May 23, 2011

Populuxe Seed Bank Grower Update #2

Just a quick mini-update today from two of the seed bank growers (besides myself!):

  • Marie in Saskatchewan is growing ‘Orange Jubilee’ and ‘Yellow Lemon’. ‘Orange Jubilee’ are showing nice strong characteristics, while ‘Yellow Lemon’ are a bit smaller, although that might just be due to growth habits. With little information available on ‘Yellow Lemon’, only time will tell! You can read her blog entry here.
  • Xan of Illinois reports some good news and bad; ‘Bramki’ and ‘Ferris Wheel’ are coming along very nicely, while unfortunately ‘Blondkopfchen’ lost its tag, and sadly, won’t be grown out for the seed bank this year. You can see her update here.

    May 22 - Tomato 'El Nano'

  • My tomatoes on the other hand are all outside and doing nicely in their new homes of the brand new garden bed! I spent six hours on Saturday planting. To read the full list of what’s in the beds being grown out for the seed bank, check out the list here.

    • Unfortunately we’ve had a few casualties this year already, including the ‘Americke Pyramidni’ and ‘Fryerfrinsborghese’ – both varieties I received from Plant Gene Resources Canada. ‘Americke Pyramidni’ suffered from really poor starts from the onset – they were spindly and just didn’t survive the move outside. However, ‘AP2’, the plant that came out of the same pack but showed markedly different growth characteristics (the most obvious being a regular leaf where ‘Americke Pyramidni’ is a potato leaf), is doing well and growing strong. This year I’ll be saving seeds from it and taking really good notes so that next year when I grow ‘Americke Pyramidni’ again, I’ll be able to compare the two by growing out those saved seeds and doing a side by side comparison.

    ‘Fryerfrinsborghese’ suffered a different fate – my over excited dog, while eyeing something darting on the other side of the yard, took a flying leap over it and snapped the poor thing in half. I quickly put some rooting powder on the snapped upper portion and planted. A few days later now, the leaves aren’t looking good but much to my surprise the stem is strong and upright, so I’m hoping it’ll make a recovery and I’ll be able to at least save a few seeds from it this year. Only time will tell.

    Photo: An image of ‘El Nano’, a smaller plant but growing very strongly.

    Filed Under: Populuxe Seed Bank Projects
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