In autumn I sowed some of the seed of my purple mangetout peas. Once they were big enough to see whether they had the purple colouring in the leaf axil, I sorted them out and planted out the ones which did, into spaces in the greenhouse where some of the tomatoes had fizzled out. The purple mangetouts (there were 2 plants from a total of 32) came from those with the purple colouring, so I didn't want to pursue to green ones. Many of my greenhouse peas now have flower buds on. The original peas (the F2 generation from my pea-breeding of 1998) grew in the open garden with frost and snow - I got them out early! I'm sure in the greenhouse they can cope with whatever winter throws at them and I now have some hopes of being able to sort another generation of seed this growing season. We'll see - best laid plans etc!
10 comments:
I'm winding down for the winter and here you are with peas growing. Will they continue to grow through the winter months or will they just produce an earlier crop next year?
Kath, I need your advice on my mystery beans.
Do you know of a purple poddedd climbing french bean with white mottled beans??
The purple peas are so wonderfule in the garden! Its great that you are saving your seed and tracking the progress! Very inspiring!
I'm always looking to extend my productive season later and earlier, perhaps I will have a look at Winter peas.
As they have the protection of the greenhouse Jo, I hope they will produce during the winter. Mainly, I am after a seed crop. They are seeds for the Purple Mangetout I created by crossing a purple podded pea with Oregon Sugar Pod so I'm hoping to get an extra growing season in my attempt to get them pure breeding.
I can't place your bean Mal. I have a dark purple curved bean called Major Cook's bean which has seed that are sort of white with maroon markings. Don't know if it could be that? Are all the beans like that, or just from one plant? I have found that beans do cross, in spite of what we are told. You could have a cross there.
There are so many beans around though - it's often guesswork (specially when you haven't seen them!)
So pretty with the pigmentation at the leaf axil. Too much going on here this year but I'd love to try this in the future.
Thanks Kath, All the beans from one plant are like that. The rest are all red. This one plant (out of about 40) went nuts and started climbing all over its dwarf neighours. I'm growing them up poles next year.
If it's one plant from a batch Mal, it's a cross. You can either eat them all and only save typical ones for seed, or you can treat it as an F1 hybrid (which it is) and grow on next year to see what range of types you get from the F2. If there's anything tickles your fancy grow on and select for a few more years and you have Mal's Bean!
Bilbo, once I'm sure they breed true for tall purple mangetout you are welcome to some. At the moment I'm stll likely to get stuff I don't want in amongst the goodies!
Thanks for the offer VH. What I meant was that I would like to try over-wintering them in the greenhouse, not that I wanted some of your precious seed {grin} although when you have enough to spare, I would love to grow some, thank you.
Well, you're first on me hit-list chuck!
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