Eggplant seed should be as easy #seedsavingformarketgrowers as tomatoes and peppers. They are selfers with crossing rates similar to peppers. (That means you will get some crossing if you don’t use isolation distances but not heavy crossing.) And again, this is one of those crops where the seed is in the vegetable part. So you … More Eggplant Seed Frustrates Me
You would think beans and peas would be a natural fit for #seedsavingformarketgrowers They are selfers and don’t cross much. They are pretty much all open pollinated, so you can easily save solid market varieties. And they are fun to shell!!! But, if you’re a market gardener, I don’t think beans and peas should be … More You Can’t Pick Your Bean And Save It Too
Lettuce is another good candidate for #seedsavingformarketgrowers It needs NO isolation distance. That’s right, lettuce is a SUPER SELFER. It is exceptional to see any crossing in lettuce. Even if the plants are grown side by side. And pretty much all the lettuce varieties you use are open pollinated. I don’t know of any hybrid … More Lettuce – The Seed Saving Super Selfer
Saving pepper seed is even easier than saving tomato seeds. As long as the fruit is nice and ripe, all you have to do is: split the pepper open, scrape out the seeds, dry those seeds on a counter, and voilà! (Plus you get the seedless peppers to eat or freeze.) But peppers also cross … More Pepper Seed Is Even Easier Than Tomato Seed!
1. You’re already growing the seed bearing part. (Those are those bits inside the ripe fruit.) Unlike onions or arugula or most other veggie crops, there are no extra steps to get to your crops to go to flower and produce mature seed. 2. Tomatoes are selfers (remember last post?) so they barely cross. It’s … More 3 Reasons Tomato Seed Is Easy To Save
Is #saveseeds on your farmer bucket list? But you’re afraid of scary old cross pollination? Depending on what you grow, you might not have to be scared of that bogeyman! There is one group of crops that barely cross pollinate at all. And those crops are called SELFERS. Selfers have hermaphroditic flowers that are wrapped … More Don’t Be Afraid Of Saving SELFER Seeds!
“Where did you buy those mini-tunnel arches?” was the main response to last month”s post about overwintering crops in mini-tunnels, Well, we bought some 10ft long E.M.T. conduit from a local hardware store and then bent the arches ourselves. It’s a pretty simple process that you can easily do on your farm. Come, let’s see … More Bend Your Own Mini-Tunnel Arches
We ran out of time to build caterpillar tunnels in Novemeber.
So we built mini tunnels to overwinter crops instead! … More Mini Tunnels To Get Seed Crops Through The Winter
Hey Kids, do you have any arugula that looks like this at home?
Did you know that if you just leave it there, all those flowers will turn into seeds pods?
… More What to do when your arugula look like this!
This week I’ve been walking the Rainbow Tatsoi to select what plants we’ll be letting go to seed. Overall, things are getting very stable. Some solid dark leaves with a lot of purple stems. Some diversity in savoy texture. Very similar growing habit. But then I come upon this. I haven’t seen an individual this … More Genetic memory or chance encounter?
