Darned sight better than housewifery!
These are a couple of my cross attempts (Lancashire lad, tall purple x Oregon sugar pod, medium, mangetout.) I have about 9 pods tagged with different coloured threads depending on when I pollinated them. Surely amongst those there will be some where I actually managed it!
King Tut is alive and well - and PURPLE! I know there will be people out there who know all this but to me it's a fascinating voyage of discovery. My purple podded Lancashire Lad peas, which I suspect are a sort of old-fashioned marrowfat, but I discovered are actually rather good when eaten at the young, flat stage as a mangetout, have purple colouring around the leaf axils, bi-coloured magenta flowers and purple pods (with green peas in). My Latvian peas, which I am growing for a dried pea crop - to eat like mushy or soup peas, have the purple leaf-joints, bi-coloured magenta flowers and green pods. King Tut - whose leaf joints are purple, whose flowers are also bi-colour but paler with a pink outer petal, now turns out to have a purple pod too.
This little beauty is my first Salmon Flowered pea to produce a flower. Good enough for the flower border. In fact, that's not a bad idea. The flowers are borne in clusters at the top of the stem - the crown of the plant, hence the old name, Crown Peas. You could put up a wigwam, get these gorgeous flowers about 4 ft up and surround them with other plants to hide the plain foliage at the base. The should be a doddle to harvest too, as they are all at a convenient height. 
Here is a cluster, just about to come into flower. They are the most beautiful things and it makes you wonder why they ever lost popularity. Maybe I shall discover they taste vile? Somehow, I doubt that. They probably don't crop very heavily or travel well - whatever the commercial grower is looking for. Even if their flavour is indifferent and I use them for soup making, I am enchanted by these flowers.
9 comments:
So your Lancashire Lad x Oregon hybrids should turn out to be a purple mangetout? How fab is that!
I will be very interested to see how those turn out! We'll have to name them 'Flum's fancies'!
Not instantly I'm afraid, Hazel. As the saying goes, if it was that easy we'd all be doing it! Next year I will sow those in a separate patch. Some will no doubt turn out to be plain old Oregon - the ones I didn't manage to pollinate before they'd pollinated themselves. Some will be F1 hybrids between to two. No telling how they'll turn out really, but all the same, I think. Then the following year (we're talking 2010) I'll sow the seeds of those and get F2 plants. These will fall into several groups, some with characteristics of one parent, some with the other, some with mixed up characteristics. It's these mixed ones I'll be looking out for.
Once you get one with characteristics you want (purple-ness and mangetout-ness in my case) you save those seeds separately and grow on from there. As peas normally only self pollinate (they have closed central petals so the insects can't get in - or the pea breeders without a scalpel!) you should get what you sow at this stage.
If it works, you shall have some, but as I say - don't hold your breath!
I'm growing Salmon Flowered peas for the first time this year - and they are just gorgeous to look at. They'll be in my flower borders next year! I can't see on your photos but do your plants have massive thick stems with vertical ridges?
Celia
(I posted a photo on my blog a week or so ago)
Some are thick stemmed with ridges, Celia, but some look like the other peas I'm growing. Glad you asked because I went out to look and several more flowers have opened in the sunshine!
Yours are further on than mine. I shall have to consult you about the taste!
Fabulous stuff!!!
Mrs Flum, they are all looking marvellous, you are a clever Flummery you! BTW, your photos are looking spelndid too (especially when I peek at the full size versions), has a new camera managed to wangle its way onto the veggie patch? hugs Bilbo
Thanks for the comments - no, same old Nikon Coolpix.
Good to see it all coming along well! I think you must have some successful pollinations, otherwise they wouldn't have produced pods at all.
The first time I did hand pollination I was convinced I must have messed up a lot of them ... but when I grew them they were all successful F1 hybrids. I hope you'll have the same experience. It really is easier than it appears!
I grew Salmon Flowered last year and I thought it tasted pretty good ... plenty of sweetness. The yields weren't huge, but you can't have everything. I think it's a wonderful variety, and when I saved it for seed the pods turned a very attractive rosy colour as they dried out.
I am a bit disappointed with the taste of Lancashire Lad though ... the fresh peas when shelled out are quite bitter. Let me know how yours taste when they're ready!
Thanks so much for your support, I really appreciate it.
Thanks for the confidence boost Rebsie - you're my Guru!
Fresh Lanky Lads are a bit bitter - I'm waiting to collect enough pods (might manage it today or tomorrow) to cook a few. Still, if you want purple genes, I think you get bitter fresh peas. They all seem to have this quality.
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