Chance's Garden Everything Forum Blog

Ooh, yes. Could be they make them available later on? After all, watermelons are a relatively late harvest.

I thought I saved some but have no idea where they might be. That happens with too many seeds…

I just did a count and, not including rubus plants nor my own seedlings and cuttings, I have fifty trees and shrubs so far ordered for bare root season.

Gonna be another busy spring.

I'm done with this kind of volume after this round, though, because I'm essentially out of room in the yarden after this, with my remaining additions filling gaps revealed as time and pruning establish the shape of the maturing system.

The project area does not require such intensity of focus, and much of what I'm doing there moving forward is seedlings and my own grafting work.

M Ljin wrote:Ooh, yes. Could be they make them available later on? After all, watermelons are a relatively late harvest.

I thought I saved some but have no idea where they might be. That happens with too many seeds…

Yes'm, I suspect that's it.

Two Seeds In A Pod, the company through which they were introduced, specifically mentions that they're conducting germination tests right now and are adding seeds to the catalog as those tests are completed.

I ordered 20+ varieties of seeds from them, and I'll add another 5 or so once they're ready. You might go check them out, if you haven't, they're doing something cool by preserving and promoting Anatolian/Turkish seeds. Some unique and interesting offerings.

Speaking of seeds, I just placed my Bane's Best peppers order.

I left a note asking if he's got any more diverse breeding populations or recommendations to fit within my context, and I'll place another order after this year's seeds are fully stocked, because I only added one super hot to my basket this time.

I'm focusing on finding sweet peppers that have fantastic taste and massive production. I'm just so tired of wimpy ass bell peppers giving a few peppers after 5 months in the ground. I want more.

So, I'm gonna trial around 20 varieties this year, and I'll get some more of the same set into other gardens to see how they perform in other locations.

Goal with peppers is same as all annuals:

1) Disease free and resilient plants
2) Good production even with direct sow into soil
3) Kitchen utility (good flavor, good size/shape, good texture, etc)
4a) Naturalized population which reliably self-sows and produces every year
4b) Novelty and aesthetics

Naturalization is more important than the novelty and aesthetics, but it's easier and faster to pursue the latter than it is the former, and pursuing the latter doesn't need to impair the former if done with consideration.

The sweet peppers from Bane's Best are uncommon in that they're derived from hot and super hot peppers, and have the flavor profile of those peppers without the heat.

For example, I love Scotch bonnet peppers, because of the tropical flavor and potent heat. But, my family are not pepper heads like I am, so they don't get to experience the incredible tropical fruit flavor of the island scorcher peppers. Pineapple-pepper flavor combo in a salad (or on a pizza for your pineapple pizza loving savages).

Same thing with a scorpion pepper. They have, actually, a really tasty, savory and pepperry (as in black pepper) flavor that is delicious on smoked meats or in beans and jambalaya or gumbo.

With these selections from Bane's, I'll be able to share some of the incredible flavors of these fruits in a heat-free or minimal heat fashion. My family do okay with moderate spice, and even enjoy it (heh) with certain meals.

Plus, I'll share a bunch with neighbors. I'm gonna obtain my nurseryman license over the winter, and maybe I'll sell a few vegetable starts too. We'll see. I'm thinking I'll share with as many of my neighbors as I can this year, and then I'll ask them next year if they want to prepay me to start their 2028 gardens for them for a lump fee. Betcha I could make $3-$5k doing that in the first year.

Plus, I quite like that business model. Here's a brief outline from the customer's perspective:

1) Pre-order entire garden, started from seed
2) Select from list of species and varieties
3) Select desired pick-up (or shipping) date
4) Sit back and be stress free about getting next year's garden prepared
5) Be delighted when bonus plants are included in the order, and either plant or (as will be gently suggested in a note with the bonus plants) share with friends/family/neighbors

Other Thoughts:

1) Would obviously need to grow starts well in excess of ordered demand, to ensure deliverability.
2) Easy upsell opportunity at time of pickup/delivery, since starts are already paid for and new starts are cheap and appealing, especially with novelty factor involved.
3) The sharing of extra plants is how you encourage grassroots marketing and build a loyal customer base within tight-knit communities. "Hey Billy, did you order next year's starts from Chance's Magic Plants yet?" "Yup, I sure did Sue. How about you?" "I did. After you gave me those plants last year, you know, the tomatoes that had the crazy colors and grew too many tomatoes, I knew I had to order this year. He even gave me a big discount when I told him how I found him. Thanks again."
4) Provides the upfront capital to produce more annual garden starts, as well as the wider needs of the full nursery, at just the time when nursery sales are dwindling, similar to bare root ordering season.
5) This also encourages a long-term relationship with your customers which, over time, looks a lot less like a transaction and a lot fulfilling a necessary role for the community and being fairly compensated for doing so. This, in turn, demands a high level of accountability on the part of the nursery to maintain a high level of quality, integrity, and service.

Oh, and you could offer a planting service as well, so that the starts show up and get put directly in the ground, for an additional fee.

Peaceful Heritage has their improved passiflora incarnata seeds available.

I'm going to buy 100.

I've written their team to inquire after any germination and planting tips.

I'll still purchase some plants to plant in my yarden, when they're available, and then my (hopefully) 80+ seedlings can go in the project area.

A small sampling of the wild growing fruit in my project area.

I'm going to be taking pictures and cataloging details more thoroughly in 2027.

That way I'll have data on parentage when I start growing out seedlings and propagating my favorites.

That'll be useful for my nursery and breeding work.

Okay, thanks Peaceful Heritage.

I'll get these rolling in March, as the instructions they sent over suggest.

Harvested around 80% of the sunflowers I'm saving seed from this year. A few of my favorites are not quite ready.

Found these roots growing between two blocks.

I thought it looked cool.

I had two medlar (Marron and Dzevera) and three autumn olive (Garnet/Charlie's Golden/Amber) plants arrive this week. The Marron is looking a little worse for the travel, but I have faith it'll pull through.

The Garnet autumn olive had a few fruits.

I ate them. They were tasty, and mildly astringent. Would be great in a preserve/jam/jelly situation and I liked eating 'em anyway.

Anyway, I saved all the seeds and got 'em stratified in vermiculite. Heh. These were grown in a nursery next to several other improved varieties, so the genetics will be solid. Nice to get a headstart on the propagation game with FOA (fruit on arrival).

Got 'em all in the ground this morning.

This is exciting for me.

If you've been reading this thread, you know I found a wild plum growing in the city of Springdale, just outside of Zion Canyon.

The fruit were a little smaller than a golfball, vivid yellow -skin and flesh- and tasted like grapefruit.

So, I kept the seeds from the handful I grabbed (wish I would have grabbed more), and stratified 'em.

I posted a picture earlier of the radicle from the first seed to germinate.

The picture below is of the seedling's first inch above ground.

I'm thrilled. I have no idea how close the seedling will be to the parent, and I'm strongly considering driving down to Zion this winter to harvest some scion stock from the tree (if I can recognize it defoliated, heh), but my four seeds, well, three seeds and a seedling, represent the most novel plum genetics in my system. A wild plum, vivid yellow, that tastes like grapefruit and grows in an area most unusual for wild plums (the city irrigation was certainly keeping this specimen alive, but it's still in a place that gets up to 110°F in the summer surrounded by red rock which absorbs and amplifies the heat), so, it's a tough tree well suited to my similarly harsh conditions.

I'll bring this little buddy inside (or at least into the garage, I need to measure how cold it gets in there when the temperature drops) for the winter, because it's not gonna harden off in time to survive the winter left outside. I'll still pop it outside on days above freezing through the winter to keep it from getting too wimpy before spring arrives, and it should have a great headstart on next year's season. Maybe it'll be a little seasonally confused, but we'll see.

There's another seed that has popped, but the radicle hasn't yet extended, so I'm letting that one stay. Two others have yet to pop, but they're nicely swollen, so I think they're viable. If I can get all four germinated, I'll keep the healthiest looking specimen in my yard, then I'll take the other three over to my project area and plant them next to some of my favorites to play with pollination in the future.

Funny enough, it's planted with a mulberry cutting, a quince cutting, an almond cutting, a walking onion topset, and a bulb onion set, all of which are currently alive.

The mulberry even seems like it will survive. It's a cutting from Kokuso Korean mulberry. The cuttings from Kokuso seem to be rooting fairly easily.

The onions are both doing great.

It'll be interesting to watch what develops in this pot over the next few weeks. It would be a fun experiment if all of those cuttings took, just to plant them bundled up as is and see what happens.

Could they be Mirabelle plums? I think those are supposed to thrive in drier or harsher conditions than ordinary ones.

M Ljin wrote:Could they be Mirabelle plums? I think those are supposed to thrive in drier or harsher conditions than ordinary ones.

Dunno, but I think it'll be good to learn. Challenge accepted.

The Chip Drop card came in the mail today, and I verified. I also opted to pay $20 to try and get chips faster.

Found a new nursery offering more varieties of apple trees than any other I've so far found.

They offer seeds from Kazakhstan Apples, which is how I found them (looking for interesting and diverse genetics for breeding), and they offer seed from almost every variety they offer.

I loaded up a cart with all the seeds I am interested in, and it's sitting at just over $700. Heh.

I'll whittle that down to more like $100-$200, but then I'll have some incredible genetic diversity to work with. Combined with the seeds of various wild Malus species I'll be purchasing from Sheffield's, I'll have the genetics to select for fresh eating and naturalization. One day, there will be a population of apples in Utah (probably more than one), which will be distinct from all other wild or naturalized apple populations, and few if any will know that I was the progenitor of these populations.

Heh.

https://waldenheightsnursery.com/

So, part of what has kicked my need to Garden Everything ™️ into high gear is that I nearly died of a mysterious illness around 5 years ago, and I've had ups and downs ever since.

The industrial medical system had no answers for me, but they were more than happy to accept my tens of thousands of dollars.

This isn't an invitation to you to tell me what I should try to regain my health. I'm proactive and an obsessive researcher. I've tried it.

What I'm saying is this:

I had a recentering, achieved a rare clarity and catharsis, and I realized, in a concrete way, how fragile and uncertain life really is. The things that are important to me became moreso. The things that aren't have dropped away. What's left is family, God, community, and the Garden (these are all tied together, by the way).

I realized that I have things I'm meant to do on this planet, and, maybe, I don't have much time to do 'em.

So, I went from focused to all-in, from patient progress to unceasing advancement, from experimental explorer to creative explosion, and I'm not looking back.

I'll change the world for the better, and I'll do my best to be invisible while I do. A semi-secret legacy that will leave things better than when I arrived, and ensure that my time on this planet was a net benefit. I'm already there, family-wise, and I'll get as far as I can go with everything else that truly matters to me.

Just to be clear, since I know one of the things I mentioned above is a sensitive subject on this forum, these are my values and the manner I orient to the world.

I am not saying anything about what you should do.

Just declaring that I know what I should do.

Savvy? Keep the peace, friends, and accept me where I am, just as I do for you.

Awesome project Chance.
I see you like to propagate, me too. I made some bigger outside boxes to the north of the house, works great. Especially for difficult shrubs, which are 90%, you need to plonk in a lot and somehow some work and others just dry up and i get those out when watering. Easier then in pots. Which mostly is the second stage after rooting i put them in pots and gently adapt them to more sun while keeping watering low to improve rooting.

I wanted to say mirabelle as well. If so i read they're true to type. Grafting plums is not so easy in my experience. Best worked on existing trees to the north side. They seem to take and then just die back. Zig-zag graft works better than a flatty.. Often lots of plumb/ peach seeds lay scattered on the soil around the tree.

I did a diverse grex grow-out of bell pepper plants and after 5 month i ended up with scribbly things, it might just be me, knowing nothing about what i try to grow than to water it regularly, but i had them in the greenhouse and then it turned out to be the hottest summer ever, and i remember thinking to myself  "Why didn't i also plant some outside?". I want to try again as i still have seeds and plan on trying again in shadier spots as people say it's going to be even hotter next year.

I hope i don't come across as mr knowitall, because i'm not, but i do have a lot to say about what worked for me.

Hugo Morvan wrote:Awesome project Chance.
I see you like to propagate, me too. I made some bigger outside boxes to the north of the house, works great. Especially for difficult shrubs, which are 90%, you need to plonk in a lot and somehow some work and others just dry up and i get those out when watering. Easier then in pots. Which mostly is the second stage after rooting i put them in pots and gently adapt them to more sun while keeping watering low to improve rooting.

I wanted to say mirabelle as well. If so i read they're true to type. Grafting plums is not so easy in my experience. Best worked on existing trees to the north side. They seem to take and then just die back. Zig-zag graft works better than a flatty.. Often lots of plumb/ peach seeds lay scattered on the soil around the tree.

I did a diverse grex grow-out of bell pepper plants and after 5 month i ended up with scribbly things, it might just be me, knowing nothing about what i try to grow than to water it regularly, but i had them in the greenhouse and then it turned out to be the hottest summer ever, and i remember thinking to myself  "Why didn't i also plant some outside?". I want to try again as i still have seeds and plan on trying again in shadier spots as people say it's going to be even hotter next year.

I hope i don't come across as mr knowitall, because i'm not, but i do have a lot to say about what worked for me.

Well, I'm currently working on a plum species identification guide using the robot assembler and the available literature.

Also, I have a 4-in-1 Mirabelle tree coming bare root from Raintree next year, so I'll be able to directly compare growth habit and fruit characteristics in real life, too.

As far as the propagation situation, I'm just goofing off this fall, but next year I'm going to set up a small mist bench and really get rockin'.

Can you explain your boxes in greater detail, please? I'm not drawing a very clear image in my mind, but I'd like to understand better.

Also, my family dubbed me the born expert when I was a kid, and I've been laughing at my propensity to rant (Chance Rants ™️) for years and years, so no sweat on the unintentional pedantry. It's only fair.

Yes , looking forward to follow. I keep it low tech for now.
low tech passive

Hugo Morvan wrote:Yes , looking forward to follow. I keep it low tech for now.
low tech passive

That's cool, Hugo, and my own little propagation station is on the North side for the same reason.

Seems like a great tool.

Chance Lunceford wrote:

Well, I'm currently working on a plum species identification guide using the robot assembler and the available literature.

Here's a PDF of the guide I assembled, if you're interested:

Got 'em.

They said 50% germination, so sent double.

"Stratify until March in the fridge," but without clarification. I asked if as-is, or in damp media via email.

I'll follow up here when they do there.

Hoping for at least 80 plants.

I'll plant some here on my yarden, a bunch in my project area, some in pots asd gifts to friends/family/neighbors, plus I'll sell some to recoup some expenses in a year which has seen quite a few of those.

Pretty excited to get this population going, because it's the beginning of a unique chapter in this plant's history, and there's going to soon (a relative term, of course) be a naturalized population of passiflora in Utah. Allegedly.

As time goes on, I'll bring in some hybrids and specimens from different parts of the country and plant those out too, just to ensure I don't get any detrimental founder's effects while I'm getting my initial population established.

Once that's done, I can begin to create new pockets and allow them to do what they will.

Chance Lunceford wrote:

"Stratify until March in the fridge," but without clarification. I asked if as-is, or in damp media via email.

I'll follow up here when they do there.

So, these are 2025 seed and are already stratified. Didn't know that, but I do now. These are ready to plant.

I reckon I'll get some pots started, in a staggered fashion of maybe 10 per week, starting December.

Okay, latest update to the project area is that 10 brambles (7 blackberries, including the Anderson Park Blackberry, and 3 raspberries) and 3 pawpaws, plus the seeds of 5 nectarines, 3 plums, and 4 apricots, around 15 walking onions, and around 4oz of a thoroughly diverse wildflower mix got planted by me and my middle daughter today.

Below are some photos of the load in my vehicle, and the plantings covered by a layer of mulch and kinda hidden.

Okay, check in:

My broken foot is getting slowly better. I've strained my hip on the other side of my body, likely due to the modified gait putting strain on an already overtaxed system.

No worries, it's heading into winter and the yarden is asking less and less as we grow closer to dormancy, forcing me into a position in which the land is not receptive to my efforts.

I will of course return to my training dungeon with alacrity, but I'll be taking some time to rehabilitate my battered body after an inordinate amount of work during the warm season this year.

I've got another doozie of a year next year, so making sure I'm in prime physical shape to handle the workload will be key.

I'm likely to back off significantly the year after next, because my yarden will be jam-packed (until I begin work on the front yard, but I've got big plans and need to plan+budget, and I'll probably get that 90% done in a single spring week in the next 2-3 years), so I can take a more measured pace working to improve and expand my project area, begin work on another smaller project area surrounding a small local mountain reservoir, and get more serious about my pursuit of a good sized piece of land to build a cabin and an Eden upon.

Some recent garden photos.

It's a great time of year for appreciating beauty, and we've been getting good rains.

I replaced my phone, as the battery was beginning to fade.

The new phone has a significantly improved camera. Particularly in the zoom capacity.

Here are a couple examples:

This Kale has exceptionally large leaves.

My hand span is around 9", for scale.

One of the reasons I love sunflowers is the late season nitrogen they provide.

"HUH? Nitrogen? From sunflowers?!"

Yeah, tons. It comes in the form of birdshit.

The birds eat the seeds, and then they drop some birdshit in exchange.

Plus, sunflowers make for effective chop N drop.

Chance Lunceford wrote:Just signed up for Chip Drop, and scheduled a drop.

I've got to verify my address via the postcard they send me, which will arrive in the next week or less, and then I'll be on the list.

If you don't know, it's a service to deliver free (or almost free, if you prefer) arborist wood chips to your home or property. It'll contain other organic matter, and they'll also deliver logs if you prefer.

They're international, so check 'em out.

Just enter "Chip Drop wood chip delivery" into your search bar and you'll find 'em.

Just got my drop.

Good size. Well worth the $20 I paid to offset the arborist fee, and it only took about a week after I verified my address.

Gonna order another drop immediately. Heh.

I estimate I'll be able to put 4-6" across the entirety of my growing spaces with this drop.

The next drop will go onto the hillside beyond my fence line, and onto the thin strip of soil running along the North side of my house, in addition to being added to some buried wood pits (or, as my brother-in-law likes to say, Hoogie Holes, heh) with logs for the garden beds I'm putting in for next year.