Saving Brassica Seeds

I collected seeds from a brassica plant for the first time last weekend.  I am almost certain - hmm, let's say about 90 percent sure - that these seeds are from a bolted bok choy originally planted sometime last fall and overwintered in our weedy side garden.  But if I'm wrong, then they are from a bolted tatsoi plant, also overwintered.  I'm not too worried about not knowing the exact plant variety, because they both grow very similarly in our garden (the typical rosette growing pattern of tatsoi was very difficult to see in my garden last year) and we like the flavor of both. 

This small bagful of seeds came from just a part of one bolted plant, so I now know that if I ever want to collect brassica seeds again, I only need to let one plant bolt and go to seed.  This is already probably way more bok choy seeds than I could possibly plant in one season anyway.

The entire seed collecting process was pretty easy and simple.  The bolted bok choy put out a long flower stalk that bloomed small yellow flowers for a few weeks, and before I knew it, there were seed pods.  The seed pods started out thin and green, then became more swollen, and finally turned brown and dry, as pictured above.  If the pods get too mature/dry, they will split and explode (literally) on their own and scatter their seeds everywhere.  I'm sure I'll see some volunteers growing in this part of the garden later this fall or next year.

I collected the brown seed pods and gently rubbed them between my fingers to get the seeds out of them.  It was a little bit tedious separating out the remaining empty pods (aka chaff) from the collected tiny seeds, but I figured seed saving was worth at least that much effort.  If I had to process a greater quantity of seeds, I might have used a large bowl to collect the pods, but for the relatively small quantity that I collected, this large plastic lid I used was fine.

Although this is the first time that I collected seeds from a bok choy plant, I'm guessing that the process is the same for all brassica plants like Asian greens, cabbage, broccoli, radish, kale, etc.  Right now there are some bolted daikon radishes in my garden and the seed pods on those plants are very plump, almost like pea pods.  I'm curious to see how they will change when they are mature.

Daikon radish seed pods

4/18 Harvest - Overwintered Indiana Veggies

A few of the Red Russian Kale, tatsoi and bok choy plants actually survived the Indiana winter in our side garden without being protected at all .  Actually, they were more like abandoned and forgotten, but the important thing is that they survived!  Unfortunately, this "survival" was very short lived, since there were only about 2-3 weeks between my noticing the new growth on the stumps of plants leftover from last fall and my discovery this weekend that they were all bolting.

I harvested most of them (there were not that many to begin with), except for a few that I'm going to leave alone in my attempt to collect seeds from them.  The bok choy and tatsoi looked like their leaves were changing shape (became more elongated).

I told Keith that I wanted to toss them in the salad, to which he scrunched up his face and said "can't we just have normal salad like normal people?"  Ha.  Not if you're going to marry a newbie gardener who wants to eat everything that will grow in the vegetable garden!  I think he was scared by the flowers.

This was the flowering bok choy (or tatsoi, I couldn't really tell with the elongated leaves).

Here's the Red Russian Kale bolting.  Only two plants survived in the side garden, so I harvested one and left the other one alone to go to seed.

I washed and trimmed all the edible leaves (some of the outer leaf stems were starting to look a little squishy).  I didn't weigh the harvest, but I would guess they totaled a few ounces.  Instead of tossing them in the salad, I made a quick stir fry with some olive oil, a dash of soy sauce and some garlic powder (we didn't have any garlic).  There was barely enough for us to each have a few bites as a snack, but at least we got to eat something tasty that we grew this week, and it made me happy.

Oh, here is a little handful of overwintered parsley and cilantro that also came from the side garden. I meant to toss these in the salad, too, but in the process of discovering and dealing with the bolted hardy greens, the salad making plans got forgotten.

Tomorrow, I will post some pictures from our main garden.  With all the rain we had last week, the peas are really starting to take off.  I have 12 feet of peas and more peas growing!

Happy Harvest Monday!

11/8/10 Harvest After The First Snow

We had our first snow on Friday, although it didn't stick.  Temperatures dipped down to the mid-twenties on Friday night, but I'm happy to report that what little left of the asian greens in the garden (with emphasis on little) survived the cold night.

These are the survivors, including a lone radish.  First, they survived the relentless attack of the cabbage worms (but not without battle scars consisting of big holes and missing chunks of leaves), and now they have survived their frost and snow.  I stir-fried these greens for lunch.  They were really tasty, but so little in quantity to just barely whet our appetites.  I really need to figure out a way to grow these better and to protect them from pests next year!

Also surviving frost and snow are some volunteer parsley that have been growing for the last two months.  They seem really hardy and healthy in the outdoor garden.

I supplemented this week's garden harvest with some cilantro and basil from our indoor grow box.  A single Jelly Bean tomato (also from the grow box) somehow made its way onto the harvest plate, too.  I chopped up the cilantro and mixed it in with some freshly cooked brown rice.  They added a nice flavor to the rice!

I also picked the last handful of green beans from the grow box.  While it was kind of cool to find out that we could grow green beans (bush variety) in our grow box, I have to admit that they were still very cramped in there and did not grow to their full potential.  I'm not sure if I'll grow them again in the grow box.

The harvests are definitely getting smaller, but we really appreciate every little bite that makes its way into our kitchen.

Check out Daphne's Harvest Monday to see who else is still harvesting in November!

10/18/10 Harvest Still Trickling In

We're only a couple of days away from the average first frost date in Indianapolis, but it looks like we may be lucky enough get through the rest of October without seeing any frost.  This would make for a very warm October for our area.  The weather was really beautiful this weekend with the daytime highs in the 70s.  Keith and I took advantage of this by taking a Saturday evening walk to the neighborhood liquor store (0.6 miles from the house) to buy some beer (the cashier looked at us a little funny when Keith put the beers in his backpack) and then enjoying a Sunday morning stroll before breakfast to admire various elaborate Halloween decorations around the neighborhood.

In the garden, the warm weather has allowed another handful of Jelly Bean tomatoes to ripen on the vine.  The plants themselves are looking pretty sorry and bare, but as long as the tomatoes stay edible, I won't complain.

In addition to the Jelly Bean tomatoes, this week's harvest included several more ripe cayenne peppers, a few sugar snap peas, one small radish and some green beans (both green and golden).  The green beans were our first harvest from the bush beans currently growing in the indoor grow box, so we were pretty excited to add green beans to the list of our grow box vegetables.

I also harvested two salads' worth of baby lettuce.  I don't know why they look so pale in this picture, but they looked normal in person.

Oh, I also harvested another serving's worth of asian greens.  I might have had two servings' worth, but the cabbage worms took their share before I got there.  I know, because I picked 15 fat and happy cabbage worms off of my greens.  Well, they were probably happy before I picked them off and drowned them in a container of water.

Bok Choy: If this is not rude, I don't know what is.

I also tackled the mass of basil growing in the garden.  Basil is probably the number one thing that grew like weed in the garden this year.  Next year, I will grow fewer plants.

Here's about one pound of basil.  I made a triple batch of pesto, and am currently in the process of air-drying the rest of the basil leaves for future consumption.

10/4/10 First Harvest of Fall Crops

The night time lows dropped to high 30s this weekend.  In California, this would be considered winter.  In Indiana, as in the most of the rest of the country, I guess this is fall. 

I harvested my first small batch of fall vegetables, consisting of some baby Red Russian Kale and a sampling of baby asian greens including bok choy, china choi (seeds shared by Ottawa Gardener), and tatsoi.  I'm having a lot of trouble keeping these plants alive due to serious damage by cabbage worms, aphids, and possibly slugs (the only one I haven't visually confirmed yet).  You can see a little bit of the damage to the surviving leaves in the picture above, but this is nothing compared to the damage to the non-surviving plants.

Since I didn't have any prior experience handling these hardy greens, either as a gardener or a consumer (except when they are included in a prepared dish), I wasn't sure how big I should let them grow.  I harvested these leaves fairly small because I was curious about their flavor and also because I don't trust the pests to allow them to grow to a decent size.  I've already lost almost half of my crops to the stinky pests that munch on them leaf by leaf, leading to total destruction.  I did finally sprinkle some Sluggo out there today, so if there are any invisible slugs out there, hopefully Sluggo can start controlling the problem.

By the way, these greens were delicious as a quick stir-fry.  Between Keith and me, there was barely enough to have three or four bites each.  These cook down a lot, just like spinach.  Inspired by our first tasting of these tasty hardy greens, Keith and I sowed more seeds in our indoor grow box today.  We're hoping to grow this new batch to maturity entirely in the grow box to avoid the pest problems in the garden.  I'm not sure how much room the full-sized versions of these vegetables will require, so this will be yet another grow box experiment for us.  Next year, I'll grow them all under row covers outside.

I also harvested the first three sugar snap peas from my remaining three plants that survived the cutworm attack.  They were still too small and did not taste very sweet.

The outdoor Jelly Bean tomato plants are still pumping out tomatoes, although they are very slow to ripen.  I picked a handful that had any hint of blush, so that they can finish up the ripening process indoors.  Only one Jelly Bean tomato has ripened in the indoor grow box so far.  But since we don't have to worry about the impending first frost in the grow box, I'll just let them take their time to ripen on the vine.

This post is part of Daphne's Harvest Monday.

Fall Garden Woes

Someone has been eating my fall garden crops, and it's not me!

Daikon Radish Seedling

Pak Choi  or Tatsoi seeding

Pak Choi or Tatsoi Seedling

The frustrating thing is, I haven't seen any bugs around these seedlings, so I don't even know what's doing the damage.  With the cucumber beetles this summer, at least I could see them all the time on my plants so I could kill or curse them (often both at the same time).  But these fall seedlings are getting eaten up by some mystery pest and I don't know what to do, or whom to curse and blame (not productive for the garden, I know, but it can be therapeutic for myself)

Is there anyone else battling mystery seedling damage in their fall garden? 

Fall Planting 2010

I hemmed and hawed about what vegetables to plant for my fall crops.  I ended up deciding against most common brassicas like head cabbage, broccoli and cauliflower, because I was worried that they might take up too much room in my square foot gardening boxes.  Maybe I'll try them next year, when we expand our garden with more raised beds in the ground.

Below is a list of fall vegetable seeds sown so far in our garden and their planting dates.  I'm trying out successive planting with some of them.  I would have sown them earlier, but it's just been so hot all of July and August, and I didn't think that these seeds would germinate all that well when day time highs have been consistently in the low to mid 90s.  Our Indianapolis garden is in USDA zone 5b with the average first frost date of around October 20.  I'm curious to see if this year's first frost would be later than this average date, considering how hot it's been so far.

• Crimson Giant Radish – 7/31/10 (probably sowed too early, as they are not growing very well)
• Ruby Queen Beets – 7/31/10 (same as radish, not growing well past initial germination)
• Sugar snap peas (aka butt peas) – 8/1/10
• Carrots (I still have dreams of growing girthy carrots in Indiana) – 8/8/10
• China Choi (seeds shared by Ottawa Gardener) – 8/16/10, 8/28/10
• Pak Choi Cabbage – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Tatsoi Cabbage (rosette bok choy) – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Ruby Red Chard – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Fordhook Giant Chard – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Red Russian Kale – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Little Gem Lettuce – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Ruby Lettuce – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Red Romaine Lettuce – 8/22/10, 8/28/10
• Daikon Radish – 8/22/10

All of these, except for sugar snap peas and carrots, are new vegetables in the garden for me, so I'm really looking forward to watching the plants grow and hopefully eating them.  I know you’re supposed to grow vegetables that you like to eat, but I confess that neither Keith nor I have much prior experience eating a lot of these new vegetables.  Well, Keith already knows that he doesn’t really like radishes and hates beets, and I’m somewhat neutral to both of them, but I’m growing them anyway.

If any of these fall vegetables grow well for us, then I’m going to have to find new recipes to work them into meals.  I figure lettuce is lettuce regardless of the variety, and I can use them in salads.  But what to do with all these new hardy greens like chard, kale, and various chinese cabbages?  This fall is going to be an interesting time for us both in the garden and in the kitchen!

Below are some pictures of germinated seedlings.  I noticed that all of the seeds sprouted more than one seedling.  With very small seeds like Pak Choi, it's possible that I sowed more than one seed in the middle of the square, but with bigger seeds like chards, I know I only sowed one seed in each spot.  Are some of these seeds supposed to germinate more than one seedling from a single seed?  Should I thin these out so there's only one seeding growing in each spot, or should I just  leave them alone?  Can I try to separate out the seedlings and transplant them farther apart without damaging the roots?  Hmm, questions and more questions...

Fordhook Giant Chard

Ruby Red Chard

Red Russian Kale

Pak Choi Cabbage

This post is linked to Tuesday Garden Party.