Topic: Seed Saving Circle 2023

[markfield rover]

Thank you galina , silverleaf the seeds have been shared far and wide, thank you.

[JanG]

Is this a misunderstanding? 

The roots are not meant to be blood red, just the leaves.  Looking at Chiltern Seed's website.  If CH S are now retailing this variety, there is no need for HSL to maintain this variety, and this may well be why they gave packets to a seed swap.

Here is the CH S description.    https://www.chilternseeds.co.uk/item_1714c_bulls_blood_or_beetroot_leaf_blood_red_seeds

This also shines some light on the subject.  Roots are described as "pale red/pink in colour, with clear zoning."   
http://sfnottingham.blogspot.com/2018/02/beetroot-selected-cultivars-long-blood.html

I am definitely quite confused! Are you thinking, Galina, that Long Blood Red is the same as Bull's Blood, aka Blood Red. I've grown Bull's Blood for years and although I haven't closely examined the roots as I've grown them for leaves, I believe the roots are generally reddish whereas my Long Blood Red is predominantly white with quite pale pink rings, like a paler Chioggia.

I was assuming that Long Blood Red is a different variety from Blood Red, and certainly I haven't come across colouring like that of the Long Blood Red I've grown. The leaves aren't as red or dark as Bull's Blood and, as I mentioned, the vigour is pretty prodigious!

Stephen Nottingham's Food Blog does deal with Long Blood Red, which perhaps he got from HSL, but his roots are nothing like the colouring of mine. Mine aren't long and tapering either, nor particularly prone to forking. I'm still somewhat mystified. Perhaps the seed was donated to the seed swap because it was unstable but perhaps that could have been indicated

[JanG]

Here are some French beans I'd like to contribute to the Circle.

Climbing:

Myrtle Allen
A quite early small podded, productive white seeded bean. I received it from a Polish donor who cites his original source as Remy Orlowski. Unfortunately her Sample Seed Catalogue no longer seems to be available online so I haven’t been able to find any other information about the origin of this variety.

Had a quick search on how to use the wayback machine for old cached copies of pages.  Not that there is any meaningful information here, but this was the old catalog entry. 
https://web.archive.org/web/20210410212122/http://www.sampleseeds.com/?page_id=3725

 Remy writes:  Myrtle Allen bnMyrA
This a small white seeds variety that I can find no info for! It was early to mature so this would be a good one for the north. 
.

Thanks for this. Even though Remy didn't have any answers it's good to be able to have her word on it.

I hadn't heard of the Wayback Machine but Google throws it up. I haven't tried it out but it looks as if it could be very useful.

[galina]

Tim's Taste of Paradise.  This is a tomato, barely larger than a currant tomato.  Yellow to golden when ripe and very sweet, like biting into a fruit.  Impressive blight resistance too on strong plants. 

Tim Peters is the breeder.  This tomato arose as a selection out of Fruity Mix.  A different selection from the same Fruity Mix that last year's cherry tomato "Fruity Yellow" hails from.  I happened to be chatting to Canadian seed saver Diane Whitehead about the 1999/2000 Internet tomato trials that we both had participated in and I mentioned that one of my tomatoes was Fruity Yellow from Fruity Mix (added to last year's circle).  She then told me how a seed saver, Tien Chiu, had also grown a selection from Tim Peter's tomato Fruity Mix, from an ancient seed packet, and she had then sent on seeds to Wild Boar Farms.  Tien thought she was the only person still to have seeds, even Tim himself no longer had them.

Wild Boar Farm renamed this tomato to Tim's Taste of Paradise, did some selection, and now it is available in their catalogue.  Diane and I swapped seeds both ways, I grew 4 plants, and would like to share Tim's Taste of Paradise with you.  Same robust growth and superb blight resistance coupled with very sweet flavour, and a note of spice if allowed to ripen fully to golden yellow.    My 4 plants were all yellow, ripening to golden. 

Diane sent extracts from the salient pages of Tien's blog.
"MARCH 9, 2018 BY TIEN CHIU

I've decided that I want to breed the excellent flavor of "Fruity Mix" (my favorite tomato from the year I grew 83 kinds of tomato) into larger-fruited tomatoes. There's only one small problem: "Fruity Mix" seems to have disappeared. I've searched all the tomato databases, Googled high and low, and can't find it. Even the original breeder doesn't have seeds. So – assuming my ex manages to locate my original seed packet –  I've decided that my main goal, at least for this year, is to do what I can to preserve that strain. It's a breeding pool, so there is quite a bit of genetic variability – I'm currently researching how to maintain the gene pool. It's not as trivial as it sounds, because tomatoes are natural inbreeders, so under normal conditions you lose a lot of genetic variation in every generation. Heirloom tomato strains – which have naturally inbred for many generations – are pretty close to genetically identical. So if I want to keep the variation, I'll probably have to do some crosses. But I don't know yet how many crosses I need to keep enough variety. (Life is complicated.)
In addition to that, I want to try breeding Fruity Mix into larger-fruited varieties. Fruity Mix is a currant tomato, so while it tastes delicious, the fruits are tiny – maybe half an inch across. Better for grazing than harvesting. If I can breed its flavor into a larger tomato, it would make harvesting and using them much easier.

APRIL 18, 2018 BY TIEN CHIU


These seeds are precious. As far as I know, they are the last remaining seeds of the Fruity Mix and Fuzzy mix tomato breeding pools developed by legendary plant breeder Tim Peters. Tim described Fruity Mix as "one of the best tasting tomato breeding pools I ever developed". And I think he's right – it was easily the tastiest of the 83 tomato varieties I grew in my previous experiments with tomatoes.
Fuzzy Mix, while less important to me, is also really interesting. This mix was bred for its foliage – fuzzy gray leaves – in some cases, as gray and fuzzy as the popular ornamental "Dusty Miller". I don't feel as fanatical about Fuzzy Mix as I do about Fruity Mix, but again, these may be the last seeds of this pool and I would like to keep it going.
I originally got these seeds from Tim in 2000 or 2001. Sometime between then and now, Peters Seed and Research (Tim's business) went out of business.
Unfortunately, the seeds are 17-18 years old now. Tomato seed germinates well up to 10 years, but somewhere between 14 and 16 years germination rate goes over a cliff. So I expect a low germination rate. And for the same reason, I'm planting all the seeds this year – because germination will be even lower next year. It's now or never.
Since the seeds are both delicate and precious, I asked some tomato experts for hints on germinating old seed before planting them. Tim Peters (who bred the pool originally) recommended using bright (non-heating) lights directly above the seed blocks, and keeping the soil at 85-95 degrees. Craig LeHoullier, author of Epic Tomatoes, recommended a couple possibilities and sent data from his experiments. I looked at his data and decided to try soaking in 1 part bleach and 4 parts water for ten minutes, followed by a thorough rinse and brief soak, followed by patting dry and planting in the soil blocks.

JULY 2, 2018 BY TIEN CHIU

I'm surprised that the Fruity Mix tomatoes are so large – I remember Fruity Mix as being a currant tomato, which are supposed to top out around 1/2″ – really tiny. These are more the size of a small cherry tomato. But I'm not complaining! It will make picking them a lot easier. Currant tomatoes taste delicious but are so small that they're really only suited to casual grazing.

AUGUST 20, 2018 BY TIEN CHIU


FRUITY MIX AND FUZZY MIX ARE ALIVE AGAIN!! That is to say, not only are the plants growing, but they are producing new seeds to propagate the varieties forward. They aren't in full swing yet, but I have enough fruits to taste and evaluate each variety, and I am starting to save seeds from the earliest fruits (which were not isolated from cross-pollination) as a hedge in case some massive disease outbreak takes out all the plants in each of the four locations I've got them growing in the Bay Area. (Uh, yes, I'm paranoid, why do you ask?)
It is looking like the Fruity Mix are not all "true to type". Some are larger fruited and some smaller. The smaller ones are the ones with the unforgettable flavor, and there aren't that many of them – at least, not at my place, where the tomatoes are bearing early. So far only four have borne fruit – two of which are insanely good, two mediocre. I've marked the plants to make sure I save more seed from the better ones. But it's clear that I'll have to do at least a couple generations of breeding work to stabilize the variety. Next year I'll see whether I can cram two breeding seasons into one year. They are not exceptionally early varieties, but two generations from seed to fruit is about seven and a half months according to my calculations. We have an amazingly long growing season, but that's still stretching things. I'll probably try it with a few seeds.

The paste tomato on the left side is "Sweet Cream," also by Wild Boar farms, and is the most delicious Roma-shaped tomato I've ever tasted. Plus, gorgeous!

SEPTEMBER 15, 2018 BY TIEN CHIU

The National Heirloom Expo

That's me with Brad Gates and Ben Cohen, both of whom are professional tomato breeders. I'm holding a branch of Fuzzy Mix, and Brad is pointing at a baggie full of Fruity Mix samples that I brought to the Expo. Both of them are very interested in breeding with both Fuzzy and Fruity – which means that the lines will not be lost again. Which means I have achieved my goal of rescuing both varieties and ensuring their future!
Brad and Ben aren't the only ones interested, either – I spent two hours walking the vendor hall, handing out samples of Fruity and showing people the branch of Fuzzy that I'd brought with me. It was impressively unwilted despite having been broken off the previous day – Fuzzy is very drought-tolerant – and of course attractively furry. I now have a list of five or six tomato breeders who are interested. As soon as I get enough seed to send them, I'm pretty sure that the future of Fuzzy and Fruity Mix (or rather, of the genes and characteristics they represent) is secure. What a relief!" 
This is the blog url.
https://www.tienchiu.com/tag/tomatoes/

Today we had our first frost and I literally harvested the last pound of mostly green tomatoes yesterday.  And the first fruits were early too.  A couple of photos. 

 

[galina]

The questions about this beetroot remain Jang, so it seems. 

[JanG]

What an interesting history. It’s great to have that detailed background. I wish the history of more of our varieties were so fully documented. Thanks for reproducing it here.
I’m interested in the fact that Tien Chiu states more than once that currant size tomatoes are better for browsing than harvesting. I tend to agree, and quite a lot split if kept off the plant too. How did you find Tim’s Taste of Paradise in those respects?
Great that it has such blight resistance. Whats’s the growth habit like? Did you grow it as a two or three stemmed indeterminate like Fruity Yellow?  I picture it as potentially a large and sprawling plant. Looking forward to growing it next season!
Thank you the large number of contributions you’re preparing to make, Galina. What a lot of small packets you’ll be cutting and folding! In the next day or so I’ll draw together a revised list of contributions so far and repost.

[galina]

Split not so much, but if you pick quite a lot of them in a container, the lower ones can get squashed easily, especially if they are very ripe.  Picking order is after more robust tomatoes for that reason.  I also make a tomato salad and then put a handful of them on top. 

Yes, I let them sprawl and support when necessary.  Would have taken quite a bit of pruning to keep to one neat stem.  And it isn't really that necessary either, because with small fruit you do not get such a big weight on the branches. 

Diane who has never watered her plants, found the skins to be somewhat tough, not so here.  She thinks it may have to do with not watering.  She will do so when she grows them next.  When Tien first grew them,  she also mentioned that they were bigger, maybe more like Fruity Yellow.  With this and other Tim Peters varieties  small variations in size can certainly happen.  They are not entirely stable varieties.  Neither do we know exactly what Wild Boar Farms have done with the seeds and what they have selected for.   

Yes it is nice to have the full history and would be even better to have Tim's input too.  We are often concerned that actual heritage varieties should not be lost and do our best to maintain them in circulation, but those newer ones are often at much more risk, than actual old varieties that have found their way into seed libraries and other conservancies.   See also the lettuce discussion.

[galina]

Last year I added some square seeded Giant Bolivian Achocha seeds to the circle, in the hope that they may have adjusted to produce earlier.   

I had produced these seeds from a January 2022 sowing, transplanted in May, and enjoyed a great harvest and much earlier than ever in Britain.  But moving a substantial 'house plant' in May was not without its logistical problems. 

This year I both sowed in January and got good early fruit.  However I also sowed some of these seeds in May (as I always used to do in Rushden).  Previously these were far too late for here, even in the greenhouse and literally produced nothing. 

However, this year, from the seeds that potentially have evolved to mature earlier and be less daylength sensitive, I not only got fruit, but also mature seeds.  The first  change I noticed was that the fruits started flowering much earlier than they did in Rushden.  But they then took their time producing fruits from these flowers.  Eventually they did and made mature seeds too.   

I wonder whether anybody else has tried out these seeds this year and whether they also got earlier fruit.  We can only hope that in time it will be as easy to grow Giant Bolivian Achocha, as it is to grow their smaller fruited cousins Lady's Slippers and Fat Baby. 

[Vetivert]

I haven't yet attempted to grow them galina, but I'll have a go next season aiming for a late Mar-April sowing.


A couple more varieties for the Circle:
Shimonita - Japanese bunching onion (A. fistulosum). Giant winter type that needs a long growing period to achieve full size.

Zapallito de Tronco - Argentinian 'avocado squash' (C. maxima). I've read that these are meant to be a bush but mine invaded nearby beds with vines ranging between 4-7ft. Looks like a blue-green kuri  but eaten immature as a courgette.

[JanG]

I’m afraid I didn’t grow from your achocha seeds either this season, Galina, but like Vetivert will aim to grow them next year and keep a close eye on when fruits form.
Thanks for your additional contributions, Vetivert. Both sound very interesting. Where did your seed come from for these two?

[galina]

Shimonita, same family as Welsh Onion, but with a much fatter stem.  This sounds a wonderfully useful addition to the garden.  And hopefully equally frosthardy.

The achocha seeds should stay viable for several more years, so no rush to grow them.  Would really appreciate reports when you do.   

[JanG]

Shimonita, same family as Welsh Onion, but with a much fatter stem.  This sounds a wonderfully useful addition to the garden.   

Is Shimonita perennial like Welsh onion?

[JanG]

We're nearing the end of October so the end of November, our agreed deadline, is not very far away.

The Circle numbers seven keen members so when dividing up your seeds, please could you make up six portions of each variety.

Here is what I believe people have mentioned as probabilities, but of course seed saving is never certain so please don't worry if some seeds haven't made it. And do let me know if I've missed out any that you've mentioned. I think you'll agree it's a pretty amazing collection.

Garrett

Tomato Piglet Willie's French Black (medium dark red/brown)
Tomato Girl Girl's Weird Thing (large red/brown/green)
Tomato Reinhard's Purple Sugar (purple cherry)
Tomato Jaune Flamme (small orange)
Sweet Pepper Jimmy Nardello (small red horn)
Chilli Pepper Basque (Piment d'Espelette)
Climbing French bean Tresnjevac (dry shelling bean)
Climbing French bean Melbourne's Mini (short green pod)
Climbing French bean Selma Zebra (mottled purple/green pod)

Galina

Carrot Solvita
Lettuce Rossi
Lettuce Liller
Mangetout pea Norli
Mangetout pea Pink Flowered Golden Sweet
Pea Auralia
Tomato Bedtimes Macbeth
Tomato Broad Ripple Yellow Currant
Climbing French bean Georgian bean #22
Climbing French bean Juanita Smith
Climbing French bean  Rose
Climbing French bean Canadian
Lettuce Red Evolution
Lettuce Flashy Troutback type
Lettuce Flashy Butteroak type
Climbing French Bean Canadian
Squash Sibley
Tomato Tim’s Taste of Paradise


Juliev

Climbing French bean Madeira Marroon
Climbing French bean Borlotti
Dwarf French bean Bobis d'Albenga
Dwarf French bean Jersey Beef Grex
Aubergine Czech Early
Coriander?
Lettuce mix?


Markfield Rover

Tomato Blaby Special
Tomato Seattle Best of All
Tomato Salt Spring Sunrise
Tomato Imur Prior Beta
Tomato Pigeon Egg
Runner bean Gramp Nicholls 
Pea Tincture A Fleur Blanc 
Pea Stokesley
Pea Espoir de Gembloux 
Mangetout Born
Dwarf French bean Black Valentine
Dwarf French bean Yugoslavian No 4 
Dwarf French bean Borlotti
Climbing French bean Gramma Walters.
Possibly some dahlias
Cosmos Apricotta

Ruud

Not yet specified

Vetivert

Tomato Ivory Tears (white pear/grape tomato)
Sweet Pepper Jimmy Nardello
Chilli pepper Sugar Rush Stripey (C. baccatum)
Sweet pepper Habanada ?(
Dwarf French bean Bis
Dwarf French bean Galopka
Dwarf French bean Tytania
Dwarf French bean. Wstęga
(these are all Polish wax beans)
Squash/courgette Zapallito de Tronco
Bunching onion Shimonita


Jang

Mangetout pea Frühe Heinrich, 
Mangetout pea Roi de Carouby,
Mangetout pea Winterkefe, 
Sugar snap pea Spring Blush
Pea for shoots Dou Miao
Lettuce  Arctic King
Lettuce  Brighton
Lettuce Australian Yellow Leaf
Lettuce Speckled Amish
Cosmos sulphureus
Climbing French bean Myrtle Allen
Climbing French bean Pete Ingram Fall
Climbing French bean Jimenez
Climbing French bean Trout bean
Semi-runner French bean GagGa Hut
Dwarf French bean Ukrainian Comrades
Dwarf French bean Coco Nain Blanc
Leek Babington
Tomato Indigo Apple
Tomato Indigo Cherry Drops
Tomato Stonor’s Most prolific
Tomato Black from Tula
True potato seed from Heidi Red
True potato seed from Blue Annalise

I've added a few to my own list and will go into a bit more detail in the next day or so. Well done, everyone.

 

[galina]

Lettuce is called Rossia.

Here is the information about Auralia pea, which I got from Silverleaf.  It is a cooking pea, think hummus, mushy pea etc.  And the orange cotyledons give a different nutrient spectrum.   Mine grew a little taller, more around the 5ft mark and yes, better than reasonably productive. 

Here are Silverleaf's comments:
"I thought I’d pop in some Auralia (orange cotyledons).  I got it from JIC with that name, but I similarly found no info about it online. I seem to remember it being around 3 or 4ft, nice healthy looking plants and reasonably productive"   

[galina]

Pea Norli, is a fairly short, very early maturing mangetout pea with medium large sized pods.  One of the first peas to harvest in the year, but with robust plants that can tolerate quite a bit of adverse weather too.  High yielding.  My source was Samen Mauser from Switzerland. 

https://www.samen-mauser.ch/index.cfm?content=shop&shopcategory=1013&shoparticle=10096004&spr=de

[galina]

Pink flowered Golden Sweet

This is a variation on the standard Golden Sweet, but with pink flowers. 4 and a little bit ft tall.   Both Jang and myself were given a few seeds from Vetivert.  Who in turn had received them from pea aficionado Andrew Barney in the USA, who reported that the change to pink flowered just happened to show up in a field of ordinary Golden Sweets.  He said  "Pink flowered yellow snow was a mutant of Golden Sweet."

This is very rare indeed.  We don't know whether these are still grown by the unnamed original source who gave these to Andrew.  The first seeds that Vetivert obtained grew into weak plants that took a bit of nursing to produce any seeds at all. 

There was no weakness apparent here.  They grew without issues and produced well.  The pink flowers are very pale pink indeed and the whole plant is just slightly smaller than our normal Golden Sweets. 

All my pea seeds had a spell in the freezer, as we get pea beetles - similar to Broad bean beetles - that make holes in the peas.  Freezing should have taken care of any eggs which might otherwise be lurking in the seeds. 

Jang, your photos are much better quality than mine, and show the variety off better for airtable. 

[galina]

Yes this is going to be a very exciting special seed share out again, thank you everybody.  And thank you so much Jang, that you again will take care of the distribution, which is not a small task. 

I hope I have now described every variety of mine.  Just one slight comment, Jang.  The tomato is called "Betimes Macbeth", (not bedtimes).  Fingers crossed for Sibley, which I am going to open later today. 

PS Norli is about 2 ft tall and only needs minimal staking or none. 

[ruud]

I will let you know my list for the seedcircle in the weekend

[JanG]

Lettuce is called Rossia.

Sorry, you had pointed this out elsewhere and I forgot to correct it. I know very well that it's Rossia but spellcheck thought it knew better and I forgot to spellcheck spellcheck!

[JanG]

Lettuce is called Rossia.

Sorry, you had pointed this out elsewhere and I forgot to go back and correct. I knew very well that it's Rossia but spellcheck thought it knew better and I forgot to spellcheck spellcheck!