A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

Awww, thank you @jbosmith, that is so nice of you! I think I'm good with what I've got though (hard as that is to type) and as intriguing as so many of those varieties look to me. I haven't counted in awhile, but I think I'm up to about 600 tom varieties collected, gotta stop somewhere right? lol If you need any tomato seeds, let me know!

Wow, drive to Canada that easily? I didn't realise you were that north! We really must have similar climactic conditions.

 

[jbosmith]

Awww, thank you @jbosmith, that is so nice of you! I think I'm good with what I've got though (hard as that is to type) and as intriguing as so many of those varieties look to me. I haven't counted in awhile, but I think I'm up to about 600 tom varieties collected, gotta stop somewhere right? lol If you need any tomato seeds, let me know!

Wow, drive to Canada that easily? I didn't realise you were that north! We really must have similar climactic conditions.

Canada is 40 minutes away though my favorite (currently closed) crossing is an hour from here.

 

[heirloomgal]

Am halfway through jarring the 2021 pea seeds. It is surprising how you estimate visually throughout the summer what is doing well, and what is not doing well, and when it comes time to start putting the seed harvest away it doesn't necessarily match your expectations. It seemed a dismal seed year for the 4-5 foot peas, I overcrowded the seeds, spaced the trellis's too close and the harvest actually wasn't that great. Plus, some of the peas I put on short trellis's actually needed much higher than 4 feet. But I did have some 6-8ft peas and then some container peas, and those ones did much better than I thought. So I guess in the end it worked out pretty well.

The climbing dry peas - I think these were 650 ml pickle jars.

375 ml pizza sauce jars. Lg. poles had 4 ft or row, the 4-5 ft ones had 3ft. Will finish the rest of the peas tomorrow.

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgal , you are a girl after my own heart!!! I LOVE reusing jars for seeds, AND put the labels inside of the jars. I JUST did this with my two kinds of okra. No pictures of jars yet, but I took a photo of the two different pods before harvesting the seeds.

Firecracker Okra is on the left, Clemson Spineless, on the right, Funny,, the Firecracker has bigger seeds.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal , you are a girl after my own heart!!! I LOVE reusing jars for seeds, AND put the labels inside of the jars. I JUST did this with my two kinds of okra. No pictures of jars yet, but I took a photo of the two different pods before harvesting the seeds.
View attachment 45799
Firecracker Okra is on the left, Clemson Spineless, on the right, Funny,, the Firecracker has bigger seeds.

Whenever I buy a food product in a glass jar @ducks4you I always factor in that I'm saving between $1 - $2 per jar, depending on the size, because if I had to buy a separate jar that's about what it would cost. I also really like that if I buy that one type of, say, pizza sauce or salsa, the heights are all the same so I can stack layers of jars on trays or shallow boxes, which I Iike to do for space efficiency. There isn't a jar here that goes into the recycle! We use them ALL!

 

[heirloomgal]

Finished nearly all the peas! Not the best harvest for these ones, but at least I was able to collect more than I planted. Hurst Green Shaft on the far right - it took me 3 years to get this much seed. It's commercially available, but the seeds in the packets every year just would not germinate. I'm guessing they were too old. Finally this year I got about 6 seeds out of a packet to germinate, so got some seed that will be fresh and hopefully viable for 2022. This was my last try at giving them a go, so I'm glad it worked! It's a lovely variety as I suspected, much like Kelvedon Wonder, another super duper pea.

After shelling the last of the peas over the past two nights, it is surprising how different pea seeds can actually be from one another. Not quite as singular in look as beans, but there was a lot of variation in the peas smoothness, colour, size and even shape. Gold Harvest, a dry soup pea, is just huge with speckled markings and it's more like a chick pea in size but square. Some of them have gotten swampy dark green since taking them from the vine. Of all 29 varieties, several were totally unique and even if i had mixed them up with the others I could have easily separated them out.

This was my first year triple and quadruple layering pea seeds along a row; bad year to try that! And I think they would prefer singular spacing anyway as I've always done. So, no more crowding for the peas!

 

[Zeedman]

The climbing dry peas - I think these were 650 ml pickle jars.

Beautiful pea grow outs, @heirloomgal ! Glad to see Black Eyed Susan in good hands; my seed is from 2012, and its viability is questionable. Most of my pea grow outs are planted in the rural garden, and they have really suffered from the recent string of wet years. I only have 17 pea varieties, but unless conditions return to normal (or I find a more hospitable site) I may lose 1/2 of them.

 

[flowerbug]

Whenever I buy a food product in a glass jar @ducks4you I always factor in that I'm saving between $1 - $2 per jar, depending on the size, because if I had to buy a separate jar that's about what it would cost. I also really like that if I buy that one type of, say, pizza sauce or salsa, the heights are all the same so I can stack layers of jars on trays or shallow boxes, which I Iike to do for space efficiency. There isn't a jar here that goes into the recycle! We use them ALL!

i used to keep everything plastic or glass that i could reuse but i ended up with too many and not enough space so i decided to standardized on two smaller sizes that can stack together which saves a large amount of space. the biggest thing was that they had to have clear tops so i could see inside without having to open them. for larger bulk storage i use only the glass gallon jars and those fit up on top of the bookcase so they don't take up any lower reach shelf space but i can see what is there.

everything else goes right back out to the recycling now. i just don't have room for it any more. freed up a few cubic feet of space in my small room so that helped a lot. when i get done with bean sorting and organizing i'll get rid of some of the box flats that don't stack together easily and that will also help me get more space back.

the other day freed up a whole shelf of a book case where i store beans - all will go to the electronics recycling drop off next summer but until then it can be stored in the garage. it feels good to finally get rid of stuff i won't use and of course i can always use more bean storage space.

 

[heirloomgal]

There was no shelling to do for the beans, so it took me less time to get them into jars today. There is a bit more to do, but the last of them I'm going to put in small ziplocs. I ran out of jars. A few of the bush beans I barely got seed for, so they won't need a big jar anyway. After my experiences this year, think I'm going to make an effort to grow less bush beans. After seeing how hugely productive pole beans are, as well as semi-runners, it is hard to justify growing as many bush types as I do. Especially considering they seem more prone to problems for me. I'll always grow some as there are many that I really like, (--->Koronis Purple!) but productivity per foot is not really comparable. Mind you, Passage to India was hugely productive for a bush bean, even more productive than a couple of the poles. I filled a 375 ml pizza sauce jar right to the top with the harvest from them, and that is despite the fact I lost many plants to mould in the high heat & rains.

Here are a few photos, I used a different device than I normally do so some of the pictures are blurry.

The smaller jar in the middle is 1.7 litre, I'm not sure what the volume is of the jars on either side are, they are the pickle jars you get at Costco. I'm so glad I tried them both out.

Will be playing 'find the matching pair' tomorrow.

'Golden Cayenne' is starting to get some true leaves. Fastest kid on the block right now.

 

[flowerbug]

as a future tip, leave the lid on the jar lightly turned. also helps to keep random dust and bugs out if you don't store them upside down. bonus also prevents chips and cracks.