Seeds and Not Seeds

Sometimes over the years my “Yellow Zucchini” plants produced green zucchinis. As soon as I've seen the tiny green ones setting on the plant I've taken them out, bought another company’s seeds and replanted. I could only hope that these would be what the package said they were. Similar things have occurred with other seeds. It isn't the cost of the seeds being wasted that’s so upsetting; it’s that I've wasted much of the growing season before finding out that my yellow corn seed was in fact a sugar filled white corn. Some people like sugary corn. They wouldn't buy yellow corn seed. They would buy white corn seed. We like yellow corn. That’s why I buy yellow corn seed.

This year the package of 10-12 inch Burpless Cucumber seeds that I planted turned out to be some kind of Asian cucumber-- and some kind of Straight Eight hybrid. It’s the first time I've found not only the wrong seeds in the package, but 2 varieties of the wrong seeds in the same package!  

The first corn harvest was another disaster. My corn is always fabulous. This year, there were about 3 regular stalks with the usual ears. The other 40 or so produced almost nothing. My stalks are always 8-11 ft. high. These stalks ranged from 2 ft. to 4 ft., except for the 3 regulars. Instead of the usual 80 ears, we had about 12.  

The seed companies promise your money back if you aren't happy with their seeds.  That’s the limit of their liability. We should be able to sue the negligent scoundrels for the value of our time and the value of the priceless vegetables we were duped into believing we were planting. 

 At least my Beefmaster Seeds were in fact Beefmasters. I just made my first harvest this morning. I have 6 plants this year. I just picked 14 tomatoes. The largest was 2 lbs. and the total weight was 20 lbs., or 22 oz. per tomato average.  My Tomatoes are okay. I’m at peace with the world. I shall carry on my war with unscrupulous seed companies-- they don’t belong in the world I live in.

Fungicides & Such

I used to stress and try to battle powdery mildew and molds of various kinds. I tried almost everything. I could never find an organic cure that worked on such things.  When I finally figured it out, I laughed out loud at my silly self. Any molds and mildews only appeared after the productive life of the plant was over. Like every life form, when it has reproduced, lived its life and had its day in the sun, disease of some kind or another usually sets in and ends its life. And there was arrogant me. I must make this wonder of nature live and produce for 3 times its life expectancy. What then? If I did manage to cure the mold or mildew, what then?  You got it. Something else killed it off; some other disease, some other mold or mildew.   With molds and mildews of various kinds, the best remedy is to not plant too close together, don’t water in late afternoon or evening, never water from above, and make sure there is enough room around the plant that it has good air circulation.  Unlike dragons, plants don’t live forever. The best gardener in the world can’t make an eggplant that is genetically able to produce a maximum of 50 fruits produce 51 eggplants. That plant is going to start getting weak. It comes with age. It will be beautiful for a while, produce beautiful flowers, bear fruit, and then weaken. As it weakens, bugs move in, or disease or mildew or mold sets in to take advantage of the weakening plant. Whatever you put on a plant at that stage of life isn't going to help, at best. At worst, some of whatever you tried to cure the plant with, is now in your soil.  Give the little darlings a happy life--- but when it’s over, let ‘em go. Mother Nature set it up that way. Stop trying to interfere with her. She’s been sorting all this out over hundreds of millions of years with no help from me or you.