One of the neater aspects of gardening is that there is a level of sustainability built into it.  All of the plants we grow to feed ourselves also produce seed we can collect to propagate next year.  Saving your seeds saves you money, helps preserve the varieties you enjoy and is just plain fun to do!

Entire books have been written about saving seeds and all of the nuances that go with doing so.  This article will attempt to simplify the process and give you enough information to try some basic seed-saving for yourself.

If you enjoy saving seeds and want to read further about it I recommend:

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners

Saving Seeds: The Gardener’s Guide to Growing and Storing Vegetable and Flower Seeds (A Down-to-Earth Gardening Book)

The first rule of saving seeds is: We don’t talk about saving seeds!  Wait a second…  Ignore that – just had a flashback to a Brad Pitt movie…

The first rule of saving seeds is to only save them from heirloom or open-pollinated varieties.  These are the only types of plants that reproduce true from seed.  (True means that the offspring have the same qualities of the parent plants).  Hybrids do NOT reproduce true from seed – so if you save seed from a hybrid you never know what you will get the following year.  Open-pollinated and heirloom = save.  Hybrid = don’t save.

Easy Seeds to Save

Tomato – Select a fully-ripe fruit.  Squeeze the seeds onto a paper towel or screen.  Let sit at room temperature until completely dry.  For a slightly more involved method check out our Tomato Grow Guide.

Pepper – Select a fully-ripe pepper.  Typically peppers turn completely red when ripe.  Collect the seeds and place them on a paper towel or screen until completely dry.

Eggplant – Collect seeds from a fully-mature fruit.  Place them on a paper towel or screen until completely dry.  Starting to see a pattern here?

Beans – Leave the pods on the plant until they rattle dry.  Collect the pods and place them in a well-ventilated area until the pods are completely dry, then remove the seeds.

Lettuce – Allow the plants to bolt – they will produce a tall stalk that will flower at the top.  After the flowers bloom they will form a fuzzy head that looks like a dandelion – collect the seeds at this point.  Rub the seeds between your fingers to separate the chaff.

Difficult Seeds to Save

Cucumber, Melon, Squash, Pumpkin – these are a challenge because they easily cross-pollinate in the garden.  It is probably easier to just buy new seed to ensure you are getting what you plant.

The Biennials (Carrot, Beet, Onion, Cabbage, Broccoli) – All of these produce seeds in their second year of life.  Depending on your climate it might take a lot of effort to keep the plants alive for two seasons.  Again, probably easier to purchase seed compared the the effort involved.

Storing Seeds

Label your seeds!  Store them in a jar or envelope in a cool, dry place.  Storage life will vary depending on plant type and storage conditions.  In general:

• Short Storage Life (1-2 years) – Onion, Corn, Pepper
• Medium Storage Life (3-4 years) – Bean, Broccoli, Carrot, Pea
• Long Storage Life (5+ years) – Cabbage, Radish, Cucumber, Eggplant, Lettuce, Melon, Pumpkin, Squash, Tomato

To store seeds long-term place seed packets into a well-sealed glass jar in the freezer or refrigerator.

Testing for Germination

Moisten 2-3 layers of paper towel.  Place seeds on the paper towel and roll it up.  Put the roll into a plastic bag and place it somewhere warm like a kitchen counter.  Check the seeds for germination every 2 days or so.  Some seeds sprout very quickly – radishes can germinate in as little as 2 days!  Some, like peppers, can take up to 2 weeks.

Post from: Meadowwood Garden © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Collecting and Storing Garden Seeds

Leaf Mold = Pure Gold for your Garden!

Leaf Bin

Do you want to do your garden and your environment a huge favor this autumn?  Learn how to make leaf mold with all those leaves you’d otherwise throw away!

What is Leaf Mold?

Leaf mold is a type of compost that is the result of the natural decaying process of leaves.  Leaves have a high cellulose content that makes them slower to decompose than other types of lawn or garden waste.  You might have noticed this yourself if you have ever walked in a woods in the middle of summer and still seen leaves on the ground from the previous autumn.

The process of making leaf mold is very different from the process of making traditional compost.  In a traditional compost pile bacteria are responsible for breaking down the organic matter.  These bacteria need warmth and moisture and perform their job relatively quickly.  Leaves, on the other hand, can be broken down by a natural fungus in the same way it happens on the forest floor.  This fungus needs moisture but little heat, and takes quite a bit longer to break down the leaves.

How to make Leaf Mold

Making leaf mold is actually easy!  It will take about 2 years, but during that time there is little to zero maintenance.

Gather up leaves in the fall from your trees and shrubs.  Don’t use pine or fir needles — use deciduous leaves only!  If you have only a small amount of leaves, say a trash bag or two worth, simply fill the bags with leaves and add a little water to moisten them.  Rip the sides a few times for air and set them aside somewhere for about a year.

If you have a large quantity of leaves it is best to build a bin out of chicken wire or some other material.  Then just fill the bin with leaves, water it and wait!

A few tips:

Leaf Pile in Woods

• Shredded leaves decompose more quickly than whole leaves.  An easy way to do that is to run your lawnmower over them.
• Grass clippings can be added to speed up the process a bit.
• Keep an eye on the bins to make sure they stay moist.  Rain is your friend here!  Wind is your enemy — try to put the bins in a location where they are protected from wind but are open to rainfall.  Lining the bins with cardboard can help here.
• If you really want to make it easy on yourself just pile the leaves in an out-of-the-way spot and leave them there for a couple years.  No bin, no bags, no fuss.  It might take a little longer, but it will still work.  Leaf mold is a tough thing to screw up!

Over the course of a year the leaf pile should get smaller and smaller, which indicates the process is working.  At the end of the first year take a pitchfork or rake and mix up the leaves in the bin.  Wait another year and your leaf mold will be ready!

That is all there is to it!  The only trick really is to make sure the leaves don’t dry out.

Uses for Leaf Mold

Leaf mold has many uses:

• Soil Conditioner: The bulky nature of leaf mold makes it an excellent soil additive.  Leaf mold has similar properties to peat moss.
• Mulch: Leaf mold can hold hundreds of times its weight in water.  Use it around your plants in the summer to help retain moisture.
• Fertilizer: Brew up some Leaf mold tea and your plants will thank you!  Fill a large bucket with non-chlorinated water (rainwater is best).  Fill a burlap sack with leaf mold and dunk it in the bucket for 3-4 days.  Remove the burlap sack and use the enriched water in your garden!

Post from: Meadowwood Garden © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Making and Using Leaf Mold in your Garden

Check out my new 10 foot tall bean trellis! I’m so proud of the way it turned out I have dubbed it the Super Sturdy Pole Bean Trellis! This trellis is perfect for beans, peas, cucumbers, melons, squash and any other vining vegetable you might want to grow! It would even make an awesome tomato support!

Instructions to make your own trellis follow a bit of background:

The Super Sturdy Pole Bean Trellis came about because the original Not-So-Sturdy Trellis had come up a little short. Quite literally. Which shouldn’t surprise anyone who has been reading this blog because it should be apparent by now that I have absolutely NO idea what I’m doing!

Chicken Wire Trellis Price: $29.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

" border="0" /> Vegetable Trellis, 56" Price: $32.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

Nearly Invisible Netting Price: $19.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

Anyways, my first attempt at a pole bean trellis was to drive 2 posts into the ground and stretch some trellis netting between them. That worked fine for a few weeks, but pretty quickly the beans outgrew the 5 foot height of the netting and started twisting around each other and dangling in space. It was ugly (shudders)…

So I went to Lowe’s and spent a nice couple hours wandering around as if I knew what I was looking for (a skill that I’ve honed to perfection over the past 41 years). The plumbing department had a lot of neat types of pipe and tubing, but everything seemed to be too flimsy or too big for what I needed. So I wandered down aisle after aisle until I hit the jackpot!

Conduit!

Yep — electrical conduit seemed to be the answer. It was cheap, rigid and precut. A guy working in that department tried to talk me OUT of using it, but now that I have it all set up I’m glad I ignored him and went with my gut.

Instructions to make your own ToA 2.0:

1/2 Inch EMT Inside Corner Elbow

Purchase the following:

• Qty. 3 x 10 foot 1/2″ EMT Electrical Conduit (Approx $2.89 each)
• Qty. 2 x 1/2″ EMT Inside Corner Elbow (About $4.38 each — pictured nearby)
• Qty 2 x 5′ Light Duty Steel Fence Post (also known as a U-post, Approx. $2.47 each)
• Qty 1 x Nylon Trellis Netting (Purchase from box on upper right side of this page!)
• Qty 50 x 8″ Cable Ties (also called Zip Ties)

In addition to the above items you will need a sledge hammer, screwdriver, hacksaw, Sharpie and some scissors or wire cutters.

Drive the fence posts into the ground about 1 foot deep where you want the trellis to be placed. Try to keep them as vertical as possible. How far apart you place the posts determines how wide your trellis will be, so think about it a little before you do it — ie. don’t place them any wider than 10 feet apart!

Closeup of how the conduit pole fits into the u-shaped channel of the U-post

The fence posts have a U-shaped channel running the length of them — hence the name U-post! Your vertical conduit poles will fit into this U-shaped channel quite nicely as pictured nearby. This is the KEY to the structural rigidity of this particular trellis — with 4 feet of fence post attached to the conduit poles it will probably take a hurricane to tip this over! (Update: We experienced hurricane-force 75 MPH+ winds in the aftermath of Hurricane Ike last year and the trellis did not move one inch!)

Before you attach the conduit poles to the U-post you should assemble the conduit frame and attach the trellis netting first. This eliminates the need to do all that assembly from the top of a ladder later!

Screw one of the elbows onto the end of one of the conduit pieces. Place the conduit piece across the 2 fence posts, taking care to align the empty part of the elbow with the u-channel. Align the other elbow with the u-channel of the opposite fence post and make a mark where you need to cut the conduit. It sounds strange to read, but when you get the pieces up there you will understand. Basically you need to cut the conduit crosspiece so when the vertical conduit poles are attached they will fit into the u-channels of the fence posts without anything getting bent. Just take your time and it will be easy — I was able to get a perfect fit the first time!

Use the hacksaw to cut the crosspiece at the mark you made (please use eye protection). Attach the remaining elbow on the crosspiece than go ahead and attach the 2 long conduit poles to the elbows. At this point you should have a giant U shape.

Red Tomato Ladders, Set of 3 Price: $49.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

Green Tomato Ladders, Set of 3 Price: $49.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

Green Stacking Tomato Ladders, Set of 6 Price: $49.95 Seller: Gardener's Supply Company

You are almost done! Attach the trellis netting to the conduit frame by either tying it in place or using the zip ties. You want the netting to be taught, but not so tight it bends the conduit. You will be cutting the net at this point — and that is OK. You will also probably need to attach the netting in 2 sections to get full coverage.

At this point you should have a trellis that is completely covered by taught netting from side-to-side and top-to-bottom. The trellis will be holding a lot of weight, so a little care now will prevent sagging and other issues later.

Pole Bean runner growing up the Super Sturdy Pole Bean Trellis

Now get a friend and carry the trellis into the garden and set the conduit poles into the u-shaped channel of the fence posts. Attach it using zip ties (wire or any other type of clamp could work too). And there you have it — your very own Super Sturdy Pole Bean Trellis!!!

Obviously there are many ways you could vary and customize this to suit your own needs. Pole beans just need vertical support so you could suspend strings from the top of the trellis instead of using netting. For cucumbers you could drive the fence posts in at an angle to make picking a little easier. The trellis netting is extremely strong, so you can pretty much grow anything without fear of breaking it.

As always, I’d be interested in seeing photos of YOUR Super Sturdy Pole Bean Trellis installation and would also love to hear your stories about how it is working and how you have customized it.

Post from: Meadowwood Garden © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Super Sturdy Trellis

Hillbilly Sprinkler v1.0 in action!

Woot! It is amazing what a trip to Lowe’s and about $8 in parts can do. Behold the Incredible, Amazing and truly Fab Hillbilly Garden Sprinkler v1.0.

OK, Bri — calm down and give the people some background…

How to water my 32′ x 32′ garden has been vexing me since it was built. When the transplants were new a nice oscillating sprinkler did the trick until it stopped working one day and I returned it. A couple other sprinklers were experimented with, but as the plants grew it became obvious that some elevation was needed so the taller plants wouldn’t block the water streams.

Mom let me borrow this nifty rain tower thing that almost did the trick. What didn’t work for me was the coverage area was a bit small, and there was so much mist produced I wasn’t sure much of the water was reaching the ground. Yes, I know that soaker hoses or drip irrigation will save mucho water — and at some point the plan is to upgrade to a water-friendly system. But until then my wellwater is free and I need to keep the plants alive.

Closeup of the Hillbilly Sprinkler

During a trip to Walmart I found this nifty whirling sprinkler that seemed to be well-built. After hooking it up it was almost perfect — the coverage was exactly right and the drops remain large so hopefully more water reaches the ground. The only problem? It was designed to sit on the ground and has these cute little wheels.

To make a long story longer, some good old country ingenuity struck one night and I had the bright idea to mount the whirling sprinkler onto the borrowed tower. So I went to the Lowe’s plumbing department and after deciphering Fip and Mip and all kinds of abbreviations I still have no idea about I came home with a 90-degree brass elbow and a garden hose adapter thing.

And son-of-a-gun if it didn’t work just as I wanted it to!

Post from: Meadowwood Garden © 2011 All Rights Reserved.

Hillbilly Garden Sprinkler