Basket full of Container grown veggies

By geekgardener, on October 6th, 2009%

In one of my previous post, I mentioned that I bring a brinjal or two along with me when I return from morning watering my plants. That changed today! First, I started collecting with my hands, but little did I realize that no way my hands are going to handle so much yield that awaits plucking. With a basket in hand, I started plucking…

MyGarden 697

You can see Black beauty, White brinjal ( This is why the name Eggplant).Tomato, local variety and chery and few Podland pink tomatoes sprinkled on top of white brinjal.

MyGarden 701

Just the brinjals. Look at the diversity. You know, the purple brinjal plant has purple flowers and the white one has white flowers and few of them have purple. Sometimes nature is a mystery!.

The some of white brinjal were taken for cooking and boy! was it creamy. I think we have enough brinjal for the next two weeks. ;)

All the harvest you see here are container grown. The largest container is 20L and most of them are in 8-10L containers.

More later.

gg

8 comments   eggplant, gardening, vegetables   , , , , ,  

Seed saving – Continued

By geekgardener, on October 6th, 2009%

In my last post, I wrote about Seed saving with the explanation of OP and Hybrids pending. Why should you know about OP and Hybrid ? The reason why you are saving seed is probably you like some trait of that plant like a) taste, b) color c) appearance. Or any other habit of that plant. Lets say you go to a friends house and see a sweet cherry tomato!. You bring some seed; sow and wait for sweet cherry ( ofcourse you would). Your expectation is it should yield sweet cherry. What it would yield? Here is where OP and Hybrid comes into picture.

OP – Open Pollinated:

In OP varieties, the pollination ( a.k.a Plant sex!) happens naturally by wind, insects, animals, birds, humans etc. The seeds formed as a result of such pollination, results in new generation of same plants. Usually OP varieties are grown in such a way that crop of two different varieties are not planted close to each other to avoid cross pollination. This is usually achieved via growing the crops at a distance from the other or covering them with net so that they pollinate with the same variety(self pollination). This way, varietal purity is achieved. So a sweet cherry seed will result in sweet cherry tomato. You can save the seeds of the plant and still get the same variety.

Hybrid:

A Hybrid vegetable seed results from the cross or mating between two different varieties or “parents” of the same plant species. Two varieties of the plants are chosen for their desirable traits and carefully cross pollinated manually to produce a variety that has desirable quality from both the parents. Saving the seed of a hybrid seed will not always guarantee the same qualities that you desire. A sweet cherry may not be sweet at all. This is just an example but you get the idea.

There are much details explanation of How a hybrid is formed and how breeders come up with a new variety. I will leave that up to you!.

So, if you want to save seeds, make sure the fruit is not from a hybrid ( plant grown from hybrid seed).

If you are planning to save Heirloom seeds, ensure the plants of a variety are not grown next to plants of another variety of the same species.

You can avoid cross pollination by

1. Covering the plants with mosquito net.

2. Keeping the plants far away from each other.

3. Timing the sowing such no two varieties flower at the same time.

Happy seed saving

gg

9 comments   gardening, seed saving   , , , , ,