Saving Seeds - Part 1 Dill, Cilantro, and Peas

As promised in my earlier Seed Packages post, here is the first in a short series of posts on saving seeds.  I will add to the series as seeds in my garden become available for saving.

The first of the plants to set seeds in my garden are the early spring leafy greens including various leaf lettuces and spinaches.  When the weather gets warm these leafy greens bolt, meaning they send up a flower stalk with the intent of reseeding themselves.  I do not have any pictures of my early greens but they follow the same lifecycle and their seeds can be saved in the same way as the dill and cilantro. Chives and onion seeds can also be saved as described in this post.

As you may have noticed, most plants produce a flower at some point in their lifecycle.  These flowers may, after pollination, produce a fruit in (or in the case of strawberries on) which the plant's seeds are found or instead the flowers may go straight to seed without producing a fruit.

As a side note, have you ever wondered about the real difference between a fruit and a vegetable? If the part of the plant you eat grew from the plant's flower, then it is a fruit.  If you eat the plant's leaf, root, stalk, flower, or other part that didn't grow from the plant's flower then it is a vegetable.  So that makes tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, beans, avocados and many others fruit.  Somewhere I read that "Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit but wisdom is knowing NOT to put it in a fruit salad."

It makes sense that the first plants in the garden to have seeds that can be harvested and saved for future growing seasons are vegetables (and herbs) since fruits take much longer to develop.

In general for vegetable and herb seeds, you can simply collect the seeds from the plant when the seeds are full sized but before they have completely dried out or started to drop from the plant.  The harvested seeds of this type are best collected in paper bags (lunch sized works for most) then allowed to dry in the house in a cool dry location.

One day many years ago I planted one, just one dill plant.  I haven't planted one since.  But I get dozens of plants every year.  Why?  Because one dill plant can produce a bazillion seeds (ok maybe more like several hundred).  And those seeds can stay in the ground lurking for years until just the right environment exists to germinate.  And with each passing crop of dill, I am incapable of collecting all the dill seeds so the problem is perpetuated from season to season.

Well I guess I could yank out all the dill plants, but I like them so I let them grow.  I do collect and save dill seed each year.  For me, the dill seed is for pickling and cooking rather than starting new plants.  Once the seeds are ready for long term storage (meaning they have fully dried out) I keep my dill seeds in a jar in the spice cabinet.  My garden sufficiently produces enough new dill plants each year I never need to plant a dill seed on purpose.

Dill flowers

Dill plants start to flower after only a few weeks of germination.  The flowers are tiny and yellow growing in an umbel shape.  This is the same flower shape found with carrots and Queen Annes Lace which isn't all that surprising since all three plants are from the same family.

Dill seeds ripening, ready to be taken inside and dried

After a short time the flower dries out and seeds begin to form.  Pictured above you can see some dill flowers in the far right.  The majority of the picture are the swelling seeds that have grown from the flowers.  Once the dill seeds get to this size, you can clip off the whole head of seeds and store it in a paper bag for drying.  And no matter how familiar you are with your seeds, always label your paper bags.  Dill is pretty obvious because of its pungent fragrance but with many seeds, once dried, you will have no idea what those seeds are.

Dill seed a few days away from reseeding the garden

If you leave the seeds in the garden they will continue to dry out on their own like the ones shown in the picture above.  Dill seeds only take a short time to go from plump green seeds to the fully dried and ready to use seeds below.

Dill seed ready to cook with or plant

Cilantro has a similar life cycle to dill and is harvested the same way.  Below is a nice cilantro flower.  These flowers hang around for a few days then start to fade as seeds form.

Cilantro Flowers

In the picture below you can see cilantro seeds in various stages.  The bright green ones to the left are fully grown but have not yet started to dry out.  In the lower middle of the picture the seeds that look a bit pink have started to dry, seeds in this stage are the best to harvest.  The darker brown seeds are fully dry (see how much smaller they are than the other seeds that haven't dried yet).  These brown seeds are hours away from falling to the ground to produce new cilantro plants next season.

Cilantro seeds on the plant, some dried (the darker brown near the top right corner), and some in process, ready to be picked and dried inside (center)

You can harvest cilantro seeds at any point in their cycle once they have plumped to full size.  Again just pop the seeds in a paper bag to dry in your home in a cool dry place.  The dried seeds are the spice coriander (which is used in many curries and other yumminess) which taste nothing like cilantro.  So this is a double duty plant.

Coriander, also known as cilantro seeds 

If you don't harvest the seeds, next year your garden will look like the picture below.  I didn't plant any of these cilantro plants.  They were all grown from last year's seed that fell to the ground.  As you can see, not harvesting seeds can make a real mess.  There is also a volunteer cherry tomato plant in the picture.

Volunteer Cilantro

Peas take a little longer to produce seed.  Now to be clear, if you eat a pea it is food.  If you let the pea dry out on the vine it is a seed that will produce a new pea plant.  In fact, there are many peas that stay on the vine too long in my garden to be eaten so I just let them dry into seed.  The longer a pea stays on the vine the more of the natural sweet sugar in the pea turns to starch making the pea taste bland and, well, starchy rather then sweet.  Once the pods start to get a little leathery is usually when the peas have past their prime eating stage and are better left for seed.

In the picture above these pods are obviously dried out.  I just pluck them off the vine and pop the pod and all into a paper bag.  You can shell the dried seed peas out of their pods after they are fully dry.  I recommend shelling the peas after they have dried for a couple of weeks rather than leaving the peas in the pods until next year.

Sometimes I wait until the entire pea vine has died back to harvest the seed peas.  Peas on a vine that looks like this are almost completely dry and usually only need a few extra days of drying inside.

Again just label your bags then keep them in a cool dry place while the seeds finish drying.  Please note that this method is not the right method for dealing with wet seeds like those of tomatoes, cucumbers, or peppers.  More on those later.

Once your seed are fully dry, you can move them into the Seed Packages you made earlier.

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Storing Onions

So you may remember my post on Harvesting Onions with all those beautiful onions hanging on a ladder in my garage to cure.

Well those onions have now dried and look like this. 

 

The next step is to cut them down and put them into storage waiting to be used up.  With proper storage these onions will last many, many months.

The first thing I did was cut the bunches down by cutting the twine off the ladder.  Next I cut each onion off of the bunch with scissors cutting the next about an inch or two above the onion bulb.  A few of the larger onions still had wet necks, meaning the stem growing out of the top of the onion was still wet of juicy when I cut it.  These onions need to dry more or they will not store properly.  I moved these into my kitchen to be used first, just in case.

Ready to move from the garage into long term storage

I have a pantry downstairs which is underground.  It stays cool and dry all year long.  That is the perfect place for my onions.  There are a number of ways to store onions.  Some people use bins with lots of small holes to allow for air circulation.  Some people encase the onions in panty hose, knotting between the onions then cutting off onions as needed.

I use this hanging mesh toy storage thingee I purchased from IKEA years ago. 

I put the onions in a single layer in each level of the mess hanging thingee (what is this thing called anyway).  The mesh allows for sufficient air circulation around the onions. 

I check the onions periodically to look for any that are getting soft, smell bad, or have sprouted. Remove any of those types of onions immediately to keep the rest of the onions from going bad.

Keep in mind that home grown onions will not store as long as grocery store onions because grocery store onions are sprayed with a sprout inhibitor right before they are cured.  Homegrown onions often try to sprout before the next year's onion crop is ready.  You can eat sprouted onions.  Just don't leave sprouted onions to set with the rest of the storage onions too long.

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Harvesting Onions

This weekend it was time to harvest our onions.  Most years we grow two or three varieties of onion from seed with the goal of planting enough onions to last until the next year's harvest.  This year with the weird weather not allowing us to get seed into the garden early enough, and with our thoughts on moving (how much stored produce do we really want to move across country) we planted a small number of onions from sets.  Well a small number for us anyway.

An onion set is a small onion bulb.  Some grower somewhere planted onion seeds and grew them for a while until each seed grew into an onion bulb about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch in diameter.  The grower harvested all these little bulbs, cured them, bagged them up, then sold them to a middlemen who sold them to a retailer who sold them to me. 

We took the bag of onion sets home, prepared a garden bed for them and planted them in the soil.  Two months (give or take) later the onions were ready to harvest.  Onions tell you when they are ready to harvest by falling over.  Garlic does the same thing.  Rather handy actually.  If you leave the onions in the ground after they fall over, it won't be long before all those green onion tops dry out and eventually blow away making it difficult to find the onions.  So I try to harvest before the tops dry out.

Onions laying down and ready to harvest

Harvesting onions is simple in a properly prepared bed.  Grab the neck of the onion as close to the top of the bulb as you can and gently pull.  Usually the onions pull out easily.  In the picture below you can see how few roots the onion bulb has.  While it was growing it had a much larger mass of roots. 

Pull gently

I put all the onions into trugs for easy hauling around the yard.

Onions harvested, now the real work begins

Now that the onions are all harvested, we have to do something with them.  If I only grew a few, I would just rinse them off and keep them in the kitchen to be used up.  But I have more than a few days worth of onions so I need a way to store them for a longer time.  In order to store onions, they need to be properly cured.  Curing is a process where the outer layer of the onion bulb and the neck of the onion (the place where the green top grows out of the bulb) is dried so that the onion inside stays usable for months and months.

I like to rinse the dirt off of the onions before I cure them.  First I laid the onions out on the driveway in a single layer.

Laid out and ready for a rinse

Next I rinsed the dirt off the onions with the hose.  My helper had great fun with this task.

My helper

As you can see from the before and after rinsing pictures below, this is not going to make the onions dirt free.  But it will make them a lot cleaner.

Before

After - not perfect but much cleaner

Once the onions are all rinsed, I leave them on the driveway to dry out for a couple of hours. 

Rinsed off and left to dry

After the onions dried out on the driveway for a couple of hours it was time to tie them up in bunches.  Depending upon the size of the onions, I group them into bunches of 6 to 10 onions then tie up each bunch with twine.  I use 18 to 24 inches of twine for each bunch.  After each bunch is tied up, I cut off the green tops 8 to 10 inches or so above the twine. 

Tied and ready to cure

In the picture above you can see all the onions tied up in neat bunches ready to cure. 

The pile of onions above the bunches are onions that either did not have a green top to tie up (because I pulled the top off while trying to get the onion out of the ground) or were not really fit to be cured.  A few of the onions had really thick or big necks.  An onion with a large neck will not cure well.  Usually those onions rot after a month or so of harvest because the neck never dries out "sealing" the onion inside.  So this pile of onions I just move into the kitchen to be used up first.

The last step in curing the onions is to store them somewhere where they will get lots of air circulation and be able to dry out the outer layers and neck properly.  For us, this is our garage.  It is warm all summer and has ceiling fans running constantly.  I hang the onion bunches on a ladder in the garage and leave them there for 2 to 3 weeks until they are ready for storage in a cool pantry in our basement.  Someday I hope for a root cellar.  For more information about storing onions, see my Storing Onions post here.

Curing

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Nourishing Meatloaf

When you think of meatloaf, you probably are not thinking so much about nourishment.  You are probably thinking of a basic meat and potatoes man-pleasing dinner.  And it certainly is that.  But with a little thought, meatloaf can be a surprising nourishing meal.

When it comes to food choices, I do not worry about sugar, calories, or fat grams. Instead I concern myself with nourishment.  Is what my family puts into our mouths nourishing us?  Is this giving us what we need to live in a strong and healthy way?  Is this actually food? 

I am paying attention to things I do not want to put into my body like chemically altered ingredients (shortening, margarine, any hydrogenated fat, sugar substitutes, etc.), preservatives, non-food food dyes, poison, and similar items. 

Nourishment involves eating actual food containing all the things your body needs and preferably none of the things your body doesn't need.  So back to the meatloaf.  My meatloaf recipe is not only nourishing, it also helps use up some of the summer garden abundance. 

I start with a selection of vegetables fresh from my garden in summer (and fresh from the grocery store or freezer in winter) and grains.

Barley and Kamut along with garden veggies add a large nutritional punch to the meatloaf

First the veggies are chopped and sautéed in a little olive oil.  I love my cast iron pan.


While the veggies cook, I boil the grains.  Grains cook like rice (not minute rice).  Generally 1 part grain to 2-2 1/2 parts water.  If you don't cook the grains before adding them to the meatloaf, someone might need a trip to the dentist.  One note, rolled oats (like the stuff in instant oatmeal) does not need to be precooked. Steel cut oats do need to be pre-cooked.  Rolled oats are already precooked (betcha didn't know that did you).

Any grains you have on hand will do including rice, oats, wheat, barley, and quinoa.  I chose to use Kamut wheat and hulled barley. 

Cooking the grains

While the veggies and grains cook, combine one pound of ground meat with two eggs.  I used ground beef but any ground meat will do.

Once the grains and veggies are cooked, add them to the meat and eggs.




There are times where I will puree the cooked vegetables before adding them in.  It tends to hid the presence of veggies.  My daughter is pretty good about eating her veggies but she goes through phases.  Personally I like to see the chunks of bright color in the mix.  You will also want to add some bread crumbs to help hold the meatloaf together.

At this point I add in any seasonings.  Usually I use a little salt and pepper, some catsup, Worchestershire sauce, and various herbs.  Sometimes I also add parmesan cheese for extra flavor.  But feel free to spice up (or down) the mixture to your own liking.

Mix everything up together real well.  You could use a stand mixer for this purpose but I just use my hands.  If you use your hands, be careful, the vegetables and grains could be hot.

Once everything is mixed together real well, shape the meatloaf.  I like to make individual loaves which cook faster than a bread pan full of meatloaf.  But the choice is yours.


Cook at 350 for about 40 minutes.

Ready for the plate

Here is the recipe in a more concise manner:

1 lb. ground meat
2 eggs
2 cups chopped vegetables (try onions, carrots, peas, bell peppers, green beans or any combination)
2 Tbls olive oil
1/2 cup uncooked grains (wheat, oats, rice, barley, quinoa, or any combination)
1 cup bread crumbs
1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
1/4 cup catsup
2 Tbls Worchestershire sauce
Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Bring 1 to 1 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a small sauce pan.  Add grains, stir, then cover.  Turn heat down to simmer and let cook for approximately 10 minutes.  After 10 minutes, turn off heat, check to see if the grains need a small amount of extra water, recover sauce pan and let set for another 10 minutes.   

Into a heated skillet add the olive oil and chopped vegetables.  Sautee vegetables until soft.  Once soft you can puree the vegetables or not at your choice.

Put the ground meat, eggs, bread crumbs, parmesan cheese, catsup, Worchestershire sauce, and salt and pepper into a large mixing bowl.  Add cooked grains and vegetables.  Mix well.  You can use your hands or a stand mixer.

Form into individual loaves and put on a rimmed pan for cooking. Cook for 35 to 40 minutes until internal temperature is 160 degrees.

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Around the garden

It has been cold and wet for weeks now.  But at least is hasn't snowed in a while.  The garden is growing slowly but there are a few plants that seem to be enjoying this weather.

Potatoes going strong

These are my Norland Red potato plants.  They are big, strong and healthy in spite of the cool soil temperature. 

Tiny Green Bean Bed

This is my green bean bed.  We had so many green beans last year that I cut way back.  The two plants in the back are climbers and the two in the front are bush beans.  The large green clump in the front left is one of my many chives.

Onion sets

Here is an onion bed which is just to the left of the green bean bed.  While it is hard to see in this picture, they are all planted in nice straight rows.  My hubby planted them this year.  When I plant them, they come up in unruly clumps.

Telephone Pole Peas

Growing at the base of the net trellis are telephone pole peas.  This is an heirloom variety of climbing pea that we first tried last year.  To be honest, we have not had the most luck with heirloom varieties.  Some of that may be our inhospitable climate and some of that is because for many heirlooms, there is just not enough information about the requirements of the plants so we have to do our best and guess. 

These peas were a heavy producer.  Much heavier than I was expecting.  My daughter would run outdoors and pick peas by the handful, eating them pod and all!  I am so glad she loves veggies.

We saved lots of telephone pole pea seeds last year, simply letting the pods dry on the vine.  When we cleaned out the peas at the end of the season I shelled all the dried peas and stored them in a paper bag (which I remembered to label... an ongoing theme for me).  The saved seeds were sown thickly and are doing well.

Behind the peas are the catnip plants.  With this many cats we need catnip, it just wouldn't be right otherwise.  To the right of the peas is the lower strawberry patch.

The soil to the left of the peas is actually full of corn.  The corn is about 2 inches tall and can't even be seen in the picture.  At this rate we may have corn for Halloween!