Adventures in seed saving and other fun fall activities

*lukewarm* Yea, sustainability.

Erm, AHEM, I mean, woohoo! ;)

This bit of cold water on the happiness that is my garden stems slightly from seed saving, a bit of a messy time consuming process for some seeds (like Malabar spinach), but still a very important and cost saving process.

(red stem Malabar Spinach)

My slight gripe is that I forget teeny tiny little spiders really enjoy chillin' and making a home on the tiny flowered racemes of plants such as basils, lemon balms and perilla.

Whilst gathering perilla seed for the giveaway (still up and going if anyone wants it or the malabar spinach!) I was cutting a bunch of the perilla recemes to trying to get just enough seed for one packet and avoiding any spider webby looking bits as well as possible.

Despite my efforts when I started seed extracting, little spiders started scurrying around EVERYWHERE.

I'm not nervous about spiders themselves; I'm just nervous about getting bit because I have unfortunately pretty bad reactions to mosquito and spider bites (serious burning, itching and swelling to grapefruit size bites sometimes).

And I really hate Benadryl, so bites (as I probably have ranted before) are a problem and I really DIS-like squishing spiders, even if there are million of them running around me because hey, spiders are pretty good.

Needless to say, I thought to myself as I was being nibbled on, "Ouch. ouch. ouch. They're. tiny. little. things. They'll probably---OW, produce tiny little bites?"

So yes, the bites were little.

Until 2 minutes later, where they were about 10x what they were before and I headed for the neem oil, which doesn't relieve itchiness immediately, but when it starts working, it really works.

Seed saving tomatoes are a snap at least, every time you eat one you can eat the fruit and squish out the gelly inside to add to water and let it ferment. Then clean, dry, and save.

Okra and beans are easy too, sweet "let 'em dry on the vine/stalk!" and then bust 'em open to get to the seeds AND save.

(Scarlet Runner bean)

It's just those herbs, those darn, darn herbs with their leeeetle flowers that attract leeeeeeeetle bugs, which THUS attract leeeeeeeetle predators (aka spiders) that get to me. *shiver* I can still feel tiny spiders crawling all over me!

(Purple Perilla, AMAZING no tiny spiders made a cameo here. Anneliese, I SWEAR I got all the spiders off before I mailed you your packet of seed!)

Anyways, fall is a stupid busy time, more than spring is I often forget.

Gotta (1) seed save, (2) re-pot outdoor things for inside, (3) plant perennials in the coolness of fall, (4) plant fall/winter vegetable garden, (5) take cuttings for propagation, (6)  Divide any spring flowering perennials, (7) Offer to rake people's leaves for composting!!!

AHHHHHHHHHH! *runs around collapses*

Happy Autumn to you and don't die of overwork!

FREE GIVEAWAY: ...the perilla is in bloom!

As I had mentioned previously in an earlier post, perilla/beefsteak plant is pretty amazing in its self-seeding-ness and......... its now in bloom.

Pretty, is it not? (If you like adorable self replicating tasty and pretty colored gremlins...)

All this...
....Can be yours!

So... while I know I have said it can be a scary plant a bit, it really is a good groundcover for those bare spots that you just want to have filled in It's tasty, wild basil-y anise-like and can handle nearly any conditions. I never water it, it likes sun and part shade...what more can you love?

So, for the GIVEAWAY:
If you leave a comment and I will reply back to you for your address I will be happy to send you a small homemade packet of the seeds that will fit and only cost me a stamp, HANDPICKED, WINNOWED and PACKAGED by me.

This giveaway will be open for up to a month after this posting and is free for those in the continental USA. If you are outside from here, we can potentially work something out with S&H.

Also I would like to note that while I have no doubt these seeds will germinate wonderfully, I will say that I can't guarantee they ALL will germinate.

ALSO, please check your invasive species lists to make sure that you're not propagating anything you shouldn't in your area

You just need to comment your interest in this seed because, dude, I have PLENTY to go around.

Shiso Fine

sSo I have this plant called Shiso, Purple Perilla, Beefsteak plant, what have you, and it’s lovely. Except for the fact that it is, shall we say, a rolling stone? It’s actually quite funny, I had previously bought Shiso seeds prior to attaining this plant, with the thought of some exotic herb growing in my garden. I never saw one seedling come up from it and was not very happy, cursing the lack of the exotic to my garden. Since I was not so quite up to date in the gardening world (aka, did not research/was not observative) I did not notice the striking similarities between the Botanical Interests packet’s lovely, artistic rendition to my real live Perilla plant.

The perilla/shiso/beefsteak plant got huge and I separated it, moved bits and pieces of it around, pulled it up and moved and its various selves to approximately 80 different locations in my yard. Little did I know that that was not enough for my little Shiso. She is so everywhere. In the garden path (HOW?) ALL around the raised bed my husband and I made around the tree (she was only in 3 different places too!) Admittedly the purple, green, gray seedlings do look great with the Japanese painted lady fern and the other various coincidental purple flowers that sprung up around it, but have mercy… my perilla from last year got to be at least a foot and a half tall from one plant. And now I have literally hundreds of them everywhere.

I have been doing great amounts of research into what I can cook these into, from pesto to wrapping them around meat bits. (why do I always seem to write double entendres? Better yet, why don’t I edit them out?)

So, hey, if anyone wants to horror/glory of this plant, please, contact me. I have a few to spare.