2020, Where's My Spaceship?

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.

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.

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.

 

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.

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 27^th of December. There will be more garden updates and other cool stuff.