OT- Who saves vegetable seeds

[JBowen]

I have started saving Heirloom vegetable seeds. So far I have had good luck with Clemson Spineless okra and Pink Eye purple hull peas. I have just planted Charleston Grey
watermelon seeds I saved last summer to see how they do and I plan to save some Contender green bean seeds this year as well. I have already planted G90 hybrid sweet
corn this year because I haven't decided what variety of non-hybrid to try.
Do any of you save sweet corn seeds or recommend a certain old-time variety?
I would like to hear what everybody saves? My Grandpa used to save a lot of seeds. I should have paid closer attention.

Thanks,
JBowen

[JMick]

My wife plants" Heirloom Painted Mountain Corn". The ears are 7-8" long and avg.1 1/2" diameter. The kernels may be red, white, blue and yellow on the same ear.

[JBowen]

My wife plants" Heirloom Painted Mountain Corn". The ears are 7-8" long and avg.1 1/2" diameter. The kernels may be red, white, blue and yellow on the same ear.

JMick, is that sweet corn?

[Ray]

Circa '81 or '82 we planted about forty hills of previously saved watermelon seeds and had 4-5 vines per hill grow to melons so you can imagine just how many melons we had. That garden spot lay on a slight rise from the road so folk could drive by and see all of those huge melons. We caught some black boys passing melons fire bucket brigade style hand to hand over the ditch into a pickup truck bed and ran them off. Pops lamented that his crop of melons was as good as gone to the poachers after word got out that they were easy pickings. Time went on with no further thefts and we could not understand why.

The day finally came to sample our first melon. We busted that melon open and it was appealing in colour and smell and water content. B U T......they tasted just like cucumbers ! Not at all sweet.

[GunnyMack]

I've tried watermelon, cantaloupe and honeydew, they grow but it seems the chipmunks or mice eat every melon when about the size of a golf ball.
I'm on a wooded lot so I actually don't get enough sun for a real vegetable garden but I do tomatoes, bell peppers, carrots in containers.

Friends used to do a 1/4 acre garden, sheep manure was the key to their success. Silver Queen corn that was like none other for taste. Pole beans, lettuce , hot peppers, you name it they grew it.They also had a guinea pig that did the weed. An old cage in the garden , put the little pig under it and it would eat the weeds out of that area, just move it along the rows.

[JBowen]

Ray, that was a bummer! Some varieties just will not come back true, especially hybrids. I have heard that planting cucumbers close to cantaloupe will cause the
cantaloupe to taste like cucumber.
Thanks for the heads-up.

JBowen

[JBowen]

Gunny, there seems to be obstacles of every kind when trying to grow a garden. Last year I had a plague of grasshoppers of Biblical proportions. They got more than I did.

JBowen

[JMick]

JBowen, we eat it like sweet corn before the ears dry.

[JBowen]

Thanks for the suggestion, JMick. I may have to try it. A short search says it's a flour corn, but that does not mean it don't taste good. I don't like real sweet corn anyway.

JBowen

[GunnyMack]

I got an Aero garden a couple years ago and now start tomatoes,peppers, cucumbers in the hydroponic garden then transfer outdoors to pots/containers. It's mid May and tomatoes are growing fruit already. I need to try melons next.