One comment I read on the Box Car Willies is that they prefer to grow in constantly wet, soggy, soil. They supposedly would be happy growing in two inches of water. There is no possible way to satisfy the needs of both plants unless I pull out the soaker hose and install drip irrigation. While I do have drip irrigation in some places, I'm not going to install it in the entire garden.
*****
Now where would that information come from about Box Car Willie? Joe Bratka couldn't germinate any of the seeds that he found in a toolshed on his property that his father had bred and were already named.
So he sent the seeds to me and I was able to germinate:
Box Car Willie
Mule Team
Great Divide
Pasture
Red Barn, and I happen to think this is one of the best of that series.
There were three I couldn't germinate and I've always wondered what they might have been.
All to say that I've never heard that BCW or any of the others want that much water, etc., b'c I've grown them a lot, mainly for seed production for the earliest of my SSE YEarbook listings and they certainly don't need boggy, watery conditions to do well.
None of them are heirlooms as I said above, they were bred by Joe Bratka's father.
__________________
Carolyn
|