Showing posts with label telephone pole peas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label telephone pole peas. Show all posts

Thursday, August 15, 2013

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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Sunday, July 14, 2013

Peas, Wonderful Peas

You may recall I have mentioned my pea vines here and there is another good photo of them here. The vines were tiny and just starting to climb.  But things have changed! 
Here are the peas next to a five year old.
We are growing an heirloom variety of shelling pea called Telephone Pole. They are supposed to grow about six feet.  The supports they are on are just a little less than five feet.  The vines have over grown the tops of the netting and are folding down on themselves on the other side of this wall of vines.  I think the vines have well exceeded the six foot mark and are working on about seven feet right now.  The Rain Barrels are behind and right next to the peas but you can't even seen the barrels over the vines any more. 
Look at 'em all.
And they are producing like crazy.  I haven't had an opportunity to really look over the garden this week with the Garage Sale going on.  But when I went out this morning the vines where covered with peas ready to go.  The picture above is our first harvest of peas.  Enough for several meals for our small family. My daughter helped me shell these peas.  She insisted on helping.  We may make a farmer out of her yet.  Don't tell her.  She wants to be a cowgirl. 

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Wednesday, May 29, 2013

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!
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