Saving the World One Seed at a Time

 

Sometimes neglectful gardening pays off. My kale went to seed during this crazy hot month and I just let it go. We are  now collecting all the seeds and will start up our 2nd crop this week. My girls love to help. I did end up putting the huge pile of seed pods into the sheets and let the walk on it a bit. I was able to roll up the sheet and collect thousands of seeds the easy way. We had to collect them pod by pod at first though....why take the fun out of it:)

 

 While I'm talking about how neglectful I have been, I have to say that my best looking tomato plants are volunteers from my leaving a mess in the garden last Fall. I really think that my tomatoes from last year were volunteers from the year before....really... You have to love the Roma's!

What are some of your best surprises in the garden this year?

This is how you get kids to eat vegies!

Why I love Broccoli

My garden is now a skeleton of a memory. The days of fresh tomato salad no longer leave any hint of impression on my taste buds that have grown weary of the tasteless excuses of store bought tomatoes I’ve been subjecting them to.  I am now left to count the days to starting my seedlings once again with dreams of bountiful harvests next year. I have saved my heirloom seeds and they sit on their alter waiting for the winter to pass.  

They will eat the whole plant!

Alas, my garden does not sit barren even on these cold upstate days and frigid nights. I’m inspired by the tenacity of the broccoli plants that hold on to the crisp air and reach as far as they can towards the distant sun. I can always count on many months of enjoyment from the seeds I save over each year. I’m not a good gardener. I don’t claim to be. However, I’ve found that my short comings bring surprising blessings. The broccoli is an example.  

 

They don't even mind the strawberries are gone for now.

Did you know that if you ignore your garden long enough, broccoli has such a will to survive that beautiful yellow flowers will sprout from each delicate floret? I didn’t know this, mostly because until I started this adventure I didn’t know anything about vegetables except how to order them as a side dish.  The tiny yellow flowers are so pretty dusted over the top of a red tomato salad that I’m always glad for my mistakes. My daughters are overjoyed with the concept of flowers you can eat…and perhaps grow into a flower yourself..

If you ignore your garden even longer you will be granted long green seed pods. Ignore them even longer and the stalk turns brown and VOILA you have seeds for the next year. Sometimes I convince myself that I’ve meant to do this…you know, me, the homesteading seed saver.

 

Why do I love growing organic vegetables right outside of my front door? See those two little picky eating girls munching on broccoli? It gives me one of those “good mama” moments when my kids see our garden as the “snacking place”. 

Joy is a pile of leaves on a crisp day!

Tiny Tomatoes Everywhere

I couldn't believe how many tomatoes I got this year! My girls just loved going out to the garden and grazing at snack time. They picked about a hundred of these tiny tasty tomatoes. I grew too many and that really made harvest hard. I read that they grew well with strawberries. THEY DO! I had these started from seed and actually thought I got them in late when I lost a few weeks at the start of summer with back pain. I had replanted my strawberry bed and I had a slow year with them, but we did get enough for our daily grazing trip. It's our favorite time. I actually let some of my broccoli flower because my girls will stand there and pick and eat all the pretty yellow flowers...that's our favorite color around here so eating "yellow" is really cool:) I don't mind having a few plants mature like that when I have two little ones really enjoying eating raw broccoli! (and you can juice the entire broccoli plant) It makes a Mom's heart happy to see a 2 and 4 year old really caring if something is healthy or not. My boys....not so much:( Although my younger son is a vegetarian and aside from wanting the junk does care about what's good for you. He gets expensive with all the Boca burgers I buy.

So, these tiny kind of sad looking tomato seedlings went in late and I planted them way too close I think. I put them around the border of my strawberry bed thinking I was being smart. Wow! In a hot dry summer they still grew to such an extent that I thought they would take over my yard. I had to pull some to save my strawberries. Obviously I should have put them on a trellis, but I had never grown these before. I could have covered a wall with them. I've harvested at least 8 buckets of tomatoes from maybe 20 seeds and some biodome sponges. (I love/hate my biodome...more later on that) I was pretty good at watering twice a day and they had the moisture control from the strawberry plants at their base. The strawberries kept them from ever drying out. I planted a few bean plants in some bare spots within the bed thinking they would pull in some nitrogen. I don't know if I did it right, but I did cut up the bean plant and put it back into the soil. I'm learning as I go with this.

I was lucky enough to get a bunch of wonderful heirloom seeds from my friend and I'm so bad with names that now I don't know exactly what I planted. (Help Jen) I can't tell you right now what these were. I have to tell you that I'm not the most organized person. I know the one plant she gave me was a Crimson Black...?? ok, something like that. They are pictured in the corner of the tray. These are good, but I won't grow them again. This one in the picture is pretty, but the others grew like lobes and it made a good place for bugs to get in. I lost most to bugs or some I couldn't get off the vine without breaking because they grew around it. I grow totally organic so I don't know what I could do to protect tomatoes that grow like that from bugs.

I just canned about 10 qts of salsa / sauce. I added toooooo much vinegar. I followed the directions, so I don't know if it was meant to taste like that or what I did wrong. Anyway, we aren't putting that batch on chips. I wanted to cry (maybe even did a bit) since it's the start of football season and nothing goes better with a Bronco's or Bills game then chips and salsa. To make lemonade out of lemons I used a good bit of it for some chili last night and my husband and son (the meat eating one) raved about it and told me to write down what I did. The joke around here is that they never get the same meal twice. Hey, at least I feed them:)

I need to go out and pull the rest of my tomatoes today. Something is getting them. They are getting brown spots..even the really green ones. I brought some in to see if they would rippen off the vine and be safe from the spots...but nope. I have a tray of tough green tomatoes. Sadly my chickens won't eat tomatoes and I hate to compost anything that could ruin my soil. I hate waste. It was 38 degrees when we got up today..so I'm thinking I need to pull in what I have. My Kale is very happy and I'm very glad I got about 20 plants going early enough to be established. Lots of juicing through the winter.

Fall is coming fast in upstate NY.....that means time for crafts and I'll be getting my knitting needles out soon.

Smiles,
Julie

Carrot Tape

We had some fun with this project. I can't take credit for the idea at all, I read about it in another blog I really enjoy  "http://unusuallyunusualfarmchick.blogspot.com/ ". We got the seed tape that we made in the ground this weekend. It was just a beautiful weekend and I can forget that I hate central NY so much on days like that. I planted the rows in front of the chicken coop where I'm going to put in 5 Roma tomato seedlings that are looking great. I have the tomatos under the light in the basement still and will bring them out around the 20th. I don't want to rush it this year and lose what I've spent so much time nurturing.

I planted 2 rows of sweet peas in the back that will be able to climb up the run fence....protected with hard wire. In front of that are the tomatoes that have some lettuce at the base. The lettuce will be harvested before the tomatoes are very big. I stick lettuce everywhere since it grows quickly and we eat it every day. I then have the carrots in front on one side and beets on the other. I have a juicer and the beet juice can be added to red grape juice and none are the wiser:)  You have to love the juicer when you have picky eaters in the house.

Making the seed tape was a lot of fun. I made up a paste with flour and water and let the kids choose the food color to add to it. I couldn't find an empty glue container so we just used a small paint brush. Once we put the paste and seed on the toilet paper we covered it. I had a bit of trouble with the paper breaking. I tried one with a paper towel and I really liked how that worked. I think I won't use the toilet paper next time. I'm sure the paper towel will work fine in the soil. I did one with paper towel on the bottom and toilet paper on the top. Maybe it needs less cover...I don't know. I'm still learning this. I do know that it was super easy to plant the seeds on the paper. They are all in nice rows now instead of spilled in pile like how it's happened in the past.

3 out of my 4 babies... happy with gardening and chickens. If only life was always this simple.....