well the past few days have been interesting. i have made several trips to my garden at my sister's house to check on the corn. the painted mountain variety has been drying for a few weeks on the stalks. im extremely impressed at the speed of this variety. the rest still have quite some time to go before they begin to dry. but this painted mountain stuff is amazing. it was developed by Dave Christensen in Montana, so its intended to grow quickly and finish early, seeing as montana has a very short growing season. painted mountain is now available on several websites and from several seed suppliers. the site i ordered it from was the sustainable seed company. their website is sustainableseedco.com. they dont have a huge selection of seeds, but it was from them that i found out about painted mountain.
well when i planted it, i put a small block of it in between a large block of hopi pink and a large block of hopi blue. painted mountain has a massive genetic ability as far as color goes. it could almost be more appropriately called rainbow corn, but it isnt. among the more common colors are orange, purple, and a lot of yellows and reds. so naturally, i was expecting these kinds of colors from the ears i pulled. however, after i pulled the husks back, i found the hopi varieties had had a great influence on the outcome of the color. a couple of the ears had some yellow kernels, but the majority were blue, purple, pink, and white, with one ear being almost completely white with a few very light pinks, purples, and blues. it was among the most impressive, but the most impressive was one that had almost no solid white kernels, but rather all the kernels with white were speckled with blue and pink and purple. it was very interesting, and i will save some of the kernels for seed for next year so that i can try to either make a new variety of corn from it or a new strain of painted mountain. i have high hopes that this is possible, and will work to make it a new variety.
one other note, i will begin to post reviews of the various seed suppliers i have had experience with this year. the first should be posted within the next week or so.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
wegrowgarlic!!!
gardening update for today: i went over to julie's house after i dropped ethan off at work and found that a cocozelle was ready to be picked and also that one of the billiard ball size squashes was done. jared got the seeds for these in mexico the last time we were there, so i gave him the first squash i picked. i also found that ants had eaten through the rind of the watermelons, and had been eating the insides. grrrrrrrr....... >( other than that, the pumpkin looked good, though im still not sure what it plans on doing as far as growing or ripening. the cantaloupes should be ready soon, and theres actually a 5th melon growing now, though im not sure whether it is a cantaloupe or a honeydew. im hoping its a honeydew, so that we have some variety. the corn is also doing extremely well, and two of the ears of painted mountain corn should be dry enough in a few days to take in and dry indoors. grow on.
meteor showers and aliens/ghosts....
this post doesnt have much to do with gardening, although it began on the idig forums. a few weeks ago, one of the people of idig posted a thread about the perseids meteor shower, and basically just gave us a heads up that this meteor shower would be happening soon. ive wanted to see a meteor shower for years, but i was never allowed to stay up long enough to see one when i was in high school, and over the past three years ive been working a gravyard shift in a steel plant so i could never see them even after high school. so after getting this heads up about the perseids, i decided i was going to watch the shower this time. i think the thread on idig had posted that the peak of the shower would be the night of august 12/13th, but i looked it up on nasa's website where i found the peak was actually last night, the night of the 11/12th. at the time i was on the computer looking at surprise! gardening stuff. anyway, it was about 12:40 when i read this, and i decided i was gonna go watch the meteor shower. i decided watching from home wouldnt work very well because there are too many lights around that would make poor visibility. so i planned on driving out to the benjamin/lake shore area to watch them. well, i posted this on facebook, and my brother then came down to see what i was talking about. of course i told him about the predicted meteor shower, and he decided he was going to come along and watch it as well.
we left the house, but couldnt take the road we usually take to get out to benjamin. it has been closed for about a year now, because i-15 has an overpass above it, and since theyve been doing construction on that overpass the road has been closed for some time. in retrospect, it would have been easier to take that same road, and instead of following throught the overpass which is closed, i could have taken the turnoff toward leland and then headed out to the area where we eventually ended up, but i figured it would be easier to take the road by the high school that has an overpass across the freeway, so we went that way instead.
the speed limit on this road is 55mph, but most of the people that live out there, especially the teenagers, will take these small country roads at 65/70mph. aways before we got to the bridge that crosses the river, a truck got behind us that we supposed was some teenagers either heading home or heading out for a night of bunny bashing. either way, they began to tail us, but seeing that i wasnt going to go any faster, i suppose they got annoyed, and turned off on a south road shortly after we crossed the bridge. about a mile or two after the bridge, you come to the benjamin intersection, which is what the entire municipality of lake shore amounts to. too small to call a town, this intersection is the most densely populated part of the lake shore area, with one building or house on each corner. normally when we are out here, our intention is to go shooting up on west mountain. to get to the mountain, we would have either gone straight (west) or right (north), as both of those roads eventually take you to the mountain. however, we figured being on flat ground would be best, so we went left instead.
taking the left means youre going to benjamin, which is also little more than an intersection, but it has several houses and even a church on this intersection. this intersection is made up of two roads (duh). the one going north/south is sr-115, while the east/west road is sr-147. we wanted to get really far away from the lights, so we decided to take sr-147 west, as sr-115 just takes you into payson. so we went that direction, but again, another truck, most likely carrying teenagers, began tailing us on our travel toward west mountain. just as the last one did, they got annoyed by our consistency in following the speed limit, so they turned off on another road and headed north back towards lake shore.
sr-147 makes an abrupt shift from being an east/west road and becomes a north/south road at the foot of west mountain. i have always called this part of the road dead bend, because it has a nearly 90 degree bend that takes you south, and no one uses the fields by this bend in the road, giving the area a very dead look. immediately after the bend, the road goes another 5 or 6 miles in a perfect straightaway with no side roads and no hills. it is a perfectly flat road, and once youre on it, you cant get off it without trespassing on private land and fields with the exception of 2 or 3 roads that go back into payson. sr-147 is poorly lit, with the only light out there coming from porch lights of the few houses on it. between two of the roads that go back to payson is a grouping of 7 or 8 houses, between 8800S and 9600S. this is where we saw what we cant explain. none of these houses had lights on at all. there were no other cars on the road at this point. shortly before coming up on 8800, we saw a light in the middle of the road. it was not a natural light, like the sun or the moon, and it was not a familiar artificial light, like porch light or car parking lights. it was orange like a street lamp, but it was in the center of the road, as if it was hovering above the pavement. what is more, it wasnt just a central light. it was a foggy light, with a sort of halo of light emanating from it. as we drove down the road, it didnt get closer, but it also didnt get further away. it stayed the same size and kept the same appearance the whole time, and in a moment, it disappeared. it did not turn, like a car would have, and it did not move in any way, it simply disappeared. not quickly, actually rather slowly, with the halo of light falling back into the the center, and then disappeared slowly. my brother and i wondered aloud what it could have been, but when we got to the point where we thought it had been, there was nothing in the road at all, and no lights from the houses around that it could have been. we kept driving on down the road, and we saw the second unexplained light. this time, it was like a stack of 4 or 5 lights sitting in the middle of the road. the did not have the halo that the other light had had, but it behaved the same way. it seemed to be above the pavement, did not get closer and did not get further away, and suddenly, despite the fact that there were no roads where a car could turn off the road, it disappearred. it did not turn, it stayed in the same spot, but suddenly disappeared.
as if that was not weird enough, we looked back in the rear view mirror as we came close to the intersection that takes you to genola. out of nowhere, this stack of four or five lights reappeared, behind us. i brought this to my brothers attention, and he looked back. 2 seconds after he looked back, it disappeared again. we came to the stop sign and waited, watching behind us. nothing happened, so we turned left to go park by one of the fields to watch the meteor shower. on the left side of the road is a group of trees, and as we turned and started down the road, through the trees we could see the foggy light reappear, with the stack of lights a short distance away from it. we stopped on the side of the road to watch the meteors.
it was a good night to watch meteors, not a cloud in the sky, and the moon was on the east side of the sky, so we were able to get a good view of the meteors falling. we stayed for about 25 minutes, could have been 40 minutes, but we werent keeping track of time. all in all, we saw 31 meteors fall, with the 26th meteor being the most impressive. it was 2 or 3 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky, with a huge tail, and it left a trail all the way across the sky. the 30th and 31st were probably the same one that just broke into two pieces on entry. they were pretty big and each had tails, and followed one right after the other. a very beautiful sight, and a really great experience.
as for the lights, i have to say i am puzzled and intrigued as to what it would have been.... i am a chemistry major and hope to be a scientist one day, so the scientific part of me says that it can be explained...somehow. however, the fantastical/religious side of me wonders if those lights could have been aliens or ghosts..... at any rate, it was confusing, and i know that very few people, if any, will believe me. i dont claim to know what it was i saw, but i know it was weird, and ghosts and aliens automatically become possibilities on a creepy road like sr-147.
we left the house, but couldnt take the road we usually take to get out to benjamin. it has been closed for about a year now, because i-15 has an overpass above it, and since theyve been doing construction on that overpass the road has been closed for some time. in retrospect, it would have been easier to take that same road, and instead of following throught the overpass which is closed, i could have taken the turnoff toward leland and then headed out to the area where we eventually ended up, but i figured it would be easier to take the road by the high school that has an overpass across the freeway, so we went that way instead.
the speed limit on this road is 55mph, but most of the people that live out there, especially the teenagers, will take these small country roads at 65/70mph. aways before we got to the bridge that crosses the river, a truck got behind us that we supposed was some teenagers either heading home or heading out for a night of bunny bashing. either way, they began to tail us, but seeing that i wasnt going to go any faster, i suppose they got annoyed, and turned off on a south road shortly after we crossed the bridge. about a mile or two after the bridge, you come to the benjamin intersection, which is what the entire municipality of lake shore amounts to. too small to call a town, this intersection is the most densely populated part of the lake shore area, with one building or house on each corner. normally when we are out here, our intention is to go shooting up on west mountain. to get to the mountain, we would have either gone straight (west) or right (north), as both of those roads eventually take you to the mountain. however, we figured being on flat ground would be best, so we went left instead.
taking the left means youre going to benjamin, which is also little more than an intersection, but it has several houses and even a church on this intersection. this intersection is made up of two roads (duh). the one going north/south is sr-115, while the east/west road is sr-147. we wanted to get really far away from the lights, so we decided to take sr-147 west, as sr-115 just takes you into payson. so we went that direction, but again, another truck, most likely carrying teenagers, began tailing us on our travel toward west mountain. just as the last one did, they got annoyed by our consistency in following the speed limit, so they turned off on another road and headed north back towards lake shore.
sr-147 makes an abrupt shift from being an east/west road and becomes a north/south road at the foot of west mountain. i have always called this part of the road dead bend, because it has a nearly 90 degree bend that takes you south, and no one uses the fields by this bend in the road, giving the area a very dead look. immediately after the bend, the road goes another 5 or 6 miles in a perfect straightaway with no side roads and no hills. it is a perfectly flat road, and once youre on it, you cant get off it without trespassing on private land and fields with the exception of 2 or 3 roads that go back into payson. sr-147 is poorly lit, with the only light out there coming from porch lights of the few houses on it. between two of the roads that go back to payson is a grouping of 7 or 8 houses, between 8800S and 9600S. this is where we saw what we cant explain. none of these houses had lights on at all. there were no other cars on the road at this point. shortly before coming up on 8800, we saw a light in the middle of the road. it was not a natural light, like the sun or the moon, and it was not a familiar artificial light, like porch light or car parking lights. it was orange like a street lamp, but it was in the center of the road, as if it was hovering above the pavement. what is more, it wasnt just a central light. it was a foggy light, with a sort of halo of light emanating from it. as we drove down the road, it didnt get closer, but it also didnt get further away. it stayed the same size and kept the same appearance the whole time, and in a moment, it disappeared. it did not turn, like a car would have, and it did not move in any way, it simply disappeared. not quickly, actually rather slowly, with the halo of light falling back into the the center, and then disappeared slowly. my brother and i wondered aloud what it could have been, but when we got to the point where we thought it had been, there was nothing in the road at all, and no lights from the houses around that it could have been. we kept driving on down the road, and we saw the second unexplained light. this time, it was like a stack of 4 or 5 lights sitting in the middle of the road. the did not have the halo that the other light had had, but it behaved the same way. it seemed to be above the pavement, did not get closer and did not get further away, and suddenly, despite the fact that there were no roads where a car could turn off the road, it disappearred. it did not turn, it stayed in the same spot, but suddenly disappeared.
as if that was not weird enough, we looked back in the rear view mirror as we came close to the intersection that takes you to genola. out of nowhere, this stack of four or five lights reappeared, behind us. i brought this to my brothers attention, and he looked back. 2 seconds after he looked back, it disappeared again. we came to the stop sign and waited, watching behind us. nothing happened, so we turned left to go park by one of the fields to watch the meteor shower. on the left side of the road is a group of trees, and as we turned and started down the road, through the trees we could see the foggy light reappear, with the stack of lights a short distance away from it. we stopped on the side of the road to watch the meteors.
it was a good night to watch meteors, not a cloud in the sky, and the moon was on the east side of the sky, so we were able to get a good view of the meteors falling. we stayed for about 25 minutes, could have been 40 minutes, but we werent keeping track of time. all in all, we saw 31 meteors fall, with the 26th meteor being the most impressive. it was 2 or 3 times brighter than the brightest star in the sky, with a huge tail, and it left a trail all the way across the sky. the 30th and 31st were probably the same one that just broke into two pieces on entry. they were pretty big and each had tails, and followed one right after the other. a very beautiful sight, and a really great experience.
as for the lights, i have to say i am puzzled and intrigued as to what it would have been.... i am a chemistry major and hope to be a scientist one day, so the scientific part of me says that it can be explained...somehow. however, the fantastical/religious side of me wonders if those lights could have been aliens or ghosts..... at any rate, it was confusing, and i know that very few people, if any, will believe me. i dont claim to know what it was i saw, but i know it was weird, and ghosts and aliens automatically become possibilities on a creepy road like sr-147.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
yellow carrots and seed trains
had a great breakfast today that consisted of yellow carrots pulled straight from the ground. i have the yellowstone variety that seedsofchange.com sells. i originally wanted to get the amarillo variety that baker creek carries, but when the season started, they sold out really quickly and i was not able to get any. however, without knowing anything about the taste of the amarillo variety, i do have to say that im quite impressed with soc's yellowstone. they have had a variety of tastes depending on when i have pulled them and depending on how the weather has been. today they had a somewhat spicy taste to them, with just a hint of bitterness and a lot of sweetness that balanced out that bitterness. earlier in the season they were completely sweet with no bitterness and no spiciness, but i myself like to have spice in just about everything, so today was a real treat. i have a different variety, not amarillo or yellowstone, that i purchased from gourmetseed.com a few weeks ago and was among the seed shipments i posted about a couple of days ago. there is a lot of seed, probably more than i can use, which is why i purchased this particular pack. i do not recall the name of the variety, but they look pretty good. i also got seeds for something similar to a carrot, but more like a radish i think. if anyone is familiar with the fairy tale rapunzel, you'll remember that name comes from a type of plant. this is what i have. rapunzel is a german word, and in english it is called rampion. it has a white root that looks like a carrot or a long radish, and has edible greens as well. the seeds are unbelievably tiny; i thought carrot seeds were small, but these are almost microsopic theyre so small. i will be planting these in spring time, as utah weather will not allow me to plant them this year. hopefully they will taste something like a white carrot.
also, on idig forums, a seed train has started with the mater raider group im in. im new to this concept, but it sounds like a fun idea. the idea is, you get a group together from various states across the country, and one person starts the train by putting some of their seeds in a box and sending it to the next 'rider'. that person takes a few seeds of whatever interests them (but leaves some for the other riders), and then adds their own seeds to the box and sends it on to the next person. sort of like one of those stupid chain letters but it has a point. so when the box makes its way back to the first person, then there is a plethora of seeds on top of what they originally put into the mix. then that person sends the box through the train again so that the first couple people can also get what the last few people put into the box. it sounded like an excellent idea, so i decided i would get on board with this and join the fun. i dont know when the box will be coming to me, but i really cant wait to see. lalbers started the train, and i believe she is in new mexico, but looking at the locations of all the riders, it will go all the way to the east coast and back around. maybe ill be the last rider? dont know, but i cant wait to see what kind of stuff everyone puts in, especially redneck. thats about all for today. grow on.
also, on idig forums, a seed train has started with the mater raider group im in. im new to this concept, but it sounds like a fun idea. the idea is, you get a group together from various states across the country, and one person starts the train by putting some of their seeds in a box and sending it to the next 'rider'. that person takes a few seeds of whatever interests them (but leaves some for the other riders), and then adds their own seeds to the box and sends it on to the next person. sort of like one of those stupid chain letters but it has a point. so when the box makes its way back to the first person, then there is a plethora of seeds on top of what they originally put into the mix. then that person sends the box through the train again so that the first couple people can also get what the last few people put into the box. it sounded like an excellent idea, so i decided i would get on board with this and join the fun. i dont know when the box will be coming to me, but i really cant wait to see. lalbers started the train, and i believe she is in new mexico, but looking at the locations of all the riders, it will go all the way to the east coast and back around. maybe ill be the last rider? dont know, but i cant wait to see what kind of stuff everyone puts in, especially redneck. thats about all for today. grow on.
Sunday, August 9, 2009
cocozelle zuchinni squash
today i picked 3 cocozelle zuchinni squash from the garden i have at my sisters house. i brought them home and cooked them with some red potatoes i had picked from my garden a few days earlier, and also made some jasmine rice with saffron to go with it. overall it turned out to be extremely delicious, and i have to say that cocozelle zuchinni will now be a required item in every garden i grow for as long as i live. mostly, in size and shape, it looks just like a regular zuchinni, but the color is much different in that they are much lighter than a regular zuchinni variety, and have stripes extending from one tip to the other. the flesh is crisp like a zuchinni, but the flavor seems more like that of crookneck squash. its not a bold flavor and its not a weak flavor, but its more just kind of there, and its really accentuated quite well with pepper, olive oil, and marsala cooking wine. overall i have to give this vegetable a 10 out of 10, and i know that i will be growing it every year regardless of how much space is available.
as a side note, some of my flour corn varieties seem to be finishing off for the year. the painted mountain is pretty much done, and im just waiting for the husks to dry out and for the ears to fall over. at that point they should be ready to take in for indoor drying, and in about a month theyll be ready to grind for flour. i intend to use the flour for tortillas and cornbread. the other varieties are some hopi types and anasazi. im impressed at the size of the ears on these, as they are longer than my forearm. im hoping to get a high yield of usable grains off of these. the giant pumpkin, the last one i have, seems like it cant make up its mind whether its going to ripen or get larger. the other two were eaten by ants and mice, and one of those had been my biggest hope for a prize pumpkin. that didnt work out though.
the watermelons are doing fine, but they are a little misshapen from the ground they were sitting on. the cantaloupes now have netting all over their skin, and im just waiting for them to finish off. at home, the pickling cucumbers are nearly done, which is good becaus the dill's seedhead should be formed about the time theyre ready to be pickled. the sweet corn is also advancing, should be done soon. the tomatoes seem to be weak and drying out on the bottom of the plants, but the tops are dark green and look very healthy. still waiting on most of the peppers to decide whether they will set fruit or not. might just have to wait till next year.
as a side note, some of my flour corn varieties seem to be finishing off for the year. the painted mountain is pretty much done, and im just waiting for the husks to dry out and for the ears to fall over. at that point they should be ready to take in for indoor drying, and in about a month theyll be ready to grind for flour. i intend to use the flour for tortillas and cornbread. the other varieties are some hopi types and anasazi. im impressed at the size of the ears on these, as they are longer than my forearm. im hoping to get a high yield of usable grains off of these. the giant pumpkin, the last one i have, seems like it cant make up its mind whether its going to ripen or get larger. the other two were eaten by ants and mice, and one of those had been my biggest hope for a prize pumpkin. that didnt work out though.
the watermelons are doing fine, but they are a little misshapen from the ground they were sitting on. the cantaloupes now have netting all over their skin, and im just waiting for them to finish off. at home, the pickling cucumbers are nearly done, which is good becaus the dill's seedhead should be formed about the time theyre ready to be pickled. the sweet corn is also advancing, should be done soon. the tomatoes seem to be weak and drying out on the bottom of the plants, but the tops are dark green and look very healthy. still waiting on most of the peppers to decide whether they will set fruit or not. might just have to wait till next year.
Saturday, August 8, 2009
seeds have arrived
all my fall shipments of seeds have come in now. got a lot of different peppers from new mexico state university's chile pepper institute, including red and orange suave habaneros and sunset, eclipse and sunrise anaheims, which are orange, purple and yellow. i also discovered that they have seeds for the chile guero, which i ordered as well. we looked everywhere to try and find seeds for those chiles last year, and couldnt so we finally resorted to taking one that we bought at the store and we dried it out and saved the seeds from it. some of them survived and one chile is growing right now. most importantly, i got a small packet from them, which was very expensive, the reason being that inside were 15 or so seeds for the bhut jolokia pepper of india. the orange habanero was once considered the hottest of all peppers until the savina habanero came around, which wasnt much hotter but it was hotter. the savina was then outdone with the carribean red habanero with something like 300,000-400,000 shu. the bhut jolokia has been logged in at over 1,000,000 shu, making it roughly 3x hotter than the carribean red habanero. and now im gonna grow them. obviously, theyre the most pointless pepper on earth, but i wanna try and use them for salsa or something. good times.
from seed savers exchange i got tobago seasoning peppers, a mild habanero, as well as several types of lettuce, some cabbage, and a couple other types of peppers. from gourmet seed i got some radishes, carrots, rapunzel, and some giant pumpkins with assorted colors. cool beans.
from seed savers exchange i got tobago seasoning peppers, a mild habanero, as well as several types of lettuce, some cabbage, and a couple other types of peppers. from gourmet seed i got some radishes, carrots, rapunzel, and some giant pumpkins with assorted colors. cool beans.
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