Watermelon update

I pulled two more watermelon seedlings today. They were starting to look yellow and wilty and they were the smallest of the remaining fifteen. I am going to try to transplant them to another area and see what happens, but they do not belong in my breeding program.

The roots were still tiny, even after being in the ground for more than a month.

I am now down to thirteen of my first generation hybrids. I may get it down to five, but I doubt it. Eleven of the remaining thirteen are looking pretty healthy, although only three are starting to sprawl.

Watermelon Landrace Update

On May 15th I planted the watermelon patch. Since I'm doing a landrace I planted the pollinators (Congo, Joseph Lofthouse Landrace and Hopi Red) on three corners of the patch. Those were started in the greenhouse. The Hopi Red and JLL were immediately eaten by insects, the Congo had no problems so it is considerably further along than the rest.

On the same day I planted 25 watermelon seeds from last year's crosses.

At this point (6/15) there are 15 left. Others failed to thrive (2) or were entirely eaten by insects. Several didn't come up at all.

Of the fifteen, three are obviously thriving.

Others...aren't.

Most of them are somewhere in between.

To this point I've only been removing those that were obviously dead or dying--seed leaves without any green, secondary leaves not developing. At the end of June (probably) I'll be sorting it down to five.

I'm tempted to leave more than five, although that would probably crowd them too much. These fifteen survived the sandy soil, lack of water, intermittent heat and cold, insect attack, and even being stepped on (oops). My plant-brain says they deserve to survive. The thinking brain says get rid of the weakest.

We'll see.

Watermelon Landrace

This was scheduled to be published 5/25 and it didn't happen

In short form, a landrace is a locally adapted variety of a plant, often a food plant. Up until the advent of "perfect" food requirements in grocery stores, landraces were the norm rather than the exception. Farmers would trade seeds, knowing from experience that different varieties made for stronger plants.

Over generations, much of that landrace heritage has been lost, to the point that most people believe hybrids to be bad or weak. We plant one variety of squash, one variety of tomato, one variety of beans, and then when the circumstances aren't precisely right for that plant it dies or doesn't produce. This is the plant kingdom's version of siblings marrying generation after generation after generation. Of course the genetics are going to be weak.

With humans we accept the fact that inbreeding is a problem, but in our food we want stability and perfect taste, and we breed for those things. As variations are deliberately bred out of our crops, so are the abilities that made their ancestors thrive.

I've said before and I'll say it again (probably often) that I want strong, self sufficient monster plants that will spit "not good enough" back in my face and thrive in spite of my neglect. In order to do this we need to have variety in the plant genes. There have to be ancestors that thrived in desert conditions, ancestors that resisted insect attack, ancestors that have the perfect taste we love, etc. Over time it all comes together.

Last year I started a watermelon landrace, so this year I should get a bunch of first generation hybrids. Last year I ended up with four varieties of watermelon--Jubilee, Sugar Baby, Ali Baba, and an old variety that I've been growing for years. I have no idea what the ancestry is, so I just call it Traditional.

I pollinated a bunch of flowers, but only one survived (this is normal for watermelons). It was an Ali Baba female parent, crossed with Sugar Baby and Traditional. So this year I should get Ali Baba-sugar baby crosses and traditional-Ali Baba crosses. That being the case, I will not be planting Ali Baba, Sugar Baby, or Traditional. I will be re-planting Jubilee, but only as a pollen donor.

Three new varieties will be introduced into the landrace this year; Congo, Hopi Red, and Joseph Lofthouse Landrace. Congo I already have seeds for but it got eaten by bugs last year. Hopi Red (an established landrace) is drought tolerant, and the JLL includes hundreds of different varieties.

I will watch and see which plants the bugs and snails like, which take off and thrive in my yard, which shrivel at the first hint of cold, and probably about mid-June I'll cull the landrace patch to the strongest. I'll leave the Hopi Red, Congo and JLL--they will be pollen donors only, I won't be keeping seeds from them. The seeds will be taken from the Landrace watermelons that survive.

This is the "hybrid" year, working with first generation crosses of three heirloom varieties. 2019 will be the first year we start to see the results of true variety mixing, and first generation hybrids with the new varieties from 2018. 2020 should be the turning point with my watermelon landrace, meaning the point where I'll begin to see true adaptation to my environment, my water, my soil.

Garden Update

This year is a little different than last because I have the greenhouse. It seems to have moderated my planting addiction to a certain extent.

About mid-April I was thinking about planting watermelon at the beginning of May and went back to my records to see if that was too soon, only to discover that last year I planted them in March. MARCH!? There's snow on the ground in March! Good grief. So no, May is not too soon.

Greens are going full bore. They are naturalized in my garden and come up every year, although I'm not sure how that's going to work with the mulching schedule. Every 7 years each area of the garden will get a thick layer of leaves. So we'll see. Lots of salad! Radishes are also naturalized in the same area, and interestingly enough where those things are growing there are no weeds.

Beans are up. Hidatsu Red and Hidatsu Shield by the bean towers, two varieties of tepary beans by the fence. The tepary beans are a trial this year, a drought tolerant type of bean from the Southwest US. I planted the green beans two days ago and the dry beans yesterday. Kidney beans will also go by the fence, as they're supposedly a climber. 60% germination on that one so far, for beans purchased from the grocery store four years ago.

Watermelons were planted out last week.

Two Joseph Lofthouse winter squash in front beside the almond, along with a mystery squash that was a gift. One cantaloupe, also a gift, seems to be doing well. I planted more cantaloupe in the same area. Three zucchini are up under the walnut. The Black Beauty Zucchini don't seem to be germinating well. I planted more zucchini and yellow squash as a border around the new garden area.

On the east of the house is an area that has been designated as the "dry" garden for this year. The plan is to water it at most once a month during the summer. It's the start of developing drought tolerant varieties and learning about dry farming. Eleven seedlings up and starting to get secondary leaves.