Sunday, October 23, 2011

Gardening: Plant Wish List

I've blogged about plant breeding before. I didn't end up actually doing any of it this year -- I didn't even eat the sunflower buds and radish pods that I planted. But as this year's garden winds down, I find myself thinking of things I'd like to grow. If I find that they don't exist, then that gives me a breeding goal.

I want:
  • A small -- two-serving, maybe -- watermelon that will ripen in my climate. No, it doesn't need to be square, but ideally it would be one that can be dryfarmed.  It has to taste like classic watermelon, and it has to be red, because I just can't get that watermelon vibe from yellow flesh. The best candidate that I know of for "ripen in my climate" is Blacktail Mountain. For small size and dryfarming, I don't yet have a clue. 
  • A cherry tomato that tastes like Sun Gold but doesn't split like Sun Gold did this year. The White Currant tomatoes that we're also growing this year rarely split, and the flavor is pretty nice, but it's not as nice as Sun Gold. (Hmm. I read that there's something called Sun Sugar, bred for exactly this goal.)
  • A full size tomato that tastes like Sun Gold. But everybody wants that, right?
  • A disease resistant pole snap pea. Wasn't Carol Deppe working on this? Did she make one?
  • Um...
I know that there are more. When I think of them, I'll post.

3 comments:

  1. This is some amazing stuff...

    ReplyDelete
  2. We have em coming out of our ears certain months of the year here. All sizes. Mostly round/oblong in my experience though....

    ReplyDelete
  3. wooohoooow! new to me. I will not eat that melon. I'll display it for my guest lol

    ReplyDelete