Wednesday, July 29, 2020

Be a Seed Saver


*This post was written a few weeks back and with all of life's happenings, I totally forgot about this post....Oops!
**I grow heirloom varieties only.

A bit of my Saturday was spent collecting seeds from the radish pods that were allowed to dry in the driveway for a few weeks.
Last week I spoke about seed collecting as being an exciting part of gardening and how summer is the height of gardening season, and just knowing that you grew something that will nourish your body, and help ease your grocery budget.

Another financial ease is seed collecting and if you grow your own food, you should at least consider saving seeds. It would be great if you could save seeds from everything you grow, but if you can't that's okay, but try to save seeds from a few of your favorite things to grow, and then add to your seed collecting over the time.

Tomato seeds were the first seeds that I ever saved in my first years of gardening--mainly because that's the only thing I ever grew in my garden, my first two years as a gardener. I guess you could say, I was the female, Benjamin Buford Blue--Bubba, of Forrest Gump fame. Not only did I use tomatoes in a variety of dishes, I tried to grow a plethora of them: yellow ones, cherry tomatoes, paste or Roma, and I can't forget Cherokee Purple- such a beautiful tomato. These were the mainstays in the garden, and others would come along overtime.

Growing my own tomatoes and tasting the incredible deliciousness of homegrown tomatoes convinced me to always grow tomatoes in my garden for years to come, and in order to save some money when it came to seeds, I would need to start seed saving. Of course, every now and then there's a new tomato variety I might want to try, so I'm okay with spending a little money here and there.

Saving tomato seeds is a pretty easy task and collecting radish seeds are, too---it's fun, they germinate better,and saves us gardeners money, too!







#agreenhaven, #growfood, #saveseeds, #backyardgardener,#tomatoes, #budgetgardener, #radishes




Thursday, July 16, 2020

The Height of Gardening Season

*There are no photos or pictures in this post, just my thoughts and words.

The joys of midsummer for this gardener are: seeing the abundance of crops that I've invested my time and energy into become a source of nutrition for me and my family, and if I have enough, friends and neighbors as well.....preparing new compost bins/piles for the fall garden, collecting seeds and making wish lists for seeds that I would like to order from my favorite catalogs or shops. All of these things make midsummer so special to me: its the height of gardening season--- growth, harvest time and planning all wrapped up into one season!

As a gardener, what thing(s) do you love most about this time of year? 



#growfood, #harvest, #gardening

Thursday, July 2, 2020

Before the Rain

Picked two carrots for a salad before the rain came in today.