If you want seeds that are ripe enough to grow, spend a little more to get the red bell pepper. It's the same fruit but fully ripe.
Conveniently, red capsicums are 1000x more delicious than green ones
The spicy Capsicum varieties are also a hell of a lot spicier when red.
Oh, there are a few differently colored varieties that are hot like hell. As a matter of fact, Pepper X, the currently hottest pepper on record, is yellow. Red just happens to be the default color for capsicum so most of the hottest ones are red.
And you can eat all the yumminess and still plant the seeds!
DO NOT GROW PLANTS FROM COMMERCIALLY AVAILABLE PRODUCE!!! They are diseased af, will ruin your garden. Get some seed packs. You can reuse seeds from your own garden just fine.
What about like, the plants I get from the local community college ag fair plant sale?
They're probably fine.
That is a much better option than seed packs from a corporation. Libraries often have seed sharing programs for free, but you have to get them early, by planting season it's often over already for some reason.
Getting seed packs doesn't mean they will be good seeds though. It's best to find good heirloom seeds for the region, and you need to know if they've been cold stratified or not, for northern plants.
I've had great success with commercial hybrids and local landraces. Heirlooms are the next step up in taste and expertise required, sure, but they are not an absolute requirement for growing produce that stands head and shoulder above what you can buy in a store.
What diseases?
bacterial canker, bacterial spot, black rot, mosaic‑type viruses in beans, etc
What's your view of composting kitchen waste and using it in vegetable garden? That would contain same disease vectors?
No gardener puts obviously diseased plant material in the compost, for one. Unless you're hot composting, the environment isn't going to kill pathogens. So, no composting leaves with powdery mildew. For everything else, go right ahead. If it's not obviously diseased, the composting process should take care of whatever minimal pathogenic load there was.
How would those carry-over from the seeds?
The seeds are in the infected produce. They contain the spores/pathogens. The plant grown from the seed will have a much higher chance of developing the disease. It will then spread to other plants.
Thanks!
Well why won't the watermelons, bananas, grapes, cherries, or oranges even grow then?
Seedless fruits... Big corporate hoarding all the seeds that actually grow...
Cherry trees (and other tree fruits) are usually a hardy root stock that doesn't make good fruit, grafted with stems that grow nice cherries but aren't strong healthy trees. So you can try planting the pits but you'll probably get a spindly bush.
Watermelon seeds will grow if they are ripe black ones, look for an overripe melon.
Tomatoes often grow well, I've had success just smooshing the softest guy from a pack of them into some soil and watering. Especially "grape tomatoes." Be sure to give them a cage to climb.
A planted strawberry will grow lots of little sprouts, you should cut it up a bit to spread them out. Again, you want the one that's a bit overripe.
Which is why you don't plant the green bell pepper, you plant the red one.
I've got cherries and blackberries that are growing faster than I want. You can have some of mine.
Oh shit that's right, it's about blackberry season isn't it? 👍
Around here they don't fruit until the fall, but they're starting to bud now!
They also grow really well from starts, so you could just show up with some trimmers and lop off a runner to plant. Please, they're eating my side yard.
Are you Southern hemisphere? Ours aren't until September usually
Nah, northern hemisphere, on the Gulf Coast USA. Blackberries ought to start coming out within the next month or two, weather and climate depending of course.
Damn climate changing though, Mother Nature doesn't exactly like pesky human activity, especially in the last few decades..
Huh, do you get two crops per year?
No not quite, but we do get blackberries and then raspberries, usually a couple months apart from each other. I kinda forget which comes first though, it's been years since I've seen a wild raspberry bush.
The peppers from my garden are 10x more aromatic and flavorful. My entire house smells of them when I chop them.
If it's an heirloom, go right ahead! If it's a hybrid, it's probably not worth your time unless you want to become a plant breeder.
Every Fall (okay, the last few years) I plant garlic I get from the farmers market. I let a couple bloom out last year, though it takes a two year cycle to get them to grow from seed (it's called something else, theyre little bulbs), I want to learn how to do it.
I bought tomato plants once, and throw a few tomatoes in random soil spots in my.. sparadic garden. Maybe spastic garden fits better lol. Volunteer tomatoes always do better than my little seedlings. Note, I kind of suck at gardening.
Pumpkins. Went to a local farm... four years ago for fall pumpkins. Ive been spreading the seed in the fall since, and get a few every year.
I grew great potatoes once from a bag of rooted out local organic potatoes my neighbor gave me.
I love feral gardening.
Volunteer tomatoes always do better than my little seedlings.
I once found a tomato plant growing in a crack in the middle of a parking lot, near a dumpster. Must have been seeded from some discarded, half-eaten sandwich or something. Cute little plant with one green tomato on it.
I wonder what we would find if we cut a 1%er in half.
Fucking rabbits will make sure that you get nothing for your effort in my experience.
friendly reminder, if the veggie is Monsanto seeds, it's a crime to plant them and they will actively seek you out if they find out.
and yes, they sell (fake) "organic" seeds. (they are still GMO)
There are very few GMO vegetables being sold at least in the US. The USDA has the list. The most common stuff isn't for direct human consumption and are typically hybrids anyway.
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