Bok Choi, Salad

Two of my favorite winter vegetables are Bok Choi and Salad. They both like the cool weather.
Salad actaully seems crisper and sweeter in the cool weather. As long as it gets it start before it gets too cold it does well. Bok Choi, while slow to grow actually enjoys the cold too.

I plant lettuce in small bunches every time I start to harvest the current crop. It keeps me pretty close to havin year round salad.

The Bok Choi is something I try to get in the ground in Oct or Nov while there are still some warm days to germinate it. Once started it slowly grows until it is ready for the stir fry.

Saving Tomato Seeds

Part of planning your vegetable garden starts at the end of your growing season.
Here you can put away non-hybrid seeds to use to start your new garden.
Honestly, I don't do it because I am saving money. I do it to get better quality plants and to adapt plant for my area. Do plants really adapt to an area over a few generations when it takes years to evolve and change? Heck, I don't know, but I have fun with it.

For me I have tomato plants that I have grown from seeds-to-seed for 5 plus years now. It started off as cherry tomatoes that came from compost. Maybe even a hybrid for all I know, but the tomatoes did wonderful in my garden, so I do my part and propagate the best of the fruit each year.

Tomatoes are fun because you get to start with a mess. First, pick 3-4 really good fruit. You want really great taste and maybe size or shape. then crush them with a tiny bit of water. Let them sit for a week and start to bubble. This fermentation process is important to cracking the seeds and preparing them for germination.

The next step is to wash the seeds in a small strainer. You want to get ride of most of the meat and leave just the seed. This doesn't have to be perfect since you just need to make sure it isn't going to stink in storage. Then spread them out in a paper towel to dry.

If you have read about saving seeds, then you know that people warn you that this is a bad idea and seeds are going to stick to the paper towel. To those whom would argue this, I say 'how many seeds did you need anyway mate?' Really, if you are preparing seeds for sale then you need to clean them really well and make sure they don't stick to a paper towel. For those of use that just need a small handful of seeds, then the paper towel works great. One tomato has probably around a hundred seeds or so. Again, who is counting?

Once the seeds are dry, then scrape off what you need into a small zip-lock bag or other contain that you can keep them dry and somewhat air tight until you go to plant them. The ones that stick on the paper towel, leave them or give the paper towel to a friend and let them plant the paper towel in their garden and see their surprised look when it sprouts tomatoes.

What about storage? People say that tomato seeds are good for 2-4 years. They will loose their ability to germinate if not stored in perfect conditions. But if you get new seeds every year or two, then you don't need to worry much about this statistic either.

Next year when you are using plangarden.com software to plan your vegetable garden, you will already have the seeds for the spot in your allotment that is marked for 'Your Special Tomato's'.

Northern California peas in winter

Here in Northern California we can get one last run of peas to start for a winter harvest. You can plant peas starting in August and all the way up through mid-November.

Peas are a great winter vegetable for many reasons.

1. Peas give you vegetables in the winter because they like it cool.
2. Peas at nitrogen to the soil because they are a legume. Legumes take nitrogen from the air and store it in nodules on the roots. When peas are finished, it is best to turn the whole plant into the soil and compost in place. Once the soil has rested, plant a nitrogen lover in the same spot next spring.
3. If you don't use hybrids, you can save the seeds and plant them next year and keep the cycle going. Saving seeds helps because the plants adjust to your climate and soil and can produce extra hardy plants over time.

Get to know your cool weather crops and plant them in early spring and/or fall. Even if you don't like peas, the plants are great for your soil. Use Plangarden.com and the online software to help in your planning stages. Planting peas right after or right before planting a nitrogen hog like corn helps keep your vegetable garden in top shape and will require less fertilizers of ANY kind.