fractional winnowing

so I have a millet that is wild in the garden, it has choked out all other weeds, and grows with very little water (but it does need some water), and I like that part of it.

it came from the bird food and went nuts from there, (it seems to be a foxtail millet)
but over the last 5 years from it's escape it has gone from large dense seeds to light wispy seeds,
it is now growing to reproduce, and not to do what I want it to do,
so I want to fix that, (yes I want more plant slaves)

and I think that fractional winnowing is the answer
most winnowing only separates the grain from the chaff,
but I want way more than that,
I want to sort the seeds by density while also getting rid of the chaff, so I want fractional winnowing
(zero matches to that phrase on yahoo or google before this post)
so I got some stiff paper to make narrow bins with

they are 1.5 inches wide and 8 inches wide for the first 9 bins, then I got tired and made them wider (they are under the narrow bins in this picture)

so I set up a powerful fan and the bins with walls to keep the seeds from leaving to the sides

with all my bins in a row I turned on the fan and put the seeds through it

the first bin was empty (the seeds are not made of lead)

the second bin had seeds that I am still not sure what they were (maybe some rocks in there or crazy mutants)

the 3rd bin had many dense good seeds

the 4th bin had less dense seeds and some sand

the 5th bin had some clearly wild seeds that are not doing what I want at all

the 6th bin was just sad

the 7th was just as bad

and the 8th was a wide one (or I counted wrong as there should be 9 narrow ones), and was just chaff and some seeds trying to get my attention

so I took all the seeds form bin 3 and saved them
the others got tossed out on the ground where they can be happy weeds,
after a few years of sorting this way I hope to get better seeds from this millet.
(prozo millet might be better to grow anyway)


here is a cat trying to pretend to be growing like a weed

raised beds

raised beds are way more popular than I would think they would be,

from what I can tell they were traditionally used for 2 reasons,
one was for areas where the ground freezes hard,
so in spring the raised area defrosted faster so you get some vegetables earlier,
the other reason was in very wet areas,
being over ground level they have great drainage

but lately it seem like many people because they saw it in a book,
or "it is just the right thing to do"
it is not like they are going to hurt anything if you are not using one of it's advantages,
but you sure can't scale them easy at all,
I have also seen people use them where the local soil is all rock or concrete,
and they work great for that,
or some people put wire mesh under them so that gophers can't get in (but often they leave off the metal flashing on the sides that will keep them from climbing in),
so I am not saying that they don't have some good uses,
just that many many people spent lots of money on them when they are not getting anything out of it at all.
it can help if you figure out why you are doing what you are doing

and at least someone takes the time to smell the weeds

sat morning update

the sorghum seems to not be doing lots lately,
wondering if I will get seeds out of them, they did very well 2 years ago...

 the rice seems to still be growing,

the dill is done,

the zucchini is going to seed (because I let it)

but these 2 are still going, but production has slowed lots

the southern peas seem to be doing well

the tomatoes are doing ok

this silverline melon seems done

peppers are still going

this corn is all done

this bee is about to be fish food,

the squash are still setting new flowers and having new fruit

the peanut seems happy enough

these 2 apricot trees seem happy

the rest of the planted trees have not come up yet (or are not going to)

the beans seem happy

the buckwheat seems to have sprouted well

the new radishes are still happy

the shallots are sprouting again

my native bunching onions are doing well (and well caged so nothing hurts them (I am not loosing them again)

the cucumbers are still going to seed

the cactus seem happy, as well as the other peanut

the watermelon plant has died back (and it sure made a tasty watermelon)

the potatoes I planted the correct way are still doing well

the other squash plot is doing ok

and is still putting off squash

this silverline mellon is doing well

the runner bean is big

but seems to not be setting fruit, but it sure is pretty

this corn plot is also done

the chuffa is doing well

some of the ground cherries are still doing well

the sweet potatoes are doing well

I have more dirt waiting for the weather to cool a bit so I can put in some winter crops (I hope they can take shade)

and I still have small piles of onions around

this kitty likes following me, I bet it thinks I have more gophers