My daughters are 12 and 13 and are heavily into plants/animals/science. I was wanting to do a wee fun plant genetics project with them but too late for peas!
Could I use dwarf/windowsill tomatoes...if I used a red and a yellow?
I guess so, although it might depend what you are trying to show? Peas are possibly more straightforward?
peas will grow all year round with protection, so use them!
Quote from: tonybloke on July 26, 2011, 23:16:59
peas will grow all year round with protection, so use them!
Not to sound thick...do you mean I can do outside and cover with fleece...or start in greenhouse when tomatoes fiinished :)
Quote from: Hector on July 26, 2011, 23:24:54
Quote from: tonybloke on July 26, 2011, 23:16:59
peas will grow all year round with protection, so use them!
Not to sound thick...do you mean I can do outside and cover with fleece...or start in greenhouse when tomatoes fiinished :)
'early' varieties ( quick from seed to fruit) should be Ok to sow outside now for a harvest this year. or yes, you can plant in greenhouse after tomatoes if you prepared to hand pollinate
thank yo, thats super
even better if you use some dwarf variety pea..like half pint or similar..those should be able to produce before winter and and be grown in quite small pots and moved indoors if needs to be.
you could try growing busy lizzy double flowers from seed. They have a single gene mutation which produces extra petals in place of stamens. It's recessive so in order for it to be expressed the plant needs this gene from both parents
what this means is that when you sow double flowered busy lizzie seeds, you get 25% double flowered, 50% semi double, and 25% a spindly looking thing (I seem to remember)
it should say on the packet you can only expect a proportion of the plants to be fully double.
Some people find Impatiens difficult to germinate, but I thought they about were as easy as it gets
How patient arre they? It would be quite a long term experiment with peas, since you'll have to grow them to maturity at least twice.
Would it work with something faster? red/green mustard or salad leaves perhaps?
Quote from: tonybloke on July 27, 2011, 00:40:32
if you prepared to hand pollinate
No need to handpollinate peas. And you would have a hard time doing it anyway because it needs magnifying glass and tweezers to get into a pea flower at pollination time. When the flower is open, pollination has happened already. They are doing their own thing.
How do you avoid mildew?
if you're growing different types of french bean, with different coloured pods and seeds, you could try crossing them. Sometimes when you get a cross you can tell because the pods and beans are different from the parent; sometimes they look the same, and it's only when you sow them next year you see you have a wrong un