How to grow seeds in your garden

Because of a strange heat wave we had in June, I seem to be growing more seeds than vegetables this year.  Now as they say when life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  In that spirit I am planning on increasing the number of plants I will allow to completely go to seed this year.

I have always saved cilantro seeds, the first time it was almost an accident my daughter liked the pretty white flowers and after neglecting my garden at the end of the summer I had perfectly dried cilantro seeds on the plant.  Free and renewable supply of seeds, what could be better.  If I don’t have you convinced here are some more reasons:

Cheap: You really can’t beat free.  With the price of seeds increasing depending on the variety of seeds you grow this could save you a considerable amount of money per year.

Easy: The creation of seeds of seeds is a completely natural process that has been happening for millions of years.  In many cases you can do practically nothing other than harvest the seeds before the birds do.

Natural selection:  With a little attention you can hand select only your best plants to harvest seeds from.  If the plant survived to produce seeds it has to be at least a little disease tolerant and if you intentionally pick plants that bolted early you can also establish your own slow bolting variety.

Limited availability: Even with all the resources on the internet your favorite seed company may not always carry your favorite varieties or in some cases just a few seeds might be hard to come by.  If you play your cards right you may even be able to make a few bucks selling your rare seeds.

Seed Exchange: If you collect seeds you more than likely will get more seeds than you need for the next 2-3 years from a single plant.  This is a great supply to use for local or mail seed exchanges.  Not only are you supplying someone else with seeds they need but also adding seeds to your collection which you can harvest and repeat the process again.

Growing sprouts: If you are paying for seeds growing sprouts for some plant varieties can be pretty expensive…unless your seeds are free.  This is a good healthy way to use up some of those extra seeds you can’t get rid of any other way.

This year I am planning on harvesting spinach, pea, carrot, and radish seeds (along with my previous onions and cilantro) so stay tuned for more details.

Growing sprouts in a Mason jar

My daughter was required to do a presentation which included an experiment using plants for school and of course her mother directed her to me.  Given there was not a lot of time until the presentation I suggested that she grows sprouts, given you can go from seeds to a jar full of sprouts in less than a week.

Construction

You really can grow sprouts in almost anything.  We chose a mason jar, though plastic storage containers, trays, or even fabric bags (just drip in water and hang)

The important thing is to provide plenty of airflow, if you don’t your seeds will produce an awful stank that you won’t want in your house let alone eat.  We used a piece of an old pair of leggings, which we stretched over the opening of the jar and applied the mason jar ring….well that's about it.

How to Grow Sprouts

The process starts with seed selection.  You can grow any seed as a sprout though you may not want to eat them.  Cilantro is a good example it will grow great but the root of a cilantro/yellow mustard sprouts are very potent so use with cooking, not raw.  Some good suggestions are alfalfa, broccoli, buckwheat, cabbage, chickpea, garlic, lentil, oats, yellow mustard, peas, onion, radish, sunflower, fennel, arugula, pink kale, fenugreek, wheat, or wheatgrass.  In our case my daughter wanted to determine how quickly and big seeds grew depending on the initial size, so I gave her a several different types of seeds for her experiment.

Take about a tablespoon of seeds and soak in room temperature water with a couple drops of liquid fertilizer overnight.

In the morning drain, rinse and let sit out of direct sunlight.  Repeat the drain/rinse process once a day (twice a day if your sprouts begin to smell)  During the first couple days it is advisable to shake and/or roll the jar on its side to allow the seeds to spread out a little.  Doing this simple procedure within about a week you should have a jar full of fresh healthy sprouts.

Why grow sprouts?

Fun: Great for kids with limited attention spans.  Within a day or two they can see their seeds sprout growing more and more each day.  It is also a great way to keep your sanity during those long winter months.

Cheap: For mere pennies you can grow pounds of greens.

Nutritious: These little sprouts pack a ton of nutrients for their little size.

Easy: The process is pretty fool proof, just rinse with water, set them on your counter, and eat.  What could be easier

Volunteer potatoes

Well I wasn’t planning on growing potatoes this year but looks like I have a couple of volunteers from last year.  This could turn out to be a fortunately accident since they are currently growing under my onions and garlic.  If they happen to stay low enough might actually get two decent crops in the same square footage.

Any predictions?

How to grow onions and not onion flowers

Last year, I grew a lot of onion seeds but unfortunately not many large onions I could use in the kitchen.  I have learned a few things since then which hopefully can help you not have the same problem.

Use small onion sets: Last year I selected all of the largest onion sets in the 100 count bag which from some of my experimentation this year proves why almost all of my onions bolted to seed.  Smaller onion sets were much less likely to bolt to seed during normal temperature fluctuations.  Now what should you do with those large onion sets?  Why not think of them as flower bulbs since that is what they will end up eventually.  Given you know the onions will grow pretty small so you can plant a 1-2 inches apart and they do make a quite attractive flower and as an extra bonus you can collect the onion seeds for next year.

Grow from seeds: Well if you are like me with all of your plants bolting to seed on the positive side that gave you a considerable number of onion seeds.  Now you have a couple choices here, you can plant some seeds at the end of the summer which will create basically small onion sets which will go dormant over the winter and pop back up during spring.  The other option is to plant seeds indoors 9-10 weeks before last spring frost and plant seedlings the size of a pencil or smaller into your garden.

Try a different onion variety: The ultimate reason flowers bolt is temperature fluctuations which tricks the onion that it has completed its biennial (2 year) growing pattern which results into the onion jumping into its last stage of its life, flowering.  Now unless you are growing in a heated greenhouse or grow box, unfortunately you don’t have too many options in controlling the weather.  Fortunately you can select onion varieties that are more tolerant to temperature fluctuations.

Hopefully with these tips you can grow a few less onions flowers and a few extra onions.  Though if you still get a few onion flowers you do have a couple choices.  Pull it up and user the smaller onion in your kitchen or simply embrace the flower and the bees it will attract and get plenty of onion seeds for next year.

And then there was a beautiful butterfly..err moth

Well one of our caterpillar finally emerged from its cocoon.  Looks like my identification was wrong (not surprising) since it turned into a beautiful brown moth.

As promised my youngest daughter dressed up in her butterfly costume to teach the baby moth how to fly.

After a few minutes of doing jumping jacks to demonstrate the moth figured things out and fly away to freedom.