Calling all gardeners!

[SardonicSmile]

I am interested in learning how to grow a "sustainable" organic garden.. meaning I want to harvest seeds from the things I grow. Bell peppers come to mind.. but what other veggies could I easily harvest seeds from?

It's just a good thing to know, though I doubt I'll ever NEED to know it. Makes things a little more challenging.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Lettuce and non-hybrid tomatoes are also very easy to save seeds from.  Non-hybrid cucurbits (cantaloupes, cukes, squash, pumpkins) as long as you let them grow to full maturity.  Beans, of course.  The only trick with tomatoes is that you kind of have to let the tomato rot in order to have viable seeds.... I usually just toss a few in a bucket or in the case of cherry tomatoes, in a coffee cup and let them get slimy and then dry out.  If you try to plant seed out of fresh tomatoes, your germination rate will be low to non-existant!  Never tried carrot seed.  I usually just buy it.  Mustard and collards will reseed themselves if you leave 'em to it.  Trick is just to avoid hybrids.  Heirlooms work best for seed saving.

[SardonicSmile]

Lettuce and non-hybrid tomatoes are also very easy to save seeds from.  Non-hybrid cucurbits (cantaloupes, cukes, squash, pumpkins) as long as you let them grow to full maturity.  Beans, of course.  The only trick with tomatoes is that you kind of have to let the tomato rot in order to have viable seeds.... I usually just toss a few in a bucket or in the case of cherry tomatoes, in a coffee cup and let them get slimy and then dry out.  If you try to plant seed out of fresh tomatoes, your germination rate will be low to non-existant!  Never tried carrot seed.  I usually just buy it.  Mustard and collards will reseed themselves if you leave 'em to it.  Trick is just to avoid hybrids.  Heirlooms work best for seed saving.

I believe I will start with beans and bell peppers. I have been reading that many organic farmers germinate and then transfer them, even with beans?

[glenn kangiser]

We haven't planted carrots in years.  Just leave some in the ground and the second year they get a big white bunch of flowers about 4  inches in diameter with hundreds of seeds.  Leave it standing until dry.  Carrots will reseed all over the place.  Similar with parsnips and celery beets broccoli cauliflower artichokes etc.

[peternap]

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

[SardonicSmile]

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

We have 40 cows, so we have a crapload of.. crap : )

[fishing_guy]

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

We just started a horseradish patch up-north.  It is one of the few regenerating things(besides chives).  We're in zone 2 up there.

We'll see how it survived the winter.  It should have done ok though.  It only got down to -38F for a week this winter.  Almost tropical!

[Windpower]

http://www.seedsavers.org/


really excellent selection of seeds

[Redoverfarm]

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

We just started a horseradish patch up-north.  It is one of the few regenerating things(besides chives).  We're in zone 2 up there.

We'll see how it survived the winter.  It should have done ok though.  It only got down to -38F for a week this winter.  Almost tropical!

What about rubbarb in your area. It is another regenerating garden variety.  Boy I love Rubbarb cobbler and then there is rubbarb and strawberry pie.   

[SardonicSmile]

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

We just started a horseradish patch up-north.  It is one of the few regenerating things(besides chives).  We're in zone 2 up there.

We'll see how it survived the winter.  It should have done ok though.  It only got down to -38F for a week this winter.  Almost tropical!

What about rubbarb in your area. It is another regenerating garden variety.  Boy I love Rubbarb cobbler and then there is rubbarb and strawberry pie.   

I am so glad you mentioned rhubarb! My dad had a few plants as I was growing up.

[muldoon]

since you claim this is something you might want to do later but want to learn how now, you might consider buying the authoritative book on the subject.

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners
http://www.amazon.com/Seed-Growing-Techniques-Vegetable-Gardeners/dp/1882424581

You will never regret it, and if you ever "needed" to read it, you'd be glad you had it in a book form. 

-- as for sustainable organic gardening in general, i kinda think its a bit buzzword happy.  However, I would strongly recomend books like

http://www.amazon.com/Vegetables-Berries-Thought-Possible-Imagine/dp/1580087965/ref=pd_cp_b_1

http://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Garden/dp/1890132276/ref=pd_sim_b_2

I own all of those book and plenty more and cannot think of a time when I have picked any of them up and flipped through but not learned something. 

[gandalfthegrey]

I am so glad you mentioned rhubarb! My dad had a few plants as I was growing up.
[/quote]


Remember to use stems only.  Leaves are deadly... Put them in the compost.

[glenn kangiser]

Hey John, I planted 2 more rhubarb today- I love it.   I haven't had a good time getting it to grow here but one of my last years plants survived - maybe it's getting better.

Don't forget things like Mint and Horseradish. Potato's can be grown from the eyes.

If you're doing an organic garden or for that matter, any garden, compost everything you can get your hands on.

Peter. as a kid my dad used to tell me I had potatoes growing from my ears, but never my eyes...

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I've never started growing beans indoors and transplanted them.... but then we're in Oklahoma and I don't see any reason to when they germinate really well out in the dirt.  I do start peppers indoors to give them a headstart.  Are you wanting beans for dry beans (pintos, etc.) or green beans?  The beetles eat them up around here if you don't have critters to control the bugs (guineas and/or chickens.)  I got a few handfuls of black-eyed peas last year, but had to really pick through them because the bugs were so bad.  I didn't plant a whole lot of them, either, though. 

[OlJarhead]

Great posts!

I'm going to be tilling and planting my garden for the 3rd year after a week at the cabin.

Probably should be doing it now but I'm busy with cabin stuff.

Anyway, I try to make sure all my plants or seeds are heirloom even though I don't harvest seeds, but I do want to learn that too.  For now I'm just happy with having some produce that I grew!

This year we plan to put in 4 tomato plants   We usually do two but I want double the tomatoes becuase I'm going to try to dehydrate a bunch and make powder

[glenn kangiser]

Lots of food prices are expected to jump around here this year --- the tomato growing area can't get water due to politics and they let 80,000 acres of almond trees die and pulled them due to the same problem.  It looks like they are trying to create food shortages - maybe to drive prices up- run the mom and pop farms out of business so corporate farms can control food thereby controlling the people?   ...  

It's certainly not to save a trash fish and an environmentalist told me they just hook onto a fish or owl or what ever to drive the real agenda of stopping farming or logging etc.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I really think anyone who can should try to grow their own!  Some stuff we've always saved seed from (melons, for example) but I'm also saving seeds from things I never felt it necessary to before.  Honestly, most of the stuff in the grocery store, who knows where it really comes from?  I think if food crops weren't so stinking heavily subsidized, most folks wouldn't hesitate to garden, buy from a farmer's market and pay the farmer what the food is really worth (as opposed to buying subsidized food at the store for less than it cost to produce and transport it.) 

[NM_Shooter]

When I lived in Houston, I had luck with wintering my green pepper plants.  I'd trim them back pretty well, then cover them with a white plastic bucket and mulch around the bottom.  They would come back the next year and yield fruit. 

Don't forget herbs like chives, dill and cilatro (sp?) we have an herb box that we let go to seed every fall, and it comes back every year.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Shooter, my mom has some three year old tomato and pepper plants on her back porch... it is a screen porch, but she covers it in a double layer of visqueen every fall and it becomes her little greenhouse for the winter... it was funny at Christmas that she was bringing in homegrown tomatoes and peppers from her "garden" when we were sitting under a foot of snow.

[OlJarhead]

Shooter, my mom has some three year old tomato and pepper plants on her back porch... it is a screen porch, but she covers it in a double layer of visqueen every fall and it becomes her little greenhouse for the winter... it was funny at Christmas that she was bringing in homegrown tomatoes and peppers from her "garden" when we were sitting under a foot of snow.

I tried to sort of build a greenhouse over my tomatoes two years ago by putting pastic over them at night -- then built a frame over my peppers and kept them alive for a while but perhaps being on the North West side of our shed wasn't so good!  hehe

I'd love to build a greenhouse though and grow all year round!

[glenn kangiser]

We still have peppers on the plants we brought in two years ago.

[SardonicSmile]

Thanks for all the great replies!

One more question.. do any of you garden without the use of tillers? I was thinking.. what's the use of learning to reseed if you don't know how to garden without a gas-powered tiller?

[glenn kangiser]

This is the first year we have had a tiller.  Before I put the garden in - moved in fresh topsoil with the Bobcat then just let things reseed by themselves.  I worked up areas with a shovel only where I needed to put in new plants.

This soil is heavy clay so I wanted to get the tiller to work in more alpaca manure, mulch,  and to work areas on the new terraces down the hill.

Some people believe tilling the soil is not a benefit as it upsets the good bacteria and other things as the soil is turned.  The point I guess is that it is possible to do it well either way.

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

I use a tiller to break up new sod, to put more OM into the soil, etc., but once a garden bed is established, you don't really need to til so much.

[SardonicSmile]

My ground is almost perfect as it is.. for 50 years it has been a cow pasture. The dirt is dark and soft for atleast 2 feet.