I've been a bad bad blogger...

So sorry to those of you who have been following my blog - I know I don't have tons of readers but those I have, I need to offer y'all some content! I've been so super busy with work (Tomato Characterization time of year) and with Easy Living Organics that my blog has been the one to suffer... I promise to update more diligently...

So it's a harvest time of year here in the Northeast and as it figures for us Northerners - we've already had a frost... so the tomatoes that are still waiting to be harvested are well.... not doing so hot (to put it mildly) and after this weekend (with temps expected to reach into the 70s) I would expect most of them to be mush by Monday. Although I'm harvesting for seed so it's not as critical as if I was harvesting for market (long time done here in the north) but still, I'm not planning on using a shovel to harvest my tomato seeds - so that's that.

We've also been harvesting our onion bulbs for storage (remember - I'm a seed saver and onions are a biennial crop IE: take 2 years to produce seed). I'll need to start my characterization photos for those soon after the tomatoes are done.

So you all might be asking - what are you talking about with all this "characterization" talk... well - basically every season, as part of my work here as a environmental biologist I document lots of different properties of the different accessions (varieties) that we grow on the farm (particularly the tomatoes, onions and winter squash). I record things like average weight, shape, color, brix

(Brix value: Is a measure of soluble solids and sugar content in produce or plant juices. Can be measured using a refractometer. Dr. Arden Andersen suggests that using a refractometer to test food gives valuable information about quality. This is how it works: when the brix is low, the taste is poor, and the insects come. When the brix is high, the taste is superb and the insects seem to busy themselves elsewhere. The farmer's job is simply to re-mineralize and fertilize in such a way that the plants, properly fed, can develop higher brix.) from Nature's Path Foods - Organic Glossary

as well as several other characteristics. In addition to those records, I also take a picture of different views of the fruit, foliage, leaves, you get the idea... "a picture tells a thousand words" isn't that what they say..

Anyways - I do this all so that researchers or farmers can choose the appropriate crops for their farming environment... all this information is loaded onto a system called GRIN (Germplasm Resources Information Network) and is available to anyone with web access. The network definitely has a kink or two (or 20 LOL) but it's there and available and the best part is... you can request the seeds to grow out!!! FOR FREE!!! Yes you heard me right.. FREE! you only get say 50 seeds or so (and you need to be legitimate - this ain't UNICEF people! but if you are interested in breeding crops or just simply live in a whacked out micro-climate and can't find anything to grow well in your soil type - this is perfect for you!) Who is it NOT for - What was the term Gov. Palin used... ah yes "Joe Six-Pack" who is looking for free seeds because he is too cheap to buy some that are available at the local wholefoods store.

So - check out GRIN and see if you find anything interesting - if anyone has specific questions, leave them in my comments and I'll try to answer the best I can..

Cheers!