Tag: radishes

Saving Seeds

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Last spring was the first time putting in a spring garden. Like many others, I went to the store and bought a variety of seeds for plants I wanted in my garden that year. So, below are 5 variety of seeds I’ve saved so far this spring. Four varieties are from plants I had in the garden this year, and the other was from a veggie I got at a local farmer’s market. I hear starting from seed is best for most plants, and if you do have problems with germination, then you could always go out and buy the plant. All seeds can also be stored the same way. If you plan to use them within the next year or two, seeds should be stored somewhere cool and dark. If you want to preserve seeds for 5-10 years, you will want to vacuum seal your seeds or place them in a labeled jar with an oxygen absorber, and store in your fridge or freezer.

Green Beans

I bought these green bean seeds this spring. I’ve stored them in a cool and dark place the keep their viability high for next year. I also got several more seeds from my plants this year. If the pod becomes overly ripe and the seeds are viable, the pod will turn yellow on the vine. The seeds have begun going into development when the pods begin to turn waxy and the skin becomes rubbery. I cut my green beans up as soon as I pick them, and suspicious pods, I will cut around the bean to see if the shell has the rubbery texture. Green bean seeds should be sown directly into the ground.

Onion Seeds

My onions this year were started from sets. They did OK, but they didn’t do great. My soil was part of the problem, and I will be addressing that. I also had 3 bulbs go to seed. When Onions go to seed, they develop a big flower stem out the top, and from there they develop a flower that looks like a yarrow or queen Anne’s lace. Once the flower has been pollinated and begins to close up/turn brown in an area, you can cut off the head and place it in a paper bag for a week or two to finish drying. Once dry, you can shake the flower the drop all the tiny little seeds. The flower can be disposed of, and the seeds stored as desired. Onion seeds should be started inside before being transplanted outside.

Radish Seeds

Radishes are a fast growing crop that are supposed to be the best for first time growers. This variety is cherry belle radishes. The seeds are sown directly into the ground. They are ready to harvest 22 days after they sprout and they only like cool weather. If you leave them in the ground for longer, they will begin to go to seed. I kept 3 radishes in the ground, and as they matured they grew considerably! They grow a main stock with many branches of flowers. After about a week or two they begin to form pods. You should let the pods turn red before harvesting the pods, and you should wait for the pods to dry and become brittle before harvesting all the seeds. You can crush the pods and break them open to extract the seeds. The seeds can then be placed in a bowl or bucket. You can then swirl the seeds and blow onto them to remove any chaff that ended up with the seeds. You may lose some seeds too, but they were likely light and inviable.

Green Pepper Seeds

Green peppers are the one plant I didn’t grow in my garden this year. I bought several green peppers from a local grower at a local farmer’s market. These seeds can easily be saved. When you cut a green pepper, cut around top of the pepper. You should make the circle about 1/2 way from the stem and outer edge of the pepper. Cut down enough to sever the ribs, then you can push down on the stem and pull it clean out. You can then remove any remaining seed from inside the pepper and set aside your top to save seeds after you finish cooking. Place your seeds on a paper towel/ paper plate. Place your paper towel/plate on a sunny windowsill. After about 1-2 hours, come through and stir your seeds to dry any seeds that may be underneath. Let dry another 1-2 hours before storing. Green Pepper plants should be started inside 6-8 weeks before your last frost. If available, buy your pepper locally and not from a supermarket, because then you will know the pepper breed will do well in your climate.

Marigold Seeds

When I first planted marigolds this spring, I was shocked with the seed shape! I had never grown anything from seed before, but I assumed all seeds look similar. I was even more shocked to seed how easy it is to harvest more seeds, and how many seeds you get from just one flower! Use a dead or dying flower. Cut the flower from the plant and take it inside. remove the stem by holding the dried petals at the top. Then, grab the black seeds, and pull off the petals. That’s all! Now you have marigold seeds. These are sown directly into the ground in spring and grow all year.

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August 2020 Garden Update

August was an eventful month in the garden. In the beginning of the month, I pulled a tomato plant because of fungus. On the 27th, I pulled my cucumbers from the fabric pots. They began forming very misshapen fruits, and the leaves were dying off rather fast. I also planted radish seeds that day in the two open fabric pots and in the free rows of the raised beds. They already have decent sized sprouts, and the rainy weather helps too. I noticed several of my tomatoes had blossom end rot, but I added some crushed egg shells and with lots of rain in the forecast, it had only happened to 3 tomatoes. Finally, I also ordered garlic to be planted beginning to mid-October. I tried to grow garlic last winter, but I really had no idea what I was doing, so they didn’t make it through the freeze. Finally, I’ve also begun trying to root a pineapple top. And, I found a volunteer pumpkin vine by the house.

I’ve also been thinking extensively about the garden for next Spring, Summer, and Fall. Josh and I plan to build 2 more 8X3 or 4 beds. We plan on placing them by our baby peach tree and we plan to place lower maintenance plants there, though I check on my garden at least once a day. Beans grew really well for us this year, so we plan to grow more green beans. We bought heirloom garlic from MI Gardener, so we plan to grow 3 varieties. We didn’t have much luck at all with tomatoes this summer, so though I’ll be more careful next year to water more often and soak them, I plan to up our quantity to 10 tomato plants with 2 heirloom varieties. I’d like to grow bell and banana peppers next year, potatoes and sweet potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, and more onions, but this time from seed. And, once garlic in harvested in July, we’ll wait about a month or so, and plant some peas. We are ambitious, but this summer has been such a blessing to us that we’d love to have even more fresh veggies next year! We would plant zucchini, yellow squash, or eggplant, but my in-laws always grow lots, so we help absorb some of their excess. Finally, we contemplated more carrots, growing celery, and beets, but we’d like to grow the garden in increments that won’t overwhelm me, and hopefully doubling in size won’t be too much.

This summer we also got quite a bit of seed from our garden. The radish seed pods below is about 1/2 the quantity I got from about 4-5 plants I let go to seed. It took me about 3 hours to break and filter out the seed, and I easily have 100-200 seeds. I also got 3 onion flowers from my sets this year. They formed seeds, but I want at least one other variety, so I will also be buying a packet of seeds. Finally, as I mentioned, my green beans have been doing great. We were harvesting once a week, but just Monday when I was harvesting, I found about 3 pods that were drying. So, I also got 12 new seeds from that, and I will now be harvesting beans twice a week until they slow down. I also am letting my lettuce go to seed, though we’ll see how far they get before I turn my beds.

August 18

August 27

September 1

Plants Outside the Garden

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Garden Update June 2020

Hello, and welcome to another one of my garden updates. My last update was for May, and this one is for June. (Sorry it’s a bit later than the last one.) My garden has grown so fast, it’s shocking! I’ve gotten some radishes and lettuce off my plants, and this weekend I was able to get some cucumbers off my plants too.

This last month I’ve learned some valuable lessons. First, and I mentioned it in my last post, it is so important to space radishes. I tried to get them high density, just it just grew into a mess, and it took about 2 weeks longer to get any. Also, the two pictures below of harvested radishes is all the radishes I was able to harvest out of that mess. I had several radishes break under the soil and begin to rot, and I had many many more that produced no bulb due to overcrowding.

Second, I’ve discovered that cucumbers are a handful! I’ve been trying to grow them vertically, tying them to a tomato cage. And, though that works, They don’t climb naturally well, so I find myself every 1-2 days in the garden directing and tying off my cucumber plants. I also trimmed off some of the lower leaves off my cucumbers. They were turning yellow and dying, and they were also restricting air flow and making it hard to see any low hanging cucumbers.

Third, I learned all spacing needs to be respected more. I planted my green beans and cucumbers about 18 inches apart, and you’d swear they are star-crossed lovers. I go out into my garden everyday, and I always see these two plants reaching for one another, and being less than an inch from becoming a tangled mess I don’t look forward to dealing with. However, my other bed of lettuce, Swiss chard, tomatoes, and onions aren’t having any crowding issues. My Swiss chard didn’t come up. I believe I waited too long to plant. I also planted another segment of lettuce, and that also didn’t come up, I’m assuming same problem. My onions in that bed have appeared to stop growing. They are tinier than the other bed despite being planted earlier. They tops have also begun to fall over on several in that bed, leading me to believe pour drainage is likely a problem. I have several tomatoes that are nice and big, however none have begun to turn red yet. I also have one that a bug got into, but that’s not bad.

Fourth, I’ve learned good soil and drainage is important. As I just mentioned, my one bed isn’t holding onions, and I’m positive that if it isn’t holding onto moisture too much, the soil is likely not giving them enough nutrients. This bed was filled with mostly decomposed mulch, so the soil isn’t as good as my other bed. Besides that, the fabric bags we filled using soil from my in-law’s house, and their soil has a very high clay content. Because of this, in the hot June/July weather, I have to go and water them about every other day, when I see the leaves really wilting.

I’ve gotten everything planted and going. Some things aren’t growing as well as others, but I’m learning. We got a peach tree about 2 weeks ago and got that into the ground. I also left a few radishes to go to seed, and I have 2 onion sets going to seed now.

Ive also fertilized my soil about 3 times. I’ve been using Miracle Grow plant food for vegetables. Between that, watering regularly, and all the warm weather, my veggies have grown so fast!

May 24

May 29

June 9

June 18

June 21

June 24

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Extraordinary Turkey Sandwich

This turkey sandwich is topped with fresh veggies from the garden, and a special sauce to knock your socks off. Apply the special sauce liberally to your sandwich to enjoy it’s flavor with everything else. I used dark turkey meat, but you can feel free to use white meat. I also added lots of lettuce and radishes. This added more flavors and textures, but it also made the sandwich very filling, making two sandwiches more than enough for a single person. I now believe that I am in fact mildly allergic to radishes, however, an allergy pill is more than enough to relieve all effects.

  1. In a small ramekin, add 1/2 cup mayo, 2 Tbsp ketchup, 1 Tbsp dijon mustard, 1 Tbsp dried minced onion, and 1 tsp garlic powder. Stir together.
  2. Toast your bread. Add a smear of dressing on both inside pieces of bread. Layer on top of one piece, add a layer of turkey.
  3. Layer on top of that a slice of cheese, a layer of lettuce, and finally, a layer of sliced radishes. This is a large sandwich, if you prepare 2, you don’t need to serve it with sides.
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Chicken Radish Sliders

Right now my garden is just starting to get it’s feet off the ground. I don’t have as much lettuce or radishes as I would need for this recipe, but soon I’ll have more than enough! The proportions I used were too small to taste the lettuce or the radishes. You could feel the texture, but it was mostly just chicken flavoring. I used some frozen dinner rolls I made several days ago, you can find the recipe here. I only used about half my chicken breast because I’m just cooking for my husband and I, and so I labeled and froze the other half. If you follow me regularly, you will notice I’m going to start freezing more stuff. That is because Josh and I finally got the upright freezer from my mom’s house, and we are trying to fill it to help it’s efficiency. So, I froze the extra chicken that day. Finally, the hot sauce really does help with the flavors of the sandwich, without it, the sandwich would need some other predominate herb or flavor to pair with the strong chicken flavor. If you plan to use your whole chicken, you can season it before baking, and that will help tremendously!

Despite how flavorful this was, I don’t think I’m going to be making this again. I never grew up with radishes, and I did have a mild allergic reaction that night, so I can only conclude it was from the radishes. I will likely be posting many more recipes with radishes though, because my garden is just full of them! I’m not allergic to anything else to my knowledge, so hopefully that’s the only food I’ll have to be wary of!

  1. Bake one chicken breast at 400 F for 30 minutes or an internal temp of 165 F is reached. Let rest for 10 minutes.
  2. In your serving bowl, tear about 2 hand fulls of lettuce, and dice up 8 radishes. Mix together in serving bowl.
  3. Place cooled chicken into a bowl, and using an electric mixer, beat until all you chicken is shredded, about 5 minutes. Add 1 cup of chicken to your serving bowl and mix.
  4. Throw some sweet pickles in a chopper and pulse till fine, or use sweet relish or tartar sauce. Add 4 Tbsp relish to 1/2 cup mayo, and add 2 drops of hot sauce. Mix together.
  5. Serve sauce and filling on rolls or sliders.
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