small squash. The taste better be out of this world!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfMhw45-L25N8GtRxNDLkC5Fb2C6bPYeXjnjTjyJvBIOR1kM9i0mwyFGmc1cMEB66lI29qqCtT0_YPEpMt0cvIs6onzO4qEKR7uo26D5O_ehQ1TNP6la__TO2lcVcBoLCliMtQqyBu-8/s1600/IMG_0650.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiEfMhw45-L25N8GtRxNDLkC5Fb2C6bPYeXjnjTjyJvBIOR1kM9i0mwyFGmc1cMEB66lI29qqCtT0_YPEpMt0cvIs6onzO4qEKR7uo26D5O_ehQ1TNP6la__TO2lcVcBoLCliMtQqyBu-8/s320/IMG_0650.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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And last, and perhaps also least, Uchiki Kuri, which put out two tiny squash and then decided to just sit there and enjoy the sun. I'm not sure things will work out between us. </div>
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So far so good, perhaps I've inherited a bit more Galeux d'Eysines genetic material than I had bargained for, but all in all there's some interesting material here to work with. Needless to say I already look forward to the taste testing. I've also become intrigued with the genetics involved in all of this, so next season I'll probably try to make some controlled crosses just to play around a bit. Sweet Mama x Marina di Chioggia seems like an obvious choice; I was already planning on doing that this year but I didn't get around to it.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BvuK9FI4HwkUzJlLDJ88LJLnjXLqPcuojXH6HgySQsU_ZYH3W9WfC2v-IizHpuVXhMDFFhek-xnCkAt3Y4zEefXKIwlL9AjmanTzO0bJc-ypOdqSeZtFoe4Vk4qv2rgTEgL8UHHY-3g/s1600/IMG_0628.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1BvuK9FI4HwkUzJlLDJ88LJLnjXLqPcuojXH6HgySQsU_ZYH3W9WfC2v-IizHpuVXhMDFFhek-xnCkAt3Y4zEefXKIwlL9AjmanTzO0bJc-ypOdqSeZtFoe4Vk4qv2rgTEgL8UHHY-3g/s400/IMG_0628.JPG" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The winter squash patch, with some reluctant watermelons in front.<br />
The dark green plant in the front row is Bon Bon.</td></tr>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-2192622930726924862016-07-16T00:18:00.002-07:002016-07-16T00:18:26.994-07:00Peas on my mind<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Well not just peas, really, but several representatives of the <i>Fabacaea,</i> that is, the legume family. This year I've embarked on a small legume trial that I've somewhat bombastically titled <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2016/03/early-spring-musings-2016.html">The Great Legume Project</a>. My aim is mostly to try some new things and have some good fun in the process, but I'm also interested in discovering which legumes I could adopt as reliable food staples, that is, for drying and using throughout the winter. Ideally of course, I would just grow all of them, all the time, and indulge in the incredible diversity that the legume family has too offer. There's probably a risk that I would do exactly that if I had hectares of land at my disposal. In the real world, however, my growing space is limited (and seems to come under increasing pressure every year), and so is my patience for plants that demand a lot of pampering without giving much in return. Selection there will be! Anyway, this post is a brief overview of the different legumes that I'm growing this year, and how they're doing so far. I already have half-developed plans for trialling mung beans and cow peas next year, so this project is unlikely to end here...<br />
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<b>Fava beans</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1h_g62JbjpGK5pKPpj2eEJcFu7S-JnYugI1BnK5Q0erV9ySVzbQzmH8ygc9gUde4D5Vc_dtBmC8Rd2sUDnXHVHvprzVhR5VoajcTuHyZx2hIwA7Il2RPkVnWJHmJrWp7TmS153_5tR1c/s1600/IMG_0444.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1h_g62JbjpGK5pKPpj2eEJcFu7S-JnYugI1BnK5Q0erV9ySVzbQzmH8ygc9gUde4D5Vc_dtBmC8Rd2sUDnXHVHvprzVhR5VoajcTuHyZx2hIwA7Il2RPkVnWJHmJrWp7TmS153_5tR1c/s320/IMG_0444.JPG" width="320" /></a>Ah, good old fava beans. Hardly a newcomer in the garden, but I've only ever used them in their immature form. I know you can eat the dried seeds like any other bean, but I've never done so, so I don't know if they're very good. I'm about to find out. There's five varieties currently inhabiting the fava bean patch: Aquadulce, Solberga, Express, Green Longpod and Göteryd. The favas have suffered a bit from the abundant growth in the neighbouring pea patch however, which has overshadowed them more than I had reckoned with. If you think this implies a certain bias in favour of the peas on my part, you're probably right to some extent... To be very frank, I'm mostly interested in the immature favas, which I know are great. But I promise I'll try to contain myself and give the dried seeds a chance as well.<br />
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<b>Peas</b></div>
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Whereas I'm yet to fully fall for the fava, I'm already a complete pea convert. I'll have peas in all their forms and shapes, please. The fresh peas I grow never make it to the kitchen though, I usually just munch on them in the garden, if the d*mned pigeons don't get to them first, that is. This year, however, I'm particularly focused on the dry/soup peas. I'm growing six varieties: Govorov, Klosterärt, Bjurholms småärt, Sollerön gråärt, Biskopens gråärt, and Gotländsk blåärt. The Govorov and Bjurholms småärt (Swedish for 'little pea from Bjurholm) are green peas, the Klosterärt is a yellow pea, and the other three are 'grey peas', aka black or maple peas. The maple peas are supposed to make a good substitute for chickpeas, so I'm really, really (really!) curious about them, I've never tried them. Sollerön and Biskopens have pink flowers, green pods and brown/red seeds, while the Gotländsk blåärt has purple flowers, purple pods and red/brown seeds. They're very ornamental, and all seem to be extremely prolific, particularly perhaps Klosterärt and Bjurhölms småärt. Sollerön and Biskopens were the last to flower, but all are coming along nicely now. I can't wait to dig my hands into a jar of homegrown dried peas! So yes, I suppose I should admit to a certain bias towards the peas, they've already earned their permanent residence in my garden. If only I could grow a lot more of them, somehow...</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacHBcgdvQ75ySmO6QVQKj3671O6oNVYmImjC4OHeIxFxTxfKIzWXvEzSP6Lc_A1bYklrJfIscYTD9i5pMAa4ff1XKfP57W_bXcd7f3aA0YuJWIbI8K5-R_xnhRwFOt1m3D2LzVpzwQpA/s1600/IMG_0576.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiacHBcgdvQ75ySmO6QVQKj3671O6oNVYmImjC4OHeIxFxTxfKIzWXvEzSP6Lc_A1bYklrJfIscYTD9i5pMAa4ff1XKfP57W_bXcd7f3aA0YuJWIbI8K5-R_xnhRwFOt1m3D2LzVpzwQpA/s400/IMG_0576.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A wall of peas: Klosterärt and Bjurholms småärt</td></tr>
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<b>Chickpeas </b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtXz904JQ5eCoDeD3muufbMb3alJnw0u8Unmnen3CzeUf8y9YDjv0fyOnZP-YIryaMpfAXrAVmzHX0Or9_dQvhDKJZgRiyiFMP9r1UmkBriZbc1sllp5zmLeic9UzGS5tMIGFSo7bxUg/s1600/IMG_0588.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQtXz904JQ5eCoDeD3muufbMb3alJnw0u8Unmnen3CzeUf8y9YDjv0fyOnZP-YIryaMpfAXrAVmzHX0Or9_dQvhDKJZgRiyiFMP9r1UmkBriZbc1sllp5zmLeic9UzGS5tMIGFSo7bxUg/s200/IMG_0588.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQyno8QCZF1Bf93Qv-1Lufi0oeuils_NjRZUteAChStuw1TIfwq3-vtNlCk5TZkZHjtwKwZ24NROICYVNu5LSA8RBRY3es1jRUtKqOf22lBhn4dd0LOYEhz-_u2lewfD1Kt2mjH_Q46Jw/s1600/IMG_0519.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQyno8QCZF1Bf93Qv-1Lufi0oeuils_NjRZUteAChStuw1TIfwq3-vtNlCk5TZkZHjtwKwZ24NROICYVNu5LSA8RBRY3es1jRUtKqOf22lBhn4dd0LOYEhz-_u2lewfD1Kt2mjH_Q46Jw/s200/IMG_0519.JPG" width="150" /></a>The peas are vying with the chickpeas for the title of most favoured legume crop. As anyone who has grown them will have to agree, there's just something incredibly loveable about chickpea plants, with their feathery leaves, their wavy growth habbits and their cute little flowers and seed pods. So yes, these are coming back next year as well, and in fact I've already ordered a couple of heirloom varieties from the US to seriously expand my chickpea trials next year. This year I'm growing three batches: Black Sicily, a black chickpea; Golden Dragon, an orange/yellowish variety; and a blend of standard tan chickpeas from various grocery stores. I sowed all of them at the end of March, together with the peas and the fava beans. The Black Sicily and Golden Dragon were quick to emerge, but cutworms got most of the seedlings. I therefore had to resow, after which more were cut down, and in the end I was left with only 15 plants or so in total. The grocery store mix never emerged, so then, a few weeks later, I decided to sow the entire jar, which must have been several hundreds of seeds. Only two plants finally came up. I suppose this is largely due to environmental conditions. The Black Sicily and Golden Dragon apparently were selected for emergence in cooler soils, which makes them valuable in my conditions, seeing that it's unlikely I would get mature chickpeas if I would wait until the soil has warmed before sowing. The plants seem to have enjoyed the warm spring. They are growing well and are bearing an abundance of pods. I suppose I'll need to save most of the seeds for next year's expansion, but perhaps a modest homegrown hummus is within the range of possibilities. Patience, patience. </div>
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<b>Lentils</b></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Lentil 'Gotlandslins', <br />
with potato onions in between</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Last year I grew 'Gotlandslins', a lentil variety that derives from Gotland, Sweden's largest island. The rabbits got most of them however, and what was left resulted in a pretty meagre yield. I wasn't all that impressed but couldn't resist sowing them again this year. This time I've managed to keep the rodents out, and the plants generally seem to be doing much better than last year. There's plenty of pods on the plant, so I might actually be able to eat some of the lentils this year. Overall, these are quite fun to grow, and they're definitely cute, but as a potential staple crop I can't help but feel that they're a bit too much bother. If only the seeds would be five times as large, and grow together in long pods. A bit like a pea, say... Now there's a plant breeding challenge.<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>Dry bush beans</b><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWlsSGdZUnolBsX05AVuU8iQNLWrPq-SPofFyDoNXRHfE2_zScuNlNxdbTHPVT7-Xy7fG3WrAupDh8Dn7fKctxXP-MY1EQ6nsovyqDOK9OIcuEG346tv_LoNF8ZiN9Rb_VxsR7hyphenhyphenabMw/s1600/IMG_0595.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWWlsSGdZUnolBsX05AVuU8iQNLWrPq-SPofFyDoNXRHfE2_zScuNlNxdbTHPVT7-Xy7fG3WrAupDh8Dn7fKctxXP-MY1EQ6nsovyqDOK9OIcuEG346tv_LoNF8ZiN9Rb_VxsR7hyphenhyphenabMw/s200/IMG_0595.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
Dry beans are perhaps the centrepiece of any legume collection, if only because of the vast variety of different colours and patterns that are out there. I had to seriously restrain myself when ordering bean seed, and even then I still ended up with an dry bean patch twice the size of any of the other legumes. I'm growing a bush variety of Borlotti beans, some store-bought Swedish 'bruna bönor' ('Brown beans'), Stella (another brown bean), Hutteriternas Soppböna (a pale, greenish, and very plump round bean that I received through Sesam, the Swedish society for the preservation of heirloom vegetable varieties), Brightstone (a brown bean with dark blue speckles) and Wolverine's Orca (a black&white bean that indeed looks a bit like an orca whale). The plants are flowering at the moment.<br />
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<b>Lupin</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSPnpIGSdzWRaiu3m-kKkcE5aD6yc8Fp4SjqdCg-7XqjfjY4senbfz8gnonXoNFcnREIGZtRpQKpv84ma-8GSc7POTnL-oxLJtG4dabOfqEavjidlzgemInTYPuekew06cCdm4cDsXFs/s1600/IMG_0612.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWSPnpIGSdzWRaiu3m-kKkcE5aD6yc8Fp4SjqdCg-7XqjfjY4senbfz8gnonXoNFcnREIGZtRpQKpv84ma-8GSc7POTnL-oxLJtG4dabOfqEavjidlzgemInTYPuekew06cCdm4cDsXFs/s200/IMG_0612.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
And finally, a bit of a outsider: lupin beans. The species that I'm growing (L. albus) is far from appropriate as a staple food (it's supposedly quite bitter and requires extensive preparation before it's palatable), but I nevertheless look forward to trying it as a novelty food. Lupin beans, soaked for extensive periods in order to leach out the alkaloids, are a popular snack in some Mediterranean countries. Supposedly there are a number of 'sweet' lupin varieties around that have been bred for lower alkaloid content and therefore require no soaking (particularly some strains of L. angustifolius), but these seem a bit hard to get a hold of. I've yet to get my hands on them at least, but they are definitely on the wishlist. The L. albus, meanwhile, has been treated somewhat unfairly the past few months; I all but neglected it during most of the spring and early summer. Despite the lack of watering and the dry spring it has done well and is now flowering quite happily.<br />
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That's about it for the (dry) legumes this year. So far so good.</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-74791181862258567222016-05-29T23:18:00.002-07:002016-06-01T23:05:55.714-07:00Sweet potatoes and some sweet sweet potato seed<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHoTFXrO2LS57l2onsLonKfXnP6xSN0tw1K3-HkHuZliZhaFUvH9Lm77L19ivb6oTn1RvGFwZqtjNNZezmMCh9RiaF2hvuzP6tnyA_SvQG1byEDjsfRJhDJlEbbRFLanOctAHtqLeYm3s/s1600/IMG_0464.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHoTFXrO2LS57l2onsLonKfXnP6xSN0tw1K3-HkHuZliZhaFUvH9Lm77L19ivb6oTn1RvGFwZqtjNNZezmMCh9RiaF2hvuzP6tnyA_SvQG1byEDjsfRJhDJlEbbRFLanOctAHtqLeYm3s/s320/IMG_0464.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Slips ready to be potted</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Summer's here! Well, that's what it feels like at least. We've been having an unusually warm May here, with a monthly average some 3°C higher than usual and extended periods of hot and sunny weather. As a result, the garden has gone into turbo-mode and I've already managed to plant most of the sweet potatoes. Usually the beginning of June is a more reasonable time for this, though I never seem to have the patience to wait that long. Now though, some are already starting to put out new growth, so my impatience is actually paying off for once. I have a bunch of latecomers that are refusing to put out slips, but with tropical weather forecasted for the coming week, they'll catch up soon I hope. Barring some serious <i>force majeur</i>, that means I now have a final list of the varieties I'll be growing this year:<br />
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>T65</b> - reliable producer, does not flower.</li>
<li><b>Georgia Jet</b> - should be a reliable producer, but did badly for me last year. I obtained what I hope is a better strain, so let's see. Should flower easily.</li>
<li><b>Purple</b> - (I called this Nordic Purple before, but I'm pretty sure it's the same variety that is elsewhere known by the name Purple) - purple-fleshed variety, not very productive but flowers profusely.</li>
<li><b>Bonita - </b>only had one plant of this last year, so it's hard to say how productive it was, but it flowers.</li>
<li><b>Burgundy</b> - same as with Bonita, plus the tiny tuber I managed to overwinter is just starting to put out slips. Flowers.</li>
<li><b>'Nordic White'</b> - unknown white-fleshed variety, fairly productive here, and flowers.</li>
<li><b>'Nordic Orange'</b> - medium productive, but I'm not sure if it flowers. I thought I saw some flowers on it two years ago. If it doesn't flower this year, I'll drop it.</li>
<li><b>Mystery</b> - a Georgia Jet mutant, haven't grown this before, but if it's anything like Georgia Jet it should flower easily.</li>
<li><b>?</b> - a complete mystery this one! </li>
<li><b>Bunduguza</b> - starchy white-fleshed African variety, lowish yield, no flowers.</li>
<li><b>Burundi</b> - starchy yellow-fleshed African variety, lowish yield, no flowers. This was the best out of all the African varieties I tested last year.</li>
</ol>
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Then there's two varieties from the highlands of Papua New Guinea, a region that apparently can get quite chilly at night (relatively speaking of course, it's still a tropical area), and so should theoretically be somewhat cold-adapted. There's some hope, therefore, that compared to your average <i>I. batatas</i> variety, these two will feel a bit more at home here in maritime Malmö. They will join the others in the garden, provided they put out some slips soon. Both have roots, and one has a tiny slip forming, but I sure wished they'd hurry up a bit:</div>
<div>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li><b>Kainantu </b></li>
<li><b>Aiyura</b></li>
</ol>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>I. batatas</i> seed sprouting</td></tr>
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<div>
And then, just as I thought I would get away with growing just 11+2? varieties this year, I received a small package with seeds. That is, proper sweet potato seeds, that rarest of things! These too are from the Papua New Guinean highlands. In practice, I suppose the chances are fairly slim that anything useful will come out of them. I generally put more faith in efforts to produce seeds under northern growing conditions, as <a href="http://asterlanedibles.ca/1/post/2016/04/true-sweet-potato-seed-ipomoea-batatas-update.html">Telsing Andrews has succesfully done last year</a>, and as I hope to achieve myself this year. Nevertheless, a tiny chance is still a chance worth pursuing, plus it will be loads of fun to play around with these seeds. I promptly scarified some of the seeds with sandpaper, soaked them for half a day, and sprouted them. Germination rate was higher than I had anticipated, of the 35 seeds I soaked, 29 sprouted. That's 29 new sweet potato varieties, right there. Quite a bit of difference showed up in the phenotypes, with some seedlings showing intense red leaf colouring, some being completely green, and some lying somewhere inbetween. True leafs are deltoid or cordate, with a few of the seedlings having toothed edges.</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">About half of the seedlings</td></tr>
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<div>
The batata battle plan for 2016 then: 1) Grow everything under a floating row cover for as long as practically possible, in order to speed up flowering. I've given this some thought and I didn't want to go the plastic mulching route just yet, I'd prefer to get seeds without too much 'cheating' technologies. Call me a botanical luddite! 2) Evaluate varieties for flowering onset, potential seed-set, and yield. 3) Share flowering varieties with collaborators in order to increase the chances of seedset under nordish conditions. 4) Acquire more flowering varieties. 5) Repeat.</div>
<br />
As simple as that!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-90169859897140266762016-05-14T14:58:00.005-07:002016-05-17T23:05:34.076-07:00Bloom for me, mirabilis expansa<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Mwt601_khuYlZa8zCkQrX41EX4w7amgz8PD6RS0Ke37cxeprohU2Todux4Lidzvc0UXbpn5HUnL4xx1rfFJYyEyHj_1c-atU97B0golD95aL8iOV3jLWU1JShciEE694h3VWUBoVvNE/s1600/IMG_0201.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4Mwt601_khuYlZa8zCkQrX41EX4w7amgz8PD6RS0Ke37cxeprohU2Todux4Lidzvc0UXbpn5HUnL4xx1rfFJYyEyHj_1c-atU97B0golD95aL8iOV3jLWU1JShciEE694h3VWUBoVvNE/s320/IMG_0201.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauka seedling, Spring 2015</td></tr>
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I realize that a status report on last year's mauka cultivation is long overdue. I was holding off this post hoping that I would be able to invoke your envy with some pictures of my magnificently flowering mauka, but alas, the Inca gods refused to bestow this pleasure upon me. It might very well be that I angered them somehow. As <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2015/07/from-amandine-to-zillifera-andean.html">you will remember</a>, mauka combines the unfortunate characteristics of being frost-tender and flowering under short-daylength conditions, right in the middle of the European winter. I therefore brought in two mauka plants (one Roja [that I had mistakenly labelled CIP208001 before] and one Blanco) in November with the intention to induce flowering and produce seeds. Let me clarify that I don't possess the best of conditions for overwintering plants indoors. I live in an appartment that gets quite dry in winter and the only outdoor space I possess is a 2sqm balcony (that I manage to cram full of plant starts in spring). Greenhouses, spare rooms, cold banks and root cellars are utopian concepts to me. If anyone would like to make me a present of, say, a farm, that would be very much appreciated...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjok1JC9qLlaH9R_6Bg5NfiLgYGPaRLj01FM3b2FapipqQUVAezd_3ixOp5Y30nHm5LAukW5M7aSH85uMzCF9cSTDmPDzA1Ou9RDQ-bSVjENshzWzHyp7EOscluCLv7Z2EA88LOTikISmY/s1600/IMG_0347.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjok1JC9qLlaH9R_6Bg5NfiLgYGPaRLj01FM3b2FapipqQUVAezd_3ixOp5Y30nHm5LAukW5M7aSH85uMzCF9cSTDmPDzA1Ou9RDQ-bSVjENshzWzHyp7EOscluCLv7Z2EA88LOTikISmY/s320/IMG_0347.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauka root close-up, with wireworm damage</td></tr>
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Anyhow, the maukas got a rough ride through the winter. Shortly after I brought them in, both plants got infested by aphids, which in a warm, dry and predator-free environment is prone to spiral out of control pretty quickly. Since we don't usually get frosts that often here in November and December, I figured I could more or less control the aphids by keeping the plants out on the balcony as long as possible, and just transporting them inside whenever a frost threatened. This worked pretty well for a while, but then one day in December (I guess you see where this is going..) we had a rather violent storm that pretty much blew the foliage to pieces, leaving behind a sorry-looking, bony mauka skeleton. The plants were undeterred however and quickly sprouted new leaves indoors. Then I was travelling over Christmas and New Year's, and upon my return I discovered that my absentee watering regime had failed me. Again, both mauka's lost their entire foliage, but they weren't dead and again resprouted leaves, although much less decisively than the first time. A plant that takes this much abuse definitely has my respect, though I would rather have avoided it.<br />
<br />
But then there they sat, during January, February, and March, with no signs at all of flower buds appearing. Frustrating. I dutifully ferried them between the balcony and the living room, gave them all the love and attention I had to give (well kind of, anyway... the Roja plant eventually died somewhere towards spring, I'm not sure why...) but apparently it just wasn't enough for Pachamama and colleagues. The mauka flowering code remains uncracked, for me at least. I've now planted the Blanco in the garden together with its siblings. I might give it another shot next year, or else I'll try to lure a helpful greenhouse owner into adopting a mauka plant or two for the winter. Any volunteers?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kAVf7W98VmodtjJhLmCHFNNnYzKJFCeA9Yo6CsFIFWbwUlQsEl1IBdLVkRJ2cZavkZ9lpbqGamVhkiAz6ApucOFs4053yGqYDsLBjuOp6jVWaEWOujLsdCMbGzlQpXTk4q75aNFf95o/s1600/IMG_0342.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4kAVf7W98VmodtjJhLmCHFNNnYzKJFCeA9Yo6CsFIFWbwUlQsEl1IBdLVkRJ2cZavkZ9lpbqGamVhkiAz6ApucOFs4053yGqYDsLBjuOp6jVWaEWOujLsdCMbGzlQpXTk4q75aNFf95o/s200/IMG_0342.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauka Blanco</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhQ9a0cgHaqsCALTbiyUzRSzewfvUuOYb_wZZlYbvqvbjpzazTpZFb8b8btFil5-_250D_SpC1lFOlzyORcsvIztxPmerW8Ft9sY-_GobtnSc82p94dvRDkdE7m69Ug7x8AXMeM_n99c/s1600/IMG_0340.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJhQ9a0cgHaqsCALTbiyUzRSzewfvUuOYb_wZZlYbvqvbjpzazTpZFb8b8btFil5-_250D_SpC1lFOlzyORcsvIztxPmerW8Ft9sY-_GobtnSc82p94dvRDkdE7m69Ug7x8AXMeM_n99c/s200/IMG_0340.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauka Roja, 2nd year growth</td></tr>
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Seeds are not everything of course (though I have to confess I think increasingly more of them). What my plants did produce last year was plenty of roots! Of the nine Blanco seedlings that I harvested (I left a couple in the garden to see if I could overwinter the roots <i>in situ - </i>the answer is no), all but one were significantly larger than the first-year roots I had harvested from my two Roja plants<a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2014/12/mauka-meets-sweden-take-one.html"> the year before</a> (both of which were a meagre 150 grams). Root weight ranged from 120g to 700g, with 3 roots weighing 500g or more. I also had three Roja plants (two plants in their second year, and one cutting) that were 1kg, 1,1kg, and 30g. All in all a pretty good result, which somehow confirms my hunch that the Blanco variety is superior to the Roja in terms of yield. Observation also leads me to believe that the Roja is marginally more susceptible to (light) frosts than Blanco, though the difference is probably a matter of decimals. They will definitely need more than that if they are to stand their own against the Swedish winter.<br />
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There's plenty of roads still to be travelled for mauka and me in 2016 and beyond. Apart from seducing it to bloom sooner or later, I would also like to get my hands on the CIP208001 variety, which looks a lot like the Roja but should have much better yields. And then of course, it would be exciting to try and find some additional varieties. After all, who knows what unexplored gems are still hiding somewhere in mauka's Andean homelands...<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-25034260010596502322016-03-16T13:01:00.001-07:002016-04-07T13:15:16.586-07:00Early spring musings - 2016<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Time for the early spring musings - 2016 edition, also known as my Utopian elaborations on the coming season's gardening projects. As last year, early spring can here be interpreted rather euphemistically, seeing that the weather for the moment is still decisively wintery. But it's March, and March equals hope times plenty of ambition in my book. Without further ado, and in no particular order of appearance, here's a few of the projects that I intend to pursue in and around the garden this year:<br />
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<b>C. maxima landrace</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-tpAneohi9uxnTagESqvCAWU1ykFyH5TSOyU7n_G6zeYCXHGANqgslnIwqNuh1JWztJ7Q_UTWAyB0dmZAkFU323qZDqWa5ZzFOGffY-rttyAYIV-HCElDxWd9UQtPVR9CjA2BQQdLNLU/s1600/IMG_0435.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-tpAneohi9uxnTagESqvCAWU1ykFyH5TSOyU7n_G6zeYCXHGANqgslnIwqNuh1JWztJ7Q_UTWAyB0dmZAkFU323qZDqWa5ZzFOGffY-rttyAYIV-HCElDxWd9UQtPVR9CjA2BQQdLNLU/s320/IMG_0435.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet Mama seed</td></tr>
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<a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.no/2015/09/2015-winter-squash-harvest.html">Last year</a>, I confessed to a 'slight' obsession with growing winter squash and elaborated on my intention of creating <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.no/2015/08/ode-to-lot-of-cucurbit.html">my own c. maxima landrace variety</a>. I've eaten my way through most of the maxima stash by now and there's a definite pattern to be discerned. Sweet Mama is by far the most reliable and consistently delicious variety. Sweet Meat OH and Marina di Chioggia were a disappointment last year, which was surprising since Sweet Meat OH gets lavish comments all over the internet and Marina di Chioggia was one of my absolute favourite squashes the year before. The weather can probably be blamed here, since Sweet Mama is a short-season squash while the other two require a long growing season, which the chilly summer of 2015 failed to provide. As a result, those heavenly squashes that I ended up saving seed from were for the most part Sweet Mama's, with a couple of decent Green Hokkaido's and Burgess Buttercups making up the balance. Since this is the whole point of a landrace project, I'm proceeding as planned and will be growing out the F1's this year. In parallel though, I'll be making some controlled crosses as well, mostly to try and dehybridize Sweet Mama and to cross Sweet Mama with Marina di Chioggia, the idea here being that I wouldn't mind a shorter-season version of the latter. I also couldn't really restrain myself and I've bought a few (or, well, quite a lot...) new varieties to try out: Blue Kuri, Sibley, Blue Guatemala Banana, Bon Bon, Crown Prince, Buen Gusto de Horno, Blue de Hongarie.... Hmmm. I guess I'll never run out of new winter squash varieties to try...<br />
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The C. moschata project will be put on hold for the time being. I grew three moschata's last year: Longue de Nice, Long Island Cheese, and Waltham Butternut and I quite disliked the taste and texture of the first two varieties, though I'm not entirely sure they managed to mature fully. The butternuts were certainly not fully ripe when I picked them in early October, but after a few months on my attic they turned out to be a lot more tasty than I had expected. I think it would be worth pursuing a moschata breeding project here, but I simply don't have the space to do it this year. Something for the future...<br />
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<b></b><br />
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<b>Sweet potato</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn4OAx92kFZSyludILOhE7QhszImpbWJzhcfBy7VAa5tOgXhuuR4jsbGRP4HajJhCeWeB3bQeuzShsGbQdhy9NH2jzyCQhTAMNlpxGSBHPOMaFhmRdlCoy9kkQsT8qMP6M_fwOGrpq3k/s1600/IMG_0440.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipn4OAx92kFZSyludILOhE7QhszImpbWJzhcfBy7VAa5tOgXhuuR4jsbGRP4HajJhCeWeB3bQeuzShsGbQdhy9NH2jzyCQhTAMNlpxGSBHPOMaFhmRdlCoy9kkQsT8qMP6M_fwOGrpq3k/s320/IMG_0440.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nothing like starting sweet potato slips to indicate <br />
the (imminent) arrival of spring!</td></tr>
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Of the 37 sweet potato varieties that I trialed in 2015, <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.no/2015/10/ipomoea-batatas-vs-swedish-weather-1-0.html">most didn't produce anything worth keeping.</a> A few did, however, so the sweet potato adventure continues into 2016. I'll attempt to be a bit more serious about producing seed this year, while also continuing to scour the planet in search of those more cold-tolerant varieties that simply have to be out there somewhere (Papua New Guinea, are you reading this?). The sweet potato gods were kind enough to provide me with some Georgia Jet (amongst others), so it will be exciting to see if it finally lives up to its reputation in my garden. I recently inspected the tubers that I had saved, and most of the larger ones made it through the winter fairly unscathed, despite extensive cutworm damage. Some of them already had tiny sprouts forming, so I've put them in water now, where they will sit happily for a few months and hopefully produce a good amount of slips by May or so. At the moment I'm counting on growing 10 different varieties this year, though knowing myself this number is likely to increase somewhat... More on this as sweet potato planting time is drawing near!<br />
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<b>Skirret</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqC7gureH-KazEWqqTRpLSddwvJFIegBUelR-Az_Ywaf75QQa_VEoolU2zAKnDbkaDSbRaAh4-0YFuyac9fcSmwWDcA2wgxWiU-1f01oC2lqyEZWSvlEwJwkQfmh78r71Z-D8OH31Ro0c/s1600/75894.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqC7gureH-KazEWqqTRpLSddwvJFIegBUelR-Az_Ywaf75QQa_VEoolU2zAKnDbkaDSbRaAh4-0YFuyac9fcSmwWDcA2wgxWiU-1f01oC2lqyEZWSvlEwJwkQfmh78r71Z-D8OH31Ro0c/s320/75894.jpg" width="189" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Skirret. The roots get much more impressive <br />
than depicted here though <a href="http://plantillustrations.org/illustration.php?id_illustration=75894">(img source)</a></td></tr>
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Last year marked my first attempt at growing skirret (Sium sisarum), a perennial root vegetable in the Apiaceae family and one of the <a href="https://scottishforestgarden.wordpress.com/2016/01/05/growing-and-eating-skirret/">'Lost Crops of the Europeans'</a>. Introduced in Europe by the Romans from its Chinese homeland, skirret appears to have been quite popular in these regions until the 18th century or so, after which the potato's march across the continent pushed it into botanical oblivion. Having grown and tasted it, I would say it's high time for a skirret renaissance. The plants are hardy and form clusters of fairly thin white roots just below the surface, which can become quite large over the years (the root clusters that is, not the individual root 'fingers'). These can be left in the ground over the winter and harvested whenever the skirret cravings hit you. Essentially, you just dig up the plant when you need it, break off the most seductively looking roots, and replant the rest. Easy like skirret pie! The Dutch (suikerwortel) and Swedish (sockerrot) naming of the plant attests to its taste, which is sweet and very pleasant. In fact, skirret has soared rapidly in my vegetable hall of fame and became one of my absolute favourite vegetables last year, and I'm sure I haven't even begun to explore the full extent of its culinary delights. Peeling the pencil-sized roots can be a bit of a pain, but it's actually completely unnecessary since the peel does not interfere with the taste at all. Just scrub, cut and cook! Some reports mention that the roots can have woody cores, but I have not noticed this in any of the skirret I tasted last year.<br />
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There are some budding attempts underway to breed skirret varieties with fewer but thicker roots, which I'm hoping to make a modest contribution to. I've been getting seed from different places and also saved some of my own (skirret flowers every year and readily produces seed), so I will be growing out a lot of that and then start doing some selection. Of last year's plants I kept the ones that looked most promising, so it will be interesting to see how they do in their second year.<br />
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<b>Oca</b><br />
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Another first for me last year was growing oca, a favourite amongst Andean tuber enthusiasts. Despite a fairly early frost I was <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2015/11/oh-you-pretty-things.html">quite happy with the result</a> and I hope I can reproduce or improve upon the yield in 2016. I've been eating quite a lot of different oca's this winter and I must say they now rank quite highly in the aforementioned hall of fame. They're particularly good when baked in the oven. At some point it might be worth doing a more organized taste test to identify the tastiest and most starchy varieties, which definitely would be a criteria worth considering in any future breeding attempts. Anyway, I thought I already had quite a few different varieties last year, but then I went to visit <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank van Keirsbilck</a> some time ago and I somehow - entirely inadvertedly, honestly! - came away with an additional 10 varieties. Together with the <a href="http://ocabreeders.org/">GOB</a> trial that I will be participating in this year as well, and the grow-out of my own oca seeds, 2016 is promising to be a pretty oca-esque year. No complaints there!<br />
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<b><br /></b><b>The Great Legume Project</b><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOYxGOrOt_wamtD_8qdVV7i-1xuO4OV2wJgnseOOfga8e43CZC3PlfzW6OMhbUbhB_wTqbbnyCCyZM-Q-KkLLk5gVUL5a9k-6HDuwu2dWHtIMv0PbDkfSCwvo9XS35pcgYzWqqZWYjKE/s1600/IMG_0432.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgPOYxGOrOt_wamtD_8qdVV7i-1xuO4OV2wJgnseOOfga8e43CZC3PlfzW6OMhbUbhB_wTqbbnyCCyZM-Q-KkLLk5gVUL5a9k-6HDuwu2dWHtIMv0PbDkfSCwvo9XS35pcgYzWqqZWYjKE/s320/IMG_0432.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Some cute beans I'll be growing</td></tr>
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Beans beans beans... With all the roots, tubers and winter squash that I am growing, I'm not usually at risk of suffering from carbohydrate shortage. I could definitely grow a bit more protein crops though, so for a while now I've been playing with the idea of upscaling my legume cultivation. Enter the 2016 Great Legume Project. This year's garden will have a large section dedicated to testing different legumes for dry seed consumption. Last year I already grew a Swedish lentil variety called 'Gotlandslins', but it mostly ended up feeding the local rabbit population and in the end I barely got more seed out of it than I had planted in the first place. Not entirely successful, in other words. I'll give this lentil variety another go this year, and I'm adding a bunch of different chickpea varieties (mostly from store-bought chickpeas, but also a black and orange variety from <a href="https://www.adaptiveseeds.com/">Adaptive Seeds </a>in the US), different fava beans, dry bush beans, and a couple of Swedish heirloom 'gråärter' (grey peas), which apparently are called black peas or maple peas over yonder in Britain. I'm particularly excited about the chickpeas and the maple peas. The latter apparently were a northern European staple in the days of yore and are currently being promoted by some enthusiastic agriculturalists here as Sweden's answer to the chickpea. I'm quite fond of dried peas and they tend to feel comfy in somewhat colder climates, so I'm anticipating a bit of magic to happen between me and the peas this year. Chickpeas apparently are more cold-tolerant than I had thought (at least based on <a href="http://www.caroldeppe.com/">Carol Deppe</a>'s account in <i>Breed Your Own Vegetable Varieties</i>) so perhaps the prospect of a homegrown hummus is not as far-off as I had feared. As to the dry beans, the plan is to grow a classical Swedish brown bean, a couple of other heirlooms, and a few colourful short-season US varieties. More on this trial as it happens!<br />
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<b><br /></b>
<b>The Modest Melon Project</b><br />
<b><br /></b>Last autumn I received a small treasure in the mail, containing the seeds from a cross between 6 early watermelon varieties and the offspring of one early muskmelon (Blenheim orange). As far as melons go, I've only ever grown a 'babymelon' variety before, on plastic mulch, and though they did quite well the taste wasn't all that exciting so I never really bothered continuing with it. The arrival of these early, and actually good-tasting varieties is about to change all that. Since I don't have access to a greenhouse on my allotment, growing melons is definitely a challenge which means that my aims with this year's melon project are very modest. I'll be growing a few plants of each variety/cross and hopefully get at least a melon or two out of it. In fact I'll probably be ecstatic if I manage to haul as much as one ripe melon to safety before someone ends up stealing it. Then I'll save seed and repeat ad infinitum. I suppose you know where this is going..<br />
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<b>Residual trials</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
And then, of course, there's everything else. Before this post turns into a monster, let me just finish by mentioning some of the new arrivals that I'm fairly enthusiastic about. Detailed descriptions to follow later!<br />
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- Hopniss (Apios americana): Also known as the American groundnut, Indian potato, or potato bean, however you like to call it. This a tuber-forming legume that was highly valued by native Americans, who knew a thing or two about valuable food crops. It's a perennial that apparently takes a few years to really give a worthwhile yield, so I'm not exactly expecting bumper harvests. Nevertheless, as you might have figured by now I find the prospect of growing new root crops pretty impossible to resist.<br />
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- Yacon (Smallanthus sonchifolius): New root crop no. 2, this is another Andean native, relative of the sunflower and the Jerusalem artichoke. It's high-yielding and supposedly fairly easy to grow. Produces large, inulin-rich tubers that are crunchy and sweet and can be eaten like a fruit.<br />
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- Quamash (Camassia quamash): New root crop no.3, a perennial, native of North America, also highly valued by the continent's pre-Columbian inhabitants. Quamash needs a couple of years to bulk up as well, so expect plenty of pictures of microscopic tubers.<br />
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- Crosne (Stachys affinis): Alright, I admit it, I'm mostly growing root crops, or at least those seem to the plants that made it onto this not very random shortlist. Perhaps I should work on countering that bias... I do like my greens, really. Anyway, crosne or Chinese artichoke is a perennial of the Lamiaceae, or mint family. It forms masses of small, worm-like tubers that are supposed to be delicious but a bit of a pain to clean. Worm-like tubers, anyone?<br />
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- Potato (S. tuberosum Group Phureja): I fear I might be becoming a potato snob. I recently caught myself ranting about the qualities of Arran Victory, which was one of last year's potato revelations for me and as I recently discovered is described by <a href="http://williamwoysweaver.com/">William Woys Weaver</a> (in <i>100 Vegetables and Where They Came From</i>) as the ultimate potato. Is this treading the potato equivalent of microbrew hipsterdom and coffee snobbism? Please stop me if at my next restaurant visit you find me complaining about the inferior potato variety that I was served. In any case, no, this won't be my first year growing potatoes, but it will be my first to grow Inca Bella, which is a potato variety of a completely different subgroup from the S. tuberosum group that the vast majority of European potato varieties derive from. It's supposed to be really, really delicious, so take note fellow potato heads.<br />
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- Turnip-rooted chervil (Chaerophyllum bulbosum): I don't know what it is with me and this plant, but I've yet to succeed in getting it to sprout for me at all. This will be the third year that I'm trying to grow it. I sowed the seeds in autumn and they have been outside the whole winter (they need stratification), so if I don't get anything now I'm _so_ blaming the seed company (again). Root chervil is supposed to be very delicate in taste, and sounds well worth the painstaking effort required in growing it (painstaking for me, at least). Just checked the pot, nothing sprouting yet...<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A baby pig nut... hopefully!</td></tr>
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- Pig nut (Bunium bulbocastanum): In Dutch this is called aardkastanje, and in Swedish jordkastanj, both of which literally translate as 'earth chestnut', since the taste of the tuber supposedly resembles that of sweet chestnuts. This is another perennial in the Apiaceae family, and another plant that would probably benefit from some selection (or more correctly, we would benefit from that..) since yields are purportedly very small. Pig nut is a pretty rare plant (at least in Belgium and the Netherlands) so I'm not entirely sure that the seed I have is actually B. bulbocastanum. Time will tell, at least I've got something sprouting in the pot I sowed with this.<br />
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Right, that's not all of it, but a big part at least. I know, I know: next time, more greens!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-37004032915822134552016-02-27T09:53:00.002-08:002016-02-27T09:57:50.486-08:00On growing quinoa, and the long road to actually eating it<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
I think somebody should do a study on the political ecology of quinoa production. About a year ago, prices for (organic) quinoa in supermarkets here suddenly doubled, from about SEK 80 to an exorbitant SEK 150 (about EUR 17) per kg, and they haven't really come down since. Undoubtedly this is partly a reflection of the tiny grain's transition from obscure superfood to mainstream hipsterdom. I could imagine that farmers in Peru and Bolivia, where 95% of quinoa is grown, are struggling to keep up with the soaring demand created by the quinoa-devouring populations of Berlin, Stockholm and New York. Undoubtedly also, this has set in motion a host of<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa"> transformations for traditional quinoa growers</a> that have left them more exposed to the wits of global commodity markets and the health-food fads of prosperous Westerners (yes, I am including myself here). Certainly, there's boundless other factors waiting to be explored as well. A timely and interesting subject, if I say so myself. Any takers? I'll throw out a potential research question: How will Andean producers be affected once global quinoa prices drop, as they are likely to do when production in the US, Europe and elsewhere picks up?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQK5ObKpC_gLLBC1uA0YGORkiRajRLmGv2I6Wrax17Cc56F5uXKfrf2PHe0lBPTjElOfxY-aYpHLfPojOtRn2RMB-_xbSces0gO5KghbY9Knv0pThZWkD4FKCmpFULaMfhtTwWS_hlXVE/s1600/IMG_0222.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiQK5ObKpC_gLLBC1uA0YGORkiRajRLmGv2I6Wrax17Cc56F5uXKfrf2PHe0lBPTjElOfxY-aYpHLfPojOtRn2RMB-_xbSces0gO5KghbY9Knv0pThZWkD4FKCmpFULaMfhtTwWS_hlXVE/s320/IMG_0222.JPG" width="240" /></a>I wished that my motivation for growing quinoa during the past year was entirely given in by lofty moral considerations such as these, some kind of Marcusian Great Refusal on my side, an attempt to one-up the global quinoa market by actively disengaging from it. More mundanely though, I just kind of liked the idea of trying to grow my own quinoa. Surely nothing that I could buy in the supermarket could taste as great as what I had grown with my own hands? I had read somewhere that apart from maize, quinoa is probably the only grain worth growing on a backyard scale, since per-plant yields can be quite respectable. As I'm not the greatest quinoa consumer (I confess to a weakness for <i>Fagopyrum esculentum</i> [buckwheat] instead), I figured a few plants would go a long way and decided to give it a go. So on the 10th of May last year, I filled three rows with the tiny seed, perhaps 15m in total, and waited for them to come up. I now think I could probably have sowed quite a bit earlier as well, quinoa seems to germinate at fairly low temperatures. I sowed three out of the four different varieties that I had acquired from <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/">Real Seeds</a> in the UK, and <a href="https://www.nicholsgardennursery.com/">Nichols Garden Nursery</a> in the US, and one of them ('temuco') didn't come up at all.<br />
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The fun thing about growing quinoa is that, as the plants emerge, you will have no idea if you're actually growing quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa) or just lambsquarters (Chenopodium album), the common garden weed that is a close relative and that looks identical in the early stages of growth. In my case, a lot of the quinoa didn't come up, but quite a bit of quinoa look-a-likes sprouted in between the rows. I don't have that much weeds in this part of my allotment, but I imagine things could become quite messy in places where there's a lot of lambsquarter seeds in the soil. Bemused, I just let all of it grow for a few months. Quinoa gets quite a bit taller than lambsquarters and is less bushy in its growth habit, so after a while it becomes easier to distinguish the two. Apart from that, this is a crop that really grows as easily as its weedy relative. I gave it a bit of compost and seaweed extract and then basically ignored it until autumn. There weren't really any real pest or disease problems to speak of, and I didn't have to water the plants at all (though we did have an unusually wet summer).<br />
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One of the <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/">Real Seeds</a> varieties is called 'Rainbow' and gives you a spectular display of colours in autumn as the plants and the seed heads start drying. They're highly ornamental, ranging from green over brown and yellow to different shades of red, orange and pink. I finally cut off all the seedheads - perhaps 20-30 in total - during a dry spell in the beginning of October and hung them indoors to dry down further. This is basically where things become a little bit complicated. In order to get from a bushel of dried quinoa seed stalks to a neat pile of edible quinoa seed, you will need to thresh, sift, and clean the seed. This is not necessarily difficult but without the advantages of appropriate equipment or previous quinoa-threshing experience, it's a very time-consuming process. Together with a friend I ended up threshing each seed head by hand, then sifting the debris through canvases of different mesh sizes, and then winnowing what was left in small batches to get rid of dust and the smallest debris. Without wanting to claim that the results yielded by my primitive methods are generalizable in any way, it took several evenings to get a grand total of 1200g of quinoa. Let's just say I gained a lot of respect for the machineless quinoa-, sorghum-, amaranth-, millet-, etc- producers of the world. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">My authentic African winnow, finished with cow dung!</td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;">Swedish quinoa</td></tr>
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Next, you need to carefully wash the quinoa in order to get rid of the bitter-tasting saponins that coat the seeds. Again, there's probably more sophisticated, energy-efficient and altogether smarter ways of going about this, but I just washed the seed a few times and then boiled it in plenty of water. It was still quite bitter at this point so I had to change the cooking water four or five times before the bitterness had more or less disappeared. Apparently there's some saponin-free varieties out there, so anyone seriously thinking about taking up quinoa-growing could probably save herself quite a bit of effort by tracking down these varieties.<br />
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Now to get my head around the apparent resurgent interest for sorghum and teff. Actually, for anyone falling in love with sorghum, I understand it should be quite possible to grow in more northern climates... I myself, though, have decided to abandon my (pseudo)grain-growing ambitions for the time being. While the result, in the end, was a quite delicious and very satisfying quinoa, I'm not convinced it's really worth all the effort. If I could grow quinoa on a slightly larger scale, I could probably be persuaded to invent/invest in some proper quinoa-adapted treshing equipment. Within the limits of my dangerously overcrowded suburban allotment however, it feels slightly more sensible to focus my botanical pursuits on less labour-intensive crops. More skirret, anyone?</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-12444026071194541832016-01-01T03:05:00.000-08:002016-01-01T07:13:16.859-08:00Inconspicious failures and lesser successes<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Ah, winter, my favourite retrospective season, a perfect time to mourn the stillborn projects of past year and draw some candid conclusions for the next. Though I have a tendency in these pages to enthuse about the garden's most great and glorious crops, I should probably highlight that not everything conforms as willingly to my gardening dictates, or my taste buds for that matter. For balance, and in the spirit of horticultural transparency, here's three projects that turned out to be rather underwhelming in 2015:<br />
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<u>1. Mashua</u><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mashua</td></tr>
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<u></u><br />
<u></u>That's tropaeolum tuberosum, a family member of the garden nasturtium and part of my booming Andean root vegetable collection. It's quite ornamental, grows like a weed, is supposed to yield amazingly, and it has an enticing exotic background to boot. What's not to like? In fact, it didn't yield very well for me at all, which in all likelihood is because, much like my oca, the plants succumbed to the first frost at the end of October. Also like oca, it is daylight sensitive so I assume yields would have been significantly higher had I been able to keep the plants alive a few weeks more. A number of plants also mysteriously succumbed halfway through the growing season, probably due to some critter enthusiastically chewing through the root system.<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mashua tubers</td></tr>
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As it turns out, I'm not too sad that my mashua yields turned out as modest as they did, since my biggest beef with this plant is not with its gowth habit but with its taste. I had read quite a bit about mashua before I decided to plant some, and certainly the descriptions I found were mixed to say the least. From <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.be/2009/02/crap-crops-of-incas-my-on-off-on-affair.html">"the tuber with the taste that torments"</a> to descriptions that <a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/catalog/mashua/">compare its flavor to that of turnip</a>, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. Since I actually quite like turnip, I figured it couldn't be all that bad. Having tried mashua a number of times now, and trying very hard to like it at least a little bit, I can however attest that the taste is something else entirely. It gives a very intense, spicy yet simultanously very perfume-y flavour that completely overwhelms your taste buds (or mine at least). In fact, after eating just half a small, cooked mashua the taste went straight to my stomach and I started feeling slightly uncomfortable. I'm quite sure I would have retched had I continued eating it. There are bound to be ways around this rather unpleasant experience. <a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/mashua-three-slow-cooker-recipes/">William Whitson</a> for example recommends submitting the roots to a long, slow cooking process with a good amount of fat and liquid in order to neutralize the taste. Sensible as that might be, it's just a bit more effort than I'm willing to spend on making something palatable. Call me a kitchen conservative, but with only 300 square meters of garden soil to my disposal and an endless list of projects waiting for their fair share, the least I expect of my plants is that they taste good. I'm sorry mashua, but I think I'm just not that into you.<br />
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<u>2. Ulluco</u><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ulluco</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JQCNeQdgS4O1JBI-Eywply9GsOcN9ee5WcZYgfwZCPPbZSW_8qJlYBduVlYjpb6Zonju_kjdgBuXPJCrJ2KXUWBmZHDQ1JqQXIhkNCkt7vu5EN0FcxkDjcA-7FyNg3u4z_0oj9JJy9s/s1600/IMG_0410.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9JQCNeQdgS4O1JBI-Eywply9GsOcN9ee5WcZYgfwZCPPbZSW_8qJlYBduVlYjpb6Zonju_kjdgBuXPJCrJ2KXUWBmZHDQ1JqQXIhkNCkt7vu5EN0FcxkDjcA-7FyNg3u4z_0oj9JJy9s/s320/IMG_0410.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">I suppose I could try it as a condiment...</td></tr>
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In contrast to mashua, I can't really fault ulluco for its taste, since I haven't actually gotten around to eating it. I <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.com/2015/07/from-amandine-to-zillifera-andean.html">reported earlier</a> on how I found ulluco to be really slow growing, but it seems I hadn't quite appreciated just what this meant for my intention of eating it at some point. When I pulled up the 8 or so ulluco plants I had, at about the same time as the oca, I was forced to comb through the soil carefully in order to locate my harvest. More cynical people than me would say that growing ulluco the way I did is a novel and rather elaborate way of growing peas, since peas is surely what the 'tubers' I found resembled most. One monster was about the size of a pingpong ball. They're certainly very beautiful though, and apart from their apparent attractiveness to slugs and their slothlike growth habit, they seemed quite happy in the climate here. Having consulted with some of the real ulluco experts out there, I now think I will need to pre-plant these babies indoors in spring if I want to get some actual tubers out of them. Oh yes, and then there's the whole daylight thing of course... Somehow all this doesn't quite fall in with my hands-off gardening philosophy. The choice that will haunt me the following months, therefore, is whether I want to pamper these tiny ulluco through another growing season in order to give them a proper trial, or if I should put this project on hold for a while. There's some interesting <a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/blog/">developments in ulluco breeding taking place</a> in gardens far more organised than mine, which I anticipate might ultimately yield varieties more amenable to my growing conditions. I suppose I could just sit back and wait for those to materialize. Since I'm not known for my patience however, I have this slight suspicion I will be taking the pampering approach...<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdofzFmOKJqHMrDEKYhmgRbHRbejY-WficQxpxWIo5BmPbX_m_b9MaqwgmZXQ9AgMsdU56QBqWk-xbBi1gqvme7I2BydCxb2FcLB7Yu8YopthvTnxN6P0KbibQSolspVXre2TVhfhmQw/s1600/IMG_0416.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtdofzFmOKJqHMrDEKYhmgRbHRbejY-WficQxpxWIo5BmPbX_m_b9MaqwgmZXQ9AgMsdU56QBqWk-xbBi1gqvme7I2BydCxb2FcLB7Yu8YopthvTnxN6P0KbibQSolspVXre2TVhfhmQw/s320/IMG_0416.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The entire ulluco harvest</td></tr>
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<u>3. Achocha</u><br />
<u></u><br />
<u></u>I don't believe I've actually mentioned achocha before, but this is another of the Andean crops I tried out in 2015. It is a member of the cucurbit family and a close relative of such fascinating plants like the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cyclanthera_explodens">exploding cucumber (cyclanthera explodens)</a>. Achocha grows a spiny, hollow fruit with big black seeds that can be eaten either immature like a cucumber, or mature like a green pepper, whose tastes it is supposed to resemble in those stages. I obtained two varieties from <a href="http://www.realseeds.co.uk/cucumbers.html">Real Seeds</a>, 'Fat Baby' and 'Giant Bolivian Achocha' (a.k.a. caigua). The two seem to belong to distinct species, respectively cyclanthera brachystachya and cyclanthera pedata, and certainly the true leaves turned out to be rather different. Leaves of the Giant Bolivian somewhat resemble that of cannabis indica, which I imagine might provoke concerned looks from the neighbours. I sowed two plants of each indoors in late April and planted all of them out in May. Both germinated easily enough and grew quite vigourously. Unfortunately the slugs seemed to be extremely fond of the Giant Bolivian. The two plants never had a chance; they were decimated almost the moment they were planted and never recovered. The Fat Baby fared much better and grew well despite the cold and wet summer. It was slow to flower but once it started, sometime in August, it produced masses of tiny yellow flowers that yielded an abundance of small, green spiny fruits - the spines are soft so you can easily eat them like that. Unlike cucumbers, which can be quite challenging to grow outdoors here, Fat Baby just took off and never looked back, which is why some people have been promoting it as a good temperate-season cucumber alternative. Having said that, I find the taste decisively less interesting than cucumber. Achocha does taste faintly similar, but it lacks the former's refreshing juiciness. I would also have to be a bit skeptical of the claim that the mature fruit, when cooked, tastes like a green pepper. Again, it has a hint of that flavor, but it's much less pronounced and more bland. Quite frankly, I don't think it tastes like all that much at all. That's a definite improvement over mashua, but not exactly something that gets me wildly excited. I've since read that achocha is nicest when picked rather young (I've mostly been eating it when it was very mature), and I have 3 more Giant Bolivian seeds to try out as well, so I might just give them another go. Maybe I'll unexpectedly become an achocha lover yet, but at the moment I'm not terribly impressed.<br />
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In terms of next year's gardening shortlist, that's a definite no-no for mashua and a half-hearted maybe for ulluco and achocha. Now to start dreaming about next year's new projects!<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-37706364180440901742015-11-22T10:03:00.000-08:002015-11-22T10:03:48.430-08:00Oh! You pretty things<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Winter has arrived also for the Andean crops in my garden, so it's high time for some updates. 2015 was <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.com/2015/03/early-spring-musings.html">my first year growing oca</a> (oxalis tuberosa), a major root crop in many Andean countries and probably one of the better-known unusual tubers from that region. In total I planted 14 known varieties and 7 varieties that I tested for the <a href="http://ocabreeders.org/">Guild of Oca Breeders (GOB)</a>. Due to <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.com/2015/05/oca-growing-and-dangers-of-bicycle.html">a bit of self-induced force majeure</a> however, the former got thoroughly mixed up, so from now on they're all going through life completely anonymous (at least in my garden). I'm not one to judge a tuber by its name, and at a very practical level it really doesn't matter.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3s9oy0wsHqUkOMBHYNhjJcTonWxcDDqgEyfZQS_Vj3-a-07X3JZzOcjXt-9QCtHRBfY61xpjTogtTKVy7palw25v4iLUWnJywzVdijXCqmMOgVIhw3cPZUu8Ns1lwl1DULku2RNGqxWY/s1600/IMG_0338.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3s9oy0wsHqUkOMBHYNhjJcTonWxcDDqgEyfZQS_Vj3-a-07X3JZzOcjXt-9QCtHRBfY61xpjTogtTKVy7palw25v4iLUWnJywzVdijXCqmMOgVIhw3cPZUu8Ns1lwl1DULku2RNGqxWY/s320/IMG_0338.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The oca patch in the middle of October</td></tr>
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Ideally, the oca growing manual clarifies, one keeps her/his plants alive until the beginning of December if one is to benefit from a fully matured crop. This is because oca plants get slightly confused in the long-daylight hours outside of their native Andean range and respond by refusing to produce tubers until after the autumn equinox. Here on the west coast of Skåne, which you could think of as the California of Sweden, we usually have the first frost sometime in November, or even, as in 2014, the beginning of December, which is pretty good in oca-growing terms. Not so this year though, when a forecasted 4°C one night at the end of October turned into an ominous -0.6°C and caught me completely off guard, therefore pretty much decimating the oca patch. Highly unfortunate considering the 3 weeks of mild and frost-free autumn weather that followed... The GOB plants got completely killed, while the other plants got frosted about 3/4 of the way, probably because they were spaced closer together and had much more foliage. Again according to prevailing oca-growing dictates, one is supposed to leave the tubers in the ground for some two weeks after the plants are killed by frost, since the tubers continue to bulk up quite a bit during this time. Which I duly did, albeit impatiently so.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigeIE1QQeZEPW7ZD0Mo8cGTpNEPB0WrOlBfV8wMomijO4BHicXACRVW0GTYghFbsJORtpsCVw4esurF-HJ_wAxgMIvO22LZCyPTFF49dux-abEm8V9gISfqhayU0YMMzdF5Azx44GIAPE/s1600/oca+selection1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="302" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEigeIE1QQeZEPW7ZD0Mo8cGTpNEPB0WrOlBfV8wMomijO4BHicXACRVW0GTYghFbsJORtpsCVw4esurF-HJ_wAxgMIvO22LZCyPTFF49dux-abEm8V9gISfqhayU0YMMzdF5Azx44GIAPE/s400/oca+selection1.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHMNeqUWEzC3TYqwQAEs9IrAWF6jsZZ3RR_qQf8pgHSt9TR-OviyNtvw8OWr2l23LRtWSeyS8Oxlcn2djpyuSyh1c9XU7OMWWRiuBJ2gDYdbwyUipFlevqzpvcAJrP_gmZFKw6Og-k1s/s1600/IMG_0372.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivHMNeqUWEzC3TYqwQAEs9IrAWF6jsZZ3RR_qQf8pgHSt9TR-OviyNtvw8OWr2l23LRtWSeyS8Oxlcn2djpyuSyh1c9XU7OMWWRiuBJ2gDYdbwyUipFlevqzpvcAJrP_gmZFKw6Og-k1s/s200/IMG_0372.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">White variety, 540g</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgNCyKSMQI6EEi5lZ6xO4Sq9m26vN6Nwf719Jy_O1HC1Ce0GaLgQEnLIg0QoiGNOjidfWpEefp5Xo-HUKS_dtrLzYQV5DS1Phs7dkK4mXYfqz5vBeVhZ0HrJS28DI-SbcgGVv3IXOe7k/s1600/IMG_0397.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgqgNCyKSMQI6EEi5lZ6xO4Sq9m26vN6Nwf719Jy_O1HC1Ce0GaLgQEnLIg0QoiGNOjidfWpEefp5Xo-HUKS_dtrLzYQV5DS1Phs7dkK4mXYfqz5vBeVhZ0HrJS28DI-SbcgGVv3IXOe7k/s200/IMG_0397.JPG" width="200" /></a>I can testify that, because of its colorful nature, oca is a highly satisfying crop to harvest. I would say it's a bit like gathering easter eggs. Except of course that oca is so much more exciting than easter eggs! I mean, aren't they incredibly pretty? So euhm... yes, I dug everything up, bagged all the tubers per plant, washed them, weighed them, and then selected the ones I want to continue with next year. Considering the earlier-than-ideal harvest, I was pretty happy with the results (but then again, I have never grown these before so I have nothing to compare to and probably would have been happy with nearly anything). Most plants produced somewhere around 200-300g of small to medium-sized tubers, with the best one being a completely white variety that yielded 540g. According to the information over at <a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/">Cultivariable</a>, oca can yield up to 1kg per plant. Clearly, I'm pretty far away from that, but it's a pretty decent start nonetheless. I'm saving all but the poorest performing varieties for next year, since I want to ensure that I continue to have the diversity required to produce seed. Oca is namely a bit picky when it comes to pollinating partners.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqjwzlPCCDB_rNB_T07yWQ8wSOVaM2ijRGBUhnXiL5jGsWg6vZvyhI33TIJ-NzzSiCQUVJgeQIoujrBkRoyt7dzUFUDxhbjBLOmGig846j_n2aSVgM4V7na04dLWRF2vEukUN7A7oiJ94/s1600/oca+table.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="198" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqjwzlPCCDB_rNB_T07yWQ8wSOVaM2ijRGBUhnXiL5jGsWg6vZvyhI33TIJ-NzzSiCQUVJgeQIoujrBkRoyt7dzUFUDxhbjBLOmGig846j_n2aSVgM4V7na04dLWRF2vEukUN7A7oiJ94/s400/oca+table.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 12.8px;">Oh! You pretty things! These are the discards, <br />the tubers from plants that yielded less than 200g</span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px; text-align: center;">GOB14178 - This from two plants</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_sZ54V0G6jXR6-_BPPhXOQ-bCve0DFXOElxP_BgKaOo_9HfeQUHEHimKwIE5uhsSID8QjcO8UOKoMFyfWg8XHDWdQju63VZGoUQyc2p6yAnz5D4ZWSweIsG365J2T-6LniChvPPKjqk/s1600/IMG_0401.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY_sZ54V0G6jXR6-_BPPhXOQ-bCve0DFXOElxP_BgKaOo_9HfeQUHEHimKwIE5uhsSID8QjcO8UOKoMFyfWg8XHDWdQju63VZGoUQyc2p6yAnz5D4ZWSweIsG365J2T-6LniChvPPKjqk/s200/IMG_0401.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Seed!</td></tr>
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Speaking of seed, quite a few of my oca flowered, and some produced seed in late summer and early autumn. With some 25 seeds in total, this can hardly be called a gigantic harvest, but it's enough to do a little bit of excited experimenting next year. For the more substantial work of breeding that elusive daylength-neutral oca variety, I'll be relying on the likes of the GOB. Sadly though, this year's GOB varieties didn't do well at all in my garden. The only one that produced something worth mentioning was GOB14178. While the yield of seed-grown oca is bound to be very variable, the main reasons for the substantial difference between the GOB and non-GOB varieties in my garden are probably environmental. I planted the GOB varieties in a new plot of land, that I acquired just this year, and which turned out to have very low soil fertility and a pretty severe wireworm infestation. Basically, the GOB plants never looked happy and remained stunted throughout the season. In other words, I'm blaming mismanagement by the previous owner. Objective #1 for next year: Nurture the soil, and provide better conditions for GOB trials. <br />
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Other oca objectives for 2016: Regrow all but the worst of this year's varieties, keep them alive longer than this year, and produce more seed. Oh, and grow out this year's seeds. Ultimately, as I source more varieties, I also want to start selecting for taste and texture. So far I've only tasted a few varieties, but all have been very good, and some were outstanding. The texture seems to range from quite watery to potato-ish, and the taste from quite sour to starchy, to fairly sweet. Very interesting tastes, actually. I think I would like to select for varieties with a higher dry matter, and for less oxalic acid (i.e. a more neutral or slightly sweet tasting).<br />
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Oca's here to stay!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-373007434920045192015-10-15T13:43:00.000-07:002016-03-27T05:55:03.689-07:00Ipomoea batatas vs the Swedish weather: 1 - 0<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Buds and more buds, but no seeds</td></tr>
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Time for results! On 3 October I decided that summer was irrevocably over hence that it was time to find out what the sweet potatoes had been up to this paltry summer. Let's start with the bad news. Despite some pretty eager hand pollinating from my side and profuse flowering in <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2015/09/batata-anxiety.html">at least 8 sweet potato varieties</a> by the beginning of September, my plants failed to set a single seed. Not one seed. I'm not quite sure why this is, though I have some ideas. Sweet potatoes are self-incompatible, but with 8 quite genetically distinct parents that should not have been an issue. Lack of pollinators is a possible factor, and I did indeed see very little insect activity around the flowers at the time, even though bumblebees are generally quite abundant in my garden. Perhaps I have a species of bumblebee with a very finicky taste in pollen, or perhaps there were simply more exciting flowers around at the time. The most likely <i>saboteurs</i> in the grand sweet potato breeding scheme though, are environmental conditions. I need to look into this in more detail, but given the failure of hand pollinations it seems possible that succesful seed set was inhibited by low temperatures (something we've had plenty of this summer) and/or inadvantagous daylength. Just today I was reading <a href="http://asterlanedibles.ca/1/post/2015/10/plant-tales-true-sweet-potato-seed.html">Ottawa Gardener's post</a> on how she managed to get a few seed from Georgia Jet and a purple variety in her Canadian garden, so I'm convinced that it should be possible to produce seed here in Sweden as well, provided I can create the right conditions for it. I'll be putting some more thought and effort in this for next year, perhaps growing a few particularly floriferous varieties on clear plastic to expose them to higher temperatures. Last year at least I had some plants flowering as early as July, which seems like it might be a more sensible time to produce seeds here.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjdPuIiFkIdB-lTuFPs8t4uWzJUePvFnfrd6NZXPFA_6LemkYOIJMlE7MxgmwwBLhIJlng4dP_3pxBdWGTh_HCHwBC6r-yvG9YivqnXjgXvtnjT04kTcA0iVFZ4R7ndCMgl_gL09wA27M/s1600/IMG_0244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjdPuIiFkIdB-lTuFPs8t4uWzJUePvFnfrd6NZXPFA_6LemkYOIJMlE7MxgmwwBLhIJlng4dP_3pxBdWGTh_HCHwBC6r-yvG9YivqnXjgXvtnjT04kTcA0iVFZ4R7ndCMgl_gL09wA27M/s320/IMG_0244.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Unfortuntately, vine growth is not a good indicator for <br />
tuber formation</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
On to the good news then. As my pitchfork and me made their way through the first sweet potato row that sunny Saturday at the beginning of October, I became increasingly jubilant. I won't be winning any yield contests anytime soon, but my expectations, <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2015/09/batata-anxiety.html">admittedly quite low</a>, have certainly been exceeded. As could be expected, the majority of varieties failed to produce any roots at all. Sadly, this includes some particularly promising, and tasty, varieties like Orphan and <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2015/05/an-old-woman-cant-eat-two.html">Mukekuru tarya bibiri</a>, both of which produced very vigourous vines but had roots that were no thicker than a pencil. Nothing worth saving there. The Euro/American varieties overall did quite ok, though Georgia Jet was, again, a disappointment. This is a mystery to me, though I only had two plants and both came from cuttings that I was forced to keep alive throughout the winter, so they might not have gotten the best of starts. I'll be looking for a new source of Georgia Jet next year, ideas and donations are warmly welcomed.<br />
<br />
As last year, Nordic Purple produced very long but fairly thin roots that are hardly worth eating, but since it is the most prolificly flowering variety I have I will hold on to it. Burgundy produced some good-size tubers, as did Bonita, Nordic White and (somewhat less so) Nordic Orange, so I will be saving some of those for next year, particularly since all of them flowered as well. By far the best variety was T65. This is the variety I had expected most of and it didn't disappoint, generally producing two or three supermarket-standard tubers per plant. Sadly enough, it doesn't seem to produce flowers, not in my garden during the last two years, and not in <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a>'s for quite a bit longer. T65 is a Taiwanese variety that came out of a breeding project there, so perhaps any fellow sweet potato devotee knows of an interesting, flower-producing sibling out there?<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeM7hp-42yI8lyWcN-k0KJ8MYfD2T9XuqdHrVeQodXFIvg8dABC5R5MRe3x8DaZMtnFm3mchm2Xvn_sizcrYwo7kQzTW0tJEPyV9e5i0p6rWVUQQ8EBQbak2vZ0qJHGsD5gIp_n18XrOk/s1600/IMG_0314.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjeM7hp-42yI8lyWcN-k0KJ8MYfD2T9XuqdHrVeQodXFIvg8dABC5R5MRe3x8DaZMtnFm3mchm2Xvn_sizcrYwo7kQzTW0tJEPyV9e5i0p6rWVUQQ8EBQbak2vZ0qJHGsD5gIp_n18XrOk/s200/IMG_0314.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLV4jWtnFJGUt9xWMmnZ40UbyDWkuLEY9uy58Mtk-vPUL7g_gy_R8UIew-1YoBDmUQplQffA_QBTSK9uuzgsAQsRqAqT9yvC4GrD0qJw660iGCccDKJkIytuEUTSNwZIG00uYkhZAzUDk/s1600/IMG_0313.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLV4jWtnFJGUt9xWMmnZ40UbyDWkuLEY9uy58Mtk-vPUL7g_gy_R8UIew-1YoBDmUQplQffA_QBTSK9uuzgsAQsRqAqT9yvC4GrD0qJw660iGCccDKJkIytuEUTSNwZIG00uYkhZAzUDk/s200/IMG_0313.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuCRFVFFfdZa61_B_mtsLido0ul7VGU_hGhmEM251F2PbTevaV7Kl6XvyGt8oa4aqhxIuMzqYSAMnr_7SzDVAIdXs4jHMPIarnTnMN1YMrUH73asYqDakaserYSDm3-P2H1UbXmEnKhQ/s1600/IMG_0323.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRuCRFVFFfdZa61_B_mtsLido0ul7VGU_hGhmEM251F2PbTevaV7Kl6XvyGt8oa4aqhxIuMzqYSAMnr_7SzDVAIdXs4jHMPIarnTnMN1YMrUH73asYqDakaserYSDm3-P2H1UbXmEnKhQ/s200/IMG_0323.JPG" width="150" /></a><br />
<br />
Though the success rate amongst the African varieties was considerably lower, there were some pleasant surprises as well. Burundi and Bunduguza both bulked up enough to make me slightly excited. Bunduguza gave a fair amount of smallish roots, while the three Burundi plants actually produced roots that nearly rivalled those of Euro/American varieties like Nordic White. Others that I thought were worth saving for the moment were Kitekyeru, Alira, Kwezi Kume, Mushemeza, Kipapari and Rwabafurugi. By any standards, these are still very small sweet potatoes, but I think there might be something here to work with. With their high dry matter content, the African varieties are very different from the ones you would normally find in Europe, so it seems worth hanging on to as many of them as possible.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_7xfrlnG_IegAqMO5wQ7_WEJV8MtjmcewLAOt7w9X0TuvD96zsKJfATGm8MUMcF1oVXPvnRTBCLtidPG8LFEDu63Mar0ZqK48R7__xVrYXBBbXVJ1nUaUUVLpYTX21Mws190FvGTaGYw/s1600/IMG_0322.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_7xfrlnG_IegAqMO5wQ7_WEJV8MtjmcewLAOt7w9X0TuvD96zsKJfATGm8MUMcF1oVXPvnRTBCLtidPG8LFEDu63Mar0ZqK48R7__xVrYXBBbXVJ1nUaUUVLpYTX21Mws190FvGTaGYw/s200/IMG_0322.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikvh98jG2ApHnK_l5jAFZGynhIV1iXfaay9OjWPCED8WIXb6Yds8YQg1iN1TJlvMUvV3Gmhcry0CuBw-oTYDGeeTRCZYitdBW-bwUThOm4l1CUvZcomahu6XkJueGBEGxEm5-ktWYtqJ8/s1600/IMG_0330.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikvh98jG2ApHnK_l5jAFZGynhIV1iXfaay9OjWPCED8WIXb6Yds8YQg1iN1TJlvMUvV3Gmhcry0CuBw-oTYDGeeTRCZYitdBW-bwUThOm4l1CUvZcomahu6XkJueGBEGxEm5-ktWYtqJ8/s200/IMG_0330.JPG" width="150" /></a><br />
<br />
Since the objective this year was to find the most suitable varieties for my climate rather than to maximize yield, I'm judging the harvest by the thickness of the roots rather than overall productivity. This criteria roughly gives the following classification, from thickest (about 3 fingers wide) to thinnest (somewhat wider than a thumb):<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhufwzBsyx97B_GWuaUnZ9FSWuBtq2U9ewZHZDr7SqaqpP-uQuBXWgaIfncHiivarRj1CW4ekJZXFavWWRy2UnyJxpK2FVEvj5HzbDHBdimbyLwCOt8OMX4Fw0L6f7CgIG0LysX3Fl-YU/s1600/IMG_0310.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhufwzBsyx97B_GWuaUnZ9FSWuBtq2U9ewZHZDr7SqaqpP-uQuBXWgaIfncHiivarRj1CW4ekJZXFavWWRy2UnyJxpK2FVEvj5HzbDHBdimbyLwCOt8OMX4Fw0L6f7CgIG0LysX3Fl-YU/s320/IMG_0310.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">And the winner is...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<ol style="text-align: left;">
<li>T65</li>
<li>Nordic White</li>
<li>Burgundy</li>
<li>Bonita</li>
<li>Nordic Orange</li>
<li>Burundi</li>
<li>Bunduguza</li>
<li>Kipapari</li>
<li>Alira</li>
<li>Mushemeza</li>
<li>Nordic Purple</li>
<li>Kitekyeru</li>
<li>Rwabafurugi</li>
<li>Asian Yam 2</li>
<li>Kwezi Kume</li>
</ol>
<br />
<br />
15 varieties is considerably more than I have place to continue working with, so I will probably make a further selection later. A lot of the tubers are damaged by wireworm, which might provide problems with storage and cause additional casualties later in winter. For the moment, though, I'm very happy with this year's results. With an average mean temperature of 15.86 °C we had a fairly cold summer this year, particularly during June and July, which make me optimistic that this year's results can be replicated under most summers here. For anyone looking to grow sweet potatoes under similar climatic conditions, I'm convinced it's possible to get fairly respectable yields, consistently, provided one grows a variety like T65. I also grew the plants on ridges, which might have had a positive influence on soil temperatures as well. You could certainly increase your chances by using a plastic mulch, as advocated by <a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~allan/sweet_potatoes_flyer.html">Ken Allan</a>, which is bound to boost yields considerably. Personally, I'm going to continue searching for varieties that do well also without plastic ground cover, though I might cheat a bit in order to induce early flowering and seed production. Yes, I'm just that stubborn.<br />
<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9RbewTAq_sp02El6nxJqJ4h8HAeaClAjuErm2PK4bBaXjoaSoLwnAxqXKXb2AA20jAgJ2f9np9Z3Wl2gMU0W0e-Y2ecmtKQeoyf9Blv4cpCfzWlvr_PXAgvPpxu0XrDrlO4UCrI_BFF8/s1600/IMG_0295.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><br /></a>
You might be able to guess what I would like for christmas this year: Some more T65-class, early maturing and cold tolerant sweet potato tubers, and why not some seeds to top it off. Please?<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedPXa31INaVsTHi7o8heMLkZnUBIigy78ule6V1S682J5De9yeYkDYqlxvXoTEO9wNTODqmJvpiyKWpjclWlQzLdMwEddQwVe0SKee90JKU0fuTzX2tV-ntwBxcQsHiQDrXNX9OPds_0/s1600/Summerweatheranalysisgraph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="382" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhedPXa31INaVsTHi7o8heMLkZnUBIigy78ule6V1S682J5De9yeYkDYqlxvXoTEO9wNTODqmJvpiyKWpjclWlQzLdMwEddQwVe0SKee90JKU0fuTzX2tV-ntwBxcQsHiQDrXNX9OPds_0/s640/Summerweatheranalysisgraph.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Temperature data for Malmö, June through September 2015</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-78113925674628718702015-09-18T07:26:00.000-07:002015-09-18T07:26:30.893-07:002015 winter squash harvest<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh5B4QdmshdWvm5_8ok1QSRjHFR2cy0pnWm5Abboxbulgs_AXa_ZWpQlddNgVVeeLci40lOwd-SjKBZbgvUvvdBPg5OVLQWBxe5tfM3eCBm0PCAZKVt1gcJOPgyZuSDgNgeZ0yuzQC5KM/s1600/IMG_0271.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhh5B4QdmshdWvm5_8ok1QSRjHFR2cy0pnWm5Abboxbulgs_AXa_ZWpQlddNgVVeeLci40lOwd-SjKBZbgvUvvdBPg5OVLQWBxe5tfM3eCBm0PCAZKVt1gcJOPgyZuSDgNgeZ0yuzQC5KM/s320/IMG_0271.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. maxima - Green Hokkaido</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Harvest time! All of the C. maxima plants have succumbed to end-of-season downy mildew by now, stems on the fruits have corked up nicely, and skins have hardened and faded in colour, so last week it was time to bring in the majority of this year's winter squash. Most people will leave their winter squash out in the field as long as possible, but maxima squashes actually don't mind <a href="http://www.johnnyseeds.com/t-eating_quality_in_winter_squashes.aspx">being harvested just a tad early</a>, about 40-45 days after flowering. Since I've had some problems with theft in my allotment, I choose to err on the side of caution and bring in the winter squash when I feel they've matured. They're currently spread all over my living room so they can cure a bit, after which they're going to the (unheated) attic for long-term storage. Having them heaped together like that is always a very satisfying sight. Name me one other food that looks as beautiful!<br />
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX5bH57gwLPEilJxVQjP2uurh_AGQ42GLJqRcD3Ekri0eG38yOetXpJya-O9xMN6ztzEYEh1Qj6joEnbqZsqjudckGaI52WIatVKIJWARePWH8nrlBKz2OFMtQr7PyQYONiYVjuJOkdc/s1600/IMG_0278.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZX5bH57gwLPEilJxVQjP2uurh_AGQ42GLJqRcD3Ekri0eG38yOetXpJya-O9xMN6ztzEYEh1Qj6joEnbqZsqjudckGaI52WIatVKIJWARePWH8nrlBKz2OFMtQr7PyQYONiYVjuJOkdc/s320/IMG_0278.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 12.8px;"><div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: 12.8px;">C. maxima - Sweet Mama</span></div>
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</tbody></table>
Anyway, before I launch off into another winter squash rant, here is what this year's crop looks like. The first number is the amount of squash per variety, the number in brackets is the number of plants there were of each:<br />
<br />
15 [8] Sweet Mama<br />
3 [1] Burgess Buttercup<br />
4 [4] Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead<br />
2+1? [5] Marina di Chioggia<br />
1 [1] Galeux d'Eysines<br />
1 [1] Blue Ballet<br />
1 [1] Green Hokkaido<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUWjyT94gYXtATHpMXDFPxEMdVt9LYJNS_J4vVxb68Uwzb2QnaXtONOi1Sbpek6Ur0QjcaUbd93UqDs1V8hRpX8jFkoAaq4nyh-0oe5Fw1i1VFGYeO3IrE1bYdGc792q5W-ZdWDBO2zw8/s1600/IMG_0267.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUWjyT94gYXtATHpMXDFPxEMdVt9LYJNS_J4vVxb68Uwzb2QnaXtONOi1Sbpek6Ur0QjcaUbd93UqDs1V8hRpX8jFkoAaq4nyh-0oe5Fw1i1VFGYeO3IrE1bYdGc792q5W-ZdWDBO2zw8/s320/IMG_0267.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. maxima - Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
That's 27 squash from 21 plants, which is ok but it could definitely be better. Even though I increased spacing from last year, I think the plants were still too close together, which tends to affect yields negatively. Especially against the fence, where the Marina di Chioggia were planted, the vines were just layered on top of each other. Next year I'll be increasing my spacing further to 2mx1m, hopefully this will make for healthier plants longer into autumn as well. Sweet Mama is a semi-bush variety that needs relatively little space, so it is no surprise that it did so well compared to the others. The +1? for Marina marks a squash that is still growing and that I'm not sure will mature in time. Of the other two Marina's, one somehow got detached from the vine before it was fully grown, so I baked it the other day. While it completely lacked the typical sweetness of a ripe Marina, the taste was surprisingly good. It was starchy yet flavourful, a bit nutty and at times tasted exactly like mashed potatoes with spinach (which is a fond childhood memory of mine, in case that analogy seemed a bit random). I had one more piece right out the fridge a few hours later and that reminded me of cheesecake, which I suppose was mostly due to the texture. Surprisingly good for an immature squash!<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKuxmfO-hU-Ufc4HTjSr0ZDK27Rlu8CNTob8hyrfMtKFbdWlhRPW7i_tXjq9dh5Ligi3hUbhLc_zNa1FWONq4EP6my8P9bqrBtsc1IxwGz_60BDEbq2nM0TAD97ruZycUXFPloW0JBjs/s1600/IMG_0289.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNKuxmfO-hU-Ufc4HTjSr0ZDK27Rlu8CNTob8hyrfMtKFbdWlhRPW7i_tXjq9dh5Ligi3hUbhLc_zNa1FWONq4EP6my8P9bqrBtsc1IxwGz_60BDEbq2nM0TAD97ruZycUXFPloW0JBjs/s320/IMG_0289.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. moschata - Longue de Nice</td></tr>
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<div style="text-align: right;">
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As I eat my way through the rest over the coming months, I'll be saving seed from the very best for next year. I'm already looking forward to growing them out... The C. moschata are still in the garden, they need somewhat longer to mature and in contrast to C. maxima should actually stay on the vine as long as possible. There's two Longue de Nice fruits that I believe are nearly mature, and then there are a bunch of Waltham Butternut and Long Island Cheese that only started flowering very late, so it's yet to be seen if I'll get a fully mature squash off either of those. The Longue de Nice was aborting a lot of fruit in the beginning of the season. Fruits would first grow very long (some grew to 40 cms) but the head (where the seed forms, to the left in the picture) would fail to bulk up, and then it would start rotting from the top down. I believe this was due to poor pollination (there were no male moschata flowers at that time), which might mean that the moschata didn't cross with the pepo after all (or they crossed but then aborted anyway). I'll save seed from any mature (and tasty) moschata that I get and trial it next year. If it's contaminated with C. pepo genes I'll drop it, otherwise I'll try to develop a C. moschata landrace as well.<br />
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I leave you with the biggest and most alien squash coming out of the garden this year:<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgay0yYQEVCJoJEWwNvKHQ6eIlvDl6NCO9kAfUTTJYJpiPonCG6qk2EdYHjm0IGKd1HvfApFlJiM6MbmVb5oD4gmEovIKFGORXHRhTzSAZNV6J-12qrLQ5f9OIxS4YEweMhNZADEGdNB50/s1600/IMG_0275.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgay0yYQEVCJoJEWwNvKHQ6eIlvDl6NCO9kAfUTTJYJpiPonCG6qk2EdYHjm0IGKd1HvfApFlJiM6MbmVb5oD4gmEovIKFGORXHRhTzSAZNV6J-12qrLQ5f9OIxS4YEweMhNZADEGdNB50/s400/IMG_0275.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. maxima - Galeux d'Eysines</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-79686301055589326022015-09-12T10:20:00.000-07:002016-03-27T05:56:51.865-07:00Batata anxiety<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9Ilch-KIoQSw6eFF7rnMVyKtRl9oY_LGNkU6TEWwtqOr76MRDQuWdmDHJ3S67W4bcI6ogK1Z_ttOv5QBcJfI6i_kH0rdzDpETtPlR6YD10cm751o3nvMXgGY-RGvO0dblp1yJ6k9iYk/s1600/IMG_0301.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF9Ilch-KIoQSw6eFF7rnMVyKtRl9oY_LGNkU6TEWwtqOr76MRDQuWdmDHJ3S67W4bcI6ogK1Z_ttOv5QBcJfI6i_kH0rdzDpETtPlR6YD10cm751o3nvMXgGY-RGvO0dblp1yJ6k9iYk/s320/IMG_0301.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mushemeza (left) and Sula 1 (right)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
With just a few weeks left of sufficiently high soil temperatures, sweet potato anxiety is setting in. Harvest or no harvest, that's basically the question at the moment, I'm under no illusions that I will have a respectable yield at this point. May, June and July have been unseasonally cool here, but the weather did pick up a bit in August, so there has been quite a lot of top-growth over the past weeks. Nothing like last year though, when vines were all over the place. The slips that were planted at the end of May still seem to have an advantage over the others, even though temperatures were suboptimal at that time, so I might try to push the growing season a bit more next year. A plastic mulch would definitely have helped a lot with this kind of weather, but I've got excuses for not going down that path... I'm trying to evaluate possible cold-tolerance, plus I feel no desire to provide another <a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.se/2014/10/a-whole-lot-of-couldve-been.html">feast for the resident vole population</a>. In other words, I'll just have to suck it up and hope that some plants will at least provide me with some seedstock for next year.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TEqAsLDCsmxo5e4RpIMTDb7AJeXW5DRj7jzst5fk0y3-lYqYBTR1bGB8tGkisqT7dhliF9_FA5F02U8L0OcdCWvawGXiplH5PyonkbtdEyoHYmwfMcFeKiFfZJ9o70Q6XRMasBk3TKU/s1600/IMG_0300.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="display: inline !important; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2TEqAsLDCsmxo5e4RpIMTDb7AJeXW5DRj7jzst5fk0y3-lYqYBTR1bGB8tGkisqT7dhliF9_FA5F02U8L0OcdCWvawGXiplH5PyonkbtdEyoHYmwfMcFeKiFfZJ9o70Q6XRMasBk3TKU/s320/IMG_0300.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Bunduguza (top) and Kwezi Kume (bottom)</td></tr>
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As a gardener, of course, there's always additional reasons for anxiety, and I found some in the recent potato harvest. To accommodate for ever-expanding garden experiments I've taken on a second allotment this year, which had been lying fallow for a while and was pretty much covered with grass when I first dug it last autumn. I've planted both the potatoes and the sweet potatoes (as well as all the mauka, some mashua and all of <a href="http://ocabreeders.org/">the GOB oca</a>) on this plot, only to discover recently that it's infested with wireworms. Wireworms are the larval stage of a number of beetles, which burry into all kinds of roots and make them susceptible to rot. They prefer the roots of various grasses and are therefore quite common in newly-dug gardens, but they usually hang around for a few years after the grasses have departed and in the absence of their favourite food they will devour just about any root they find. All of this year's potatoes have had some degree of wireworm damage, some being more hole than tuber. Since potatoes are a definite dietary improvement over grass roots, I can't really blame them, but the idea that wireworms might at this very moment be burrowing their way through an already scarce sweet potato crop, therefore diminishing its storability, fills me with insecticidal cravings. There's no wireworm problems in my first allotment, so my crop placement choices this year have been highly unfortunate to say the least.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4JJ3VBBaPZYic74LAcXN4aG8_pIcFrrVOzjYFHlRBdcdz3-UQGkZ7NwnUSi0uhX8NyyiVbxZdesAaXsKNt49iBJ0ELiBRj3HM1GAvJRjA1rqUIX6ajJ_OIszdwyNdzIOODK123S2zSiI/s1600/IMG_0294.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4JJ3VBBaPZYic74LAcXN4aG8_pIcFrrVOzjYFHlRBdcdz3-UQGkZ7NwnUSi0uhX8NyyiVbxZdesAaXsKNt49iBJ0ELiBRj3HM1GAvJRjA1rqUIX6ajJ_OIszdwyNdzIOODK123S2zSiI/s320/IMG_0294.JPG" width="240" /></a></div>
It's not all misery and desperation though. So far I've counted 8 sweet potato varieties producing flowers. These are Murasaki, Georgia Jet, Bonita, Asian Yam, Kalebe, Burgundy, Nordic White and Nordic Purple. That comes down to 7 European/commercial varieties and 1 African variety, which is in line with what could be expected. Heirloom varieties seldom flower (at least outside of the tropics) because of a long history of vegetative propagation, while commercial varieties tend to descend from flowering plants simply because breeders need seeds to work with and thus select for florescence. That there's one African variety (Kalebe) flowering is quite exciting, so I'll try to pollinate it or at least keep it alive over winter if I don't get any roots. Possibly more varieties will follow as the days shorten (some sweet potatoes are daylight sensitive for flower induction). I'm seeing very few pollinators around the flowers, so of course there's no guarantee that there'll be seed. In fact, I've yet to see a seed pod forming, but I've marked some buds that didn't fall off immediately.. where there's ribbon there is hope! I might as well increase the hand pollinations too, I've had less time for that than I would have wished so far.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbl2-RhKEpN9ietW94xH9Ghzb7tm6OI1VOfD3sbcmyg3ZCvR6tcHq96bPUaujykYSG4XMssx6XBoJ-nZL-_ANCRzPAPLTwCEefDCctLpQAe-2wyszkYr9pp_DL4DMSfYrFaezpB-uVB4/s1600/IMG_0297.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbl2-RhKEpN9ietW94xH9Ghzb7tm6OI1VOfD3sbcmyg3ZCvR6tcHq96bPUaujykYSG4XMssx6XBoJ-nZL-_ANCRzPAPLTwCEefDCctLpQAe-2wyszkYr9pp_DL4DMSfYrFaezpB-uVB4/s320/IMG_0297.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Kalebe flower</td></tr>
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On a final note, I've recently been reading Ken Allan's excellent book <i>'<a href="http://home.cogeco.ca/~allan/sweet_potatoes_flyer.html">Sweet Potatoes for the Home Garden; with Special Techniques for Northern Growers'</a></i>, which summarizes his experiences with growing sweet potatoes in Canada. Apart from repeatedly stressing the importance of using a plastic mulch to warm the soil (meh!), Ken recommends Georgia Jet as the variety of choice in colder climates. This was interesting to me because Georgia Jet by no means performed exceptionally well here last year. I got no roots at all and had to keep it alive as a cutting over winter, though admittedly I did plant it somewhat late. This year, Georgia Jet has been one of the least vigorous of all the varieties I planted. I don't know if this is because of the quality of the cutting, or because I maybe have a diseased specimen, but the two plants I have don't amount to more than a few spindly vines. It does, however, flower profusely. I've received my Georgia Jet from <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank van Keirsbilck</a>, who has also been having some problems with it, so I was kind of bemused to read the lavish descriptions of Georgia Jet in Ken's book. Maybe I need to locate another source of it, just to give it another go.<br />
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I wouldn't mind that Indian summer now...</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-61928636073971192202015-08-12T08:42:00.000-07:002015-08-12T08:42:08.158-07:00Ode to a (lot of) cucurbit<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Let's do a little quiz. What food is highly nutritious, productive, easy to grow, stores for months at room temperature, and tastes fantastic? And what food is highly underrated, wasted in copious amounts during the holiday season, and often reduced to its decorative qualities? I guess this really isn't much of a challenge for most of you... It's the winter squash of course!<br />
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Before I go any further, I should probably declare my bias and confess to a rather serious obsession with growing winter squash. In fact, this blog might equally well have been titled 'the cucurbita gardener'. Winter squash is one of the first vegetables I started growing and I consistently dedicate a quarter of my allotment to it. Last year I had the ambition to grow one squash for every week of the year and very nearly made it. Needless to say I was in over my ears with squash and as the winter progressed my skin was taking on an orange hue from all the beta-carotene I was consuming (a harmless condition known as <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carotenosis">carotenosis</a> - I can recommend it as a healthy alternative to sunbeds, for the few of you concerned with your winter tan). Why this overt squash fetishism, you might wonder? Because it's such a fantastic food of course! A great winter squash is a rich, sweet and filling food that makes a very satisfying dish all on its own, as well as being an excellent addition to stews, stir-fries and a basis for all kinds of odd baking experiments. Furthermore, I aim to eat out of my garden as much as possible and in that respect squash is one of the more grateful crops to grow. It is fairly pest and disease-free here in Europe (apart from powdery mildew, which tends to occur only towards the end of the seasons and therefore does not really hamper fruit production), it's a storage champion, it's easy to save seed from, and it's a fascinating and beautiful plant to hang around with in the garden. What's not to like? It's a real mystery to me why winter squash is not utilized more. I suppose one reason is that a lot of the varieties out there are really not worth eating. I've had my share of bland, watery, and stringy squash, and it's easy to see how such experience could make anyone into a lifelong squash-skeptic. But there's really no comparison between the latter and a great winter squash at optimal ripeness, so please don't dismiss the whole squash family on the basis of a few of its inferior offspring! I guess you get the point, as far as I'm concerned, the neglect of the winter squash as a staple vegetable is a culinary tragedy waiting to be corrected.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrszt98yAA5B-NVFbgh5YuBCoL3QNgGGsW13fQmR09If38Xed7UvsHGq3NwsD9miwIAQzGRFGYCc6sYRz7izcIuOHA4yvXvseVa528EQo-uxFQNx702_D8EC-xNrcLKbaHpzRMKnLECBE/s1600/IMG_0238.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrszt98yAA5B-NVFbgh5YuBCoL3QNgGGsW13fQmR09If38Xed7UvsHGq3NwsD9miwIAQzGRFGYCc6sYRz7izcIuOHA4yvXvseVa528EQo-uxFQNx702_D8EC-xNrcLKbaHpzRMKnLECBE/s400/IMG_0238.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The squash patch. It's seriously overcrowded, which I think is harming my yield. <br />Lessons learned for next year.</td></tr>
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Any-way.. This year I'm deepening my winter squash commitment and I'm choosing quality over quantity. I've been reading up on so-called <a href="http://garden.lofthouse.com/adaptivar-landrace.phtml">'landrace gardening'</a> in the past months and I've become convinced that this is the way I want to go, first and foremost for the winter squash, and then, hopefully, for a lot of the other vegetables I'm growing as well. If the concept is as new to you as it was to me, let me attempt a very basic summary... Most people (including myself) tend to buy their vegetable seeds from seed companies or, if they do save their own seed, aim to preserve existing varieties. If you do this, then essentially this means that you are working with the plant characteristics that others have selected for you. This in turn means that the seeds you buy and/or save are from plants that might be adapted to growing conditions very different from your own, including different soils and soil fertility, different (micro-)climates, different disease and pest pressures, etc. This is a perfectly good way to garden, but if you think about it a bit, it could probably be improved upon. Species evolve and environments change (not in the least, unfortunately, the climate...), so it actually makes perfect sense to try and work with these evolutionary pressures rather than against them. This is what landrace gardening (in the scientific literature it seems to be called 'evolutionary plant breeding') tries to do. The idea is that you grow out as many different varieties as possible (to maximize genetic diversity), let all of these varieties cross freely, grow out large amounts of the resulting seed, and then continuously select for the most vigourous plants that fit your personal preferences. The result, after many generations, should be your very own locally-adapted (and evolving) variety with high genetic diversity, and in possession of any of the traits that you have chosen to prioritize. Sounds great, right? I thought so too, so I'm set on testing this out on my winter squash.<br />
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I'm growing two species this year, cucurbita moschata (6 plants) and cucurbita maxima (21 plants). There are also some reputedly good winter squash among the cucurbita pepo's (I'm yet to be convinced of this..) but I tend to prefer the maximas and anyway, a lot of my neighbours are growing summer squash (which generally is also c. pepo) and this would make open pollination a bit difficult. There's a chance that the moschatas too crossed with my summer squash (damn you promiscuous squash!), so that leaves me with the maximas to save seed from (c. maxima doesn't normally cross with c. pepo or c. moschata... in theory). I started off with 7 varieties and plan on adding more genetic diversity over the next generations. For this year I've got:<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoZyEkwyc4YV2GSgAK-5xozuN2vXIWRkXyG70s065Ee0xu5qXlstgZjiCUjr97138i0VE2MFwuP0OJ7bj1gy6Hzizj4tk_eA581UEk_KZ55TywanY0L12FN88YUWHO0P_8BWNQ5ntWvI/s1600/IMG_0240.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIoZyEkwyc4YV2GSgAK-5xozuN2vXIWRkXyG70s065Ee0xu5qXlstgZjiCUjr97138i0VE2MFwuP0OJ7bj1gy6Hzizj4tk_eA581UEk_KZ55TywanY0L12FN88YUWHO0P_8BWNQ5ntWvI/s320/IMG_0240.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. Maxima - Sweet Mama</td></tr>
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<b>Sweet Mama</b>: a hybrid that I grew last year and that I found to taste fantastic. It's nutty, rich, sweet, medium dry, and yields pretty well. This is also a semi-bush type plant so it's quite economical space-wise. Fruits are about 1-2 kg and mature early.<br />
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<b>Sweet Meat Oregon Homestead: </b>I haven't grown this one before, but the reviews I read were uniformly positive so I had to include it. Bred by <a href="http://caroldeppe.com/">Carol Deppe</a> for reliability and production, It's supposed to be a great 'homesteading' squash with thick, very dry, and very sweet flesh. They can weigh up to 10 kg. I found it to be a bit slow-going compared to the others, and it seems to have characteristically rough leaves.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtj-qDC1-JGU0w1PL_VlYqozPc_nVAww9ob1P89nI7n6Ycy3fu5qTdULDoHNAqXEOFIh1F8Qyvhda0pTd0jUmd5c7BplOtVg7wwHjv5GhGGo3zZDT2knGSSxJRL_Psme8867uBROVrIkM/s1600/IMG_0237.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtj-qDC1-JGU0w1PL_VlYqozPc_nVAww9ob1P89nI7n6Ycy3fu5qTdULDoHNAqXEOFIh1F8Qyvhda0pTd0jUmd5c7BplOtVg7wwHjv5GhGGo3zZDT2knGSSxJRL_Psme8867uBROVrIkM/s320/IMG_0237.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. Maxima - Marina di Chioggia</td></tr>
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<b>Marina di Chioggia: </b>An Italian heirloom that I grew last year and that I loved for its taste, which again is deliciously nutty and rich. It's a very vigourous plant that will take over your garden if you let it. It yields one to two large squash (up to 10 kg) with a characteristic dark green, bumpy skin, almost like a savoy cabbage.<br />
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<b>Burgess Buttercup: </b>An old American classic, reputed for its taste. I grew a buttercup variety before and frankly wasn't that impressed with the taste, so I'm hoping this one is quite different. The squash are fairly small and somewhat cubical, weighing around 1 kg.<br />
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<b>Green Hokkaido: </b>Supposed to be the same as <b>Blue Kuri. </b>This is my first year growing this as well. Actually my initial plan was to just use a select few tried and tested varieties for the start of my landrace project but the lure of new and exciting squash was too much to resist... This seems to be your average kabocha-type squash (which is just to say that it has Japanese origins), which are probably my favourites so far. It's green, sweet, and supposedly fairly dry. Medium sized fruits, 1 tot 2 kg.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOXb40Ex61SuvCsDR7kYuWHiI2eDUjE8DxPv21OwfMo4ZEq5PXdKE1qS_3dO285UVb_lV_bK6K9nFUhkjW2jj2zo2pBgwr1kvElEDHO4pSfhUEVZ3973QFIMRnEOSwwHL0iQV8sW6F76Q/s1600/IMG_0241.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOXb40Ex61SuvCsDR7kYuWHiI2eDUjE8DxPv21OwfMo4ZEq5PXdKE1qS_3dO285UVb_lV_bK6K9nFUhkjW2jj2zo2pBgwr1kvElEDHO4pSfhUEVZ3973QFIMRnEOSwwHL0iQV8sW6F76Q/s320/IMG_0241.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">C. Maxima - Galeux d'Eysines</td></tr>
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<b>Galeux d'Eysines: </b>First year attempt at this one as well. It grows big (up to 5 kg) orange squash with a high beta-carotene content that form peanut-like warts on the skin upon maturing. From what I can tell it's really quite a fascinating sight. I'm mostly growing it for its supposedly excellent eating quality though.<br />
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<b>Blue Ballet: </b>This is a smaller version of the Blue Hubbard squash. I've been growing Blue Hubbard the past two years just because it's such an intriguing squash, but I've abandonned it since they never really stored that well for me (somehow, despite its armoured appearance, the Blue Hubbard was always the first to show signs of spoilage). They also seem to deterioriate in eating quality quite quickly, plus the seed cavity on these is positively enormous, making for a fairly poor flesh to overall fruit ratio. I grew Blue Ballet last year and found it to be superious in nearly every aspect: it keeps longer, it tastes better, plus the skin is actually edible, which in my book is a big plus. It's a vigourous grower that is fairly early and weighs about 2-4 kg.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMVeltt6EOcASnLG6WoG8reP4fS8koP5ISCSoowP4c-Ml-3Z1SNxOzgtIsGKW43O5JcPBKQ6tO3Ax6gxJ6l5dVrzhgpNVqsgejsJRxIsSiViJS-J0U18cOnaCiGC3_f_BXpR3IGevpp2w/s1600/IMG_0239.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMVeltt6EOcASnLG6WoG8reP4fS8koP5ISCSoowP4c-Ml-3Z1SNxOzgtIsGKW43O5JcPBKQ6tO3Ax6gxJ6l5dVrzhgpNVqsgejsJRxIsSiViJS-J0U18cOnaCiGC3_f_BXpR3IGevpp2w/s320/IMG_0239.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sweet Mama with Buttercup on top</td></tr>
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So where am I going with all this fantastic genome? As stated, I've let the bees do their happy buzzing and am eagerly awaiting the approaching harvest. Upon which I will be storing the squash for a month or so (this maximizes their sugar content) and then dutifully embark on the (very pleasant) task of tasting my way through the squash stash to find the chosen few that I will save seed from for next year. What I'm selecting for is a medium-sized squash that is as dry, nutty and richly sweet as possible, that is highly reliable under my growing conditions (this should pretty much select itself), has an edible skin and a small seed cavity, and that stores well into spring. Next year's progeny will then probably be a mixed bunch, some of which will undoubtebly be fairly bad eating, but some of which should bring together the best qualities of the above varieties and provide the basis for a true Malmö winter squash landrace. Exciting!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-48670408244694561492015-07-28T01:49:00.001-07:002016-03-27T05:57:54.484-07:0037 shades of sweet potato<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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Back in the middle of June I planted out all my sweet potato starts out in the garden. I could surely have nursed some a bit longer but they were beginning to suffer indoors and, frankly, I thought that anything I planted after that day would have very little chance of producing tubers anyway. I was also struggling a bit with the logistics of it all and was eager to have them out there rather than being dependent on my undivided attention. I'll have to devise a better system for next year, though it might already help to have less varieties to sprout and keep happy...</div>
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I counted them after planting and ended up with a total of 37 varieties. In no particular order at all these were</div>
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12 commercial European/American/Asian varieties: </div>
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<i>T65, Nordic Purple, Nordic White, Nordic Orange, Burgundy, Bonita, Murasaki, Georgia Jet, Asian Yam 1, Asian Yam 2, Okinawa Purple, Garnet</i></div>
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25 (mostly) heirloom African varieties: </div>
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<i>Alira, Kalebe, Silek, Kanya, Uganda Orange 1, Uganda Orange 2, Kipapari, Mukekuru Tarya Bibiri, Tangara, Kitambe, Orphan, Rwabafurugi, Kitekyere, Mpame Hegia, Nyariowera, Kwezi Kume, Sula 1, Sula 2, Burundi, Bunduguza, Mushemeza, Kidodo, NASPOT 1, Bamuhachira, Magabari</i><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZ-JQfh9RPEbB8cpBqBdvfbiDf2b80Ts2E7By7gtcWRsE9ARmcvrO8ifsbPt61SVBffCoMFcaWPhQ3fg5LRgFhh37GzZSa8FEbyvX0XQwKTeRmfu6-q_pixf4SWPPYBAqVfAwtFs30P0/s1600/sweet+potato+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZZ-JQfh9RPEbB8cpBqBdvfbiDf2b80Ts2E7By7gtcWRsE9ARmcvrO8ifsbPt61SVBffCoMFcaWPhQ3fg5LRgFhh37GzZSa8FEbyvX0XQwKTeRmfu6-q_pixf4SWPPYBAqVfAwtFs30P0/s640/sweet+potato+map.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A map of the 2015 batata garden</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Some of these were not particularly viable though, and in some cases I just chucked a yet-unsprouted tuber in the ground, hoping that against all odds it would still do something. The amount of plants per cultivar varied a lot; of some I got 20+ plants, of others just one. This almost exclusively had to do with how fast the different tubers sprouted. For those that were very slow-going I ended up with few (or no) plants. By now some of these have quite definitely died, so I'm probably left with under 30 varieties.</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDT4r1Ie7aDJBY1vg7Gd9IfJUXnxFbhG6A5cqXtutebhOwNsIxOE1QMSAzIk683_YKFI2fBnPbcE4gq93_JY0hSY7xUVXVhQXnV9RYRK8GdYu-U7OWVks9Q8UCrlijtC5OixCX4AoNQlg/s1600/IMG_0229.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDT4r1Ie7aDJBY1vg7Gd9IfJUXnxFbhG6A5cqXtutebhOwNsIxOE1QMSAzIk683_YKFI2fBnPbcE4gq93_JY0hSY7xUVXVhQXnV9RYRK8GdYu-U7OWVks9Q8UCrlijtC5OixCX4AoNQlg/s320/IMG_0229.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nordic Purple (left) and T65 (right)</td></tr>
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It's been my luck of course that, exactly in the year I'm embarking on this grand sweet potato experiment, we're experiencing one of the coldest summers in decades here in Sweden. Except for a few tropical days in the beginning of July, the last few months have felt more like early autumn, with exceptionally windy, chilly and rainy weather. Predictly the sweet potatoes haven't been all too happy with this and growth is just a fraction of what it was last year at this point (though I was growing them under plastic then, so it's hard to compare). The optimist in me sees this as the perfect selection pressure and thinks that if any of these plants yields something this summer, it will reliably do so most years. My pessimist self on the other hand is quite convinced that I will end up with absolutely no sweet potatoes whatsoever. Either way I'm hoping that August will bring some direly needed sun for these:<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiqoH_yZwly7CXn_hyBdmhjr6k_GtzrxzWWuIIdtCR4c2YGA6yKOWZi4DXOJWk4nI-XSNMc2Qj7Fc-P_mQPsxxaxaVCgWtOku0YmxOUYrCVXWP4fWAnJUbT5KEcr3frxAHQJN9SLVDMQo/s1600/IMG_0235.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiqoH_yZwly7CXn_hyBdmhjr6k_GtzrxzWWuIIdtCR4c2YGA6yKOWZi4DXOJWk4nI-XSNMc2Qj7Fc-P_mQPsxxaxaVCgWtOku0YmxOUYrCVXWP4fWAnJUbT5KEcr3frxAHQJN9SLVDMQo/s320/IMG_0235.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sula 1</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIzdI3Ho0TKqyDiT0jqXacKyYyk4EsRLjUcn1Ot_Qk3u0Mjio32GFglmJqlo1xI_NlTeGwbMyMMU1eumV4LracgGMSbRfg6d7zO3RMoCwY6WVcM1BQCGSjGwcKgGshISYBdP47lkkGcok/s1600/IMG_0233.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIzdI3Ho0TKqyDiT0jqXacKyYyk4EsRLjUcn1Ot_Qk3u0Mjio32GFglmJqlo1xI_NlTeGwbMyMMU1eumV4LracgGMSbRfg6d7zO3RMoCwY6WVcM1BQCGSjGwcKgGshISYBdP47lkkGcok/s320/IMG_0233.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Rwabafurugi</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0aX6Ai__vZO3YFR9zEabxk96Npv-N-ppsVKgrkN0eNUoJVD-0i6W4TWELfYESpaL8WsxV8rWDkPwdWAuAzi0EqeonSSbWvD48Ir-4u2EhRuo4-PHXYhBqLJlVNGtr5_WU7l7YOABDU0/s1600/IMG_0232.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiB0aX6Ai__vZO3YFR9zEabxk96Npv-N-ppsVKgrkN0eNUoJVD-0i6W4TWELfYESpaL8WsxV8rWDkPwdWAuAzi0EqeonSSbWvD48Ir-4u2EhRuo4-PHXYhBqLJlVNGtr5_WU7l7YOABDU0/s320/IMG_0232.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Nordic Purple</td></tr>
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If I would formulate my ambitions, they would consequently be quite modest (or at least I think so..). I would like to get some kind of tuber from at least 3 of these varieties, plus some seeds. If I would have to choose, then I suppose the latter would be the most important, since it would make possible the long, very, very long, process of breeding nordic-adapted varieties. For that to happen I will first need some more growth and some flowers though.. Indian summer, anyone?<br />
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Please, world, make it happen.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-13636867513481155582015-07-02T13:27:00.000-07:002015-08-05T06:23:18.661-07:00From Amandine to Zillifera; an Andean summer update<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
It's high time for a brief update on this year's experiment with the Andean family of exciting tubers. Spring has been chilly here, with temperatures not much higher than 15°C for most of May and June, and the Andeans seem to have loved it. It must be that the wind and the cold reminds them of home. So far I have managed to keep all of them in reasonably good health with few if any casualties (that I recall..). I'm not sure how that rates as an indicator of gardening success but on a personal level it feels pretty satisfying.<br />
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<b>Oca</b><br />
<a href="http://thebatatagardener.blogspot.com/2015/05/oca-growing-and-dangers-of-bicycle.html">Prematurely bereft of their identity</a>, my blend of oca tubers has been growing steadily. Of the 30 or so that I planted I believe only four did not come up. The four plants that I had potted up in March have sized up considerably and over the past two weeks actually started flowering. Some days ago I noticed two other varieties doing the same, so I had a first go at oca pollination. Oca has a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heterostyly">tristylous</a> flower morphology which basically means that not all flowers are compatible (<a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/oca-maximizing-seed-yield-of-crosses/">here</a> is a more detailed decription) and you need flowers of two different types in order for succesful pollination to occur. I've yet to see if the flowers I pollinated are setting seed... The weather has actually gotten a lot warmer the past week, and oca seems to require fairly cool temperatures in order to flower, so I will probably have to wait until later this summer for more pollination opportunities. Pest-wise, oca has been fairly troublefree for me so far, the slugs don't seem too fond of it (they have decided to decimate my root parsley seedlings instead..) and not much else does either it seems. Some of the plants have some black aphid colonies but really nothing majorly worrisome. Oh, and after planting my first batch, I've received some more varieties courtesy of <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.se/">Rhizowen</a> and his newfound <a href="http://ocabreeders.org/">Guild of Oca growers</a>. These are 'brand new' varieties so it will be exciting to see what comes of them. Reassuringly also, I've managed to get these in the ground unshaken and correctly labelled. I might have a scientific career ahead of me after all.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqfHD2WUgm2UuzNCA-U5m-GJIEtPM4ikF8lBRdMV1yWLAy3LqbPbElte4MADsrWYA8GC5sHmQF3E00jnS55oP7JeJN7SmFPEXkif0cRnoG8U5QHa8T-Vy8lox2pZFTC8MmmUQ0k_tBqg/s1600/IMG_0209.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipqfHD2WUgm2UuzNCA-U5m-GJIEtPM4ikF8lBRdMV1yWLAy3LqbPbElte4MADsrWYA8GC5sHmQF3E00jnS55oP7JeJN7SmFPEXkif0cRnoG8U5QHa8T-Vy8lox2pZFTC8MmmUQ0k_tBqg/s200/IMG_0209.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3HPWnhb_RJTkh-v8xSLbsKPEQtHM7BamNvOeqhQTKxzfbiIkixqqSGVMJjjlgngtPmT3n_sC-ZSL65TyRs3g1zuRUSvwHhc9iEDLo2cfC1shqRgKxuS4tmaaaM4_fFwJXjgpq3yzq6_Q/s1600/IMG_0211.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3HPWnhb_RJTkh-v8xSLbsKPEQtHM7BamNvOeqhQTKxzfbiIkixqqSGVMJjjlgngtPmT3n_sC-ZSL65TyRs3g1zuRUSvwHhc9iEDLo2cfC1shqRgKxuS4tmaaaM4_fFwJXjgpq3yzq6_Q/s200/IMG_0211.JPG" width="150" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3sBbtKHxgDroWqHba6yf55OQQFb7yrL3zAm5U5fLoz6w9CABK3RqwJNwEsia0BRWPT3rensSxTo5FHtU7f8XqWgFvlt1ew_LDMMl5-8QFI8_3WXvYb_g-A5ka62pPsCKMC4a1LqSSU7A/s1600/IMG_0210.JPG" imageanchor="1"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3sBbtKHxgDroWqHba6yf55OQQFb7yrL3zAm5U5fLoz6w9CABK3RqwJNwEsia0BRWPT3rensSxTo5FHtU7f8XqWgFvlt1ew_LDMMl5-8QFI8_3WXvYb_g-A5ka62pPsCKMC4a1LqSSU7A/s200/IMG_0210.JPG" width="150" /></a></div>
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<b>Ulluco</b><br />
If I can conclude one thing from my first year attempt at growing ulluco so far, it must be that it is really, really, really slow-growing. I thought I would lose these to the slugs at some point, since there seemed no way they could possibly outpace this year's onslaught of <i>Arion vulgaris.</i> Yet with a little help of some plastic bottles and my murderous garden scissors, they seem to have pulled through and are now... well, just standing there, really. I assume their growth will speed up at some point and who knows, they might even flower, which I will be eagerly looking out for (viable ulluco seed is very rare).<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARiX3CEAqmkdhN3XG7x7GJsrQB4P64oYgcjXY4T-VrZXnGTD2cr5YQtqmPuMivN9UIUdmSawtdWkSzsKGzWRbwLGIAsIylLFUvXkKdl64Hr_KT9AZwrC94G5JU7yqAl4OISvBwqiAC_8/s1600/IMG_0212.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgARiX3CEAqmkdhN3XG7x7GJsrQB4P64oYgcjXY4T-VrZXnGTD2cr5YQtqmPuMivN9UIUdmSawtdWkSzsKGzWRbwLGIAsIylLFUvXkKdl64Hr_KT9AZwrC94G5JU7yqAl4OISvBwqiAC_8/s320/IMG_0212.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ulluco</td></tr>
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<b>Mashua</b><br />
Mashua must be something of the polar opposite of ulluco. It is growing faster than anything else in my garden and has already filled the space that I had intended for it. In fact, I found three of the mashua plants invading the oca patch the other day, and one of them was happily strangling one of the oca's. Safe to say I seem to have significantly underestimated mashua's territorial requirements... It's also remarkably pest free, I have yet to see a slug, snail or aphid show any interest in it. The only creature that did fall for mashua's undisputable charms was a rabbit, which promply munched down half of the 'white' variety but left the 'zilifera' untouched. It must have been on to something there.. Both plants recovered swiftly. Mashua is related to the garden nasturtium (<i>Tropaeolum majus</i>) and seems to have equally interesting flowers, so I'm looking forward to seeing those. I will have to wait until September though, since mashua normally only flowers with short daylengths.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNbpAOuJ8LdYNPMdDgeyn1nL1ZaSTrtXXZ4xv8DblO8d6asL9MU52atw-ASOlELiPDorpG-JA7lVr2CUEo8JmhddLMz-Caw-dT2cNNRY09-aKxah_670IL63fWwjs09rZ9tvXSNY1FBdg/s1600/IMG_0213.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNbpAOuJ8LdYNPMdDgeyn1nL1ZaSTrtXXZ4xv8DblO8d6asL9MU52atw-ASOlELiPDorpG-JA7lVr2CUEo8JmhddLMz-Caw-dT2cNNRY09-aKxah_670IL63fWwjs09rZ9tvXSNY1FBdg/s320/IMG_0213.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mashua, just before it got a bit out of control</td></tr>
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<b>Mauka</b><br />
There's so much mystery surrounding mauka that this is easily one of my favourite plants at the moment. I've got two varieties growing, one red-leaved (which is either 'roja' or a red cipotato variety) and one that I grew from seed and is in all likelihood a direct descendant of the 'blanca' variety. These seem to be the only three varieties grown outside of the Andes at the moment. My objectives with it this year are first, to be finally able to taste it, which should be possible with the two plants that are in their second year now, and second, to somehow get it to produce seed. The latter will be tricky, since mauka apparently only starts flowering long into the European winter and is therefore very unlikely to produce mature seed before the frost kills it. I am planning to overwinter two plants indoors and hopefully can pursuade it to flower that way.<br />
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Mauka is fast-growing though not nearly as much as mashua. It has attracked a lot of aphids in my garden, with the result that all the growing tips have curled up. I assume this is slowing down the plant somewhat but it's still growing strongly so I see no immediate reason to start despairing. With the warmer weather of the past week, I'm also counting on increased predator activity to bring the aphid population back under control. Bring on the ladybugs!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZlRl1W2_MLlumJt2jjjf25NOez_2GYJYuFzcooNrjH7AvOPgxvYkIQfpamEKEA2Sl0zY1lrzdZzt9zcXJ9-p9yCBHB21DljXuNAI6nLE8rEUXHCsaThlcj3e2zW4xwcVRMWFoTjx1-w/s1600/IMG_0215.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvZlRl1W2_MLlumJt2jjjf25NOez_2GYJYuFzcooNrjH7AvOPgxvYkIQfpamEKEA2Sl0zY1lrzdZzt9zcXJ9-p9yCBHB21DljXuNAI6nLE8rEUXHCsaThlcj3e2zW4xwcVRMWFoTjx1-w/s320/IMG_0215.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mauka blanca (?)</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowSdj4I3m_HY815QFMiksUjIoRORPVF10lb7GR79zFZO0wGjfbTAINXzhFm8AOKlOHBL5_wjA7c6pG-WEhjrJWu5wjb3BldhOCisqoO6ONoKhFHmBEkJfjRgnBkvApHZZmZGYDQQ6DiM/s1600/IMG_0214.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgowSdj4I3m_HY815QFMiksUjIoRORPVF10lb7GR79zFZO0wGjfbTAINXzhFm8AOKlOHBL5_wjA7c6pG-WEhjrJWu5wjb3BldhOCisqoO6ONoKhFHmBEkJfjRgnBkvApHZZmZGYDQQ6DiM/s320/IMG_0214.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Aphid infestation in mauka growing tips</td></tr>
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<b>Quinoa</b><br />
Ok, yes, so this is not exactly a tuber crop. It's all the more Andean though, so I propose that its inclusion here is fully justified. I'm trialling three kinds of quinoa this year, though I've had very poor germination with one and am yet to see if I will have any viable plants from that variety. I am also yet to be convinved that I'm actually growing quinoa and not the common garden weed lambsquarters (<i>Chenopodium album</i>). The two are closely related and plants look similar enough that I really can't tell them apart at the moment. I direct-sowed the quinoa in a place with plenty of lambsquarters, so the only real way to tell is to wait I suppose. I would be pretty excited to be able to grow quinoa, and going by ongoing attempts to commercialize it as a alternative agricultural crop in different European countries, this should not at all be impossible.<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaFUzT7wK8oCjIdcl7LfzetsfV2HMDkqMwX7h283OlW-NgIRgI9rZFP7-7FiHg60FOPbFO80QpCj92Mj7SI_MVjVPQb6neS_2G9rG-tzUCzRFxCgaJwwqqXv-zY4F-LzjrfATzQNYg-w/s1600/IMG_0221.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgeaFUzT7wK8oCjIdcl7LfzetsfV2HMDkqMwX7h283OlW-NgIRgI9rZFP7-7FiHg60FOPbFO80QpCj92Mj7SI_MVjVPQb6neS_2G9rG-tzUCzRFxCgaJwwqqXv-zY4F-LzjrfATzQNYg-w/s320/IMG_0221.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa)</td></tr>
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<b>Potato</b><br />
For good measure, and to do justice to the humble potato's origins, I'll include an update about this year's potatoes as well. I'm currently growing 7 varieties: Minerva, Juliette, Linzer Delikatesse, Amandine, Asterix, Arran Victory, and Mandel. I'm not exactly expecting a bumper crop since I planted them on a newly-dug piece of land that I didn't have time to prepare properly, but they should last for some months at least. I've since also read up on growing potatoes from seed ('commonly' known as TPS or True Potato Seed, as opposed to potatoes grown from seed potatoes, i.e. from tubers) and became sufficiently fascinated to put this on my (ever expanding) list of garden projects for next year. The idea is that, rather than relying on (disease-prone) tubers, you save the berries that (sometimes) form on potato plants and then grow those out to create your own locally adapted potato varieties. Incidentally, when I was thinning out the beets the other day I found one potato volunteer that must have come from one of last year's 'Sallad Blue' potatoes. Any potato that sows itself is a good potato in my opinion, so I'll consider that a humble start for next year's potato project!</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-60922288813048673682015-05-30T14:48:00.002-07:002015-05-30T14:48:39.639-07:00Oca growing and the dangers of bicycle transportation<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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One of the root crops I'm trialling this year is oca (Oxalis tuberosa), an Andean tuber popular with fellow tuber enthusiasts but largely unknown with the potato-consuming crowds of Europe and North America (curiously though, it does seem to have established itself as a minor crop in New Zealand). Oca is an important staple in the Andean highlands, primarily Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia, and seems to have everything going for it: it grows fairly easily in harsh environmental conditions and poor soils; produces yields (potentially) rivalling those of the potato (at least in the Andes); and according to reputable sources (i.e. wikipedia) is a high-quality dietary source of potassium, vitamin C and iron amongst others. It is supposed to have the taste and texture of a potato, but with a lemony aftertaste (because of the varying levels of oxalic acid the tubers contain), though taste, along with colour, size, and yields in oca appears to differ widely depending on the variety. I wouldn't know to be honest, because I've never tasted one, but with some luck that's all about to change this winter. May this be my annum tuberosum!</div>
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I sourced some 14 (if I remember correctly...) different varieties past autumn, one of which came directly from Peru, and chitted them in egg cartons on my windowsill for a few weeks, much like potatoes, though these sprouted much slower. The Peruvian variety had started growing already when I received it and it was looking pretty shriveled by January so I potted up the tubers and grew them out on the balcony when it wasn't freezing. This is what it looked like back in April, just before I planted it out in the garden:</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oxalis tuberosa, var. 'annelotte'</td></tr>
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The reports I read suggested that a lot of people pot all their tubers before planting them out but I had neither the space nor the patience for this, so I decided to give all the others the potato treatment instead and plant them out directly after my last average frost date. I thus meticulously labelled my egg cartons with the names of the different varieties and then, one sunny day at the end of April, packed everything into my bicycle crate and set myself on my way to the allotment. </div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The science of egg carton chitting... here, oca and ulluco</td></tr>
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I should have anticipated the result, for, notwithstanding this place being the Valhalla of bicycling, the road to my allotment is anything but even and I have over the years upturned plenty a plant start with what appears to be my excessively enthusiastic bicycling style. Anyway, suffice it to say that by the time I arrived, the oca's had been happily bumping all over their egg cartons, making my labelling efforts completely redundant and therefore putting a premature end to my intentions to systematically keep track of, and compare, the progress of the different varieties I have in my possession. Instead of making neat little variety-specific groups in the oca bed, as I had planned, I thus had to resort to planting everything at random. Please forgive me, Carl von Linné, but I suppose that as long as they grow well, I don't care so much what all of these were originally called. And grow they do, at least for the time being! With some exceptions, most of the plants have emerged by now, and they seem to be escaping the voracious appetite of the slugs in my garden this year. I wished that could be said of my Brassica seedlings, which keep disappearing overnight...</div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The oca bed, the four plants in front are the Peruvian variety<br /> that got a headstart on my balcony</td></tr>
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Of course, in being so violently thrown all over the place, some of the oca also got separated from their sprouts. In a half-hearted attempt to make up for my foolishness I potted up these sprouts as soon as I came home and to my pleasant surprise almost all of them have since rooted. Some of these sprouts were really only half a centimeter or so tall, so these truly seem to be very resilient plants. Thus far this seems to be my kind of vegetable!<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The sprouts that broke off easily rooted</td></tr>
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What next? As most of the Andean root vegetables, oca is a daylight-sensitive plant and only starts producing tubers when days are short enough, sometime after the autumn equinox. In a frost-prone climate this essentially means that in order to get any kind of yield at all it's crucial to secure growth until well in November, which is far from impossible here in the Swedish south, but it's certainly not a given either. Oca enthusiasts such as <a href="http://ocabreeders.org/">Rhizowen</a> and <a href="https://www.cultivariable.com/">Bill Whitson</a> are attempting to breed varieties that are daylight-neutral, and these are bound to pop up at some point (after all, the common potato started off as a daylight-sensitive plant as well), but until then, I suppose I'm facing the real possibility of an early frost killing all my plants before a single tuber has formed. At the other extreme, my plants might feel comfortable enough in their new surroundings to flower and produce seeds, which would allow me to do some oca breeding myself in the future. Fingers crossed!</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-27092670453609665142015-05-16T14:57:00.000-07:002016-03-27T06:06:49.502-07:00An old woman can't eat two<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
A brief update on the sweet potatoes. I've got plenty of slips [basically tuber sprouts that one pulls off and then replants] ready to be planted out, but the potatoes and me are all waiting for the weather to turn a bit more friendly. It's been 12 degrees here, rainy and windy - very much the complete opposite of sweet potato weather - and the slips I condemned to my balcony for 'hardening off' are just sitting there with wilted leafs looking miserable. Nevertheless I'm gonna have a go at it pretty soon, I will have more slips than I will be able to use anyway so planting some out a bit early seems like a good way to test their adaptive capacities..<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sprouting in progress</td></tr>
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Meanwhile I've made a list of the varieties that I have and that seem viable. Probably the number will change (hopefully in the upward direction) but so far it's 26 different varieties. Most of the names that I got are in different local African languages, and it's really quite a pity that I don't know the translation for all of them, seeing how original some of these names are. My favourite must be 'mukekuru tarya bibiri', literally meaning 'an old woman can't eat two', a name holding out the promise of fast-maturing tubers with corpulent qualities. Another good one is 'Orphan', denoting its alleged ability to feed large families. Here's the full list (with reservations for the spelling on some of these...):<br />
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<b>Nordic Purple</b> - offspring from my own garden, unknown original variety, purple skin and purple flesh, produced respectable tubers last year.<br />
<b>Nordic Orange</b> - offspring from my own garden, unknown original variety, red skin and cream-coloured flesh. This one also produced some respectable tubers but got pretty devestated by the voles.<br />
<b>Nordic White</b> - offspring from my own garden, sourced this in the US, maybe O'Henry? This one actually didn't do very well, either the voles got all the big tubers or I only managed to get a few small ones.<br />
<b>T65</b> - only variety that produced a respectable tuber without ground mulch last year, probably one of the most promising for my climate. Red skin, pale cream-coloured flesh.<br />
<b>Georgia Jet</b> - I didn't get any tubers from this last year, but I have two cuttings that seem to be hanging in there so hopefully I can give them a another try.<br />
<b>Orphan</b> - white skinned, allegedly named like this because it's a prolific cropper that will feed large families<br />
<b>Kitekyere</b> - white skinned, long and thin tubers<br />
<b>Sula</b> - red skinned<br />
<b>Bamuhachira</b> - red-purple skin, with very dark purple sprouts<br />
<b>NASPOT I -</b> improved African variety, light brownish skin and very white flesh that is extremely dry. This reminded me more of cassava than sweet potato when I tried it. Supposedly a good variety for processing.<br />
<b>Orange-fleshed I - </b><br />
<b>Orange-fleshed II </b>- light brownish skin<br />
<b>Bunduguza </b>- white skinned variety<br />
<b>Tangara </b>- copper skin<br />
<b>Kwezi-Kume</b> - light purple skin<br />
<b>Kipapari</b> - light brownish skin<br />
<b>Kitemere</b> - white skin<br />
<b>Kalebe</b> - copper skin<br />
<b>Mushemeza - </b>Highland variety, grows at or above 2000m<br />
<b>Rwababurugi - </b>Highland variety, grows at or above 2000m<br />
<b>Mukekuru Tarya Bibiri </b>- 'an old woman can't eat two', according to the person I received this from this one should mature in 1 month, which is hard to believe but we'll see! Also a highland variety.<br />
<b>'Asian Yam'</b> - I got this from a US supermarket, no idea what it is..<br />
<b>Alira</b><br />
<b>Kanya</b><br />
<b>Kitambe</b><br />
<b>Mpama-Hegia</b><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Different leaf colours and shapes on 4 sweet potato varieties</td></tr>
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In contrast to the varieties available in the US/Europe, most African sweet potatoes have white to pale yellow flesh and a very high dry matter content. Current sweet potato breeding efforts in many African countries concentrate on producing orange-fleshed varieties because these have much higher beta-carotene levels (a dietary precursor for vitamin A) than native white/yellow-fleshed varieties. American orange-fleshed varieties are regarded poorly by African farmers because people tend to prefer potatoes with a higher starch content, and from what I've read there seems to be some kind of trade-off between beta-carotene content and dry matter composition. I will be growing some traditional US orange sweet potatoes and some of the improved orange African ones, but most of the varieties here are the traditional ones with white and yellow flesh and all kinds of different skin colours.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-5555217427295549832015-03-21T05:07:00.001-07:002016-03-27T06:00:27.381-07:00Early spring musings...<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
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My
windowsills are filling up with pots and seed potatoes, seed packets are
scattered all over my table and the balcony is slowly being colonized by obscure
roots. It must be that time of the year again! It’s starting to look a lot like
spring here, or at least it feels close enough to get carried away dreaming
about the coming growing season. Here’s a brief rundown of this year’s projects:</div>
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<b>Sweet potato galore</b></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieveZa0R3YyHWoojA1LGPhdoKwZ8Ki4EzgV7QtU0h9hNXwoqH5Pp9-d1mxzjPJtJ1_cIiJRLLL1g8Uy7srWlC_Nz85NQviiM94Rrxe49rLrsUjNuVnlPzMqyn_rLJDaSFP8EJNYVG4LqA/s1600/IMG_0086.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieveZa0R3YyHWoojA1LGPhdoKwZ8Ki4EzgV7QtU0h9hNXwoqH5Pp9-d1mxzjPJtJ1_cIiJRLLL1g8Uy7srWlC_Nz85NQviiM94Rrxe49rLrsUjNuVnlPzMqyn_rLJDaSFP8EJNYVG4LqA/s1600/IMG_0086.JPG" width="320" /></a> I’ve collected different sweet potato varieties
over the past months, including quite a few that reportedly grow at 2000+ meters. My hope
is that I will stumble across a few varieties that could (potentially) produce
a worthwhile crop here in Sweden or, failing that, that I can get some plants
to set seed with which to breed. Sweet potatoes don’t produce seeds easily, and
the key (apart from some very un-Swedish climatic conditions, needless to say),
seems to be genetic diversity, which I should be able to provide. There were 40+
varieties stored in my apartment at some point but quite a few of them
succumbed to dry rot while I was out of the country, probably because storage temperatures
dropped lower than I had anticipated, and sweet potatoes really hate cold
storage. I guess I’ll just consider this as a first evolutionary pressure selecting
for cold-tolerance! It’s yet to be seen how many of them I will get sprout
successfully, but so far it’s 18. Whether I can make it warm and cozy enough
for them long enough is an entirely different matter of course…</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"><b>Mauka take two</b></span><br />
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Last year’s mauka crop was not much to write
home about. I’m not one to give up easily, especially after seeing what <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a>’s
maukas look like, so I’ll be replanting the overwintered roots as well as some
of the cuttings I took in November. The roots already started sprouting so if
anything I’ll struggle to keep them under control until they can go into my
garden. I’ve also got my hands on some rare mauka seeds, so if all goes well
I’ll soon have some new varieties to play with! To be continued.</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4FkRdz-oENx_V6Thm0X0jUFJD47kVxKdAh3lOP-2DvDbDnDR8iRGRzyM2iiL-lwzk0gDMWvsG6MixQ97muyI6qBBHy5Pr1cCGkTKReokTBZMv7o64E9LR13M2nwrDqWjwGis3xKzIRs/s1600/IMG_0085.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjR4FkRdz-oENx_V6Thm0X0jUFJD47kVxKdAh3lOP-2DvDbDnDR8iRGRzyM2iiL-lwzk0gDMWvsG6MixQ97muyI6qBBHy5Pr1cCGkTKReokTBZMv7o64E9LR13M2nwrDqWjwGis3xKzIRs/s1600/IMG_0085.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
This year will also mark my first year growing
oca, mashua, ulluco and quinoa. If you think trying this many new crops all at
once is pushing my luck a bit, you are probably correct. I am most excited
about oca (Oxalis tuberosa), which in the Andes is second in importance only to
potatoes and which amateur growers here in Europe generally seem to lavish with
praise. As with most Andean crops, oca unfortunately needs short daylight hours
and at higher latitudes therefore only starts producing tubers after the autumn
equinox. People like <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank van Keirsbilck</a> and <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.se/">Rhizowen</a> are trying to rectify
this injustice by breeding a daylight-neutral variety and if I manage to cajole
my future crop into producing seed for me I will gladly join this <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2015/mar/14/alys-fowler-ocas">guild of oca growers</a>. Mashua (Tropaeolum tuberosum) and ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) have
received slightly less ravenous reviews but I’ll judge them when I’ve tried
them. Most people these days are familiar with quinoa (Chenopodium quinoa), that
Andean staple food-gone-global that has become the darling of hipsters and
foodies. Prices for quinoa have in recent years risen to such astronomical heights
that those in the Andes who used to rely on the crop <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/16/vegans-stomach-unpalatable-truth-quinoa">can no longer afford it</a>,
so what better thing to do than grow your own! Quinoa is one of the few (pseudo-)grain crops
that yields acceptably even on smaller scale, and I’ve collected some varieties
that have been selected for northern, wet climates so as to minimize the (considerable)
chances of end-of-season disappointments and depressions.<br />
<br /></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VLzUlruYdi-K7HE2ZqflRa5QwsYsAIT-8NoPhC77qJT5R0mx0ZoSKFK7C125zK4dMTDES67E20NogyBQHqqeDXZ0I8fvXX8N2NwVhSd5bGCjrJfAtC_zJccg0HMUNsPYOEMOwa2GM_4/s1600/IMG_0083.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg4VLzUlruYdi-K7HE2ZqflRa5QwsYsAIT-8NoPhC77qJT5R0mx0ZoSKFK7C125zK4dMTDES67E20NogyBQHqqeDXZ0I8fvXX8N2NwVhSd5bGCjrJfAtC_zJccg0HMUNsPYOEMOwa2GM_4/s1600/IMG_0083.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Oca in close up, it started sprouting spontaneously</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFf5M1QZdjaqa1IlsXyI8DcrXpmXfO986KCcTs49JvS-j7Vk75b5-AgjgwATjSfdxUFAN_NxVSvLu-NI83kQEBbvG23Duev5h5zPu8ybY0MCkAuUsL-6cmDmX83oWUoNk5NQvVFCkQem0/s1600/IMG_0084.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhFf5M1QZdjaqa1IlsXyI8DcrXpmXfO986KCcTs49JvS-j7Vk75b5-AgjgwATjSfdxUFAN_NxVSvLu-NI83kQEBbvG23Duev5h5zPu8ybY0MCkAuUsL-6cmDmX83oWUoNk5NQvVFCkQem0/s1600/IMG_0084.JPG" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Ulluco (Ullucus tuberosus) - this must be one of the most beautiful root vegetables out there</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="EN-US"><b>Landracing my wintersquash</b></span><br />
<br />
In past years I’ve been on a quest to grow and sample
the world’s variety of wintersquash. Honestly, this must be one of the most underappreciated
crops out there. Incredibly easy to store, nutritious and delicious, it’s
simply mind-boggling that the main purpose we’ve come up with for this amazing
food crop is as a Halloween decoration! A staggering <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/oct/21/pumpkin-crisis-halloween-farmers-warn-uk">95% of all pumpkins grown in the UK</a> are used for carving and hollowing each year, amounting to enormous amounts of food waste. The humble pumpkin deserves so much more! It
matters enormously which variety you grow though, and many do taste bland and
uninteresting and frankly are of little culinary interest. But there's so many truly fantastic varieties that we could be growing instead.<br />
<br />
Essentially the squash family is made up of three commonly eaten species: Cucurbita
pepo, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata. C. pepo includes most of the varieties
that we eat in the form of summersquash as well as what are traditionally
referred to as pumpkins. It is these that are usually carved up for Halloween lanterns.
C. maxima includes winter squash of various colours and sizes. They usually do
quite well in temperate climates and are completely underutilized here in
Europe. C. Moschata includes the well-known butternut varieties and is
very productive but it tends to require more warmth than C. Maxima and is therefore
more difficult to grow here in the north. After three years of squash
growing I’ve come to realize that I’m a C. maxima kind of guy. The best maximas are smooth, incredibly rich in flavour, nutty and sweet and in my opinion far outshine even such C. pepo favourites as 'sweet dumpling' and 'delicata squash'. This is why this year I’m
abandoning my C. pepo (except the summersquash varieties) and launching an attempt to create my own C. maxima
landrace variety that should bring together the best of ones I've sampled.. I will be selecting for a medium-sized, dry-fleshed variety that is nutty
and rich in taste, has edible skin and stores forever. More details soon! I’ve
never really tried to grow C. moschata, so that’s on this year’s list as well.</div>
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<span lang="EN-US"></span><br />
<span lang="EN-US"></span></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span lang="EN-US"><b>Expansion of the perennial patch</b></span><br />
<br />
A small section of my garden is currently dedicated
to perennials and this area will be expanded/filled in more densely this year. For
example, I’m once again trying to pre-grow cicily (Myrrhis odorata). In past
years I’ve tried seeds from three different seed companies and for some reason
I haven’t gotten a single seedling yet, despite scrupulously following stratification
instructions. This year’s seeds have been outside the whole winter but no signs
of life yet. I’ve also started various other perennial greens and herbs,
including bunias orientalis, mountain mint (Pycnanthemum pilosum) and mitsuba
(Cryptotaenia japonica), and I will be planting some perennial kale (Daubenton)
and some yams!</div>
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<br /></div>
And then,
of course, there’s also a host of smaller projects, such as trialing a host of
new greens and testing a variety of new potatoes, but I’ll spare the details of
that for now.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-73816365947575454212014-12-04T13:29:00.000-08:002014-12-04T23:40:39.764-08:00Mauka meets Sweden, take one<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-align: justify;">I was not actually being very correct last time when I wrote that my
tuberous adventures in 2014 were entirely restricted to sweet potato
cultivation. There is one other rather exotic crop that I got my hands on this
year. In fact, this is probably one of the most exotic tubers out there,
eclipsing the humble sweet potato by lunar magnitudes. I am speaking, of course,
of mirabilis expansa aka mauka, miso or chago, an Andean root vegetable that is
as deliciousy mysterious as its multiple names suggest.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="text-align: justify;"><br /></span></div>
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; margin-right: 1em; text-align: left;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1Lh0ADoAyuZnggwnIDGR4UyTKWmMVIbkYtxR72kn_MJDBTzoZQKJZ-5IzxNxmFL9rtMKfQAlVT-FRcQy6FiiVsBAhqEx4KdrPbic8WXL8wD6WeGOib4R4tdXZKuhMhYq0uKybsuOU-M/s1600/Mauka_1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ1Lh0ADoAyuZnggwnIDGR4UyTKWmMVIbkYtxR72kn_MJDBTzoZQKJZ-5IzxNxmFL9rtMKfQAlVT-FRcQy6FiiVsBAhqEx4KdrPbic8WXL8wD6WeGOib4R4tdXZKuhMhYq0uKybsuOU-M/s1600/Mauka_1.jpg" height="400" width="251" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mirabilis expansa</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="SV">Since my ambitions in growing Andean root vegetables far outweigh my
patience in actually acquiring the plant material, I have recently gone ahead
and purchased <a href="http://books.google.se/books/about/Lost_Crops_of_the_Incas.html?id=iT0rAAAAYAAJ&redir_esc=y">Lost Crops of the Incas</a>, the 1989 standard work for aspiring
cultivators of unusual and long-forgotten plants from the Andes. The book
contains some intriguing facts about mauka. Believed to have been a staple crop
of the Incas, mauka was completely unknown to scientists (a fate that many an
animal and plant species would probably benefit from) until the beginning of
the 1960s, when it was found being cultivated in remote parts of Ecuador,
Bolivia and Peru. Growing at altitudes above 2700 meters, it is said to be
particularly tolerant of harsh conditions, which of course makes it a promising
plant to try in more Northern latitudes. Its alleged ability to grow to
mythical proportions over the course of one or sometimes multiple seasons (it
appears to be a perennial though its frost tolerance is uncertain) has inspired
some people to describe it as some kind of Andean cassava. <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a> told me they tend to weigh 800g to 2kg after one growing season in his
garden. As most tuber crops, mauka is believed to be very nutritious, and, more
importantly perhaps, is also reported to be delicious. Descriptions on the
internet place the taste somewhere in between potato, parsnip, and sweet potato.
Now, these just happen to be three of my favourite foods in the world, so there
was plenty of reason here to make me very excited indeed.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<span lang="SV"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: justify;">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6cr0dZfH7088NDGbS6PLAKjGRWriqDkCmFWlH1g0SX7oUMTWoK9wen0qdINedy-jrk1MN_sKLpx3z-SjHxaKMnc6QxI-0w1nEV-fP4_tFN17s_qQNDSkukiG2R8xwSR7wowSfTMmsrVo/s1600/IMG_0068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6cr0dZfH7088NDGbS6PLAKjGRWriqDkCmFWlH1g0SX7oUMTWoK9wen0qdINedy-jrk1MN_sKLpx3z-SjHxaKMnc6QxI-0w1nEV-fP4_tFN17s_qQNDSkukiG2R8xwSR7wowSfTMmsrVo/s1600/IMG_0068.JPG" height="320" width="265" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Harvesting mauka</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="SV">I was then quite pleased last spring when I managed to acquire two cuttings
of the CIP208001 variety (courtesy of <a href="http://radix4roots.blogspot.se/">Rhizowen</a>, and actually also of Frank, who
is the original source of the plant in Europe and who also sent me cuttings, though
these didn’t survive the onslaught of the Belgian/Swedish postal system). Since
this was probably one of the first times that mauka graced these parts of the
world with its presence, I first pampered the cuttings on my balcony until they
seemed strong enough to stand their own in the real world. For space
reasons (read: I’m horrible at planning) they ended up in the border of my
garden, where they soon took off and seemed happy enough. Nothing really seemed
to disturb them very much, not even the vole invasion in the nextdoor sweet
potato patch or the biblical floods in early autumn that temporarily turned my
garden into an miserable wetland. Though apparently not daylight-sensitive like
many other Andean crops, Mauka roots seem to bulk up fairly slowly, and it was
therefore good fortune that the first frost came fairly late this year, just a
few days ago in fact. The frost was very mild and killed just the top leaves,
leaving much of the foliage undamaged, so I could probably have left the plants in
the ground for a while longer. Impatient gardener that I however am, I didn’t want to
wait any longer so I harvested the rest of the leaves for salads and
ommelette-fillings (and pretty tasty they were too!) and dug up the roots. Amazingly,
I already found some new growth sprouting from the top of the roots, so this
certainly is a plant that wants to grow.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"> </span><span style="text-align: left;"> </span></div>
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxb63kwQKC14s6lqdbmxwegv_Tv0bJoFr6RVqdLJhK6F7UmRU110kwNCc_8ngTSAq6e5p2-rzWZ30EGRgSM4lWH6BxiJDYLuBr1EQz7WpZsRoRWO6Pv36mN0wVuBr7KEAELfJn9KTt0pw/s1600/IMG_0070.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjxb63kwQKC14s6lqdbmxwegv_Tv0bJoFr6RVqdLJhK6F7UmRU110kwNCc_8ngTSAq6e5p2-rzWZ30EGRgSM4lWH6BxiJDYLuBr1EQz7WpZsRoRWO6Pv36mN0wVuBr7KEAELfJn9KTt0pw/s1600/IMG_0070.JPG" height="249" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; text-align: center;">The two underwhelming tubers... on a piece of A4...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="SV">I hope this does not turn into a trend on this blog, but the harvest, dear
reader, was not exactly something to write home about. The two tubers weighed
about 150g each. My plan was to eat one, and save the best one to resprout next
year, but at 150g that seemed somewhat premature to say the least. I’ve therefore postponed the
taste test to next year and stored both of the roots on my unheated attic (for </span>lack of a better option), where I hope it will be cold enough to keep them from
sprouting too soon. I’ve previously also taken a dozen or so cuttings that are
happily growing new leaves at the moment, and I have received at least one new
variety (mauka blanca) to try next year. Together this should give me
plenty of plant material to carry out a proper trial next year, in the absolute best
spot my garden has to offer. It’s all uphill from here for mirabilis expansa! <br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AbeStsmzMvWMx7n2YdCd44IuxqyIR3OO9dHNKtZrkWDNJCw9sfZwlJWxf_fGeS0hJT9sM7pK79m0MqaBvP3c1I830642ikgT3g83GzG1p8_KAIMCPpALlYq1oMk7pvLrSXqIZMThqqU/s1600/IMG_0056.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj8AbeStsmzMvWMx7n2YdCd44IuxqyIR3OO9dHNKtZrkWDNJCw9sfZwlJWxf_fGeS0hJT9sM7pK79m0MqaBvP3c1I830642ikgT3g83GzG1p8_KAIMCPpALlYq1oMk7pvLrSXqIZMThqqU/s1600/IMG_0056.JPG" height="273" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">The 2015 mauka babies</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="SV"></span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1515242739562855278.post-49567790186603609412014-10-09T12:39:00.000-07:002016-03-27T05:59:46.704-07:00A whole lot of could’ve been…<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span lang="SV">Yesterday was the
day that I could no longer contain my impatience and finally dug up my sweet
potato plants. The temperature had already gotten dangerously close to freezing
one night in September, and since tuber growth apparently slows down significantly below
15 degrees, I figured there was no point in delaying further. The two rows I
planted (about 25 plants in total) had been in the ground for well over 4
months, which should be more than sufficient time for the roots to size up to
positively monumental proportions. Indeed I would be lying if I said I was
expecting anything else. As I made my way to the allotment for the first time
in over a month, I was picturing the mountains of sweet potatoes that I would
be excavating. Tubers the size of melons there would be! <o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="SV"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcVVmh8mr7_5TMs4rd-KbPtuG8a5yZovW5uZCggWjPxGN_ti_8LiUXoNvWRb7ehyphenhyphensVctWS3y-unYtcW3eRD-Jien1fgd2puBtM72pzw32bV_4brM-KYwY-I3Z__OPM-4oV-CfQGYEKPk/s1600/IMG_0048.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfcVVmh8mr7_5TMs4rd-KbPtuG8a5yZovW5uZCggWjPxGN_ti_8LiUXoNvWRb7ehyphenhyphensVctWS3y-unYtcW3eRD-Jien1fgd2puBtM72pzw32bV_4brM-KYwY-I3Z__OPM-4oV-CfQGYEKPk/s1600/IMG_0048.JPG" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Cleaned out pretty thoroughly...</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="SV">The sorry state
of some of the plants should have forewarned me of the gloomy scenes to follow.
Instead, I imperviously checked on the rest of the garden, harvested some late
winter squash and dug up some potatoes before directing my attention to the
sweet potato patch. I shrugged off the dying foliage on the plants in the first
row as end-of-season fatigue and carefully set myself to removing the plastic
mulch and laying aside the vines. The first thing I found there was a vole, fat
and recently deceased, presumably, I now surmise, from gluttony. Under the
first plant were the leftovers of its last supper: a sorry bunch of eaten-out
sweet potato skins, which, from the size of them, hinted at the once
substantial tuber that must have been here. Undaunted, I quickly proceeded to
the next plant, only to find the same scene repeated here. I felt a slight
depression setting in as I continued to make my way through the patch.
Plant after plant revealed the remnants of a feast made for kings. My awe for
the voracious appetite of the resident rodent population was overshadowed only
by my despondency at the sight of it all. As careful excavation made way for
feverish, incredulous digging, my garden fork inadvertedly pierced some of the
tubers that the beasts had neglected. O cruel, cruel world!<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<span lang="SV"><br /></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: left; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimNmrKNEPWfLNVS0Yb8r5Mw2nGvahRIHjj0IWOZKjePWd6t5_h-nYcCeaNwmleKRMQ1CkKbr-QaoGLvWRBbTX2IAjyiOkJT-YkDYUlIERF0s-NoEyB0NMUdTNPZjKiJrRgp2BZfAC_TY/s1600/IMG_0045.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgimNmrKNEPWfLNVS0Yb8r5Mw2nGvahRIHjj0IWOZKjePWd6t5_h-nYcCeaNwmleKRMQ1CkKbr-QaoGLvWRBbTX2IAjyiOkJT-YkDYUlIERF0s-NoEyB0NMUdTNPZjKiJrRgp2BZfAC_TY/s1600/IMG_0045.JPG" width="263" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Not exactly a melon, but close enough!</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span lang="SV">All in all the
voles devoured at least two thirds of the harvest. They seem to have
taken a particular liking to the orange-fleshed varieties, of which not a
single tuber survived the onslaught. I was able to rescue a few handful of the
purple-fleshed and white-fleshed/purple-skinned varieties, some of which indeed
sized up quite nicely. This and the size of the eaten-out skins suggests that
it’s certainly possible to grow sweet potatoes in southern Sweden outside a
greenhouse. While the plastic mulch undoubtebly played an important part in
this, it probably didn’t do the vole activity any good, what with sheltering them from rain and predators and all. The row with the latecomers that I planted without plastic seems to have been spared. Here I found some small T65 tubers,
at least enough to produce slips next year and give them a properly timed
trial. I left some of these plants in the ground for now, perhaps they will bulk up a little more before it freezes.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFeDHiTcPc6Lw5IBEj0oqiHOGxqnsbFdToMbeh_fhPwQnLWA54csJ8RfmPgr4h1Xr5cG2UzuiszIKpTFG4UOm57A-NH3zg5Zxfh_g_HVQp6BsJevdtVA0UVioa1-k_yvxssUw-dFGvl8/s1600/IMG_0044.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFFeDHiTcPc6Lw5IBEj0oqiHOGxqnsbFdToMbeh_fhPwQnLWA54csJ8RfmPgr4h1Xr5cG2UzuiszIKpTFG4UOm57A-NH3zg5Zxfh_g_HVQp6BsJevdtVA0UVioa1-k_yvxssUw-dFGvl8/s1600/IMG_0044.JPG" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This is the full extent of undamaged tubers. I also scavenged some half-eaten ones.</td></tr>
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<span lang="SV">As winter draws
near I will have plenty of time to brood on a battle plan for next year. It
might be that I simply need to harvest earlier, since the tubers seem to have
developed properly </span><span lang="SV">before the voles got to them. Or it might be that I
have to abandon the mulching and leave the plants to fight the Scandinavian
weather on their own. While this would make root development much more
uncertain, it would certainly impose selective pressure for adaptation to Swedish
summers on next year’s crop. I am somewhat ambiguous about taking this step,
since I don’t mind some climatic cheating if it brings closer the possibility of some day harvesting those melon-sized tubers. After all, a</span>s much as I am eager to find those temperate-climate
adapted varieties, I also have the more mundane question of my dinner
to think of. To mulch or not to mulch, that is next season's question. Whatever it will be, I will likely have plenty of
genetic diversity to work with. I managed to obtain an
additional 23 African varieties of sweet potato over the past months, all of which I hope to trial
next year, provided they make it through the winter. I might have the last laugh
in this yet, voles!<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNCcJyHpcTcvGIYbZQjSyxXvk0GTZ_YNZF78uJfcfYjePctEu7Wo1OZDnuQkF2jVcHbXE3GW6kCvU0seWVSDXB7lAMtTZAVuMvt00DPeJ0VSYt5lnttXcfHkGGPfXNZ3myOH2AYjyCRo/s1600/IMG_0046.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqNCcJyHpcTcvGIYbZQjSyxXvk0GTZ_YNZF78uJfcfYjePctEu7Wo1OZDnuQkF2jVcHbXE3GW6kCvU0seWVSDXB7lAMtTZAVuMvt00DPeJ0VSYt5lnttXcfHkGGPfXNZ3myOH2AYjyCRo/s1600/IMG_0046.JPG" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">23 genetically distinct opportunities for next year's attempt!</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqHcMUoUDo03E-j2jJ48azDum4M88KyXPTG2aaEu167tpR4a3Xr2Cn71DZ1Uh7j8ky8Y6GAojHEywmFm7gBFqLdF7ux6OTZQ8Qb8GosQkTBEmDnRMK5rYq2C3TfzfYcsc8krX78zGqqWY/s1600/DSCF0477.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqHcMUoUDo03E-j2jJ48azDum4M88KyXPTG2aaEu167tpR4a3Xr2Cn71DZ1Uh7j8ky8Y6GAojHEywmFm7gBFqLdF7ux6OTZQ8Qb8GosQkTBEmDnRMK5rYq2C3TfzfYcsc8krX78zGqqWY/s1600/DSCF0477.JPG" height="320" width="281" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Different varieties of sweet potato mingling</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">I have
recently come to terms with my obsessive (if rather uninformed) pursuits in
gardening, especially with respect to growing the more unusual, the
not-so-adapted and the plain impossible here in the deep south of Sweden. Since
I see no imminent end to this rather newfound passion of mine I figured I might
as well make an attempt to systematize my efforts and along the way share some
of my endeavors with anyone out there who might, just maybe, be interested.
Hence the rationale for starting this ‘weblog’, I guess it’s as good as any.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span lang="EN-US">While my
ambitions for next year are great, the unusual, not-so-adapted and plain
impossible this year mostly consists of a second-year attempt to grow sweet
potatoes. I am tracking down and trying different cultivars in
the hope of finding one or more that consistently produce reliably outside a
greenhouse here and that happens to be delicious as well. Last year’s attempt
produced a rather meager crop with the odd massive tuber here and there, but I
had a late start and a lot of other excuses as well. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIxkaMxRzAOfAqPo2-iB_cuEt0p-LqU09ZHGzruK_s8VGG5mpJBlyLGw_91NfOLECQU6qjG9bJF5dpuAh7fv22M5C5kXiOuKKqYGukW6fBBVYtKPg5c6DvhzRGDfTT0mTkab8OJ1__UQ/s1600/DSCF0510.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGIxkaMxRzAOfAqPo2-iB_cuEt0p-LqU09ZHGzruK_s8VGG5mpJBlyLGw_91NfOLECQU6qjG9bJF5dpuAh7fv22M5C5kXiOuKKqYGukW6fBBVYtKPg5c6DvhzRGDfTT0mTkab8OJ1__UQ/s1600/DSCF0510.JPG" height="320" width="277" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">This used to be two separate rows...</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">This year I’m
growing 7 (or maybe more - I obviously have a lot to learn when it comes to botanical
bookkeeping) different varieties. I have some Georgia Jet and T65, two
early-maturing varieties kindly sent to me by <a href="http://www.thevegetablegarden.be/">Frank Van Keirsbilck</a>. These are
commonly grown in more temperate climates and should be able to produce quite
well here. They got off to a bit of a late start this year though, so I’m not
quite expecting a bumper harvest, but as long as I get enough tubers to produce
my own slips next year I’ll be one happy man indeed. The rest is a bunch of
unknown varieties that I collected from tubers in different shops here and
there: 1 variety with purple skin/purple flesh, 1 purple skin/white flesh, 1
white flesh/white skin, and at least 2 different orange fleshed varieties. People
who know me will readily affirm that I have an uncanny fascination for <i>ipomoea batatas</i>, so thinking about the
day not so long from now when I will finally be able to lift all these
beautiful specimens and see what they have been up to the whole summer makes me
very excited indeed…<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqa-ZbW0kY6n4_5hpUiqOvdrHw9zQBMPABRg9bnLUtQlkdf_JzQaG96zoBHoXeCy7APUMF8YBCDIZNXYC-QNCLJjOunz4HjK2nrOguFja3nadA8krOYSEUBxuMeU4no8ZWJu7uaqRVhU/s1600/DSCF0495.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVqa-ZbW0kY6n4_5hpUiqOvdrHw9zQBMPABRg9bnLUtQlkdf_JzQaG96zoBHoXeCy7APUMF8YBCDIZNXYC-QNCLJjOunz4HjK2nrOguFja3nadA8krOYSEUBxuMeU4no8ZWJu7uaqRVhU/s1600/DSCF0495.JPG" height="212" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">No seeds, but very pretty!</td></tr>
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<span lang="EN-US">It has been
pretty amazing sweet potato weather here this summer, with
record-braking 30 degree temperatures, so I feel like I’m entitled to nothing
short of an amazing harvest this year (uhum…). I planted most of the plants on
a ridge covered with plastic mulch, and, in a somewhat ill-controlled experiment that
included me forgetting to use the same varieties for both rows, then
constructed a polytunnel over half of them and used a floating row cover over the
other half, which I lifted fairly late in the season (end of July-ish), once
the plants started to bulge out of the space they had been allocated. The polytunnel I left in
place until late August, when I started to fear that the lack of space/increased
rains would create rot on the vines. I also planted some latecomers, including
the T65 and the Georgia Jet, in a separate patch without any mulch (I am, after
all, looking for varieties that grow without too much pampering). If the
foliage is anything to go by (and I know that it’s not), then the plants are
doing great so far, with plenty of healthy growth. Two of the unknown varieties
started to flower in the height of summer, and while I will probably have to
store away my ambition of getting any seed for now, I have at least marked them
as potential seed-producing contenders in some undefined future. All of the
plants that flowered are in the space that had the row cover, so now I’m
wondering if that might at all have played any role in inducing flowering. If
anyone has any more informed theories about this, I’m all ears. <o:p></o:p></span></div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09387928932190169909noreply@blogger.com0