Month: October 2010

finis.

That’s it.  The 2010 growing season is officially over.   The fact that we made it to October 28th is actually pretty remarkable.    What makes it officially over?

This is, or rather, was, my basil plant.  Last night the temps got down below freezing, and that was the end.  Of course, you can still see the parsley and the rosemary there next to the basil looking alive and vibrant, but the demise of the basil and any other tender growth is confirmation that the gardening year has drawn to a close.

I just went out and harvested my one lone butternut squash.  It’s still got a faint green tinge to it, but it feels solid.  I need to find out if it will ripen further now that it’s off the vine.  If not, it will be dinner tomorrow night with an amazing homegrown roasted chicken.

I’m getting anxious for those seed catalogs to start rolling in!

A Blank Slate

Our weather is beautiful right now! It’s Indian Summer all right, and it’s perfectly timed to get us out in the yard doing some leaf-raking and other yard work.

A week ago we had our first frost warnings of the season.  I went back and forth several times on whether or not to cover… and in the end I decided to cover just the basil and the tomatillo.  In anticipation of the frost, I went out and picked all the green tomatoes.

And then it didn’t frost here. :p

Apparently it stays a touch warmer here in the city, and there was frost on the roofs, but not on the ground.  With Indian Summer in full swing, there is a piece of me rolling my eyes at myself, wishing I wouldn’t have picked the green tomatoes.

Then again, had I left them, I could have gotten a few more ripe tomatoes, but not many.  So instead, I was able to take full advantage of the beautiful weather and rip all the plants out.  The sweet peppers I left- I’m really hoping the Red Marconis will turn red- but other than that, the tomato and pepper patch is gone.

The kids gardens are gone.

And Andy finally removed the large privet bush and grapevine- and look what we found! More sunshine. (And a seriously leaning fence…hope we can talk the neighbor into removing the tree that is pulling the fence over.)

My herbs are still chugging along in their strip of yard, and I actually have one butternut squash still defying the odds and managing to avoid being eaten by a bunny.

But I’m really excited about next year.  With my garden gone, I sat down in the yard last Friday and just relished my space.  While I had a terrible gardening year- it was not all for naught.  I learned quite  a bit about where we live.  Number one: there are no feral cats in our corner of the city.  Because of that, the critters and rodents are abundant.  Nothing I did this year kept the rabbits away, so we’re going to do the one thing I know to do to beat them.  And that is go up.

Andy is going to build me raised beds that are two feet tall- plenty of height to keep the rabbits out.   The raised beds will also be adaptable, so that we can make one or two a hoophouse and maybe get a jump start on growing season.  Fencing will be our friend, and I’m going to have to invest in floating row cover as well to keep the squirrels out when the seeds are first in the ground.

I’ve learned that next year I want to cut back on tomatoes.  Oh, I love them dearly, but I’d like to focus on the ones that I know taste delicious, as well as the more abundant ones.  I plan to trial one or two new varieties, but 20 new-to-me plants at once are a little silly.   Next year I will have an abundance of tomatoes.

Is it spring yet?

Seed Saving

I’ve never been a seed saver before.

The only seeds I ever really made use of from something I grew was chive seed.  As my chives would flower, they would eventually dry up, and when I plucked them off the plant, I would scatter the seeds right back into the soil there.

That’s the closest I got to seed saving.

A few weeks ago, I was eyeing up the last two Black Cherry tomatoes from our adventure in the Twin Cities.  I was going to just pop them in my mouth and savor them until next year, when I decided that if I was going to learn to save seed, this was the time.

I headed to about.com and found a great tutorial on saving seeds.  I followed it pretty closely.  The biggest difference I had was that I didn’t need a spoon, because they were tiny cherry tomatoes.  I just split them open with my fingers, scraped the seeds into an 8 oz canning jar and popped the remainder into my mouth. ( Still delicious without the seed juice.)  I added about 3 ounces of water to the jar, shook it a bit, and then added a simple lid.  My lid was a piece of paper towel, held in place by a canning ring.  I also labeled the paper towel- just in case I got crazy with the seed saving.

It worked just like the tutorial said it would, except that I let my jar sit for a good two weeks before I removed the moldy scum from the top of the jar. I don’t know if I needed to let it go that long, but I was expecting a good layer, and it took that long for it to really develop.

I scooped out the scum, poured the seeds and water into a sieve and ran cold water over them.  After that, I spread them on a paper towel to begin drying.  The tutorial says not to use paper towel, actually, but several hours later, I used my fingers to move the seeds around and separate those which had stuck together.  They are not sticking to the paper towel at all.  Here they are, drying.

Now, as I picked at these seeds to spread them around, Andy jokingly asked if the effort was worth saving the $3 on a packet of seeds.  I kind of laughed with him, and told him maybe not.  But.  There are over 100 seeds here on this small square of towel.  Now we’re up to at least $12 worth of tomato seeds.  And on top of that, these are heirlooms- and a delicious variety at that.   Now I have seeds to start for next year, and I have plenty to share with gardening friends.  Yes, worth the trouble in my book.

Then yesterday, I split a pie pumpkin in half to roast up.  Immediately, I knew I’d be toasting up some pumpkin seeds for eating, but you know I had to do it… 20 Sweet Pie Pumpkin Seeds drying out, to maybe be planted in the future- this pumpkin was very delicious.

Pumpkin seeds don’t need to be treated like tomato seeds- simply dried completely before saving until spring.

And finally, I have my Fortex Pole Bean seeds that I saved earlier this year.  I had some beans that grew into monsters on the plant.  I picked them and decided to try and save the seed from them.  I literally just let the pods sit around until they dried completely.  Then it was a simple matter of peeling them off the very hard and very dry seeds held within.  Voila! Bean seeds for next year.

None of these were difficult to do at all.  I don’t know why I’ve never saved seeds before.  No, wait I do know.  I worry about cross-pollination.  I know better than to save any of my pepper seeds- those cross-pollinate very easily.  But tomatoes are self-pollinating almost all the time.  And while I wouldn’t sell these seeds, in case they don’t produce true Black Cherry plants, they are just fine for me.

I’m rather excited about taking this next step in the world of gardening.