Saving Seeds

Okay Kids, so this time of year is great. "GREAT?" you may say. Zach please explain. The upside is that you get to start you collecting for next year's seeds. If you have a particular type of non-Hybrid plant that you just can't live without and want next year...why not save some seeds from it. This year, I am saving seeds from a couple different types of seeds. I'll be saving my Scarlet Runner Beans, Radishes, Peas, and Marigolds. These are really some easy seeds to harvest for beginners since there are no special techniques as compared to say tomatoes. Here is the Link on how to collect tomato seeds.

 These are pretty self explanatory, because all you have to do is take off the hull around seeds. I think the key thing is to be sure that everything is completely dry.

 So once I have harvested the seed pods, i leave them inside for a couple of days, to insure that they are completely dry. After which I start to hull them. Be sure to store them in ziplock baggies, mark their names, and dates on the bag too.

So once I have harvested the seed pods, i leave them inside for a couple of days, to insure that they are completely dry. After which I start to hull them. Be sure to store them in ziplock baggies, mark their names, and dates on the bag too.

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Beans, tomatoes, and greens

This is a shoulder season in my vegetable gardens, maybe a bit earlier than normal, as mild weather has slowed tomato and pepper ripening, and fostered early sowings of fall greens and root crops.

I've pulled up most of the tomatoes, which were fading, aside from the cherries, which just keep going, in order to sow fall veggies (spinach, lettuce, mustards, beets, turnips, kale, and collards, etc.)

I've had great poblano peppers for the first time -- curious -- they were in a lower light bed below the house, and maybe with the milder summer?

The pole beans (romano, lazy wife, and Kentucky wonder) are still producing, and there were finally some yard-long beans developing last week in the mountains.

A final spurt of beans

But they won't make much more progress, and will turned over to fall and winter greens, as well, sometime soon.

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Finally, some green beans

I never thought it would be mid-August when I'd harvest my first beans of the season.  They're lovely French filet pole beans (I think). 

I poked in seeds very late, not expecting very much, but finally, I had 5 lovely beans to harvest. They'll be great with the (first) Cozelle zucchini that will be ready tomorrow!  Curious.

I'm already thinking about fall vegetables, seeds, sharing thoughts with others about fall vegetable gardening, etc., so it's definitely an odd feeling to have first beans and zucchini. And having summer cilantro that's lasting, too -- how unusual is that?  I'd sowed it thinking 2 weeks, and I've been using it for longer than that, along with lovely large Italian parsley and basil.

We had over an inch of rain this morning - a welcome soaking. 

Time to sow some fall beets, chard, spinach and other greens soon. 

Without the darn woodchucks, I'd put in cole relatives. Oh, well.

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Seeds this Spring - Beans

Okay Kids, Mama always told us to eat our beans. So I am listing to mama (I can hear my mom saying 'Finally!'). I love me some bean so Here are some of the varieties that have bought this year that I have never tried before. I have never grown a pole bean, only the bush beans, Here is what I got.

I always love have teepees in the yard. I have some beautiful metal vintage ones. I want these to grow up those. Last year I had the cucumbers growing up them but the cucumbers went crazy and overtook everything. So not this year. 

Beans should be planted in the ground in Zone 5 in May 3-24th

Of course I will also do some bush beans. like this one

Update: 4/30/14

So here is me planting the beans. I soak my beans overnight so that they sprout faster. As you can tell while I was sowing my seeds i had an ice cream craving! Geez was that good! I will show you in another post how to make the newspaper pots. They will save you so much money and are so easy to make.

 
Sow the seeds 1/2" deep and I always start my seeds on a heat mat. makes things go soo fast.

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Beans

Yard-long beans, greasy-cut beans, Italian Romano beans, and French filet pole beans have been on the menu for weeks, but the supply finally overwhelmed our ability to eat them in a timely fashion.

So, it was time to start blanching them to freeze, and this nice assortment has ended up as freezer packages ( hmm, but more beans are coming).

Bean harvest

I roasted some red 'Pizza' peppers, too, and froze them. This has been a year for early ripening of abundant peppers as well as an unusual number of tomatillos so far, with more to come. They're often a no-show harvest for me. I've already harvested a gallon-size bag of them (now roasted and frozen).

The tomatoes are slowing down, except for the small plum tomatoes and the cherries.

And I sowed some early beets, kale, arugula, spinach, and cilantro this afternoon. It's always a bit of a juggle between warm season and cool season veggies. In this case, I pulled out a lavender that was in decline due to the warm wet summer, along with some accompanying thymes, so had some 'new' space to plant. But I've also pulled out some spent tomatoes in the lower bed, so it'll be ready for greens, too, as are the beds back in the Piedmont.

It's amazing how productive these small beds in the mountains are, although admittedly I've expanded the original raised beds to include a number of border beds between us and our neighboring apartment. (These have been flourishing with beans and squash.)

 

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