Welcome
back to another episode of Lost in the Farmers Market. It looks like we finally
made it, there are just two episodes left for the year of 2019 and you know
what that means. The next episode will be all about the year’s production
numbers, which is a tradition intended to prove that organic, GMO-free
operations are cost effective. For today’s episode however we are going to
discuss several garden topics and some interesting photographs will be included
as well.
One
of the most important things a gardener, urban farmer or anyone who grows their
own food can do is to save seed. It seems natural to let your plants sow their
own seed so more of them sprout in the new year, but in reality, some of your
plants aren’t perennial, biennial or need help germinating. There is also the
consideration of sharing your successful varieties with other enthusiasts that
should be a factor in considering what plant’s seed to harvest. Harvesting seed
is it’s own skill because you need to know how to collect ripe seed from each
specific plant in the correct way. For instance, some are easy to collect; marigolds
and zinnias which are both in the daisy family and all you need to do is
collect the flower heads after they have faded and turned completely brown. Yet
others such as tomatoes are difficult because the seeds are held in gel that
preferably must be scooped out and left to break down a bit before you can
extract the seed from the ‘aromatic’ sludge. An example of a annual plant that
sits somewhere in the middle is Castor Beans where you need to wait for the
bright pink seed pods to dry out completely. As if waiting for the pods to dry
was not enough you then have to peel off the outer layer, free the seed capsules
and then extract the relatively large seed. This process creates a lot of what
is called ‘Chaff’ which is the non-seed debris that may be anything ranging
from dirt, buts of flower petal, or chunks of seed pod. You then have to do
what is called ‘Winnowing’ which is the act of either using air to remove chaff
from seed or is in our case more accurately, simply manually picking out non-seed
bits from your seed so you don’t have to worry about contamination. Beyond this
there is normally a drying period of a week or two depending on seed type to
prepare your seed for winter storage. This drying period is to ensure that as
little moisture gets into the tight confines of your storage which reduces or
prevents incidences of fungus or rot.
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| This year's Castor Bean Harvest is pretty impressive. |
There
is one final stage before you store your saved seed, and that is the final
inspection. As is seen with the example seeds in this case, in any batch of Castor
Beans, there will be a few of them that are malformed, or ‘duds’ simply because
they are too small and or under-developed. These seeds may grow mold in storage
and have to be removed. Out of the 340 total Castor Bean seeds collected in
2019, 77 were removed because of insufficient size, discoloration indicating a
failure to form or they turned out to be hollow. This leaves 263 potentially
viable seeds, collected from six mature plants which is quite the turnover. I
should note, the original seed was purchased from Botanical Interests in a 4-gram
seed packet containing ten seeds. This means not only were the plants successfully
grown but they also were significantly fruitful given the labor and time
invested. I should note that the variety is ‘Impala’ and despite what the seed
packet said, the average height for the specimens was 5.5-6.5 feet tall. All
information from the seed packet said 3-4’ was the normal size, so the seed was
worth saving from the perspective that the variety may have mutated to be
larger. Either way, saving seed has one major economic advantage, you don’t have
to buy seed of the same type next year which can translate to a noticeable
savings over time. But enough of that, lets see this week's garden photographs.
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| Loquat - Eryobotrya japonica, In bloom. |
I've told folks about this one, Loquat is a fruit-bearing evergreen tree that gets roughly 25 feet tall and grows readily in our climate. It looks exotic and blooms roughly in late November or December and produces roughly grape sized orange fruit that are sweet and tart. It is not used as a landscape tree as much as it should be because it's largely self-sufficient but has now really showy features. If this one produces fruit in 2020 expect photographs.
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| Siberian Kale - Its prolific and good |
Siberian Kale is a middle ground in texture between Dinosaur Kale and something like Scotch Blue Curled. SBC is pretty much the same as you buy at the store, and it gets tender fast under heat and doesn't keep for long in the fridge. Siberian Kale forms long-stemmed leaves is moderately space efficient and will grow to fit the space it is given. It does occasionally have issues with aphids but a lot of leaf greens do and that is easily resolved.
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| Dinosaur Kale - A kale of many names. |
Dinosaur Kale is also known as the following; Black Cabbage, Tuscan Kale, Lacinato Kale, Cavolo Nero, Black Tuscan Palm, Palm Tree Kale, or Flat Back Kale and man is it good. Dinosaur Kale is said to be the most nutrient dense Kales you can grow and or buy simply because of it's higher fiber and Lutien content as well as added quantities per serving of critical nutrients. It's upright habit makes it space-efficient and less prone to collecting dirt in the leaves which are curly but not overly so. No other Kale can really sit in a mixing bowl like you see above and pose for a picture like Dinosaur Kale can plus it's tough as nails and will ignore frosts when grown in the garden.
With
all that garden goodness covered this is the part of the blog where I have to
advertise for the Fayetteville City Market. Now I know you readers probably
don’t much like advertisements, but by booth at the City Market helps to cover
the costs of running the test garden and literally maintains the Research &
Development budget that is used to bring you the information that has made up
the backbone of this blog. Also, as of
the start of 2019, my booth can now process credit or debit cards thanks to the
acquisition of s a Square reader so your payment options have doubled. With
that said, if you want to get some GMO-free, Organic vegetables, herbs and
fruiting shrubs come on down to the Fayetteville City Market on 325 Maxwell
Street in downtown Fayetteville between the Hours of 9:00 am and 1:00 pm on
Saturdays. Even in bad weather the market goes on though you might have to look
for me under the ‘arches’ of the Transportation Museum’s front entryway.
Plants
& Stuff Available Now:
All
the Stuff:
Soup Kits:
$6.00
Seasoning
Packets: $2.00
Ginger,
4oz Packet: $2.00
Pepper
Packets: $2.00
Garlic,
Whole Bulb: $1.00
Coming
Soon:
TBA
These
days I am generally at Leclair’s General Store once a week, for the weekly
Sustainable Neighbors meeting at 5:30pm through 7:00 pm. If you have questions
then I will be there to answer your questions. Since our meetings have an
open-door policy you don’t need to sign up for anything or join anything, you
can come on in ask for us and join the meetings. If not, you can always send me
questions through this blog or visit the farmer’s market or pay attention to
what Sustainable Neighbors is doing at the link below.
https://www.meetup.com/SustainableNeighbors/
This brings to a close
the twenty-fifth LITFM post of the new year, stay tuned the next episode which
should be posted on the 27th of December. There will be more garden
updates and other cool stuff.
