Saving Seeds

One of the things a frugal gardener does is save seeds from year to year. Not only does it save money, each year your seed becomes more and more acclimated to the unique conditions in your garden, so that they become hardier and more reliable.

Saving seeds for most things is fairly straightforward and simple. Let a plant to to seed, pick it off and save it. Here are some radish and onion seeds I have been working on saving. The radish seed here will probably be sprouted this winter rather than planted because the crop was disappointing. I don't want those genes to reproduce, but they do make some fine salad and sandwich material once they've sprouted.

The onion seed (on the paper) are not quite dry enough yet to remove, so I will leave them out for a couple of days. Since onion seeds only last one year and they're not nearly as reliable as onion sets, I'm going to experiment with winter sowing a few, keeping a few just as they are and planting next spring and keeping another few in the garage to bear the freezing temperatures of nature.

We shall see what happens next year!

I have lettuce seed saved already, from an heirloom type that I've had for around four years now. There is still seed from tomatoes, peppers and a few other things. Okra is on a string drying right now.

There are a few things that I've not had good luck saving seeds from, though. Summer squash and sweet peppers never seem to work out. If you know how to do either of those, let me know!

Appreciation of the Small Things

I had an apple tree. I even got an apple from it and it was so amazing that I blogged about it.

The relativity of an apple harvest

What was true then is true now. All things are relative!

Never did the lesson ring so true as it was today when I gathered five tomatoes. The garden was late this year due to rains and a cool spring and early summer so the tomatoes are just now getting started.

Yes. I know it's September 1. I'm hoping the predicted early frost will hold off, but if it doesn't? A small harvest will be greatly appreciated and well taken care of. I won't waste one small tomato and I will eat each one (and the tomato sauce I make from them) with much appreciation.

How's your harvest this year? Are there things you got little of that you really appreciate?

Yeah, I love those tomatoes!

Saving your garden.

Maybe. The weather has been unusual for much of the United States and part of the world. If you're trying to garden, it can be disheartening to watch the rain drown your plants or the hail strip the leaves or the sun burn it up. With all of that comes pests and lots of them. Insects and slugs tend to attack plants that are not as healthy as they could be, so plants that have been stressed by the weather seem to attract all kinds.

First on the defense (or offense, if yours hasn't been attacked yet), is a spray made of dish soap and water. Use from one to several teaspoons of dish soap to a gallon of water and spray the plants thoroughly, under the leaves, too. Start with one teaspoon and if that doesn't seem to work, use two and then three or more.

If that isn't working, go to a hot spray made from a couple of cloves of garlic, a small onion and a tablespoon of hot pepper flakes or liquid pepper. Use the hottest you can find. Pulverize or blend the onion and garlic, then add the pepper and mix well. Put it all in a gallon of water and spray the dickens out of your plants.

If it isn't raining where you are (or won't be likely to in the next 48 hours or so, use diatomaceous earth. DE is the skeletal remains of diatoms, with sharp edges. It's so tiny that it looks and feels like powder, but it will kill bugs, slugs and snails. Animals won't be affected by it. Use a dust mask when you apply it, to keep from breathing it in because it could abrade the lining of your lungs or bronchial tubes.

Time to Think About Vegetable Seeds for Your Garden

Frugally speaking, it's time to start looking for free seed starting containers and sort through the seeds you saved last year. If you didn't save any, it's time to plan on what you have to buy, add up the cost and make a decision to save them next year. Packets of seed each year is an expense that can easily be eliminated.

Some seeds are easier to save than others, but all seeds can be saved. For instance, if you let one or two radishes go to seed, you will have enough radish seed to last a few years. Nature is generous! Kale, lettuce, spinach and similar leafy vegetables will set enough seed from a very few plants (or even one plant) to save for the next year with seed left over.

Beans and peas of all kinds produce plenty of seed if you choose a couple of plants and mark them when you are harvesting. Tomatoes, peppers and squashes take a little more care, but not much and one vegetable will have more than enough seeds to save.

Saving seeds from year to year not only saves you money, it ensures the best harvest you can get because each year the seed gets more comfortable in the specific climate of your garden and can produce better and bigger vegetables.

Make it a point this year to save more seeds of your own and pay less for someone else to do it for you.

It's Zucchini Season!

You know what I mean. You planted two zucchinis, just in case one of them didn't make it. Of course, they both did and now you can't give them away fast enough. Or your neighbor did that and keeps leaving sacks of them on your doorstep when you're not home.

It's a shame to waste good food, of course, but there are only so many ways to use zucchini! Maybe you haven't heard about all the ways, though. Here are some ideas that could help:

Make pickles from them, just like you would with cucumbers. Use the same spices and the same method, but don't try to ferment them like old fashioned pickles. Use the very young ones, around 4 to 5 inches long. You can make refrigerator pickles or can them, just like cucumber pickles.

Zucchini chips are a great snack any time. Slice them thinly, sprinkle a little salt on them and dehydrate until they're crispy. That's all you have to do, but be careful to not overdo the salt! (Make a few without salt and save them to use in soup and stew when the weather gets cold.)

Make a pie that tastes and looks like apple pie, but is made with zucchini. Even the larger ones work find if you take out the more mature seeds. Peel and cut them in half, then slice into 1/4 inch slices and just follow your favorite apple pie recipe. You can freeze these before they're cooked, so make a few for winter eating
Chunk zucchini and add chopped onions, cooked, crumbled sausage, diced or grated cheese and toss. Make up a bowl of cornbread batter and pour it over this. Bake at 400 for about a half hour.

Got some big ones? Split them in half and remove the seeds, then stuff with a cooked meatball mixture or chicken and rice mix. You can also use rice, mushrooms, onions and tomato sauce for a meatless dish. Bake at 350 until the squash is tender. Let your imagination roam with this one.

Do you have any zucchini recipes to share?? Please do in the comment section.

Rain, rain, go away...

That's for those of you who are threatened with floods or just sick and tired of all the rain. Not so here. We've had a more or less steady rain for two days now and I'm loving it. The "poor man's fertilizer" in liquid form suits me just fine.

It makes good sleeping weather and I won't have to water the lawn or garden for days and days. We've needed a good soaking rain for a long time, so this is the answer to prayer. Things will turn green overnight as soon as the sun comes out, which it's supposed to do tomorrow.

This is Colorado at its best; the way it was when we moved to the area nearly 30 years ago. Green, not too hot, not too cold. Perfect farming and gardening climate with soil that could be amended with not too much trouble.

The last few years - maybe a decade - has been hard to garden and I know I'm not the only one rejoicing in this return to normal, even if it's temporary. Is there "normal" any more? I doubt it.

But for now, my frugal soul is happy. Bring on the fresh vegetables!

Start Indoor Seedlings Cheaper

My south windows (well, all windows in this house) have very narrow ledges, so it's difficult to use them for anything. Earlier this year, I decided to sprout some sunflowers and found that I could use very small square containers set on a styrofoam meat tray, balanced on the narrow ledge. The pots get sunlight all day long and the sprouts grew well.

Silly me. I finally decided to use that method to start some seedlings for the garden. i am experimenting now and if it works, I will save a little on the electricity it takes to run a second grow light.

Yesterday, I planted 8 radishes, a pinch of marigold seed and a few onion seeds that might be too old to sprout. I am saving the good seed for a little later.

Frugal Homemade Dormant Spray for Fruit Trees

If you have fruit trees, you know what a pain it can be to keep the fruit bug free. Dormant oil spray is expensive, but often has to be used. Here is a homemade Dormant spray that doesn't contain oil of any kind, but it's effective:

A gallon of water
2 TBS baking soda
5 TBS hydrogen peroxide
2 TBS liquid castile soap (like Dr. Bronner's)

Mix it all together and spray your fruit trees or bushes after they've gone dormant this fall and again in the spring before they wake up.

Image is my own; the apple is from my first apple harvest, noted here:  The relativity of an apple harvest

Frost advisory and tomatoes

I just brought in the last of the tomatoes that are big enough to ripen indoors, the peppermint plant and the geranium (which should have been brought in sooner). I'm a diehard gardener; I put an old sheet across the tomato plants. If they make it through these next two nights, maybe some of the smaller tomatoes will grow big enough to use.

It wasn't much of a year for a garden for me, due to health issues, but I will make the most of it.

There are pureed tomatoes in the freezer, waiting to be turned into sauce, a dab of wild greens picked earlier in the season and a bag of green beans that was given to me. Now I need to do some canning, since the weather is cooler and the extra heat will be welcome.

The newer breeds of tomatoes don't have enough acid in them to safely can in a boiling water bath, so, since part of the tomatoes in the freezer came from a friend who grows that kind, I will have to remember to add vinegar to each batch. My own few tomatoes are the heirloom kind, so I wouldn't have to worry about that, except that I mixed them together when I froze them.

Home canned tomato sauce is the greatest to make spaghetti sauce or to use in soup, meatloaf or in macaroni. It never gets as thick as the commercial kind, but it doesn't have to. The flavor is much more intense so it doesn't take as much to let you know it's there.

It's sounding better all the time. Maybe I will can tomato sauce tomorrow!

Getting Ready for Next Year's Garden!

Planning ahead can make the road seem a little smoother in a lot of ways because making the most of what we have now can help us save money in the future! For instance, saving seed from this year's garden for next. If you have grown heirloom or open pollinated vegetables or flowers, you can save the seeds and not have to buy any next year. That can save quite a bit.

Save seed from mature squash (let a summer squash mature on the vine), tomatoes, cucumbers (treat like squash), pumpkins, melons,
beans, and more. Most seed saving is just common sense. Let beans dry on the vine - that's seed. Pick a ripe tomato and put it in a dish and let Mother Nature take it's course. It will ferment and smell bad, but when it's rinsed off and dried - that's seed for next year.

Look up how to save seeds for what you grow. Some seeds must be refrigerated for a few weeks to produce the dormant stage, some can go straight from the garden to storage as long as they're dry.

Why buy seed next year when you already have it for free this year?

Image courtesy of morguefile.com

Gardening with "Waste" Water

With the drought still gripping a huge portion of the United States, we'd be wise to look to our home gardens. If you've put one in and are now looking at some sky high water bills, start thinking about ways to use water that otherwise would go to waste. Here are a few ideas I've come up with, but if you have more, I'd love to hear about them.

You'll need a watering can and at least one bucket. Set the bucket in a handy place and use it to gather water from the household. When it's full, pour it into the watering can and go water the garden!

To tell if a certain area needs water, poke your finger in the soil. If you can see dry dirt for more than an inch, it needs water. If you see damp soil, leave that area alone and concentrate on an area where it needs it more. Make a route that you follow so that you don't forget a part of the garden.

• Put a bowl or bucket under the kitchen faucet to catch those little drips you don't even think about. You'll also catch the water you run while it's cooling down or heating up.
• Save water from cooked vegetables. Don't salt them until they're on the plate and the water will be good for watering plants.
• Save leftover tea and coffee to water with.
• If or when you hand wash dishes, save the rinse water to use on the garden.
• Put a bucket or two in the shower to catch water. One set farthest away from you will catch only clean water and you can use that for food. Put one between you and the drain and that water can be used for flowers or lawns (because it will have soap, etc. in it).
• Add leftover or spoiled milk to the water you've saved and pour it on the garden. It adds calcium to the soil.
• Grab glasses with a bit of ice in them and put that in your garden water.
• Rinse dishes over a pan and pour that water out on the garden. Think about it each time you use water for anything. Don't waste it.

Save every drop of water in any form. You might be surprised at how much of your garden you can keep watered that way.

Guest Post: How to Can Garden Produce

By Bailey Harris. Bailey writes for www.insurancequotes.org.

If you are worried about your family eating fresh and healthy foods on a budget, you may want to consider growing and canning your own garden produce. At first, the thought of canning your own foods may seem a little overwhelming, but the process is actually very straightforward and easy.

Supplies Needed for Canning Produce

Before you can begin canning your own garden produce, you will need to be sure that you have all the correct supplies. At first it may seem quite expensive, but many of your supplies can be reused. Supplies that will be needed include a recipe, canning salt, canning jars, new lids, new rings, a stainless steel funnel, jar lifters, and either a pressure canner or a boiling water bath canner. You will also need a fairly large workspace and a couple of hours of time

Pressure Canning vs. Water Bath Canning

When you are canning your own food, it is very important to heat it to the correct temperature. This will kill all of the bacteria that can grow and make your canned food unhealthy. If you are canning foods that have a high acid content, such as tomatoes, fruits, or pickles, you may use the boiling water bath method. This method is very simple and inexpensive. If you are canning foods that are not high in acid content, such as vegetables or meat, you will need to use a pressure canner. A pressure canner may seem a little pricey, but it is usually a onetime purchase that will last many years.

Cooling and Testing the Jars

Once you have heated your canned items to the correct temperature, using either the water bath or pressure canning method, you will need to let your jars completely cool. This can be done by simply letting your jars sit on the counter, at room temperature, for 12 to 24 hours. Once they have cooled, you will want to check that the lids are sealed. To test the lids, simply press down in the middle of the lid, if it does not move it is properly sealed. If the lid moves then it is not properly sealed and should be placed in the refrigerator and eaten before it spoils.

Storing Canned Produce

Once your produce has been canned and cooled, it must be labeled, dated, and stored. It is best to store your canned produce in a clean, cool, dry, and dark place. Try to keep your canned goods away from direct light, this can cause discoloration. Most canned foods should be used within one year. Canned items start to lose flavor, texture, color, and nutrients if they sit on the shelf for more than one year.

Growing your own garden and canning your own produce can be a fun and economical way to spend some great time together as a family. It can be very rewarding to see, eat, and enjoy the canned produce knowing that everyone in the family had some part in making it and that you did it together.

Gardening in January

So. It's mid January, the seed catalogs are piled high, the grow light is... oops, forgot to turn it on this morning. There, now. The grow light is encouraging a few onions and lettuce for now. Next year, I'm going to use it for herbs when it gets too cold outside. The other grow light - the one that's supposed to hang on something when I don't have anything to hang it on, will be used for starting seedlings for the garden soon. I lay it over bricks to get it the right height. Necessity is the mother of invention, right?

But this summer I plan to try to create a system similar to the one I got for Christmas which is the one I'm using now. It's a frame with a hanging light that can be adjusted over a planter.

Yeah... I can garden in the dead of winter. ;)

So far, I've just been looking at the seed catalogs, but sooner or later, I will try to plan where to plant what. With a limited area, I have to be pretty creative at times, but so far, so good. I already have most of the seed that will be needed this year, but of course, I gotta try something different now and then.

Frugal take on a garden is all that good food. It can be cheaper than the grocery store kind and it's a whole lot better.

Ways to make a garden more frugal:

• Container garden in castaway containers.
• Make your own compost. 
• Hoe and pull weeds by hand. 
• Try no till gardening
• Make your own special fertilizers
• Water by drip irrigation instead of overhead

Want to talk about it? It's time!

Never waste

Frost warning tonight! In a way, it's a relief, but in a way... it's sad. I went out and dug up a little rutgers tomato that hadn't had a chance to produce much. I put it in a container that had held peppers just days ago and put it on the shelf behind the couch. We shall see...

The rest of the tomatoes were picked and I will put them in a newspaper lined box under the bed to ripen slowly and naturally. One year we had home grown tomatoes for Christmas dinner. I don't expect that to happen this time, but maybe for Thanksgiving? 

And then, the beans. I'd already decided to let the rest of them go for soup beans (a couple of times!), but if it frosts, they'll be useless for that, too.

So... I picked beans. Again. And I was surprised at how many there were. Again. I picked big ones and little ones. A few beginning to dry and a few were just babies, but a good portion of them are just right for eating. I'll have to sort them out now: some for eating, some for soup and some for seeds, although I have quite a few seeds already.

The frugal point is this: Don't waste what your garden or your shopping has produced. Use the last of everything and when you do, you'll find your larder is fuller and your grocery money lasts longer.

I will have green beans along with the little potatoes I pulled up from soft dirt in a pot the other day. A little turkey ham for seasoning and a piece of cornbread made from cornmeal made from corn I grew last year... grown from corn bought several years ago to decorate for autumn.

Never waste. The old adage is still true: Waste not, want not.

Lessons learned from a garden

What a strange garden I have this year! The tomatoes I thought were late, never did get started. I may have a couple of dozen tomatoes from three plants. The peas did great earlier this year... but they quit blooming after the second week. I've got fewer cucumbers from two plants this year than I did from one plant the last time.

I planted zucchini and yellow squash on new ground because they'll grow anywhere, right? Maybe not. There are 50 times as many male flowers as female so the harvest is skimpy there.

But when one vegetable doesn't do well, another will. This year is the year for winter squash. I only planted acorn and butternut and it's a good thing. They took over one entire raised bed and I'm talking one plant of each! Some acorn squash has already been harvested and I counted seven more almost ready, with heaven only knows how many coming on and yet to form. The butternut is slower to mature, but the vine is loaded. I lost count twice and gave up but there are at least as many butternut squash as there are acorn squash.

I'll eat squash this winter, even if I don't have tomatoes and pickles to go with it.

Beans, of both kinds: green and dried, are prolific this year, so I'll have beans to go with my squash.

Roll with the punches, go with the flow, whatever way you want to say it, truly frugal living means making the most of what you do have and not crying about what you don't have. So there won't be many tomatoes. Instead of having homemade spaghetti sauce, I'll have butternut squash soup. Zucchini and yellow squash are seasonal favorites here, but we'll eat green beans instead.

So you can't get a new couch this year? Paint the walls instead. It will make your life brighter, and like gardeners (and frugalites) say... there's always next year.

Container gardening

I've been asked about container gardening, so I'll try to give a little advice about it. I'm not the world's guru on it by any means, but I've had a little experience, frugal wise.

First, the containers. You can use anything from a beer keg to a mop bucket, but you probably want something that doesn't look too awful if you're going to have it where you'll (and your neighbors and company) will see it all summer. Think of containers you already have. Beer kegs may go in your yard very well! Five gallon buckets can be painted so they look a little classier. Large flower pots, storage containers, toy boxes or even the old bathtub will work, so make your choice. The only thing you need to remember is that a container needs drainage. If you don't poke holes in it (A bathtub has a drain hole that works fine), water will collect on the bottom and create problems for your plants. Fungi grows well in that condition and may kill the roots.

Put a layer of small rocks or crockery fragments, broken cement, etc., in the bottom of a container, then fill it with good soil mixed with compost. You can buy potting soil, but that becomes expensive, especially if you're using large pots.

A list of plants to grow in containers can be almost endless. For larger plants like tomatoes, the smaller varieties seem to do better. Almost any vegetable can be found in a compact size plant - look for those when you buy your seed or plants. Squash is hard to grow in containers, but even then, it can be done.

Things like lettuce, spinach and radishes grow very well in containers. (They'll even grow inside with enough light.)

One very good reason to container garden, besides not having enough yard space for a traditional garden, is that you can move your plants to take advantage of better locations that may change over the season, or even over a day in very hot or wet weather.

Large containers can be heavy, so think about putting the largest ones on wheels! Set them on a child's wagon or any set of old wheels you may have around.

You'll need to water much more often, probably once a day for most things, and you'll need to fertilize often, too. Natural fertilizers are much preferred in container gardening, especially. Add compost, well rotted manure, coffee grounds, etc., to the top layer of soil now and then and mix in an inch or two if you can without disturbing the plant. Remember that the plant's resources are limited by the container size and be prepared to make up for that.

Above all, experiment! Find unique containers, plant seeds you've never tried before. Keep records of what you do and learn from them for next year!

Gardens and the Neighborhood Cat

We have a neighborhood cat around here, a stray that no one wants to turn in, but no one claims. He's an older cat, not above begging, but not dependent on anyone's handouts. (He sometimes hangs out around my bird feeders, does that tell you anything?).

He's doesn't mind a good petting session now and then, but he won't come around unless he's been called. What a cat, huh?

The one thing he does which is dismaying, is that he uses any dug up area for his personal litter box. That means one has to be careful with vegetable gardening, as cat feces contain dangerous pathogens which can be transferred to the vegetables.

One way we've discovered to keep him out of our gardens is to put down a piece of chicken wire or mesh fencing after preparing the soil, but before planting. If we put seeds or plants in the holes of the mesh, they do fine.

Cats won't be able to dig a hole without hitting a wire, and they won't be able to cover their scat without hitting one either, so they'll quit trying to use the area.

The one drawback to this method is that the wire makes it almost impossible to hoe, so you'll have to weed it all by hand. For small gardens, it's not so much of a problem, but if your garden is large or you have time or physical restraints, weeds can get out of control in a hurry.

In that case, I'd recommend a commercial product created for the purpose of keeping cats and other animals away. Our neighborhood cat responds well to the commercial products, but I don't, because of the cost. They are cheaper than buying all of your produce at the grocery, though!

Feeling Good, Frugally

I got the garden dug. ALL of it. Well, all except that funny little corner to the east of the big tree. It was so nice to be out in the sunshine, smelling the good earth and dreaming about summer's crops - at least it was until I realized my back was hurting from shoveling.

Oh, the pain. I kept at it until I finished what I started and by that time, it was time for some serious recuperation. A rice filled pad went into the microwave, a glass of ice water by my comfortable chair. Soft knitted slippers for my feet and the piano bench to prop them on.

It felt like seventh heaven except for the ache in my back, but it wasn't long before that went away. I had a real urge to finish that little corner, but (high five here) I didn't do it! Tomorrow, maybe.

What's so frugal about all of this? I didn't spend but maybe a penny's worth of electricity for heating the rice pad and I recovered nicely from a case of spring overwork. No pills, no electric heating pad, no deep heating rub. I felt 100% better just by resting and applying cheap heat.

We've become such a pill popping, salve rubbing nation that often, our first thought is "What can I take? What pricey chemical can I put in my mouth or on my skin to make me feel better?"

Modern medicine is great when we need it. We just don't need it as often as we think we do. Try the simple cures first and you might be surprised at how frugal and sensible your health care becomes.

My Frugal Fun: Free Celery

Ok, this is fun. Growing vegetables on the windowsill is fun, but it's more fun when they don't even cost you the price of a seed. (How's that for frugal?)

This celery plant is growing from the bottom I cut from a celery bunch sometime in January. You can see how happy it looks. All I've done so far is put it in water and allowed it take root. The next step is to add dirt, a little at a time until the roots take hold. Then, I'll cut the bottom out of the plastic container and set the plant in a dirt filled pot, or in the garden, if the weather is warm enough, and I'll have free celery.

Celery isn't the only thing that grows like this and half the fun is experimenting to see just what will grow.