When There's Too Much Rain...

Seeds I was meaning to harvest and save for next year are growing right on the plant! These are marigold seeds growing right out the pouch that holds them, because of the massive amount of moisture and rain we've had for the last few weeks. You can see in the pic below the bottoms of the seeds are all forming roots - pretty wacky!
This is a whole new weird weather happening I never thought of- if the plants going to seed start sprouting on the vine (as did many of the beans too) because of unusual amounts of rain then it's difficult to save seeds for the next season.
XoXOooo

Mammoth Sunflower Seed Heads

Holy Taleedo! Remember my leaning tower of sunflower? Those bad boys went to seed, and man their heads got huge. ;)

Seed saving is so much fun!
PS- Anyone ever roast their own sunflower seeds before, I am open to some tips?!

XoXo

Seed Saving: Organic Zucchini

Wanna see something HUGE...That is one of my 2 BIG 2 be true organic zucchinis I grew this year! Trust me when I say I made zucchini everything this summer - soup, bread, baked, for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner, for every meal. Zucchini is best eaten when it is younger, as the veggie grows the plant begins to go to seed and the skin toughens till it gets to a not so edible stage in it's life cycle. For collecting seeds it's good to let one (or more) of your zucchinis grow into a huge monster that would make a porn star cry (see pic above) - let it stay on the vine until the plant dies back. After I picked the obscene seeding zucchini off it's dead vine I let it sit out in the sun to 'ripen' up and harden. You can see there's a group of roving gamblers chilling out on some of mine. That's a gang of garden killers conspiring together -cute but very unnerving. ;)
Carefully open up the zucchini close to the middle but don't push your knife all the way through unless you don't mind having a few casualties. The seeds sit right in the middle, so gently pull it apart and scoop it out by hand, (just like with winter squash).
Stick them on a dish, cutting board, unbleached paper towel or some other surface for drying - be careful not to let them sit out too long and re-moisten after drying, which might cause mold. Spreading them out helps faster drying, not like I have them in the pic below. :)
YAY seeds!

XoXOoo

Greasy Beans In The Blue Ridge Mountains

I had never heard of greasy beans till I moved out into a rural part of Western North Carolina - driving down Lake Logan road in Bethel I distinctly remember the hand painted signs at the end of a farmers road reading "greasy beans for sale per pound". I honestly was like WTF is a grease bean, and why would I want it if it's all greasy anyway - I figured it was something akin to southern boiled peanuts and I wanted no part of that. Here I am 8 years later in Leicester, NC living on a property where my neighbors planted 16 rows of this locally revered bean - and didn't taste one till yesterday. Man had I been wrong.
Greasy beans aren't actually greasy, nor is it some special name for something southern peeps generally like to do to their food anyway - it's neither a typical dry bean OR a typical green bean, it is something of a union of the two kinds making one hell-a-va flavorful veggie! The way it's different from a green bean is that green beans have to be picked early to taste better, once they get bumpy they are flavorless and gross and have gone to seed... a greasy bean is good from start to finish, the tiny ones are yummy and can be cooked like snow peas, while the most gigantic ones are better then eating baked french fries. And what makes these beans even more bang for the planted buck, is you can even dry them and later cook the dried ones too!
Steam them, fry them, can them, pickle them, bake them- you can do anything to them that you can do to both green beans and dry beans!!!
Pictured below are the various stages of food the greasy bean provides- there's not alot of food producing plants that can boast such a long term, varied stage of life edible prize. Plus it has a neato history...
"Greasys are so prized in the mountain south that an Appalachian bride's trousseau would traditionally have included a few seeds from her family's unique strain of beans. Such devoted guardianship has produced an unmatched diversity of greasy beans in the North Carolina and Kentucky highlands, with more than 30 known varieties still cultivated on small patches of mountain land. Greasy beans' disappearance from the collective Appalachian larder results not from any shortcomings in their flavor, but a pervasive preference for beans that don't require "unzipping," in mountain parlance. Even those mountain dwellers who don't mind having to shuck their beans the old-fashioned way tend to romanticize half-runners, a hardy bean that began dominating the Southern market in the mid-20th century." - Hanna Raskin of Slashfood

I wonder which kind I have here- cause I have already started saving the seeds, and am going to start carrying a little piece of history with me whenever I go.
XoXo Greasy hugs and kisses ;)

Seed Saving: Moon and Stars Watermelon

This is the first year I have successfully grown watermelon in Western North Carolina! Even if I only ended up with 3 watermelons total and one was pretty deformed. In fact the one pictured here had the Quasimodo thing going on, on one side that I decided not to reveal to the public eye. Being a disfigured watermelon does not effect taste though, and holy toodles this thing was sweet and delicious! I literally just spooned it out, bite after juicy bite while setting the seeds aside for next summer's attempt at growing.
The inside had a pretty white vain pattern, reminded me of decorative architecture & iron work in the french quarter part of New Orleans. (Gawd I miss all the artistic & flamboyant passion of my home city!)
Once the seeds totally dry out I will most likely re-use old seed packets for storing the new seeds, I always save them just in case (trying to save some landfill space!). :)
XoXOoo

Seed Saving: Organic Soy Beans

This is about more then just seed saving, because when you cook dried beans what you are actually cookin' up is the seeds of the bean plant! Beans and their seeds are one in the same. Today I cut down my soy bean plants to hang for drying - since I am saving these bean seeds for eating I didn't want to risk the chance of any mildew problems getting into the pods.
Once they are finished drying out, I will shuck them from the shells, and put them in a jar for storage. What I am hoping to do with most of these soy beans is make my very own tofu and soy milk from scratch! MmmMmm, anyone who has had fresh tofu knows what I am talking about- it's so good you could eat it straight up and plain!
Check out the beans in waiting...
xoxo

Seed Saving:Organic Yellow Squash

I let a few of my organic yellow crook neck squash go to seed this year. This is the first time I really let summer squash go to seed and I was really excited to open up those bumpy, big bad boys! When they stayed on the vine they got very textured like a gourd and the skin became hard like a winter squash. I picked them a few weeks ago and then left them in the sun to mature and dry some more. I cut them open today and pulled the good seeds out, placing them on the wooden chop block to fully air dry.
The seeds to save are the ones that are fully formed, mature, hard, and pretty thick. If it's limp and empty on the inside then it's not going to ever do anything. Just one or two squash can yield a pretty high amount of seeds - which is a great money saver for next year's organic garden!
PS- look at my cute little pie pumpkins in the background! Mmmmmmm.
XoXo

Green Bean Seeds: Pluck and Shuck

My organic green bean plants are pretty much done, as far as eating goes - but what I did this year was let a bunch of them go all the way to their very end...to seed! Green beans only taste good in their teen stages, once they become adult beans they get tough and stringy - and bulge a little. The bulge is the beans going to seed, which is the absolute best way to save money on organic seeds for next year's garden. The ones that are most ready I plucked from the vines and then shucked the hard beans out of them by hand - then I put them on a wooden cutting board to finish drying out. This is to make sure they don't mold & keep them from getting wet or sprouting.
* Does anyone have any other ideas on the best way to collect bean seeds?*
XoXOooo

Organic Seeds On The Cheap

I am all about getting the most out of my organic food - not just by stretching meals but also by replanting & gutting some of those veggies to get seeds out of them. Check out this neat little trick... I take the bottoms (with the roots attached) of onions, the tops of turnips, rutabaga and parsnip, and the thick stalk bottom of a cabbage and I stick them in the moist ground.
The magical thing that happens, like in these pictures, is that the plant takes root and continues it's process of life. How unstoppable and rad is that? Once they get in the dirt they just keep on going where they left off, which is usually right before they were going to seed - you end up with pretty flowers, some extra edible greens on top, and after they've been pollinated and dry out you have yourself more then a pack's worth of organic seeds!

*Pictured at the top is an organic purple cabbage bottom that grew to make nice muted yellow flowers (for seeds), second is an organic turnip which if planted later in the summer goes right to seed but in the spring will make you HUGE turnip greens first to eat, and the last picture is the root of the (organic) red onion planted in the ground which makes these delicious green stems (great for stir fry and cooking with beans) plus goes to seed in the shape of a beautiful round ball of tiny flowers.*

One more seed tip: For a grand variety of winter squash & pumpkins, simply save the seeds from the (oh so expensive) organic ones you buy at the store. Let the seeds dry out on a plate or napkin, then store them for next year... 2 little butternut squash seeds can make you over 16 more butternuts to eat- that is bang for ya' buck!

xoxo

Bean Seeds: Buying and Planting

Buying beans in seed packets doesn't really get you all that many beans, especially if you are growing a garden that is supposed to feed you throughout the year. The neat thing is you can go to the bulk section of your organic grocery and load up on dried beans because those are the actual seeds for planting bean plants too. Ya end up with WAY the heck more bean seeds for crazy less money then buying small packs. You also get to choose from a huge bush bean & legume assortment not offered in seed catalogues, plus they'll be certified organic. :)

These won't come with instructions but generally speaking most bush beans only need to be planted 2-4 inches apart, and just give them a good cover of dirt not more the 1 inch deep. Watering seeds as you plant them can give um' a head start on germinating and just kinda seems like a nice thing to do for ya new little ones. This year I am growing kidney, black eye pea, mung, lentils, great northern, pinto and christmas lima beans...another reason to love bulk bins at the health food store. :)

XoXo

Sustainable Pumpkin Carving

Here's some quick tips on how to keep your pumpkin carving festivities earth friendly!

1. Support your local farmers and buy pumpkins from the farmers market, fruit stand, or a place that supports local charities.

2. Buy a pumpkin pie breed of pumpkin and you can cook all the guts you scrape out. mmmmm.

3. Save the seeds! Then you can grow your own pumpkins next year...OR roast the seeds and eat them :)

4. Compost your pumpkin when it gets all shriveled, melty, moldy or bashed in by teenage boys.

xo- Enjoy your Green-O-Ween!

Grow A Fruit or Nut Tree

I confess that I have a bit of a seed saving obsession. Everytime I find seeds inside my organic fruits and veggies I feel like I struck gold...possibly this is some deep biological farmer instinct, maybe it's in my DNA, or most likely it's from reading lots of self sustained farming books. I love growing trees from seeds I save from my fruit and nuts- this little proud guy pictured here is a apple tree! I have planted bunches of trees everywhere I lived, cherries, pecans, peaches and a variety of apples. It's totally organic & easy to do: When you eat an apple, just pop out the seed and stick it in some dirt, keep the dirt moist & thinly mulched...and wait for the joy of your tree seedling to pop out! If you want to try a peach seed, then soak the hard hull in some water for a day then crack open with a nutcracker and plant the almond shaped seed loosely under the dirt. For nut trees, just stick some nuts in their shell down in the dirt (pine nuts and pecans grow really easily).
These are my favorite to plant because I know they will be giving back and feeding people later on. :)