Tough Stuff for Tough Times
To maintain isolation and control over the purity of a particular variety, it may become necessary to cage a plant and pollinate it by hand, to avoid cross-pollination from neighbors, farm crops or volunteer plants in the area. Many times, especially with very popular plants like peppers and melons, hand pollination is the only way […]
A few great tips from Marjory Wildcraft on organizing your seed collection…
We select for family subsistence, based on landrace traits when possible, for easier regional adaptation. We also undertake ongoing trials to determine the suitability of heirloom varieties from around the globe that might take well to our regional conditions.
Next up on the January Hit Parade will be our Sonoran Flair beefsteak tomato, a medium-sized sandwich slicer, smaller than some beefsteaks, maybe tennis-ball-sized. This variety is selected from F8 Solar Flair seeds(nowadays spelled “Flare” instead of “Flair”), which were selected and provided by grower and originator Brad Gates at Wild Boar Farms. We will […]
Today it begins! Time to get ready for Spring planting. If you’re wanting to grow tomatoes, eggplants and peppers yourself from seeds, you need to get them planted indoors six to eight weeks before the last frost. In Tucson, Wilcox, Yuma, Deming and Southern Arizona, New Mexico and California along the Interstate 8/Interstate 10 corridor, […]
Acer saccharum This tall and beautiful member of the Sapindaceae (soapberry) family is famous for its showy fall foliage, high quality lumber and sugary sap. The sap is drawn out by taps in the trunk, then boiled for syrup and sugar products. The Jamestown colony’s Captain John Smith documented how Native Americans tapped trees and […]