Topic: Seed Saving Circle 2024

[JanG]

Great to have your list, ruud. Thank you.
Some Turkish varieties from your travels I think, for example Sakharnyi Zheltyi? Can you say what kind of tomato that is?

I shall be very happy to grow Chilhuacle Negro again.

[markfield rover]

I am waiting for Bob and Mary cfb to dry , meanwhile the following are further down the line.
Climbing French Beans….Hodgkin…Romanian…Kentucky Wonder….
Dwarf French Beans .. Dior ….Nautica and Elba.
Peas… American Wonder ….Sankia and Sutton’s Phenomenon.
Tomatoes….Essex Wonder … Silvery Fir Tree and Scotland Yellow.
Dragons Tongue Oriental Greens.
Few of the above were tasted as I was worried as to whether the yields were going to suffer due to bugs, beasties and cold nights.  Sutton’s Phenomenon pea  struggled not many pods so a low count , but I know they will be in safe hands.

[ruud]

https://www.tomatofifou.com/en/produit/sakharnyi-zheltyi/

[JanG]

I am waiting for Bob and Mary cfb to dry , meanwhile the following are further down the line.
Climbing French Beans….Hodgkin…Romanian…Kentucky Wonder….
Dwarf French Beans .. Dior ….Nautica and Elba.
Peas… American Wonder ….Sankia and Sutton’s Phenomenon.
Tomatoes….Essex Wonder … Silvery Fir Tree and Scotland Yellow.
Dragons Tongue Oriental Greens.
Few of the above were tasted as I was worried as to whether the yields were going to suffer due to bugs, beasties and cold nights.  Sutton’s Phenomenon pea  struggled not many pods so a low count , but I know they will be in safe hands.

Great list, MR. They are nearly all new to me. I have had my eye on Bob and Mary for some time. I believe it’s an HSL variety, but I’ve never managed to choose it. All very exciting. Thank you.

[galina]

Bob and Mary was from HSL, a yellow podded tall bean for fresh pod use.  Used to be common in Canada from where it comes originally, but now very rare there too.   

[markfield rover]

Yes, Bob and Mary from the HSL , very prolific strong plants. I’ll grow it to eat next year !! Potentially on my list of top five beans along with Black Valentine , although the also sound like Penny Dreadfuls .

[galina]

      Ha Ha Ha, had to look up what Penny Dreadfuls are. 

[JanG]

November is with us. How is everyone doing?

I think we still need to hear from Juliev and Garrett as to the varieties they’re hoping to contribute but I thought I would gather together the provisional lists (not provisional in the case of Galina as they are amazingly already with me!) of Ruud, Galina, Vetivert, Markfield Rover and me. It’s always exciting at this point to begin to see the wonderful range in prospect.

Galina

Pea
Sugar Lord
Crown pea Salmon Flowered
Latvian Soup Pea

Climbing French bean
Ruth Bible
Frank Barnett Cutshort

Tomato
De Pinto
Borgo Celano
Alpatieva 905A

Lettuce
Pink
Bologna

Purple tomatillo

Runner bean
Celebration

Markfield Rover

Climbing French bean
Bob and Mary
Hodgkin
Romanian
Kentucky Wonder

Dwarf French Beans
Dior
Nautica
Elba.

Peas
American Wonder
Sankia
Sutton’s Phenomenon.

Tomatoes
Essex Wonder
Silvery Fir Tree
Scotland Yellow.

Oriental Greens
Dragons Tongue.


Vetivert

Tomato
Dreadnought

Celery
Chinese Pink

Perennial onion
Rakkyo bulbs

Peas and beans
TBC

Ruud

Tomato
Pample mousse du grand pere
Bison
Sakharnyi Zheltyi
Boxcar willie
Charborovsky
Seftali
Balikesin Kivircik

Sweet pepper
Chilhuacle negro

Chilli pepper
Dong Xuan market
Goathorn
Hero
Peach tepin x Lemon drop
Phrik key nu
Peppedew malawi


Jang

Lettuce
Brune d’Hiver

Tomato
Artisan Gold Bumblebee
Black Plum
Blue Gold Berries
Dancing with Smurfs
Kumato
Kellogg’s Breakfast

Climbing French beans
Coco Sophie
Hamby
Kew Blue
Limka
Quedlingberger Speck
Tennessee Cutshort
Trionfo Violetto


Dwarf French beans
Cupidon
Faraday

Semi French bean
Old Joe Clark

Pepper
Padron

Other
Papaver somniferum - pink peony flowered
Cerinthe Major Purpurascens
Coriander?
Dill?

[markfield rover]

I am way too excited! Looking fabulous. Thanks for the update JanG .

[garrett]

Hi all,  I've been drying my seeds and this is a provisional list. I'll upload pictures and impressions once I've bagged everything.

Tomatoes:
Darby Stripe (red/orange striped cherry)
Gobstopper (translucent yellow cherry)
Mango Lassi (red cherry)
Ron's Carbon Copy (purple cherry)

Sweet pepper Mini Bell Chocolate: a small, bushy sweet pepper with dark skin

Cucumber Miniature White

CFB: Tunny bean (red and cream dry bean)
CFB: Golden Gate (yellow romano type pod bean)

Hollyhock Halo Red
Dierama Pulcherrimum Blackcurrant Bells

I was hoping to have more beans, but l had a bit of a disaster. I'd bought some new varieties from Beans & Herbs, but when they grew I realised that a couple of varieties hadn't been isolated by the grower last year and they'd obviously crossed with a borlotti bean. I don't want to pass on any dubious seed, so I saved all the beans that grew true to type and I'll try again next year. Hopefully, I'll be able to clean them up and see if I have the correct beans next season.

[JanG]

That's great, Garrett. Another group of interesting tomatoes. Nice also to have the Dierama seed. I grew these many years ago; they're magnificent plants, lovely arching over a pond. Mine faded away gradually so I shall be very pleased to be able to start one or two more off.

Your bean experience is very disappointing and rather surprising from a commercial supplier. Have you got in touch with them?

[JanG]

Some notes on more of my bean varieties:

Limka
This is a climbing, flat green snap bean as is Hamby. It’s early to produce beans. White seeds.

Old Joe Clark
Also known as Peanut bean as the seeds can be seen as resembling peanuts. There are two tones of seeds, darker and lighter pink. It is a semi runner; comes early and is productive. Good as a snap bean and also dried.

Quedlinburger Speck
A climbing productive bean. My seed came from a swap and originally from Deaflora. Deaflora writes, “This bean never, I mean really never, becomes tough and never forms strings. Whether young or very thick, that is, when the bean kernels have already formed inside, it is always tender and delicious. I know of very few varieties that can do that”. The pods are large and round.

Tennessee Cutshort
Another productive climbing bean. It’s not a classic cutshort in that the seeds are quite rounded. As well as being a good snap bean it can be eaten when the beans have already swollen inside its pods.

[garrett]

I thought about contacting Beans & Herbs, but I realised that I'm unlikely to buy from them again so chalked it up to experience. I find that buying seeds is often a lottery and I've had incorrect varieties from various companies ranging from Unwins, Thompson & Morgan and Premier Seeds. The quality from the seed circle is often superior to anything available at retail.

I'm going to try to clean up these two varieties, Coco Bicolour and Deb's Creek, so that'll be a little project for me next year. The beans which do appear to be true to type are of excellent quality and both were highly productive.

[galina]

Great offer Garrett, looking forward to growing these.

It happens that phaseolus vulgaris beans cross.  The crossing rate is about 5% and some varieties are more prone to it  than others.  There is no cleaning up necessary, the ones that have the correct looking seed, should be right, unless you also had a rare accidental cross.  Unfortunately, the seed coat is maternal material, so there is no way of knowing beforehand that a cross has occurred inside a seed.   Sorry you were so disappointed, as this is one of the very few seed outlets that offers rare varieties in Britain outside of the HSL.  My first ever bean swap was with the owner of Beans and Herbs and she is was an experienced seed saver for HSL, long before she opened her own seed shop.   So it is rare to have a cross, but not outside of expectation. 

Jang and myself have been growing out a cross from a USA seed outlet for fun, now just harvested F4 seeds.  And it has been fun to observe how from a cross new varieties develop.  It happens in other seed companies too.  And it has certainly happened to me.   

It happens with beans, but nevertheless the general consensus (including the seed guardian rules for HSL) remains, that French beans do not need to be isolated, but that runnerbeans and broad beans do.  Does this make it any better? 

[garrett]

I am confident that the beans I've saved will be true, but I didn't want to share them yet just in case they're not. I want another season to double check.

I also had some rogue grow outs from other sources,. Some of my Borlotti beans were a random dark navy with light spots and the Meuch pods grew solid purple, not their usual mottled marking, plus the beans reassemble the Tiger bean. In each case, the parent seed I grew looked perfect.

[juliev]

Hello everyone

So many wonderful varieties to be shared again! 

Here is my provisional list:

Tomatoes:
garnet
sunfired flare

Winter squash:
desert spirit landrace

Sussex flax (linseed)

Peas:
Mr Bound
Boddington

DFB:
Mor Kristin
Montezuma
Wieringer Bohne

CFB: TBC

[juliev]

I grew many of the seeds that were shared last year, it was wonderful! I have learned a lot about seed saving as well, managing to save seeds for many crops (most of them as populations rather than pure varieties).

JanG, Bumblebee is my son's favourite tomato. He is my tomato master taster. I can grow whatever I want as long as I grow Bumblebee!

Garrett, I share your disappointment with the crossed/mixed up seeds. I also had a few that didn't grow out as expected. Having said that, like Galina mentioned, growing out the crosses is very exciting! 

[JanG]

Thank you for your excellent list of contributions, juliev. Our final parcel will again be a delight.

It’s great have Garrett’s tribute to the quality of the seeds in the Circle and I too am grateful for the care taken to keep varieties as true as is reasonably possible.

I know the end of November is quite a tight deadline, including for beans which of course need to be dry and then frozen for a few days to eliminate any weevil. If any of us might be pushed for time to give bean seeds their necessary days in the freezer, can we just mark them or add a note here that they should be frozen on receipt. I speak as someone who (many years ago) sent bean seeds to US in a swap and sent a lively population of weevils with them which had clearly had time to incubate nicely in transit!

[ruud]

Sorted out some other seeds to contribute:blue aztec corn
                                                               turkish lettuce yedikule 5701
                                                               Endive
                                                               pumpkin Mr.wrinkles
I only have to wait for my beans now,if they are ready to come out of the fridge.I will add them to my list.