Save Seeds to Plant Seeds

Seeds drying on newspaper

This is the first time that I'm collecting seeds from my own produce. It will be exciting to saw them next year! So far I collected peas, beans, nasturtium, calendula, tagetes, carrots, sunflower, pumpkin, tomato and spinach. Soon to collect seeds from chard, onions, squash, radishes, mizuna cabbage and swedish soybeans.

I also collected seeds from various wild growing bee lowing flowers. The nature is so generous indeed. 

As a self-sufficient householder it is of utmost importance to learn how to and when to collect seeds as well as how to store them. I make sure to write on each seed bag the year the seed is from since some seeds cant live forever. Old seeds often don't germinate.

Save seeds to plant seeds!

How are the Chicks doing?

Im glad you are asking :) they are doing fine I must say. Theytransformed from "nipping at each other" psychopaths to very gentle hens which are now grooming one another and walking freely around our neighbourhood. Our neighbours don't mind them actually they think its cute to see them around their houses. They truly are free-range hens now.
Lets see how they looked when I first got them from the egg farmer;

Damaged feathers and skin, and biting one another constantly

Now they look like this;

Foraging freely around the entire neighbourhood like a natural flock

Lets not forget that 60% of all eggs produced in the world come from caged hens;

Poor caged creatures. Why are humans so heartless?
We must stop this madness!

Next time you buy eggs make sure to look if they are from caged hens or free-range organic hens. You can make the difference right there in the shop. What do you support?

Year's last Squash and Pumpkins

Thats it folks! The Jötnar (frost giants) of the Norse mythology are approaching our shores bringing in frost with them. Its time to harvest the last bits of Squash and Pumpkin before they arrive and ruin them.

The Squash was very productive the whole season and we ate a lot of it and we gave a lot to our good neighbours. The Spaghetti Pumpkin was less productive. The above is about it. I gave 2 to my neighbour. As you can see in the photo the pumpkins aren't that big at all. I think they would give more fruits if we harvested the first fruits early. I've heard that for each early harvested pumpkin and squash two new flowers form. Lesson learned for the next year.

I will make sure to take seeds from both for next year. I'm trying to create my own seed bank and will do so every year.

Harvesting Carrots, Beets and Parsnip

harvesting carrots

lots of carrots and parsnip

Kristine was taking up the Beetroots

fine organic Beets

We took up one plant of Sarpo Potatoes just to see how it
developed and this is what it gave us

Kristine is very good at braiding Onions

Strange bug in the Carrots

I have never seen this beautifully colored insect before. Google search told me it is called Striped Shield Bug.

Striped Shield Bug on Carrot seeds

Carrots are starting to be big and soon to be harvested. Im not sure how to harvest them ... apparently one needs sand to do it properly ... must research a bit more.

They taste lovely. We mostly use them in juices.