What interested us the most were seeds to vegetables that you almost never see in seed form. We have grown things like Lemon Grass in the past but had to buy it as a small plant. This might not be a big deal as it gives you a jump on the growing season. However, it is always coupled with higher costs. Many vegetables, herbs, and flowers are very hard to grow from seed. This is another reason why seed companies choose to only ship plants, saving themselves the frustration of supporting customers who failed to get their seeds to germinate.

If you are interested in unusual seeds, this is your catalog. This year we purchased seed for Rhubarb, Lemon Grass and Shiso among other things. Their catalog is simple and without color photographs. Colored illustrations accompany most listings along with helpful information such as the average seed life. Wonderful information for a rabid seed saver such as myself.

Take a look at their offerings, you wont be disappointed.

http://www.kitchengardenseeds.com

Shiso’s tastes is somewhat reminiscent of cilantro, cumin and cinnamon. Both the leaves and flowers are edible.

Shiso is easy to grow and will reseed itself in mild areas. It has similar needs to basil. The pungency of the leaves can vary considerably from plant to plant. Try to buy your seeds from a source that specializes in Asian vegetables.

Lastly, it very closely resembles stinging nettles. Plant it any place where it wont be mistaken for this common weed.

My biggest reason for not renewing was the cost of seeds. The organization is completely out of touch with its members. The SSE forums still has a very active thread complaining about the unannounced seed price increases from last year. For listed members to request a small seed, it costs $3.00. For non-listed members, the price is a dollar higher across the board.

In the past few years we have also seen multiple directors. Maybe the organization that Kent Whealy started would have been better off with him at the helm?

I also was concerned by the seed deposits in the Svalbard seed bank. Because of board member connections with this seed bank, it seemed to me, at least, that there could be motives not necessarily in the best interest of the exchange.

In the end, I participated because of the seeds and the knowledge on how to keep and maintain those old varieties. But the organization seems to be drifting farther and farther away from this core. They also don’t seem to want to participate with their members. While activities in Iowa at heritage farms is great, few of us can attend the workshops. They could easily share more of this information by extending regional meetings or gatherings or simply video taping their events.

I hope that they can right the direction of the exchange. In the mean time I am going to watch from the side lines.

So, here we are in late October and the turnips are still growing like mad. In looking back, I really should have harvested them and taken them to a food pantry. But, I really didn’t think about it.

So what happens to turnips that get left in the ground over winter? They continue to grow. The plants never really died. They were green almost all of the winter, even though we had a few nights that approached 20 below zero. The plants really started kicking out new growth in March and are currently about 5 feet tall. Since, I am an avid seed saver, I will have copious amounts of turnip seed in a few weeks. In the mean while, I get to enjoy beautiful yellow flowers. Who knew that turnips were attractive?

Papalo, also known as Papaloquelite is said to have a stronger flavor than Cilantro but is similar in taste. Apparently it also keeps its flavor after being dried. It grows 3 to 5 feet tall and has a spread of about 2 feet. The leaves are usually eaten fresh or added after cooking is complete.

Culantro, also known as Mexican Coriander, is also said to have flavor similar to Cilantro. It has serrated leaves and grows to about 1 foot tall. Normal spacing is about 6 inches. It is used widely in the Carribean.

Epazote is one that actually doesn’t taste like Cilantro. Surprisingly however, it also is said to have a taste that you love or hate. Epazote has been used for ages in making beans more digestible. It also figures prominently in authentic taste when preparing Mexican dishes. Epazote, will grow to about 4 feet tall. Lastly, it is said to be toxic in large quantities. What could be better than eating poisonous plants? No one really knows exactly what quantity is takes to be poisonous, but it is universally believed that no one could willing eat that much in a single sitting.

Try one or all of these herbs from South of the Border. Good luck with your gardens.

I make no guarantees that this is exactly what is presented in the back of the yearbook. I quickly modified the version from last year, so hopefully, I have changed the page numbers etc., to be relevant to the 2010 yearbook.

To use the form, just download it from below and then modify the two areas highlighted in the photo that require personal information. As a sidenote, if you do not have Microsoft Excel, you can open the document with Open Office.

The first area, requires your member code(if you have one) and the second requires your mailing address.

Hope this is helpful and I hope that everyone has a great season.

UPDATE: Link has been deleted. Sorry. This post created a lot of controversy at The Seed Savers Exchange. They have added a similar form within the online yearbook. You must be a member to log into the yearbook.

With that said, I have become frustrated by some of the decisions being made at Heritage Farm. Since I believe firmly that public discussion is one of the strongest means for change, I offer the following.

Membership fees have gone up to $40.00 per year, but I am struggling to see where the additional money is being spent. For example, Seed Savers for the first time, undertook an online version of the yearbook. I strongly supported this decision, but, as near as I can tell, the online yearbook was created by a single person. I’m not criticizing this person, but the online yearbook transition was not without some significant bumps. Only when I received my printed yearbook did I notice that my profile was truncated. Leaving my last sentence stating, “… but I don’t offer any seed” Sort of an amusing statement.

This year without notifying the listed members, the suggested seed price went up to $3.00 per sample even for listed members. This seems extreme and apparently a lot of other members feel the same way. I understand that most of us are requesting rare seeds that can only be found within the yearbook. However, I also know that a lot of us list common varieties that can be found in virtually any commercial seed catalog. Many listed members are also like myself amateurs and seed quality often suffers significantly. Even the professionals aren’t perfect. Last year I made my largest requests from Heritage Farms, almost half of which failed to germinate at all. I am aware that much of the seed is stored for years, but I shouldn’t need laboratory conditions to get the seed to germinate. Bottom line is that we are exchanging seed between ourselves. It is unlikely that anyone is making a living from their requests. We simply want to cover the cost of shipping which is certainly less than $3.00.

For anyone requesting seed from Glenn Welker, in Ohio.

• I will send LQ seed to any member, listed or not. LQ is just that, I have limited quantities.
• My prices will be kept at 2009 pricing. $2.00 small seed, listed member. $3.00 small seed, non-listed member.
• The corrected last line of my profile should have read. “I do not isolate my tomatoes but I don’t offer any seed from tomatoes which exhibit extended styles. This includes all beefsteak and currant tomatoes.”

Seed Savers Exchange discussion points

• Please, give the online version of the yearbook proper support. It is still a mess in many areas. I have offered multiple times with suggestions on how to improve the site with no response.
• I am still uncomfortable with the Svalbard Seed Vault. Thoughts?
• Lots of turn over in the Director position. Is this musical chair bit really necessary?
• There are many ways which you can improve and expand the original mission of SSE. For example, the events at Heritage Farms often knowledge and access that few of us have access to. I have previously requested the recording of seminars, like the Apple Grafting seminar coming up this spring. I’m not sure expanding in the direction of livestock is what the members have in mind. I support this diversity on the farm, but not if it takes away from the plant resources.
• Others?

I would love to hear other member’s opinions.

Seems simple right? Save a few pepper seeds from a pepper and plant them next year. Well, yes and no.

If you only grew one variety and no one else in your neighborhood grew peppers then you can save your seeds without much problem. If however, you are like me and like to plant many different varieties, you will need to plan a little earlier in the season.

Peppers are quite promiscuous. Peppers have “perfect” flowers, meaning that each flower has both male and female parts. If a pepper is left alone, it will simply fertilize itself. But, if you have other varieties near by, bees and other pollinators will make sure that your peppers will have two parents. If you are adventurous then this can be a great thing. Save some seed from peppers in a mixed planting bed and you will likely be surprised next season. You may even be able to tell which plants were responsible for your next generation of peppers. You will certainly know the mother as long as you make note of it when you collect your seed.

Peppers are in the genus Capsicum and there are five major species. If you don’t know what species your pepper is, I would bet my money on annuum. Almost all of the domesticated peppers grown are in the annuum species. Common exceptions are listed below their species.

Capsicum annuum
- most all domestic peppers
Capsicum baccatum
- any of the Aji peppers
Capsicum chinense
- Habaneros
Capsicum frutescens
- Tabasco
Capsicum pubescens
- Rocoto

Here is a general rule, the families will cross between each other albeit limited in many cases. The exception is pubescens, which will not cross with any other species. Sadly, most people in the United States will not have luck growing Rocotos because of the long growing season.

What to do, if you want to grow more than one variety and keep “pure” seed? Isolate your plants, specifically your flowers. You have two options, the first isolating by distance. Peppers are so promiscuous that the recommend distance between varieties is 500 feet. This isn’t possible in my case since my entire yard is only about 125 feet long. The second option is to physically isolate your flowers. For the purpose of illustration, I will give you my history of attempts so that you can see the positives and negatives of several methods.

1. The first year, I followed one of the most common methods of using tulle bags to cover individual or clusters of flowers.
   Positives: Tulle drawstring bags are fairly cheap and easy to find. Just go to your local crafts store and look in the wedding supplies. You will find several different sizes used for party favors.
   Negatives: It is very time consuming. I also had a hard time bagging individual blossoms and when I bagged more than one blossom the blossom branch quickly out grew my bags. I experienced high numbers of blossoms dropping.
   Recommendations: If you use this method, go with the larger bags. The bags will allow more room for the branch to grow while blossoms develop and hopefully self fertilize.
2. The second years, I made cages to cover the entire plant.
   Positives: The covers can be made of many materials and the fruit set is quite high.
   Negatives: My first attempt, used point bonded row cover material because it was cheap. It also literally dissolved part way through the season. One day, it is there and the next it has an 8 inch whole. It is more expensive than using option one.
3. The following years, I have used cages to cover the entire plant like year 2. But I used bridal tulle as my material for the covers.
   Positives: The nylon tulle seems pretty durable. After 3 seasons, this is the first year I have started to see rips.
   Negatives: Tulle varies widely in price. Good old Walmart usually has bolts of tulle for around $20.00. Tulle is a total pain to sew.

My conclusions over the past few years:

Using tomato cages for peppers is ideal. They are horrible at supporting tomatoes but prove almost perfect for peppers. I make bags from bridal tulle which in my case prevents any of my local pollinators from reaching the flowers.  The bags are simple pillow cases. Just fold the material back on itself and sew across the top and side leaving the bottom open. To put the bag in place, just slip the open end over the tomato cage and cover the loose bottom edge with soil. A point to note is that the first year I tried to dig a little trench around my peppers and then tried to stuff the loose edge into the trench while using the soil removed to fill the trench. Yeah, don’t do that. It is a pain and doesn’t work. Just take extra soil, or better yet, compost and use this to cover the loose edge. This is not only easier but has the added advantage of providing a berm to hold water when the plants are watered. This past year, I noticed that many of my peppers were just too big for a single tomato cage. My solution was to invert a second cage on top of the first one. I just used zip ties to hold the two cages together. This worked very well with one exception. The isolation bags support the plant a lot more then you might assume. When I took off my bags, I noticed that many of the outside branches were limp noodles because they hadn’t hardened which they normally would in relation to the wind moving the branches back and forth while growing. In my case, I simply tied the branches to the cages.

So what happens when you see peppers inside of your cage? What happens when you pepper out grows your cage? Take it off At this point, I will assume that it is still early in the season. What I do, is tie a piece of brightly colored yarn around each pepper that formed while under the isolation cage. This way, you can let your peppers fully mature, before harvesting to save seed.

A couple of notes on actually harvesting the seed. Pepper seed is extremely durable. I use a blender to clean my seed. Just fill your blender with enough water to cover the blades. The add your pepper seeds with any remaining flesh. Blending for a few seconds will separate the flesh or skins from the seeds. Then just fill your blender almost to the top and pour off the water, flesh, seeds etc. at the top of the water. If you repeat this rinsing process several times, you should be left with clean seeds at the bottom. Infertile seeds will float while fertile seeds will sink, so don’t worry about pouring off precious seeds that are floating on the surface. Small peppers can also be blended whole with only the stems removed. A word of warning here, the pepper soup that results is powerful. Keep your face away from the blender when you open it. Even then, expect to cough and sneeze as your rinse your seeds. When you are done cleaning the seeds, pour the water with the seeds into kitchen sieve (make sure the seeds can’t pass through the holes). I then pour the wet seeds onto plastic plates that are labeled to thoroughly dry before storing.

I hope that I have encouraged you to save seed from peppers. Saving seed from peppers has an extra side effect. You can still eat your peppers. Most other vegetables and fruits are destroyed while harvesting seeds.

In the past, I have used popsicle sticks from any craft store to mark the seed locations. Since I didn’t like adding 72 sticks, I would mark the upper right cell of a group of cells. This worked fine but was still a lot of work. The popsicle sticks also were tall enough that they would hit my lights. This year I am taking a different tact.

I have created three pdf documents for the three different plug flats that I have purchased for this season. 72 is the common size, but I also have 50 cell and 128 cell documents. Why the different sizes? Simply, different sizes of plants benefit from different sizes of cells. Small slow growing plants like onions and leeks do well in the 128 cell, and large extremely fast growing plants like melons, cucumbers do well in the 50 cell flats.

The documents have circles in a grid representing each cell in the flat. There is also a notes section at the bottom. In use, I mark the front of my flats with a number for identification and a reference for which edge of the flat corresponds to the top or bottom of the cell graph document. I then just enter the number in the notes section on my sheet. I also give all of the seeds for each season a unique number. I can enter this number in the cells, beside a row, or under a column if I am planting multiple seeds.

Hope these are helpful. Please comment if you want different cell counts or have ideas on how to improve the document layout.

72 cell
50 cell
128 cell

Stella lilies, tulips, sweet william, wild geraniums are all greening up the front yard with leaves pushing through the mulch. The Irises are growing fast as well. Daffodils now in full bloom and the forsythia in front of our house is almost done with its annual display, while the one in our back yard hasn’t yet, released its blooms. Herbs, garlic, onions all are telling me that spring planting season is around the corner. Strawberry bed is a mess of weeds, that will need my attention quite soon.

With all of the activity, I still wanted something specific. Peeking behind the fence, just hoping that our asparagus beds have readied their spears. There it was, asparagus, lots of asparagus. Our beds, now on their 5 year, have grown slowly. Last year, was the first that we harvested anything, and this year appears to be well on its way. Asparagus, our sure sign of spring.