Saving Your Heirloom Tomato Seeds

I have started my seed saving process but just realized this morning that I've been doing it all wrong. I looked in the envelope to find sticky seeds glopped together. The real process sounds disgusting but it's worth a shot. I'll start mine on Saturday. Here is the link to the eHow version: http://www.ehow.com/how_2091104_save-heirloom-tomato-seeds.html.

If you have any better ideas, I'd love to hear them!

Daphne

First Day of Fall

Two years ago I witnessed a young lady riding her bike through the park and she unknowingly ran over a squirrel’s tail. The tail sheath came off leaving a puff of fur on the ground and a poor little squirrel without a tail to keep him balanced on tiny limbs and warm at night. The squirrel ran up a tree and cried for over an hour. I felt horrible. I’ve often wondered what happened to that creature and I’ve thought about the event ad nauseum. Yesterday, I saw a squirrel scampering through the same park – it only had a nub of a tale. It made me smile. I’d like to think that it is that same squirrel.

I realize this seems like a strange story to start out with after my blog absence for a few weeks but to me this story is a lesson in patience. Things that torment us, even in our gardens, resolve themselves. Nature always does. My infestation of aphids has been resolved. My fall garden is coming up and some lettuces have been eaten by animals or bugs but I’ll plant more because I’m okay with sharing. My bees have somehow managed to do what they have been doing for thousands of years without my input at all. Most things we cannot control – we really need to focus on manage things to accomplish what we've set out to do.

My heirlooms have decided to ripen just in time for fall. Lord help them. It’s nearly October and I’m just starting to harvest tomatoes. This is something that I can’t control but I know that they need temperatures above 55 degrees at night to be able to ripen. But I have a trick for you. If you are experiencing temperatures below 55 degrees at night, take one of your greenish tomatoes inside (pick one that is a good representation of most of the tomatoes on the vine) and cut it open. If you cut through it and the seeds get cut along with the flesh, you’re out of luck because this tomato will never ripen. If you cut through it and the seeds separate from the flesh (in their gelatinous sack) you’re golden. This means that the tomato will ripen on your kitchen counter.

All that you need to do is pick the greenish tomatoes that look similar to your sample and set them out on your counter and they will ripen. The other option is to rip up the plant by the roots and hang it upside down in your garage or barn or perhaps in your home with newspaper or a bin to catch debris underneath it. The tomatoes should ripen up nicely this way. Enough about tomatoes.

More importantly, I removed my first frame of honey last weekend because I couldn’t stand it any longer! The extractor is not finished because I’ve been sidetracked but I wanted to take just one little frame and taste it. The bees weren’t very pleased with me but I continued on my path. I took the single frame of honey inside and weighed it – it was 4 lbs. 8 oz. and it certainly felt like it. I simply cut the comb out of the frame, broke off a piece and placed it in my mouth. The honey oozed out as I chewed and tasted so good – now I know why the Greeks called it ambrosia because this certainly was fit for gods. They say that beekeepers always think their honey is the best but without bias I can assure you that this honey is divine!

Other honey’ish news – I hate most beekeepers and have stopped going to my association meetings. ’Nuff said.

Daphne

A note about cover crops

The days and weeks of the last month have virtually jumped up off my calendar and disappeared. I don't know where they went and I seem not to have much to show for the lost time except 5 kittens have new and loving homes (as of yesterday), my fall garden's seeds are starting to rear their delicate green heads and I am no longer invested in a group a crazies. Well, maybe I have accomplished a lot after all but it's all seemed like a dream and I was simply a drone getting everything done. Tonight the last two adopters are picking up their new kittens and I'll juts have one more to place. Tomorrow we will finish building our honey extractor and maybe after that, I can go back to my normal life and possibly find my camera cord! Now wouldn't that be nice?

As of right now I have planted cauliflower, broccoli, leeks, scallions, lettuces, potatoes, beets, turnips cabbages, brussles and bok choy as well as lots of flowers. I just realized that fall and winter crops don't take up nearly as much room as the summer vegetables. After I rip my tomato, peppers and melons out, I'm going to have a ton of space available. One thing to keep in mind is that you shouldn't let your soil go dormant for more than a month if you can. If you aren't growing anything in the soil then the microbes and nutrients leave you with nothing but dirt. So, my empty beds leave me with a predicament. I'm going to plant hairy vetch (image above) where my tomato plants and pepper plants were, clover between my cabbages, and oats and rye in the other beds. Those of you in the cooler states, you can plant hairy vetch and rye. They are generally hardy enough for your cold winters and they also fix nitrogen in the soil. If you are interested in cover crops and green manuers, here is a link to a overview of these crops from the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service. Keep your soil in good shape and you will be so pleased with yourself next spring. I promise.

One other bit of advice that I read in Organic Gardening magazine this month is: Don't react to pests in your garden for at least two weeks. Usually within two weeks, the beneficial insects will be able to manage your issue.

I'm thinking it would be hard for me to wait around but I'm willing to give it a try.

Still searching for my camera cord,

Daphne