Posted on

Tom Wagner Pedigree Information

This is the final video from Tom Wagner’s Sunday workshop in Oxford. In this video Tom presents some pedigree information for seeds he left with us that day.

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

I haven’t carefully inventoried the seeds I have, but I think I have some of everything he talks about here. I’m pretty sure more is available on request. I probably have other seeds he didn’t talk about here, and I’ll have to ask Tom about these.

I also have a large number of tomato seeds, but Tom didn’t have information on these available on that day.

In the past I’ve offered a number of seeds to anyone reading this blog, but in this case it’s a little different.

These seeds are still on offer to anyone, but the intention is when you receive them you agree to participate in a breeding project that goes along with them. That means committing yourself to learning something about the genetics involved in the project, and reporting back to Tom on your progress.

When Tom left the seeds with me, I think he was thinking that members of the workshop or contacts within Europe would be the ones receiving the seeds, but as we know this blog has readers in most regions and many countries of the world. As far as I’m concerned, and I think Tom too, anyone who’s genuinely interested in participating in a breeding project is welcome to seeds. I’m personally willing to send them anywhere.

So, regardless of where you live; Europe, North America or elsewhere, if you’re interested in joining a tomato or potato breeding project, please get in touch! There’s really a lot of very exciting biodiversity to work with here.

Posted on

Tom Wagner on Growing and Saving True Potato Seeds (TPS)

These three videos are related and refer to one another. Probably anybody watching any one of them could best watch all three at least once through.

General Discussion TPS and Potato Berries

In this video Tom presents a lot of general and interesting information on potato plant genetics, as well as seed saving and cleaning techniques.

In this video Tom mentions using Tri-Sodium Phosphate to clean his seeds. I’m not sure if it’s available outside of the US, but if it is you can probably find it in a hardware or DIY type store. It’s a very strong household cleaner, not very friendly to the environment, and a component of laundry soap in many places.

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

Growing from TPS

In this video Tom discusses how to grow TPS as well as offering a wide range of tips and tricks for growing and harvesting potatoes in general.

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

Seed Saving Demonstration

This video, filmed in the men’s room at the East Oxford Community Centre the day of our workshop there, is a demonstration of how to save seeds from potato berries. I’m sorry the camera wasn’t working well and I had to chase Tom around a bit…

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

Posted on

Tom Wagner’s Seed Catalog

Here’s a video made during the recent get-together in Oxford. This is Tom talking a bit about his seed catalog as it was in the past, together with his vision for the coming years. Tom also has a few words at the end of how important the Lumper potato is to him and his breeding work. The Lumper was the main variety behind the Irish Potato Famine.

Together in the room was myself, Steph, VP of Veg Plotting, Vicki of the UK Heritage Seed Library and Ben of Real Seeds. VP and Steph didn’t say anything, but at various time you can hear the rest of us speaking.

I edited out a few parts of it, because the conversation drifted from the topic at hand.

Do you still have seed that may have originally been ordered from this catalog? Please get in touch!

For a high resolution downloadable file to view directly on your computer, click here.

Please consider this video a bit of an experiment, and I would welcome any comments you might have. Does it play well with the speed of Internet connection you have? Would you like more quality at the expense of speed? Are the the the scenes edited okay?

I still have material with Tom talking about things like tomato genetics, potato seed saving (TPS) and planting hints and tips, Tom’s potato pedigrees, and probably other topics as well.

Tom left me with a large collection of tomato and potato seeds (TPS). On request, some more material is available from Tom. In addition the hope is as a number of people start working on breeding projects, we share experiences and plant materials. Please contact me or Tom if you’re interested.

Posted on

Gray Carioca Beans

carioca_beans

These are a variety of bean I got from the Seed Ambassadors when they visited Europe, which seems like ages ago now.  This year I was going through some of their seeds I hadn’t grown out yet, found these, and decided I better plant them because they wouldn’t last much longer.  Because the seeds weren’t fresh any more, the rate of germination was low, but at least I got more seeds than I started with to plant another year.

I don’t really know much about them.  When I got the seeds the label on the original package was hard to read, and as it turned out the name was misspelled.  I showed it to a few Portuguese speaking friends, but none of them could decipher what the original name was supposed to be.  Even typing the name I had into Google didn’t show any results.  After quite a bit of online researching, my conclusion is that these are supposed to be called Feijão Carioca Cinza or Gray Carioca Beans.  Carioca is the Portuguese word used to describe someone native to Rio de Janeiro.  There is an apparently very common type of Brazilian bean called Carioca Beans, but what I have is a little different.  I seem to have a special ‘gray’ variation of the standard bean that is normally light brown.  Even though my beans are called gray, they are almost a little blue in color.  They are small, roughly pea sized.

Does anyone know any more about this bean?  Does anyone have any traditional Brazilian recipes that go along with it?

Posted on

Tom Wagner in Ireland

Madeline of Brown Envelope Seeds left a comment on my last post reminding me and others about Tom’s workshop in Ireland.  For those of you who might attend the UK workshops, the workshop in Ireland the weekend before may be an attractive alternative.  You could even consider the weekend in Ireland, followed by just the Saturday in Oxford, if you wanted to get the best of everything.

In Oxford we will have other speakers and Tom will have much less time to talk and explain his breeding efforts.  In addition, if you attend both days in Oxford you either have to travel back and forth or pay your own accommodation nearby.  It sounds like camping is on offer from Brown Envelope Seeds.  Also, since I don’t live in Oxford I’m not really in a position to host a full weekend event in a rural setting like Madeline can do in Ireland, meaning the atmosphere will be different.

The choice is yours.  I’ll certainly be delighted for anyone interested to attend either or both days in the UK, and there are still spaces available.  We’ll certainly have lots of interesting people, as well as things to talk about and do.