Seed Order

We've been pondering seeds this week. Perhaps the warmer weather has me itching for spring and the return of gardening season.

Each year we try to refine the kinds of crops we grow to be the most efficient for the space we have. I have been trying to concentrate on those crops that will produce the best yield and nutrition. I would like a good balance between crops that can just go into cold storage as opposed to crops that need to be processed. I also try to balance crops that we can eat through out the growing season and crops we can can put up. Each year I also like to try something new. This year there are a couple of new crops we plan to grow and a couple of new methods for growing some.

This year I am not growing sweet corn. We eat a fair amount of it during the summer and I also like to put up a bit in the freezer. Growing this much sweet corn would take up a lot of space and compost. I can find some really nice organic sweet corn at the Farmer's market. So I am going to take 20.00 this summer and buy all the corn I need for our freezer. I do plan to grow some dry field corn this year. Fedco seed company has a nice , very pretty, variety called Painted mountain. I think for the the energy put into the growing of the corn this might give us the best yield. I tried growing corn with the three sisters last year and found that small critters ate our winter squash that has growing under the corn. This year I am going to grown dry beans,black coco, under our corn. The beans will still work as a nitrogen fixer to the soil. The amount of work that goes into processing the dry beans and the corn can wait until I have time to work on it, once they are dry. The great thing about both these crops is that the seed is easily saved for next year.

Winter squash is a winter staple for us. It can be stuffed, put into breads, muffins and soups. It is easy to store and if any should get spots it can be processed later in the winter when there is more time. I saw an absolutely beautiful squash last fall at a friends house. It was called a Marina di Chiogga. It is like a pumpkin. It is green when it is mature. It has warty bumps all over it. It stores extremely well and turns orange the following spring. The taste is supposedly wonderful.

There are a few more herbs I am adding to the herb garden this year: arnica, astragalus, stinging nettle and motherwort. These are all perennials. I start these herbs from seed. It is very affordable this way and I also get to share extras with friends (doing my bit for the informal economy). Tomorrow I will explain why I chose these herbs for our garden.

While we wait to get into the garden we are starting seeds however. I have started brilliant celeric , celery root.I have also started leeks and bunching onions. These all need a little longer to get started and can be put out before the last frost.

What are you planning to grow this year?

Here comes the Sunflower...and a recipe.

Oh the beautiful Sunflower! Big and Bright. In the summer I love to watch the goldfinches swoop through the yard and land on the sunflowers. Bees convene on their big heads.

Why do I wax poetic about sunflowers in February? Well, as much as there are plenty of things about this season that keep me in the moment; long walks on cold days, chickadees calling from the boughs of the field pine in the yard. Sunflowers mean warmth. Sunflowers also mean food. Sunflower seeds are good for you. Last year I harvested the seeds from the sunflowers in our garden. I hung them up to dry for a few days in our shed. I reserved some of the hardiest looking seeds to plant again this year. I planted mammoth grey stripe. The rest were given to a small gerbil we call Munchy who resides in Evan's bedroom. This year I plan to plant quite a few more sunflowers. My hope is that we will be able to provide some of the food for the fowl we plan to bring to our homestead this year.

I don't have the technology to shuck every seed for our own food. I don't have a press for oil either. But I know that as a local food source for seed and oil that it will not be too hard to find soon. There are farms in the Northern Kingdom of Vermont that are experimenting with growing sunflowers. A few years back we were driving past beautiful fields of this workhorses of the flower world. Some of those farms are growing them for fuel for their farm. Last summer I met a woman who grows sunflowers for fuel and food right here in Maine. It is mostly for her own consumption. On ocassion I have also been able to purchase Maine grown sunflower oil.

We have been trying to find a substitute for peanut butter. We had been buying organic peanut butter. But it has just become too costly for our palette. We also would like to find something more local but until we do we have been making sunflower butter with the hope that someday soon we will be able to buy local sunflower seeds.

Sunflower Butter

All measurements are approximate.

A cup or so of sunflower seeds
A couple of tablespoons of sunflower oil
Salt to taste

Put sunflower seeds in a skillet and toast the seeds. Shake pan occasionally. When seeds begin to brown and make a popping sound, take them off the heat.

Grind seeds. I use a grain mill but a food processor or blender will work too. I have ground this find and roughly. It is a matter of preference.

I put all the seeds in a widemouth canning pint jar.

Add oil one tablespoon at a time. Stirring after each tablespoon until you have the consistency you would like. You may want a little more oil.

Add salt to taste.

Enjoy!

Seed Order 2011

It can be a long walk to the mailbox when it is a cool zero degrees outside. But the walk back indoors is always warmer when there is a seed catalog to browse.

The other day the Pinetree Garden Seed catalog arrived. The cover is a delightful mix of reds and greens like a good greens salad. But my go-to catalogue is Fedco with its standard black and white print, witty drawings and thoughtful wise words from C.R. Lawn:

"Even if we wished, we can't go back to an economy based on unsustainable levels of credit. We lack the means and we lack the confidence. On our farms, trickle-down may be a good way to irrigate, but in our economy it is only a good way to irritate. No wonder our political discourse leads us to one sullen ill-mannered impasse after another!"

Wish I wrote that, pretty much says it all these days...but I digress.

I love my Fedco seed catalog. It is a thick rich tome full of really good growing information. I consider it as indispensable a reference as the Encyclopedia of Country living. It is easy to get lost in the catalog during a cold winter day. Goes really well with a cup of mint tea:)

So as we ponder our first full growing year in our new home we have some serious foundation work to lay down in the garden. Last fall I was able to bring many perennials from our last home and transplant them here. But it helps to have some long term goals for our garden and landscape.

Some of these goals include:

• I would like to build some food guilds around the base of a couple of our apple trees this year. This will include planting bulbs around the furthest perimeter around the trees, a mix of food perennials like egyptian onions, rhubarb and some cover crops. There is some great information on building one of these guilds in the book, Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemenway.
• I would like to extend my herb garden to include a few more medicinal herbs.
• I would like to add a few more colorful flowers to help our local pollinators.
• We would like to take a further step in our own self-sufficiency by providing some of our own winter fodder for our live stock.
• I would like to add a few more highbush blueberry bushes. We have some that are almost 4 years old but a few more will help us be self-sufficient for blueberries.
• We transplanted hops from our old home but I would like to get a few more so we have a good hops yard started here.

Another really big goal this year is start many of these plants by seed. We have some really great south facing windows. My goal this year is to start many of the herbs, flowers and other crops by seed. In the past I have made vary valiant efforts to achieve this only to have my efforts and tender care undermined by tomato plant eating cats and a peat pot pillaging dog. We have a couple of shop lights and I am hoping to arrange some sort of arrangement that will not be hindered by any domesticated critters.

As for the ambitious seed list, here are a few of the plants I hope to grow this year...

• Herbs: elacampane,feverfew, lovage,borage,motherwort, lavender,chamomille, toothache plant.
• Flowers: Butterfly bush, bee balm, nasturtiums, lots and lots of Sunflowers, hollyhock.
• Fodder: mangle-wurzel beets, field pumpkins, lots and lots of sunflowers.
• People fodder: Highbush blueberries, Sea Kale a perennial green and all of our other favorite varieties of veg...kennebec and carola spuds, scarlet nantes carrots, contesca romanesco zukes, boston picking cukes, amish paste tomatoes plus a few other heritage tomatoes, scarlet runner beans and so much more...yipee!

My final goal for this year is to save as much seed as possible. As a way of keeping track of this endeavor I will add a saved seed widget at my side bar to document what I have saved; much like what I have done with the food I preserve.

Let's here it for the promise of a new growing season!

Garden Tour and a Recycling tale

This is the main garden. It was here when we moved in. There is garlic,early frosty shelling peas, blackseeded simpson lettuce, perennial sorrel, oregano, egyptian walking onion, red onions and stutgart onions, Purple cone flower, moon lily , asparagus, strawberries, jerusalem artichokes on the north end, peppermint, elderberry, tulips, chives, catnip, evening primrose and primula, garlic with spinach planted underneath. I will put acorn squash, zucchini,  pole beans and tomatoes at the farther end when it is time to plant them.
This bed was our first potato patch we started when we moved here.  There is kale, broccoli, rutabaga, leek, onion, cabbage planted in it. I have the floating row covers on the brassicas to prevent flea beetle. On the far end is one of three patches of snap peas and carrots that foloow the whole length of the main garden. Last year those spots were huglekulture with potatoes. There is a new hugleklture on the far side of the garden that I will put an over flow of seed potatoes in.
This is our potato patch this year. Half of it is planted. So far there are  carolla, yukon gold and caribe, saved from seed from last years crop.  We planted yellow finn, a variety we found a the Fedco Tree sale.  WE have Kennebec, a plain white potato we grew from an old bag of store potatoes and a friend gave us a bag of table reds that had grown eyes.  On the other side of the foot bridge we plan to grow popcorn. In between the new potato bed and the old bed is a where we had our corn last year.  It is looking pretty fried. No weeds have grown in the spot where the corn was so I may heavily compost and sheet mulch it and try some fall crops in it later in the year when it has had a chance to come back to life.
This is the  former inside of our dryer. I have painted it red and plan to plant nasturtiums in it. It should be a great humingbird attractor.
It has nice drainage!  It's the little things:)

Hubby salvaged the exterior of the dryer to use as metal to weld to the rusty bits of our car. 

Dreaming in green...

No, not the Moola green, the garden green.

Drooling over seed catalogues, outlining garden plans of pieces of graph paper, working and reworking the seed list are  all games of fantasy that I play this time of year.

There are several ways one can approach the garden every year.  Do you buy your seed from a catalogue  and start everything from seed?  Do you just grow some veggies from seed right in the garden but tomato and pepper seeds as seedlings?   Do you save seed?  Is the investment in money in the spring saving you money in the long run?

I'd like to answer this last question anecdotally.  

About 10 years ago I was financially strapped. Because of health reasons, I had to reduce my work hours.  The amount of money that I had to spend on food was not much. I had a community garden plot for about 2 years at this time.  So that spring,  I took a little money from my tax return. The plot rental was 15 dollars. I bought spinach, pole beans, pie pumpkin, beet, carrot, swiss chard. I bought 1 six pack of tomatoes and one pack broccoli  at the farmer's market. In all I probably spent 30 dollars on seed and seedlings.  Some things volunteered in the garden: dill, marigold, chamomile.  Other gardeners would leave extra seeds and seedlings for the taking. The community garden provided the manure,  fish emulsions and hay.  The whole garden was organic. Did I save any money?  Yes I did.  For the most part I was able to bypass the produce section of the grocery store that summer.  The money I would have spent on produce was instead used for meat and staples.  If I were to find myself in the same situation today, I would take that savings and buy an extra pound of dry beans,  barley or rice to stock my larder each week.  I was able to freeze shredded zuchinni ( to put in muffins and soups), broccoli and pole beans in my small apartment refridgerator.  Someone gave me my hot water canner that summer so I put up my first few jars of tomatoes that year.  I also dried herbs.  That garden plot was only 10 feet by 15 feet. By planting things that grew vertically, I was able to get a lot in that small space.  I also made sure to plant nutrient dense foods.

Ideally, it would be great if we could all buy the open pollinated , heirloom seed that are organically grown from ethical seed producers.  But personal financial realities limit those choices for many. So here are a few money saving tips I have learned along the way.

First, If you buy winter squash like butternut, buttercup or pie pumpkin, save their seed.   Because these plants are grown in large fields, the possibility of cross pollination is lower, than squash grown in a home garden.  All you need to do is lay the seed out on a napkin to dry.  Put in an envelope and don't forget to label. Winter squash stores well in a cool room.  Try not to bump them too much or to store them touching or they will get soft spots sooner rather than later. Just make sure to check on them regularly and cook up any that are getting soft spots.

Second, commercially grown potatoes ( as opposed to organically grown) have a growth inhibitor sprayed on them to prevent the eyes growing on them.  However, if you have old potatoes growing eyes then these potatoes  look very much like the seed potato you buy.  Last year, a friend gave us a 50 pound  bag of commercially grown spuds that we were unable to get to.  So we cut them up, allowing 2 eyes per piece, and planted them as an experiment.    We grew a good crop of those potatoes along with the other spuds we grew.  Potentially 5 pounds of potatoes are grown for every pound planted.    I store these in 5 gallon buckets under my bathroom sink. And I save any of the very small potatoes I harvest for seed.

Third, In the fall look for end of the season seed sales.   I always hit the FedCo tent at the Common Ground Fair because they have seed marked down by 30 percent.   I always find new varieties to give a try.  Propagation rates are not always a 100 percent but I have never had an outright crop failure because I used seed over a year old.  I would try  to avoid dollar store seed that is old because I have heard that the propagation rates are poor.

Fourth, know your varieties.  Boston Pickling Cucumber, Black Seeded Simpson lettuce are common heirloom varieties.   That means that you can save their seed.  Is that lettuce starting to bolt?  Let it go to seed.  Save the seed and you'll have seed for next season or  better yet a succession crop.  Let a few of those cucumbers get to the big, yellow stage, clean out the seed and dry as you would squash.

Fifth, Seed and Seedling Swaps.  Do you have perennials that you have to divide in the spring? Bring some of these to a local seed/ seedling swap.  You can find out about this through local gardening clubs and cooperative extensions.

Sixth, the reason for vegetable gardening is to grow your own food.  Does your neighbor always have a bumper crop of tomatoes while yours are wilting on the vine? But, you grow great corn. How about working with a neighbor.  Have your neighbor grow extra tomatoes while you grow extra corn and then split the harvest.  Not only does this put some tomatoes in your cupboard but it also builds community which is something that will be more important the further we get into these  troubling times.

Seventh, start as much of your seedlings from seed.  One seed packet of heirloom tomatoes goes for about 2.50 3.00 a packet of seed. But you get many more tomatoes than the 6 pack of seedlings you get at the local greenhouse.  If you get heirloom variety you can save the seed and not spend ANY money on tomato seed next year.  A Big savings in the long run.

Eighth, Do not forget the lowly worm.  I am a convert to vermicomposting.  They eat your food scraps, they poop, they make compost (frass).  They provide good fertilizer for your garden.

Ninth, if you don't already, consider organic gardening .  Healthy Soil = Healthy food.  The application of chemical fertilizers does not feed the soil which in the long run depletes the soil of good micro-organisms.  Good soil is a long term investment you can count on.

Do you have any money saving gardening tips?

Seed Order

In the spirit of keeping with my New Year's Resolutions, I have inventoried my current garden seed and made a list of what I will need for the coming growing season.

What I need to get: carrot seed, rutabaga, onion, corn,pop corn, acorn squash, butternut sqaush, pie pumpkin, large pumpkin for pig feed, bell pepper, hot pepper and greens.

I hit the Fedco tent at the Common Ground Fair this past fall and picked up many packs of seeds on sale. I buy my seed from mostly local seed companies Fedco and Pinetree Garden Seed.  I also like to put in a small order to Seeds of Change.

here is my list for Fedco:

Ashworth organic OP sweet corn ( 72 days)

Golden Bantam organic OP sweet corn (85 days)

Pennsylvania Dutch Butter popcorn (102 days)

Table queen Acorn squash

Ponca baby butternut squash

Long Pie Pumpkin

Connecticut Field pumpkin

Scarlet Nantes carrots

Peacework bell peppers

Early jalepeno pepper

Alisa Craig onion

From Pinetree I ordered:

Toothache plant

motherwort

Fenugreek

Black hollyhock

cleriac large prague

rutabaga Laurentian

onion south port red globe 

rattlesnake pole bean

Jacob's cattle dry bean

Cabbage Brunswick

Hopi red dye amaranth

Woad

All varieties are Open pollinated and heirloom to increase my ability to save seed this year.  It is our hope to provide some feed for our animals by our own efforts which is why we are growing 2 varieties of sweet corn and field pumpkin.  I am also working to build a medicinal herb garden and perhaps a garden for natural dyes.  We will be ordering some berries and some pear trees from Fedco as well so we can take advantage of their tree sale in the spring.

Only 74 days until spring!!!

seed saving and fermentation

Do you save seeds?  This is the time of year that I take stock of the seed I have saved from this years garden: stiff neck garlic 

                         caribe potato

                         Kennebec potato

                         Onaway potato

                         Carolla potato

                         marigold

                         calendula

                         mercado amaranth

                         soybeans

                         oldtimer down the road drybeans 

                         3 varieties of tomato seed all heirloom varieties.

This was my first year saving Tomato seed.  The process was very easy and uses one of my favorite things in the whole entire world...fermentation.  You scoop out the seed from your heirloom variety put in a cup with a little water. Cover the cup with cheese cloth or muslin.  Let the seeds ferment for 2-3 days in a warm spot .  A scum will form on the surface.  The fermentation helps to break down the sack around the seed.  After fermentation is complete, rinse off the seeds and lay them out to dry.  Be sure to keep your labeling consistent through out the process, if you are saving several varieties at a time.  

I consider seed saving  a form of making do.  Why buy the same seeds every year when you can save some from the best produce that you grow? I am still new at it but love that each year the list grows longer. I highly recommend Seed to Seed by Suzanne Ashworth if you are considering saving seed.  It is the bible on the subject.

Speaking of fermentation, a new friend has given me a kombucha mother.  Yesterday was my first time trying kombucha.  It is a yummy drink that has sort of a acidic bite like cider.  It is full of really beneficial microbes.  It is made from sweetened black tea and fermented with a mother.  I made my first batch yesterday so it should be ready next weekend.  Thanks Peggy!