Update - Seeds, Garlic, and mint tea

Well, it's been an eventful summer here on my little garden.  The Zucchini I tried I put out too early and it got bitten, and hasn't done well at all.  I'm ready to pull it out when the next flower just drops off.

I ate my first 12in long bean, which was probably a bit early even for it, these things are supposed to get really long.

I picked out all my garlic, let me see if I have a picture somewhere:

I can't stress how helpful these greenhouse posts have been.  They're perfect for hanging the garlic to dry, and also nice for reaching the middle of my raised beds without stepping on the dirt.  Very very awesome.  Notice the garlic bulbs are a little sad, but still it's the first year i've ever tried it, and I put them in late.  Hopefully this years will be better :).

I got out several multiplier onions, all ranging from about ping pong ball to a small baseball size.  Looking forward to putting the ones that last the winter back in in the spring.  A few that came from seed have grown, a couple that look pretty nice, i'll try and grow them all next year to see if any of them are promising.

The lettuce has finally gone to seed, and i've gotten about 200 black seeded simpson seeds so far from 1 plant, we'll see how many i get total, it's not slowing down.  I also got about 100 romaine lettuce seeds, we'll see if they mix at all.  I'm going to plant them pretty soon when I get the zucchini out.

I planted some new kale seeds in the front where there's a lot of shade, we'll see how they do in the summer.  I was planning on planting another plant or so every week to see when the best time to plant kale is in my yard, I'm hoping to get as much kale as possible :).  I'll keep this updated with pictures and all that in it's very own post as things progress

I got some more basil and cilantro planted out in the front yard.  The mint in the front yard is growing well, and one of them isn't, it's odd.  But today I picked some mint, about 5 or 6 sprigs, and boiled them in a few cups of water to have my first herbal tea from the mint.  It's pretty good stuff, with just a little honey.

I'll keep everyone updated with images and all that, but it's been a while since my last post.

Garlic Scapes :) and Garlic flowers

My Martin's Heirloom Garlic bulbils have been growing really well, and pretty much all of them have scapes (well, they did until I cut them all off and attempted to make garlic scape pesto).

I've been reading up how to get garlic to go to seed (not a normal process, normally they go to bulbils or whatever it's called).  I decided to take a few pictures of the process.

One of the things that I've found is that scapes are smaller than i thought, they're a little bigger than a spagetti noodle, but not much.  The heads at the end are about the size of an eraser when I pulled off the outer protecting and began pulling the bulbils out 1 by 1.  It's a hard process, especially with the mosquitoes, and often ends up in a few of the flower heads falling off.  But in the end the bulbils are plucked out and the flowers are left so that they can grow and become seeds.  I'm hopeful that they'll get better and better about going to flower so that i won't have to pull the bulbils out as much.

Anyway, here are the pictures:

Here you can see the scapes on all the garlic.  Note that
because they're bulbils i've been able to place them very very close together.

This is what it looks like before I start pulling
off the bulbils.  I have to cut through the outer
protective layer, and then pluck off the bulbils
one by one.

See how small those little flower buds are?  it's difficult to remove the
bulbils without pinching out the flowers as well.

This is the finished product.  There might be 1 or 2 bulbils deep in
there, hopefully some of the flowers still go to seed.

All in all it takes me about 5 minutes or so a garlic scape.  I've done about 9 of these, and I left on 4 or 5 to grow to bulbils and the rest I cut off to make pesto out of.  It's been a fun little project.

Pictures from the garden, early 2013 - radishes, onions,blueberries, and beets (going to seed)

Hey, I just wanted to get together a bunch of the photos i've been taking here and there in the mornings as I wander round the garden.

Newly planted blueberry bush from lowes (it's now got some
blueberries on it, though i'm not sure if i should pick them off or not, i'll have to look)

My other new blueberry bush

This is a new method i'm trying (lots of work, but it's fun).  The cardboard holds the cups steady, and they're inside a normal black planter box.  These cups have been growing really really well for me.  At some point i'll show you the tomato plants downstairs. These are green peppers, sage, and daisies.

Radishes always do great :).  You can see some of the red bulbs
if you zoom into the picture.  I'm going to leave as many as I can,
6 or 8, to go to seed so i can get radish sprouts.  Sorry about the shadow :) it's early morning

The spinach is starting to come up.  Will have to
thin them a little when I find out which ones are the strongest

I'm happy with the shallots, they're doing well.

This shallot only has 1 onion, but it's the largest stalk by far.
It's even got a little scape growing on it (that's what it's called
for garlic :) not sure what it's called for onions)

these 3 beets are getting ready to start the year

Notice this picture a week or so after the one before,
it's growing well.  These are beets in their 2nd year going to seed.

This is what the early stages of a beet flower looks like.  The beets
are full of these little flower heads getting ready to burst.  Should
get plenty of seeds out of these 3 beets.

Learning about / and Planting Garlic and Shallots

Well this year hasn't really gone as planned.  Turns out i'm about as lazy as I thought i'd be :).  However, I've learned quite a bit about gardening.  First and foremost saving seeds, if you're lazy, is actually very easy :).  For the most part all I have to do is not do anything, until the seed pods turn all brown and die.  It's very easy.  I've saved Coriander (cilantro), Basil, and Peas, all of which were easy and fun to do (and my kids loved helping).

So the season is over right?  Well, not exactly.  It's time to plant your shallots and garlic.  Garlic planting is one of those that you plant early in the winter, as close to the last frost as possible, though this date varies depending on where you look, next year I'll let you know if Nov. 10th was the right date next summer :).  Garlic will get roots before it freezes too much, and the deeper freeze will tell the clove that it's time to multiply.  This will make for a better head next year.  Shallots, which are in the same basic family as onions and garlic, work very much the same way.

My Crop this Year
So i planted out about 50 or 60 garlic plants in a 4ft x 4ft area in my garden, which should be replaced by a fall crop next summer.  I also ordered some hard neck garlic (doesn't store as well, but is supposed to taste better) from ebay, we'll see how it works out.  Ideally with garlic, after your first year you shouldn't need to buy seed again unless you get a soil disease or something.  So possibly I'll be able to give garlic seeds to anyone in the area next year if they're interested.  I'll be planting the garlic, and the shallots I just bought on ebay, as soon as they arrive.

Seeding Garlic
Although for the most part garlic is planted by growing cloves, there's another way to do it which is very much like letting the plants go to seed.  The garlic will create a large pod which will contain several small garlic cloves, called bulbils.  These bulbils have the added benefit of not having soil born diseases, so saving some of these each year increases your chances of never losing your crop entirely.  But what's the drawback?  Bulbils take 2-3 years to grow :).  The 1st year they'll grow into 1 or 2 cloves, then several small cloves, and then finally they'll be full grown.

So why grow bulbils at all?  There's really not a reason not to.  If you leave 1 in 5 of your garlic to go to seed, you can still eat the left over bulb, though some people say that they can be smaller than normal.  You can also eat the bulbils as small garlic cloves if you really want to.  They really are just small cloves, and will likely taste the same.  So growing bulbils is a way to further your crop, so why not :).

Evidently Shallots aren't as nice, and unless you get the right variety they don't grow bulbils or seed at all.  So for now, shallots will be from "cloves" each year.  Though they multiply so they should keep for years to come.  And since they're so expensive at the store :) it's worth the investment.


UPDATE 12-8-2012
Rather than adding a new post, i figured i'd just update this one throughout the year with how things are going, though I imagine when I get pictures that'll change :).

I just bought 3oz of Music Garlic cloves off ebay, got them today, and planted out.  Turned out being 30 cloves, so i have 5 rows of 6, they're 8 inches apart.  I'm really looking forward to these, i've read many posts that say this taste the best and are great for roasting and spreading on bread.

Gathering Basil Seeds

I don't have a camera good enough to take pictures of this, but gathering basil seeds has been very very easy.  I started out by watching the following video:

It's very informative about what to do, but I'll go over some of the details here.  It's extremely easy to grow basil seeds (in fact, there are websites that show you how to stop the basil from going to seed :)).

Step 1 - Wait for the basil to go to seed
Step 2 - Wait for the seeds to dry up and become brown.  Usually the whole row of seeds will go brown together, wait for it to turn brown
Step 3 - Cut off the whole stem of brown seed pods.
Step 4 - I've found, that rather than the video, I prefer to take 1 pod at a time and work to get the seeds out.

Things to keep in mind:

• Basil seeds are a bit like coarse sand, they're very small, and black.  So my first tip is to work on a piece of paper.
• Have a trash can handy.  There is lots of left over scraps, and it's best to keep your working station clean between stems

All in all from 2 plants, I took about 2 or 3 stems each and have more basil seeds than i'll ever be able to plant :).  If anyone in missouri wants some basil seeds let me know.

Here's a picture of the stems i'm talking about.  I've linked it to where I got it to help the person who took the picture.

Free Seeds for Life -- The Door Garden Blog

UPDATE - 01/01/2013

I found another set of basil seeds hanging in the garage, so I decided to see if i could take some pictures of the small flowers and seeds inside.  We'll see how they turn out.  You may have to click on the pictures to see them at full size to really see what's going on.

Here are the flowers ready to be seeded.  Notice they are
relatively large,  each flower holds up to 4 basil seeds

This is what the seeds look like inside the flower.  Notice
all 4 are still in this pod ready to be planted next year :)

Saving Seeds - and why you might want to

What is it?
Saving seeds is nothing more than saving seeds from your plants so that you don't have to buy more next year.  It's easier than you might think, especially for some of the plants.  In general all it requires is letting the plant go to seed (it's normal process), and then harvesting the seeds at the right time.  Very simple, but of course there are a few caveats.

Why would I want to?
Well, if saving a few bucks doesn't seem like reason enough :), the reason i'm planning on it is to create a plant that is more tuned to my personal garden.  When you save seeds you pick the ones that did the best, or lasted the longest, or tasted the best, etc.  Doing so, means that their children should have those improvements as well, and then saving their best children, and so on, means that you're fine tuning a plant that is perfect for you.  It's basically small evolution, survival of the plant that you think is the fittest.  For some plants, it's easy to do, so why not :).

How do I save seeds?
This section will have to be split up by plant, and i'll add pictures and videos as they're taken/found.  I find that pictures and videos really tell the story.  However, like other sites have done, I'm planning on splitting the plants into difficulty levels.  There will likely be some copying from other sites, i'll try and link whenever I do, but a lot of what i'm coming up with comes from having learned from the sites and just writing down what i remember.  The basic organization is taken from http://www.seedsave.org/issi/issi_904.html.  And I give them tons of credit, because they go over much everything that you'll need.  So why do my own?  1 - to simplify what's on that site, and 2 - to add my own pictures and experience to the picture.

The plants are split up into 3 main groups.  1- Beginner, 2 - Experienced, and 3 - Expert

Beginner are basically those plants that you can harvest the seed without any real planning.  You grow the plant, and either just harvest the seeds (in the case of tomatoes), or do a basic step (like leaving the fruit on the vine, in the case of peas, beans, and peppers).  These seeds are simply easy to harvest.

Experienced is mostly just those plants where you have to worry about cross pollination.  Meaning if you're growing 2 different types of cucumbers, you can't really save the seeds, because the children will be a "mut" of the 2 types, and will be unpredictable.

Expert is, for the most part, those seeds that are biennial, requiring 2 years to get the seeds, and sometimes special procedures to keep the plant alive over the winter.  These also require you to be mindful of cross polination, so, for example, you wouldn't want to save cabbage seeds the same time you're saving brussels sprouts, because they are in the same species.

IN ALL CASES YOU SHOULD SAVE SEEDS FROM 6 OR MORE PLANTS IF YOU HOPE TO SAVE SEEDS "FOREVER"


How do I store seeds?
This section really should go after the saving seeds for each plant, but I figured I'd put it here as a reference for saving the seeds from below.  Seeds germinate by being in a nice toasty place with good moisture (in general).  Which means, that in order to store the seeds you need to do the opposite.  You want a nice, cool, dark, dry place to store them.  There are 2 perfect places in every household, though if you save a lot of seeds it may not be practicel.  It is?  The fridge and freezer.  Storing them in the freezer will make them good for many years, the fridge as well (though technically not as many years).  This is the optimal place, but not always doable.  Just remember that the colder it is, the better chances it has of leaving good seeds when you go to plant it.  So a basement would work better than a garage (unless it's winter, in which case maybe the garage is better).

Saving Seeds - The individual plants




Beginner:
Beans and Peas
Leave the beans and peas on the vine/bush until they grow brown and the outside is brittle.  Then, simply pull the seeds out.

Lettuce
Most people don't like when their lettuce "bolts" meaning it gets really tall and flowers.  However, this is basically the plant just going to seed.  To save the seeds, wait til the plant flowers, and then the flowers close up and get a white cotton end looking.  Then, either pull up the whole plant, and harvest the seeds, or cut off the groups of flowers that are ready and let the rest finish.

To get the seeds, take the little flower pods, and rub them in your fingers, and 6+ seeds will come out.  Kinda messy :), and a little tedious, but you get tons of seeds.

Note - the trickiest part here is that you want the lettuce that bolts latest (at least usually that's what people want), or the one that is ready to eat the earliest, which is also usually the plants you want to still be eating :).  Maybe you can grab the 2nd to last :).

Pepper 
Leave them on the vine a little until they're fully ripe.  Usually that means they turn red (even green peppers), once they are, open them up and save the seeds.  The seeds have to fully dry out, just leave them on a plate with some dry paper towels or you can make a small screen which is better but more work.  Let them dry out for a week or so somewhere out of the sun.

Tomato 
There are several ways to do tomatoes, some easy, some with better results.  In all cases you gather them when the tomato is at it's best.  Which, to me makes tomato saving the easiest.  When the plant is at it's juiciest, and best flavor, is when you want to pick it anyway.  And that's when the seeds are ready.  The cheater way :) that doesn't get as good of results (not sure the specifics here), is to simply wash them off as best you can, and dry them like pepper seeds.

The more advanced way, which has better results, is to put them in a jar, with all the pulp and everything (everything that's left over when you slice up the tomato for your sandwich) the pulp goo and the seeds, with plastic wrap on the top (with a hole or 2 in it so air can get in/out).  Leave that for 3 or 4 days til it molds really well :) yum.  then, wash them off.  Put them all "under" water, and the ones that don't float are good to be dried.  Then just dry them like normal, and they're ready to go.  Just make sure they are completely dry.  This method removes more of the goo, and makes the seed better at germinating in the following years when the seed is used.


Experienced:
Here's a group of links to seedsave.org for each of the experienced plants:  Or view my shortened version below.  These links are useful for experienced, because they go into what plants are the same species as what.  Very useful with squash and muskmelons.
Corn, Cucumber, Muskmelon, Radish, Spinach, Squash/Pumpkin. 


Corn
Other than worrying about other corn plants around, which if you're worried about genetically modified plants is a real worry, corn is easy.  Simply leave a cob on 6 or more plants, until they get completely dry.  Then pull off the cobs, pull out the kernels, and save them.  Corn is really really bad at cross pollinating.  If you live within a few miles of GMO (genetically modified) plants, then chances are that you aren't going to be able to save them without getting those modifications in yours.  Sorry.


Cucumber
This is a lot like peppers.  You do need to be sure that there is only your 1 type of cucumber around, within a few hundred feet at least, but other than that you simply leave a cucumber on the wine per plant until it gets all yellow.  Then save the seeds from that cucumber by cutting itup (using a knife all the way through the plant will likely cut up some of the seeds, which isn't ahuge problem, but it means you have to pick those out, which can be annoying), and then just wash the seeds and let them dry.

Muskmelon - I don't grow these :) you'll have to look it up.  The link above splits these into all the species, which is really excellent.  

Radish
These are basically the same as peas, if you can believe that.  But that's actually something really awesome about radishes, that I just learned.  Radishes when they "bolt", kinda like lettuce, grow splindly little vine things that have tons of seed pods on them.  These pods, when they are green, are actually supposed to be very tasty, basically a pea pod with a slight radish flavor to it.  When the pods are allowed to grow brown, then you can simply harvest the seeds like peas.  Though the seeds are tiny.

note - because we're supposed to save seeds from 6 or more plants, this makes a perfect compromise.  Because that means you save like 10 or 20 pods per plant, and eat the rest as green pods. Meaning very little waste.  I'm actually tempted to grow a few radishes this year specifically for pods, simply to see what the yield is like, and how good they really are.

Another note - radish, as well as most other plants that bolt, get really tall, and take up much more room when you let them go to seed.  You should give them a good sq ft per plant, which will require a little planning depending on how/where you plant them.  I'm only planning on 2 sq ft, so this might prove to be a little of a challenge.  I'll see how it works to let 4 go to seed in the same sq ft :).  And let you know.

Spinach
Spinach works just like lettuce, the only thing to worry about here is that there is only 1 type of spinach because they cross pollinate.  I'm not sure what the site means per sey, but it also says that you should have 1 male plant per ever 2 female plants.  Not sure how to tell the difference if there is one.  I'm assuming that just means leave groups of 3, and give them at least 8" of space.

Squash/Pumpkin
View the link above to find out which plants mix with which.  Evidently acorn squash and zucchini mix :( so I won't be able to save seeds from them this year.  Other than that these are saved a lot like cucumbers.  They need to be allowed to fully ripen, depends on the plant, and then cut open and washed and allowed to dry.

Expert:
I left the links here too to determine species that cross-pollinate.

Beet/Swiss Chard, Cabbage Family, Carrot, Escarole/Frissee, Onion,Radicchio/Endive, Turnip/Chinese Cabbage

I'm not going to list each of these out til i've actually tried them.  There are youtube videos for most, and some, like carrots, are actually quite easy to do.  However they grow to be extremely tall, which can make them difficult (being that usually they're not placed in the garden with height in mind).  However they can be moved.  

For the most part these are simply bienniels which means that they need to be left in the ground.  However, some, like cabbage, are better to dig up, and store in a root celler or garage over the winter so they don't freeze.  The next year the plant will go to seed, and you can collect them like any other.

One thing to note is the cabbage family.  It includes broccoli, brussels sprout, cauliflower, cabbage and kale.  So you may have to worry about what to grow what year.  


Most all of these you save your fall plantings, since it needs to go through a given number of hours below 40 degrees.