Too much knowledge?

[esrikandan]

Just something I've been wondering - we get lots of information on how to do things a certain way, ie how to grow Parsnips, when to prune Raspberries, best time to plant seeds etc.

However, in nature, don't most plants just drop their seeds at the end of the season and when the temperature is right they will germinate and hopefully succeed?

Likewise, how many of us have sucessfully grown something just by making reasonable assumptions that on reflection may well contradict well established methods?

What do you fine people think?

[zazen999]

Seeds germinate.

The rest is conjecture and opinion.

What we are trying to do is to get the best crops and the best results....which is where people's hints and tips come into it.

[Capsid]

Plants don't just produce a handful of seeds though do they? They produce an abundance so that the chances of one of them succeeding is increased. Most of the time they fail. We are optimising the conditions for germination and growth, which even then is not always successful otherwise we wouldn't have this forum.

[esrikandan]

I'm not disagreeing - I just wonder whether we get too technical and perhaps worry a little too much sometimes - most of the time things just want to grow. Peoples experiences of volunteer tomatoes and potatoes suggest that a lot of things will just grow.

As for the volume of seeds produced by the plants - I suppose that is also reflected in the quantity (typically) of seeds you get in a packet?

[King Carrot]

In my opinion we've bred and selected our vegetables throughout our history to be tasty and edible, in doing so many of their original natural defences have fallen away leaving them more susceptible to pests and diseases – part of the deal we have with our veggies is that we look after and protect them and save their seed thus keeping them going.

[Capsid]

Things will just grow, but you can get them to grow optimally by gardening, they won't have weeds, poor soil, dry and cold conditions, frosts etc to contend with in the wild. I think the success to growing good veg is in the detail, nurture the plants and they will reward you.

I think the number of seeds per packet is a cost issue. Some seeds are easy to produce by the seed merchants because the plants produce a lot of seeds and those will contain a lot in a packet, but also some seeds have been bred for example, for colour, yield etc and so there may be less seed produced and the cost per seed is higher because of all the work that went in to producing the seed.

[Capsid]

In my opinion we've bred and selected our vegetables throughout our history to be tasty and edible, in doing so many of their original natural defences have fallen away leaving them more susceptible to pests and diseases – part of the deal we have with our veggies is that we look after and protect them and save their seed thus keeping them going.

But veg have also been bred to be disease resistant.

[Sweepster]

I'm just learning (it's taken a while) that I don't always have to sow the WHOLE packet of seeds in one go. Apart from aubergine. Growing aubergine for the first time this year, and there were about 8 seeds in there!

I think a propensity to getting 'too technical' can be a hindrance sometimes - and regarding everything as having a rigid set of rules would certainly take a lot of the enjoyment away (bit like sex ). Repeated failures in the initial stages would, however, be frustrating enough to put a lot of people off - which makes resources such as this invaluable.

[King Carrot]

But veg have also been bred to be disease resistant.

I agree some veg have been bred to be disease resistant - I grow Sarpo Potatoes and I'm trying Ferline toms (because they were given to me). Personally I have found that disease resistant varieties do not necessarily make the best eating - For example I have grown Sarpo Mira in the past and did not like its floury texture. Last year I grew it in a bed with seaweed which I suspect (after discussing seaweed and spuds with locals!) gave it a waxy texture and more to my liking. On the other hand an example of disease resistance being “bred” out of a vegetable may be the case with the onion. It used to be common for onions to be grown in the same bed year after year, I read a theory by a head gardener who suspected that the newer varieties of onions introduced over the last century lost their age old resistance to the build up of white rot in the soil and so succumbed to it.

I wonder how many of the veggies we grow today, actually bear any similarity to their original form? I think we have changed them more to our liking in looks and taste and in doing so we now have to help them along where we can because we have left them defenseless in many cases.

For me, A big part of growing veggies is the searching out and the exchange of knowledge and ideas, and then using them to try new ways that work under my conditions & climate.

Rains stopped, Suns come out, off to do some gardening