Back again.
I got some more quinoa planted and most of my squashes, including some intentionally mixed early maxima types, two multipurpose hull-less seed types (for eating both flesh and seed), an improved form of an already amazingly sweet delicata type, some early butternuts, and what should be a high-quality maxima type. The groups that are not wanted to be cross-pollinated are scattered around the perimeter of a vegetation-choked oxbow lake to keep them separated as much as possible.
Tom worked heroically to install a hilled-up ridge about 200 feet long. This required a lot of digging and Tom did it all in a sudden burst of tremendous exertion. I should have helped but he was almost done before I noticed; I was leaning over the quinoa transplanting them seedling by seeding. The tomatoes are 3 feet apart in two staggered rows, so there must be on the order of 132 tomatoes.
I helped him install a thin non-woven fabric over the ridge, which is designed to keep out weeds but, eventually, to let in rain (once it's damp enough to stop being water-repellant!). Weeds are quite a hassle with tomatoes. I am guessing the tomatoes will be allowed to simply sprawl, as the fabric will prevent them from touching the ground, which in this part of the world would cause them to rot.
Included are tomatoes with BLIGHT RESISTANCE, tomatoes with blue fuzzy leaves (practically speaking, a deterrent to pest predation, but also an ornamental feature), some "blue" (purple) tomatoes, at least one Solanum sysebrinthefolium (sp?)--aka the so-called "Litchee Tomato", various heirlooms Tom rescued my seed collection, that probably needed to be grown out because the seed is getting old, and some of Tim Peters (of Peters Seed and Research fame) small, determinate lines bred for ripening tomatoes in cool climates.
The latter are getting rare; some I got from Seed Ambassadors, and some from Tim himself.
Coincidentally, I enjoyed the hospitality of Tim and his mother last week down in Oregon, while he was collecting some of his property for salvage after his dad passed away.
Among other items being salvaged is some Sorghum seed. I have to tell you that it's an odd sight to see Soghum heads littering the ground all over the place in a mountain canyon that far north; Sorghum originates in the tropics, presumably somewhere in the vicinity of Nubia/Sudan/Ethiopia. Tim was growing great quantities of the stuff. Through the magic of plant breeding and selection he was able to develop varieties that grow cooler than is normal for the stuff, and oh by the way they have a tendency to be perennial.
I have 3 varieties of it in my back yard at the moment for lack of better ideas for where to put it--can't risk it on the farm because our small field on the high ground might get too dry before the Sorghum is established, or, ironically, it might simply fail to establish due to unusually cool weather this year, and it's hard to stay perennial when the farmer will come through with his plough. Unlike weedy Sorghum, Tim's perennial sorghum does not have rhizomes, just persistent root crowns, so it is not weedy.
Tim's Sorghums are "Red Sorghums" (actually, they're black, but maybe they cook red; in any case that's what they're called), and I've never actually had Red Sorghum before. My wife associates it with a type of porridge eaten in China, but I think a more common use is to make booze out of it, either sorghum beer or something stronger.
I also have a few more mainstream but rare annual Sorghums that need a home. One is just an anonymous early dwarf type, probably coincidentally bred in southern Oregon but not Tim's, but the other one is highly bird-resistant, a rare quality in grain sorghums (birds LOVE sorghum).
I wanted to plant them on the low ground where they would grow fast in the fertile soil, but ran out of time. It'll have to wait until next week, when we take down a load of potatoes and probably more tomatoes. We got back late as it was.
We were both tired and hungry so we stopped in a small town along the way to pick up some sandwiches, but everything was closed. There are a few thousand residents but the town looks deserted as EVERYTHING that's still open closes early. But a lot of businesses are shut down as the boom times at the local wood mill (doors, siding, moulding, stuff like that) have gone bust. The streets are almost deserted, even though it was only 10pm.
It was still light when we got there (we're far enough north for 10pm twilight during the summer), and Tom commented that none of the houses have gardens, food or otherwise. Just very plain lawns separating the houses.
Most of the yards are quite small--these are lumberjacks and wood-workers, not farmers--but to the extent that they have any land around their houses, and a few of them do have big yards, it seems as though people living so far from everyday conveniences not to mention competitive prices on groceries would have an incentive to try to grow SOMETHING to eat. At least some of the easier-to-grow and relatively handy backyard vegetable crops.
OK, now it's time to go do some yard work, including planting more of the Sorghum.
