POPPING GARLIC.
It is that time of year....leaves are falling, the weather is turning cool, and we find ourselves spending hours and hours in the upper loft of the barn. Popping garlic.Bugtussle has been saving their own garlic seed for years, meaning we set aside several hundred bulbs in the spring to replant. That also means that now we must pop open each bulb to remove the individual cloves. I both love and hate this chore. It usually coincides with autumn and sweaters and it is not exactly labor-intensive. But my fingers. Oh, my fingers. It is a special kind of pain....and we aren't yet half way through!Worth it, though. For fresh garlic, it is definitely worth the pain.- Hannah.
STRANGE DAYS.
The garden is a strange place right now. We stand in it and feel a bit lost, still unsure of when we will have to leave. We continue to work - but our labors are no longer filled with hope and excitement and satisfaction. Planting our fall seedlings feels a little sad, each of us working in silence as we transplant, neither of us saying what we are thinking - "what is the point?" Our ambitious weeding and mulching program has fallen out of the picture completely, our cover crops neglected, the deer fence taken down. Our main focus has been the fall garden, hoping for a change to at least stay til November, and so we place our enthusiasm in that - tending to our little cauliflowers and broccoli and cabbages and hoping for a rain, for a little more time.
The garden also looks like a strange place these days, wild and full of life. Like I said, the weeds are a bit out of control. Our pole beans have overwhelmed their trellis, sending a massive tangle of vines toppling into the sorghum row. Watermelons are growing throughout the sweet potato patch. The vines of the pumpkins have died back, leaving them peculiarly arranged, inttermintantly placed alongside the tomatoes. We were letting our future garlic patch sit under a heavy planting of buckwheat, whose flowers have brought a consstant, throbbing hum of honeybees. One of my favorite examples of garden neglect is the old lettuce row. Lettuce, when left alone, will grow to an extreme height, getting taller and taller until it resembles some sort of Dr. Seuss-like flower. It is like a little alien garden of purple and green and yellow algae. On the plus side, besides lookingkind of amazing, letting your lettuce go to flower also allows you to collect and save seed!
We are hoping tonight to be able to sit down and determine our exact timeline – when we have to be out of the house, and what is going to happen with the garden. This will definitely help us to have a better idea about what comes next, the possibility of a Fall CSA share, and allow us to make some big decisions. As always, we will keep you updated!- Hannah
SAVING TOMATO SEED.
If you bust open a tomato and examine the juices you'll notice thousands of tiny seeds floating around. All those seeds have a small, visible sack around them which prevents each from germinating inside the tomato. What's required to render the seed viable and remove the sack, and what makes Hannah and I particularly fond of saving tomato seed, is a little bit of fermentation.You see, in order to save seed on almost any plant, all that's necessary is to imitate what nature does. How, you must ask yourself, would this plant reproduce in nature? For tomatoes, they rely on the fruit to mature, fall from the plant, rot on the ground and re-seed. That, in essence, is what you have to replicate!So here's how we do it:Take two very ripe heirloom tomatoes of the same variety and crush the seeds and juices into a jar (basic red tomatoes are generally hybrids and will not give you seeds true-to-type––you will get plants...but they will be a mystery). Use two tomatoes for a little diversity, but choose healthy tomatoes from the most productive plants. If you like the shape or size or color of a certain tomato....choose that one!Add a tablespoon or two of water to the cup with the seeds. Stir a couple times a day for a few days. It will smell, be prepared! After three days or so––don't go much over four days––remove seeds by using a strainer or cloth and rinse them. Lay seeds on a lid or plate––not paper, as it will stick––and let them dry. Then? Place them in a baggie and freeze them. Et Voila!Every one of our heirloom tomatoes plants this year are from seed we saved last year. That's an exciting feeling, not only knowing you chose what kind of tomato to grow, but everything about it!- Jesse.
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| (some of last year's heirlooms....that are currently growing in the garden!) |
COMMENCE THE SAVINGS.
The other day while working in the garden, Jesse made a curious discovery….FRUIT on our potatoes! Little green fruit growing above ground! After doing a bit of research, we learned that this is the seed of the potato plant. Since potatoes are generally planted by using….more potatoes….we sort of just assumed that potatoes just come from potatoes that came from other potatoes, and so on. But no! You can start them from seed! So of course we are completely obsessed with this idea and currently have a cup of bubbling, fermenting seeds on our kitchen counter. Each fruit contains multiple seeds... it also looks like a baby tomato (being in the nightshade family, and all) and is quite similar to the process of saving tomato seeds. We are excited about trying this out. Apparently, EACH seed will be its own, specific variety of potato. Amazing!
Along with the potato experiment, we are soon-to-be collecting and saving seeds from the flowering broccoli and overripe, wrinkly peas in the garden. This method not only saves us the money from buying seeds next year, but it helps us to learn more about the entire process of growing, and starts us the path to having our own varieties of vegetables….passed down year after year after year. We are working our way towards having a different kind of family heirloom to share with the future Frost generations.
- Hannah.
