Radishrain

A friend of mine gave me two Better Boy F1 tomatoes (I had never tried them before).

The fruits were unexpectedly firm, but after cutting them open, I didn't feel like I was eating firm tomatoes. Anyway, the taste was excellent. I can see why people like it so much. Lots of tomato flavor. There was some sweetness.

I'm saving the F2 seeds from each fruit separately. The first fruit was larger.

f1_hybrid_tomato
f2_hybrid_tomato

A friend of mine gave me some Juliet F1 tomatoes, some from her garden, and some which had been refrigerated (which a friend had given her).

Anyway, I tasted them and really liked them. They're quite sweet with nice flavor.

I saved F2 seeds from most of the fruits. Unfortunately, I put them all in the same bag, instead of separating my friends into another bag (she doesn't spray her plants, and the other person probably used sy thetic chemicals). In the end, they're still Juliet F2 tomato seeds. It's an acclimatization concern.

f1_hybrid_tomato
f2_hybrid_tomato

I harvested three Winter Queen watermelons, yesterday. I ate them and I'm saving seeds (they're ready to dry).

Anyway, the fruits were small (with each being a different size). The flesh color was a rich pink. The seeds were small and black as is typical for a winter watermelon (it's nice for eating and for seed-saving, too, since they're easy to eat and they take up little space). The taste was great. I quite liked it. I wouldn't call it one of my top favorites for flavor, but it's quite good. It had a nice level of sweetness. The flesh was dense. It was kind of salty, too (which must say more about our soil than the breed).

We had some larger winter watermelon fruits earlier in the season, which I didn't identify, which may or may not have belonged to this breed (but probably not). They were likely Wintermelon, King Winter, or an unlabeled kind.

This is a continuation of this thread: http://vegetables.boards.net/thread/463/cushaw-white-jonathan-pumpkin-squash

I planted a Cushaw White squash, this year. It was my last seed of the variety (I tried to grow it in the past, and used most of the seeds that year, but it had too much shade and didn't produce). This year, it had plenty of sun (and I started it early, before transplanting it).

It grew four very large, white fruits, and one smaller white fruit. It grew very large vines quickly and vigorously, which only stopped growing after the plant had its fruits and a bunch of squash bugs. Squash bugs infested it, but they didn't kill the plant.

Today, I harvested the four large fruits, which were all ripe (the closest tendril of each had shriveled). The small fruit had softened and had squash bugs all over it. I got the bugs off and after discovering that it was soft, squashed it. It looked like a spaghetti squash inside.

I harvested wonderberries, today, and I found one with fused fruits! The fruit was comprised of three fruits stuck together into one fruit. I've been looking for unusual wonderberries for breeding purposes, such as to breed bigger wonderberries (that's one of the reasons I'm growing so many). I found a fused fruit earlier in the season, but I didn't save seeds (and it had one less fruit fused into it). Anyway, I'm pretty happy about this. The seeds are bagged and ready to zap. I plan to grow these next year. Each fused fruit here isn't particularly large, but alas, and they're still fused and might produce larger fused wonderberries next time.

Here are some pictures, one of each side of the fruit:




forum_record (For most wonderberry fruits naturally fused together, with that number being 3.)

I harvested 70 watermelons, today! they weren't large. Twenty-eight of them were Red-seeded Citron watermelons. The other 42 were various varieties (primarily winter types).

So, yesterday, I went with some friends to do service and harvest Red Delicious apples at the orchard for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The apples were abundant and large. They didn't fall off easily.

The week before, I went with a couple friends to another one of the Church's orchards and harvested Johnathan apples. They were smaller, less abundant, and they fell off the tree more easily. It's a shame Red Delicious isn't as popular as it used to be (except, I'm not advocating monoculcture), because it seems to be pretty nice, and an ideal apple for the area (this year, anyhow).

Nowadays stores seem to sell things like Gala, Fuji and maybe newer kinds. I like the older ones, but some of the newer ones taste awesome (though Fuji and Gala are not among my favorites). I like Granny Smith, McIntosh and such. I like Red Delicious quite a bit, though. I like it a lot more now that I see how well it grows in SW Idaho, though!

Red Delicious gets a bad rap for taste. In all honesty, I think it tastes great. It has a unique taste, however. If it's the only kind of apple you eat, you might want something else, eventually. Maybe that's why it fell out of favor (people ate it almost exclusively). Or, maybe the taste changed over time due to growing conditions / storage conditions or new breeds of apples termed Red Delicious.

So, today, I had some well-cooked beans (chili) that were quite firm. I prefer my beans super soft. So, I thought I'd do some research on how to make soft beans.

I found Bigfoot's comments on this article to be insightful (although in need of testing):
* https://cheftalk.com/threads/how-make-soft-beans.21484/#post-157070
* https://cheftalk.com/threads/how-make-soft-beans.21484/page-2#post-157716

So, yeah, ideas (not just Bigfoot's) include adding baking soda, don't cook them with tomatoes (add tomatoes after the beans are soft), pre-soaking overnight, and other stuff. They say older beans stay firmer longer.

cooking_

* Santo Domingo Winter (plenty)
* Santo Domingo Dark Green (multiple)
* Santo Domingo Brown Seeded (several)
* Large (in my garden) or other winter types: Corner Round/Long, Weeks NC Giant cross, unknown winter watermelon, Tom Watson cross, Winter Queen, Wintermelon, Navajo Winter, King Winter, Navajo Red, Carolina Cross

Maybe:
* Mayo

If I get seeds:
* Desert King
* Tohono O'odham