Topic: First pea flowers!

[galina]

The leaves look like chickpeas. I grew a handful of them a few years ago, but I don't remember what the flowers looked like.

Spot on!  Gold star!  There are white flowering and purple flowering varieties of chick peas.  This one is purple flowering and has dark brown seeds.

http://www.sowingnewseeds.org.uk/pdfs/Growing%20chick%20peas.pdf

[Silverleaf]

Yay!

I bought a bag of brown chickpeas labelled "kala channa" from an Asian food shop and decided to experiment. I seem to remember they grew fine and didn't require any special attention, and I got a few pods. The fresh chickpeas tasted really good too.

I should have remembered about them and tried again this year. Still there's always next year.

[Robert_Brenchley]

A neighbour of mine has grown chickpeas successfully this year. It wasn't much of a crop, but never mind, at least they produced!

[galina]

Good to hear Robert!

I found a couple of green hairy roundish pods, but they are not (yet) filled.  Hope our mice/voles don't discover them.

Are they self pollinated or bee pollinated, Silverleaf?  As they are not very tall growing (well so far at least) a cloche might help, but only if they still get pollinated under cover, of course.

Sorry for all this thread drift - but here the pea season is all but over, apart from a few experimental late plants................  and they aren't flowering yet!   

[Silverleaf]

I don't mind a bit of thread drift!

I'm pretty sure chickpeas are self-pollinating. And my plants didn't get hugely tall, but they were pretty.

[galina]

Silverleaf, your wonderful photos have disappeared :(

[Silverleaf]

Oh, I had a cleanup of my Flickr photos and moved some stuff around and deleted duplicates, must have messed things up here. :(

I really wish we could edit our posts, I can't add the pics back in now. That's pretty annoying.

[jimc]

What a phenomenal experiment Silverleaf. Maybe that is something I would like to do if I had more time up my sleeve. I already spend a few hours most days in my garden just to produce so I don't have to shop for any fruit or vegies. Been successful for about 5 years now.
In fact I didn't know there were that many varieties of peas around.
Maybe you need to get your moderator to update the system so photos don't get lost. I have all my garden history on Earthgarden and there doesn't seem to be any problem there once the post is done with photos.

[galina]

Would a summary post be possible?  Annoying when this happens and the links to photos don't get automatically changed to allow for it.  Or maybe a link to a gallery that is publicly accessible? 

[Silverleaf]

A summary post is a good idea, I'll add that to my to-do list (I have sone genetics questions to answer too ;)).

[Silverleaf]

What a phenomenal experiment Silverleaf. Maybe that is something I would like to do if I had more time up my sleeve. I already spend a few hours most days in my garden just to produce so I don't have to shop for any fruit or vegies. Been successful for about 5 years now.
In fact I didn't know there were that many varieties of peas around.
Maybe you need to get your moderator to update the system so photos don't get lost. I have all my garden history on Earthgarden and there doesn't seem to be any problem there once the post is done with photos.

The photos disappearing is my fault, I changed all my albums around in Flickr without thinking that it would break my links. Oh well!

[galina]

What are your plans for this year?  Can't wait to see more of your superb photos.  Especially looking forward to the beg gene flowers.  And to more of Visionary or V crosses.   

[Silverleaf]

My planning has been postponed a bit as we're going to build a new bed, and until we decide exactly what it'll be made of and put it together I can't really get going with the experimental stuff.

Last year my experimental stuff was in big pots on a ridiculous low-walled patio area with brick barbecue plonked in the middle of the garden by the previous owners of our house. The area's about 7ft x 10ft with a low wall on three sides. It's not really big enough to use as a proper barbecue/dining area and you can't spread out any because of the stupid walls.

But I was thinking that it would be a great area for a new raised bed, since the bricks will insulate and the area has sun most of the day. I want either a single large U-shaped bed around the three walls or three rectangular beds arranged in a U-shape. The problem is what to build it with.

My vote is for recycled plastic link-a-bords. Him Indoors favours the cheaper but much more labour-intensive option of scaffolding boards or pallet wood. We haven't come to an agreement yet.

And there were so many exciting seeds in the seed swap and pass the parcel that I will have to very carefully organise my space this year!

So far I want to grow out the crosses from last year, multiply some of the ones from last year, and grow four or five new accessions. I've named the new ones - three from JIC and one from GRIN.

Expatriette (GRIN W6 15291) - looks like the flower is an interesting shape, in a pale purplish-pink colour. Haven't looked at the genetics yet so I'm not sure what's going on, but it should be pretty.
Mr Fixer (JI 795) - has beg, so should have begonia-pink flowers.
Argent Adept (JI 1485) - has ceo, which is "flowers with faded wings", a lovely gradient kind of effect from dark in the centre of the flower to white at the edges.
Nightmist (JI 2667) - has gf, pale cream greenish flowers.
I can possibly squeeze in a bip plant as well, which has bicolored petals. We'll see.

I want to taste some of the experimentals this year too.

[jimc]

Silverleaf said "a great area for a new raised bed, since the bricks will insulate and the area has sun most of the day. I want either a single large U-shaped bed around the three walls or three rectangular beds arranged in a U-shape. The problem is what to build it with."
Over the pasty 9 months I have made 10 wicking beds, which are basically raised beds, from recycled roofing iron for the sides and ends and pallet timber (4X2) for the corners. They range in size from about 700-1200mm wide and 2-6 metres long.
As a raised bed the cost was zero but as I made them into wicking beds I paid for plastic liner, geotextile and tub fitting for each.
I like rustic so I will leave them unpainted but a coat of paint wouldn't hurt. Otherwise ideal for your situation.

[galina]

Expatriette looks lovely.  Have just found the photo of these flowers.  They look very different both in shape and in colour from normal pea flowers:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/dispimage.pl?187090

There genotype narrative is here:  Genotype: A Af/- Bt Cri/- Dw fa "FFs"/- i k le r Sil/- Tl/- wlo

Don't know what most of these mean     

Very different.

The others are very interesting too.  Looking forward to your pictures and hope you can start soon. 

My one seed of the darker pink flowering pea crossed with regular pink (to see if both have the same pink gene) looks like it is not germinating.      I need to repeat the cross this year.  Just hope the darker pink will come back.  Hope it wasn't a 'one season wonder'.   

Looking forward to this year's peas.   

[Silverleaf]

Expatriette looks lovely.  Have just found the photo of these flowers.  They look very different both in shape and in colour from normal pea flowers:
http://www.ars-grin.gov/cgi-bin/npgs/html/dispimage.pl?187090

There genotype narrative is here:  Genotype: A Af/- Bt Cri/- Dw fa "FFs"/- i k le r Sil/- Tl/- wlo

Don't know what most of these mean     

Well, let's see if I can help! It's about time I looked these up anyway. ;)

A     anthocyanin production
Af/-     leaflets converted to tendrils
Bt     blunt pod apex
Cri/-     cri plants have crinkled leaves, stipules, flowers and pods - I assume Cri plants like this one look normal
Dw     double axil ring
fa     fasciated
"FFs"/-     violet spots on testa (seed coat)
i     green cotyledons
k     flower wings reduced, adpressed to keel
le     internodes short (i.e. short plant)
r     wrinkled cotyledons
Sil/-     sinuate (wavy) stipules and leaflets
Tl/-     tendrils converted to leaflets
wlo     no wax in some parts of plant

So Expatriette has leaf weirdness because of Af and Tl, and flower weirdness because of k. Throw in some stem weirdness due to fa and you have a pretty strange plant...

I don't see anything in there which would affect flower colour so it'll be interesting to see exactly what it's like in real life rather than a photo.

[Silverleaf]

Over the pasty 9 months I have made 10 wicking beds, which are basically raised beds, from recycled roofing iron for the sides and ends and pallet timber (4X2) for the corners. They range in size from about 700-1200mm wide and 2-6 metres long.

That sounds wonderful. How did you manage to get them for free? Everything I can find locally is much more expensive than wood, even reclaimed stuff.

[Silverleaf]

I did a few crosses last year. Here's the list of planned crosses for 2015.

Planned Cross Telephone x Absolute Zero Telephone x Argent Adept Telephone x Beacon Telephone x Bunker Telephone x Expatriette Telephone x Fanatic Telephone x Mister Fixer Telephone x Nightmist Telephone x Ra Telephone x Salmon Flowered Telephone x Scholar Telephone x Unity Telephone x Visionary Elisabeth x Purple Podded Ra x Unity Shiraz x Golden Sweet

Aim in F2 "Muddy" wild flower Faded standard Cerise flower Dark wild flower Weird k flower shape Pink flower Begonia pink flower Greenish flower Pale pink flower Salmon flower Brick/rose red flower Crimson flower in Dark purple flower Red pods Antique rose/mauve flowers Red pods

Project Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Rainbow peas Red pods Rainbow peas Red pods

I did a couple of Ra x Unity crosses last year but I decided it was a good idea to repeat it since I'll need 79 (or even better 122) F2 plants to have the best chance of seeing the classes I want. More F1s are therefore better!

[jimc]

Over the pasty 9 months I have made 10 wicking beds, which are basically raised beds, from recycled roofing iron for the sides and ends and pallet timber (4X2) for the corners. They range in size from about 700-1200mm wide and 2-6 metres long.

That sounds wonderful. How did you manage to get them for free? Everything I can find locally is much more expensive than wood, even reclaimed stuff.

I got roofing iron from various sources over the years. We rebuilt the carport which was falling down but originally built out of second hand iron for one source. Also the odd sheet came from neighbours and friends. Have picked up a few sheets from the tip but now they want to sell it to you or drive a bulldozer over it to crush it fir recycled steel. A couple of months ago I just picked up a 3 day old newspaper and found a 40 metre by 15 metre chook broiler shed to be given away, just had to dismantle it yourself and clear the land site. I was 3 days too late.
Pallet timber comes from out the back of large merchandise chain stores. They are happy to get rid of them, even the ones with company names stamped on them because they are too expensive to transport them back. I have found the odd steel one too.

[Silverleaf]

Ah yes, I've collected a few pallets from building sites and so on in the past. We used a few of them to make a ramp off the decking onto the lawn for our old Labrador (sadly no longer with us) who couldn't manage the steps with her arthritis last year.

Free roofing iron looks impossible for me to find, unfortunately.

I figure the link-a-bord solution would cost £200ish and last 20+ years. Untreated wood will probably last 5 years, so in order for it to be better value it needs to cost less than £50. We'll see what solution we can find.