Gus's Results

Here is my report, I grew my seeds at a farmer friends land, and got some good insights about the seeds and how they grew and all that so I will be putting them in my report. Location: Ontario Canada. Seeds Planted and Results:

Sweet Corn

I have lots of this seed, they grew very well. The plants grew up to about 5 feet in height. The best manure to put on the ground for this plant was chicken manure, we just spread it out over the ground around the plants and they loved it. The variety in the group is a open pollinated sweet corn and it is more susceptible to smut fungus then hybrid corn. This fungus attacks the stem of the plant and looks like a ball of black stuff. I think that research should be done into this fungus so that we have ways to counter it.

 

Meal Corn

Again the crop was great, same fungus problems however. The corn grew 8 to 10 feet tall, and is an open pollinated dented variety of corn. Watering the corn regularly really helped in growing the corn this summer when it was really dry this year. Again, I added chicken manure on this plot, very important to get nitrogen to the plant.

 

With the corn I had some problems drying the kernels. The ones I shelled and tried to air dry sprouted, so I have kept the bulk of the crop on the cob so that they would dry without sprouting. I think a real dryer should be tried to see if the seeds are still viable once they have been seriously dried.

 

Pie Pumpkins

Good crop this year, made pumpkin pie out of some, and they were delicious. Lots of seeds. I grew some up treeless and had the pumpkins hanging down from the vines without netting or anything. The trellised pumpkins turned out really well and next year I am going all telexed.

 

Cucumbers ( pickles and regular)

Good crop, with seeds available. I let them grow out to full size so that the seeds would mature. I ate a few to see how they tasted and they were good. It important to grow them up trellises, as the leaves get more light and take up less ground space.

 

Carrots (early and late variety)

Good crop, but need to replant the roots next spring to get then to go to seed. So no seeds yet on this crop.

 

Tomatoes

It was really hard to get the seeds out of the the tomatoes, but the plants grew well. Not a lot of seeds to distribute.

 

White Beans and Pinto Beans

Have a mason jar full of pinto beans, they were really good. White beans were good but I did not start with as many beans, I can distribute some.

 

Radishes

I decided to let the radishes go to seed, and they grew out into really interesting plants, that created pods and the seeds were in the pods. I will have more seeds next year.

 

Peas (snap and pod)

Good crop, seeds available. I checked and found out that there are no way to hybridize peas to make them sterile. So people can actually go and buy peas in the store and they will always sprout.

I think that is all from the group. I planted watermelon, and they turned out all right, I have seeds from them available. They are yellow fleshed instead of red. I also have musk melons, and cantaloupe seeds, but you can actually use the ones from the store to grow them.

I have 4 varieties of heritage potatoes, but they are not numerous enough yet for giving seed away, next year I will have more. Chicken manure really helped grow them, as well as lots of watering.

I also saved lettuce seeds, I had to really wait till end of September before I could get the seeds, and they are really small. They were just store bought seeds and cannot be hybridized so just get those seeds from the store.

That's about it. I spent a lot of time out in the garden growing and learning how to grow food, and also learning how these plants grow. I will grow seed again next year for the group.

Gus