Pie Cherries / Cherry Pie. 6.23.16

Montmorency Cherries.  6.26.16

Wild Bird-Planted Cherries.  6.26.16

Cherry Pie Filling Ingredients.  6.26.16

This is my first crop of Montmorency pie cherries.  We also have a massive, bird-planted cherry tree that bears small red/yellow cherries.  All went into two pies.  The first pie was last week, and was all from the wild bird-planted cherry tree.  The montmorency cherries were too small for cherry pitter, so I pitted them by hand.  There were enough for 1/2 of the pie filling, so the 2nd pie also got wild cherries.  These pies were the most cherry-tasting pies I've had in many, many years.  These cherries have clear juice - the filling will not be red without coloring, and I don't need chemical-red to taste cherry.  It was so good.

Cherry Pie.  6.26.16

The pie filling is 4 cups of pitted cherries, 3/4 cup sugar, 1/2 cup flour, pinch of salt, mix together and let it extract the cherry juice while making the pie crusts.  After filling with the cherry filling, I add dabs of butter before covering with the top crust.  This pie is baked at 375 F for 50 minutes.

Last corn planted. First Zucchini harvested. Beans planted. 6.19.16

Today I planted another row of bean seedlings.  These are the Chinese bean seeds that are in the range of 10 to 15 years old.  Some of the seedlings had distorted leaves, and two were missing their first set of true leaves.  Most look OK.

I planted the final block of sweet corn.  I don't know if the season will be long enough, or warm enough for long enough, for a harvest of such a late planting.  But if I don't plant it, I could miss out on some sweet corn.  This is the first yellow variety that I planted, for variety sake.  This is a sugary enhancer (se) type, NOT GMO, 75 days to maturity so fairly early compared to some that are 100 days.

I take my I-pad to the store and research varieties that I'm curious about.  This is info on the sweet corn variety, "Bodaceous" via ufseeds.com:
 Beautiful, uniform, well-filled ear.
High quality yellow sweet corn that has large, mouth-watering kernels. Bodacious has 18 rows and 8" ears. Kernels are delicious, sugary and very tender. Bodacious is great for fresh eating, freezing and canning. A popular yellow market variety that holds well once picked. Tolerates cold weather conditions better than most.
 

Product Details

Breed: F1 Hybrid

Zones: 3-9

Germination: 5-7 days
Days to Maturity: 80-90 days
Ear Length: 8" inches
Ear Diameter: 2" inches
Plant Height: 84" inches
Ear Height: 28" inches
Color: Yellow
Genotype: Sugar Enhanced (SE)
Resistance: MS, MR
First Zucchini picked today.  Not bad, June 21.  

Beans from old seeds.  6.21.16

Corn Seeds Planted 6.21.16

Corn Seeds Planted.  6.21.16

First Zucchinin of the Year.  6.21.16

Seeds on sale. 6.15.16

Seeds are on sale at Fred Meyer for 40% off.   This is a big savings, and no postage and shipping for mail order.  So, it's a good time to get seeds for next year. One year old seeds of these varieties should grow fine. I chose types that have been successful for me, or look interesting.

They will go into the seed collection for next year. There were also a Fava bean variety with no variety name. I usually do well with Hume seeds.

Harvest. 6.15.16

Today's Harvest.  6.15.16

Nice harvest. Favas, snowpeas, Chinese chives for dummpling filler, peppers, eggs, and some flowers.

Recovering Old Bean Seeds. 6.15.16

Germinating 10 year old bean seeds.  6.1.5.16

Rinsed Germinating Bean Seeds.  6.15.16

Ning had some old bean seeds.  I've been keeping them in the basement in plastic containers.  These are a Chinese variety, wide bean similar to Romas but with thicker pods.  They are not squeaky like most green beans.

The seeds are 3 types.  There is a dark brown seed, a light brown seed with darker markings, and a white seed. 

I have tried to locate new seeds, but can't find the variety.  At the saturday market, we did buy some once at a Chinese vegetable stand.

I decided to try to germinate the seeds.  There might be 400 seeds.  I did not count.  I used the wet paper towel method.

None grew the first week.  The second week there were some sprouts, and some seeds rotted.  I rinsed all of the seeds in a sieve, planted the sprouted seeds, and incubated the remainder for additional several days using fresh wet paper towel and fresh zipper plastic bag.  Then I repeated the sorting, rinsing, planting, and incubate for additional time.  Now, about 2 weeks having passed, about 40 seeds have sprouted.  It's possible they won't all get to the green leaf stage, since there was some rotting of dead seads.  The purpose of the rinsing is to remove as much detrimental bacterial life, as possible.

Bean Seedlings.  6.15.16

These will get special planting and treatment when they have their first true leaves.  I intend to save a few dozen seeds, so we have fresh seeds next year.