Seed Saving 101

For those who were unable to make it to the Seed Saving workshop this month, here are some tips, notes and photos!



Why save seeds?

• It's Cheap! And you end up with basically a free crop for next year
• It's an important way to save heirloom varieties that are otherwise being lost from our food system
• Plants adapt to local conditions and can grow better next year

What do I need?

 

Depending on the seeds you are planning to save, basic tools you'll need are knife, cutting board and paper towel. If tomato seeds are on your list, then you'll also need a jar with lid and water.

Which seeds to save or not save?

• Squash and sweet corn (male/female flower parts) can cross-pollinate and may not necessarily be good the second year
• Carrots/beets are biennial plants, so it takes two years for them to go to seed. It's possible, just more difficult.
• Tomatoes, peppers, beans and peas are easy plants to save seed from.
• F1 hybrid seeds were cross-bred and may not produce desirable results (or not even produce at all!) Open pollinated seeds are heirloom varieties that will yield 'true' generations.

How to save seeds, some common examples:

• Save seed from the most vigorous, healthy plants as these will have the 'strongest' seeds (e.g. natural selection)
• Tomatoes/Cucumbers (see photos below): allow fruit to fully ripen and scoop out seeds and pulp. Place in jar of water for 24-76 hours, to ferment (this releases the lining on the seed, allowing for future germination), stirring the seeds every day. Once seeds have sunk to the bottom, pour liquid away and rinse. Dry on paper towel (preferably out of sunlight) and once completely dry (up to 3 weeks!) place in envelope.
• Peppers: Let pepper fully ripen on fruit and wait until skin starts wrinkle. Remove from pepper and let dry on paper towel. Then place in envelope.
• Peas/Beans: Allow pod to ripen on stalk and start to dry and turn brown. Spread them out on a tray indoors to dry, waiting at least two weeks before shelling. Or you can leave them in the pod until next spring when ready to plant.
• Carrots/Beets: As a biennial plant, carrots (like beets) won't flower until early into the second year after planting. If you want to collect carrot seeds, leave a few in the ground to overwinter and collect seeds once the flowers have seeded and dried the following spring/early summer.

How to store seed:

• Seeds are best stored in paper envelopes in a cool, dark area where temperatures don't fluctuate much.
• Make sure to label your envelopes well with variety type and year. You may even want to leave a few  notes for yourself to remember for next year.

Tomato Seed Saving Photos

When you cut open your tomatoes, you'll see the seeds surrounded by their pulp/coating.
Squeeze all of this out into the jar.

After you squeeze out the pulp and seeds into your jar, throw the rest of your
tomatoes into a blender to make a quick salsa or add them
to your compost pile for next year's crop.

Garden Planning 101

I know, it's already March 1st and I'm JUST starting to plan the garden?!?!  This is the time that seeds should be coming in the mail - and I haven't even ordered them yet!

I'm on a delayed timeline this year for garden planning mostly because life is busy with other things, but I'm cutting myself a break since our growing medium won't be ready until mid-May, so our first round of "cold crops" (those edibles that don't mind a little drop in overnight temperatures) won't be able to go in this year anyway.

Since this is my first time growing on more than 150 square feet of earth, I decided to use an online garden planning tool to help: GrowVeg.com.  This website is full of resources, articles, and online tools.  My favorite is their Garden Planner - an updated version of the graph paper schematic of the garden. The tools essentially allows you to paint your garden full.  You can choose from their selection of plants (including some non-specific "herbs" or "flower" options) and draw in your rows.  The program automatically spaces the plants according to their average spacing needs and counts how many of that plant you just "drew" into your garden.

Crop rotation is an important consideration for the organic farmer and Grow Veg helps with that, too!  By rotating crop families every three years, you lower the chances of passing soil-borne disease on to next year's crop.  It is also a way to avoid depleting the soil of nutrients over time - certain crops use up more of some nutrients than others and by rotating the plantings you give nature time to replenish itself before that crop is planted there again.  The Garden Planner tool color-codes the plants according to their crop family and if you sign up for the $25 subscription you can save your garden plans from year to year and know where you planted which crop families last year - and rotate accordingly.

Another great feature of the Planner, once you have drawn out your garden, you can see a Plant List which gives average planting and harvesting dates (based on your zip code) for each of the crops you've "planted" and the total count of those plants across your whole garden.  Here is a link to the numbers from my first attempt at a 2012 Garden Plan:

Plant List 2012

Keep in mind that we will be practicing Succession Planting in certain areas of the garden, so where there are tomatoes in June there will be spinach in October.  This will help us maximize production and yield (and, ultimately, profits).

Winter Planting in Wisconsin

Though we haven’t yet seen snow (or much frost!) yet this month, the falling leaves tell us that winter is around the corner, which means it’s time to feed the soil, spend time in the kitchen and plant garlic!  Garlic is a member of the Allium family, related to onions, leeks, and shallots.  Allium is actually the Latin word for garlic.

Garlic enjoys the “struggle” of being planted in early winter and staying dormant until early spring when it breaks ground.  However, because it is surviving winter it’s important to “feed” garlic well - planting it in fertile soil and adding compost throughout the growing cycle.  We planted garlic in our Mitchell Park garden last year (harvesting it this June), and we found small (2 inch) heads due to poor fertilizing throughout it’s growing season - especially in early spring it is important to add another inch (or more) on top of the soil.

A friend who owns a farm in Hartford, WI has also offered tips on preparing the garlic for planting - he followed the below process with half of his garlic crop last year and found much better results with those that he “cleaned” versus those that he didn’t.  Here are his tips to help kill mold and other bad things that could potentially stunt or stop the growth of the garlic:

• Soak each clove in a mixture of baking soda and water for about 18 hours (1 TB soda to gallon of water). Include a bit of seaweed fertilizer in the water.
• Dunk each clove in high proof (greater than 85%) vodka just prior to planting

Garlic should be planted about 3 inches deep, 6-9 inches apart.  Be sure to mark your plantings so you remember what not to pull in the spring!  Be sure to mulch the garlic heavily just after the ground begins to freeze.  Then in the spring, when the garlic begins to come up, it is recommended to leave some mulch on the garlic to keep it warm, but thin the mulch slightly around the upcoming shoots, so they don’t have to work as hard to push through.  Again, this is a good time to add 1-1.5 inches of compost to the soil.

For other areas of your garden that won’t be full of garlic, consider planting a cover crop such as winter rye, clove, or buckwheat.  At this time of the year in Wisconsin, winter rye is your best bet as it will survive the first few frosts if needed.  Cover crops are quick-growing grasses that keep down weeds, protect the soil and even add nutrients.  We planted Winter Rye in Mitchell Park last year and I found the soil beautifully soft and dark this spring.  Plant the cover crop by “scattering” seeds over the soil and lightly raking them in.  Be sure to water them consistently until they germinate - for winter rye this is as quick as four days.  Once they’ve sprouted you don’t have to think about them until the following spring.  Kill the plants in early spring by turning them back into the soil as a “green manure” (or fresh compost).  Wait two weeks before planting your spring crops to be sure the cover crop has fully broken down in the soil. This is a great way to maintain the health of your soil - even through the winter!