Seed Saving - Tomatoes

Generally seeds saved from open-pollinated or heirloom Tomato varieties breed true to type. Which means you get the same variety from the seed as the one you collected from. But although Tomato flowers are usually self-pollinated, occasionally they may be cross pollinated by insects about 2% of the time. If you want to prevent cross pollination completely 100% you should keep the different varieties about 10' apart. Flowers of older varieties, like some Heirloom Tomatoes, are said to often have longer styles then more modern cultivars. Because it protrudes more it is more accessible to bees and other insects so these varieties have a higher chance of getting cross pollinated.

                                         
But what is a typical backyard gardener to do, most of us don't have the garden space to isolate our Tomatoes for 10 feet apart? You could plant either tall barrier plants between the Tomato plants or put another pollen producing crop between the different varieties. Or you just do it as I do, chance it.
After all it is only a small chance of cross pollination and who knows maybe you get a cool, new tomato variety out of the deal.
For seed saving, pick the best looking fruits, from your healthiest looking, best producing plants, when they are fully ripe. It is a good idea to save seeds from several fruits to maintain a larger gene pool. No need to waste a tomato just for saving seeds. When you are ready to process a tomato for eating or cooking, just scratch some of the seed containing pulp into a small glass jar (old jam jars work really great), I usually add just a splash of water and then let it ferment at room temperature.

 Don't put it in an especially warm place. At 80° F the fermentation takes about 2 days, at 70° F about 3 days. If you leave the seeds in the pulp for a longer period you get a better control of bacterial canker, which is a seed borne disease, but you should not let them ferment longer then 5 days or they might start to sprout. Stir the mixture each day and when it's ready, carefully pour most of the liquid with the pulp out, without loosing your seeds. You might have to keep adding water frequently to free the seeds from the pulp. Just add some more water, swirl, pour and do it until the water looks almost clean and there is no more pulp. Now you can strain it all over in a sieve, maybe rinse them some more and drop the seeds into a paper towel. Fold it over and let them dry for 3 to 7 days. After they are dry you can put the seeds in small zip lock bags or jars.

If you are saving seeds of many different cultivars it is advisable to label your jars with the name of the varieties you have. It is easy to get mixed up. Since I ferment several batches, after I am drying the first batch I put the jar with the label with the next batch on top of the corresponding Tomato variety drying in the paper towel.

Kitchen garden growings

My vegetable garden is still growing things for me.


I replanted some of the beds with some Winter Vegetables and hope the weather will be nice enough to me this winter to let me pick some food during the dark months of the year. Some weather prediction for this year say it could be a mild winter this year so maybe it all will work out.
This growing season has been somewhat a mixed bag of success in growing my food. Our summer has been a bit cool this year, especially at night, even tough we had a bit of up and downs in temperature. So everything what likes cool, did really well. But anything which needed some warm night times grew very slow and didn't produce as much.
Some vegetables grew in abundance, some I barely got even one meal out of them. Others grew nicely but took forever to ripen and then I had a huge snail problem this year. Aphids were sucking the life out of some plants, I had a infestation of Cabbage Worms, then Powdery Mildew came strong on this year. To top it off, the neighbors cat had been tearing my garden fabric to shreds, which I had been putting over my vegetables to keep the Aphids and Cabbage Worms off or I might had better luck with keeping these pests off my plants.

Some of you might not like my philosophy on out door cats, but I am a strong believer of keeping cats only indoors, I think communities should outlaw roaming cats and have cat restraint laws just like for dog owners.
I have lost many, many crops to cats scratching my seedlings out and I have spend a lot of money trying to keep them off my garden beds. They have destroyed my property, made some of my property practically unusable because of the stink they leave, and they have eaten my family of resident Song Sparrows, which I had in my garden for years until all were eaten by the cats. So, I am no friend of roaming cats. I just don't understand how cat owners can justify making their pet a problem of their neighbors or the wild life they kill.

I have been looking to find something I can easily put on the beds to keep the cats of my seedlings, something they won't shred, because it moves in the wind, which pretty much disqualifies the garden fleece blankets. I also didn't want to spend a fortune, believe me I have spend enough money already on my neighbors cats. So, I found these pop up nets at Gardener Supply Co, which do fit perfect on the 3'x3' garden beds. They also keep the Cabbage Butterflies off your plants.


The nets are supposed to fit over the 3x3 beds, but this would not work for me, because almost all my beds are 3'x6', instead I just sit them on top, I find they are much easier to remove to work the beds this way and so far I have had no cats scratching my new seedlings out and none got destroyed.
They weren't overly expensive, but I don't think I will buy them for each vegetable bed. I just have too many beds. I will just use them to mainly keep the cats out of freshly planted beds.

Last year season I had a terrible crop of Beans, I think I only managed to fill two 1-gallon freezer bags for the winter with them. This year the Beans just kept producing and producing, I filled my freezer with bag after bag. Beans were a big success this year. I usually plant only pole beans. Last year I started growing my beans on some Rose Arbor Trellises, which works pretty well, as long you don't over-plant them, which I did which resulted in a bit of difficult picking. Sometimes I get carried away and plant to much of one thing.

Somehow I had purchased some beans, I thought were Pole Beans but ended up being Bush Beans, I had planted them on one side of the arbor and so one side did not have beans climbing up.
The bean varieties I grew were 'Violetto' also known as 'Pea cock' which is a purple, flat podded bean and was very prolific. I also grew some green 'Emerite' and yellow 'Ramdor' Haricot verts Beans, those did not do as well toward the end of season, and then I had a variety from Italy called 'Stortino di Trento' which is a pretty looking beans. It is curved, green and streaked with purple, and it also makes a good soup bean, so after I had more then enough beans in my freezer I just let the rest turn into dry beans.

My Zucchinis, I planted 'Romanesco', 'Sarzano' and 'Caserta' only resulted in a few mediocre, itty-bitty fruits, they did not produce hardly anything. Not sure if it had to do with the weather, not enough bees, maybe not enough light or the ground they were in, but the cucumbers, some French pickle varieties (Fin De Meaux', De Borbonne', 'Parisian Pickling') and some Salad cucumbers ('Bush Champion', Marketmore 97', and a Italian variety called 'Tortarello Abruzzese') across from them did really well, last year I never had enough to make pickles, but this year I managed to make a few jars and my kids were eating cucumbers all summer.

Tomatoes, I grew this year following varieties: 'Thessaloniki' - red; 'Orange Strawberry';
'Striped German' - yellow/orange; 'Peron Sprayless' -red; 'Marmande' - red;
'Black Prince' - brown; 'Azoychka' - yellow; 'Principe Borghese' - red, drying; 'Debarao' - red/paste; 'Orange Banana' - paste;

This year even though the tomatos finally produced a lot of fruit, the fruit just would take forever to ripen. I ended up just taking the partly ripe fruit and let them finish inside the house. They only really started producing toward the middle of September, they are still full of fruit, mostly green. Then this week we had some real early freeze for this area, it went all the way down into the low twenties, very unusual. My husband fixed me quickly a greenhouse shelter out of PVC pipes which kept them warm enough at night and when I checked next day, they all seemed well and happy. It was nice and toasty inside the shelter. Maybe it even will help them ripen faster. Even with the slow ripening I managed to freeze some Tomato puree for the winter and hopefully I can get some more with help of the green house.


I think next year I just will try growing the tomatoes under a hoop house, and see how they do compared to outside. Our North West climate is not always easy on the heat loving plants.


I also grew some peppers, which I put underneath a small plastic hoop house and they seem to be doing well. Peppers are always hard to grow out here and they are always late. I have had not much luck with the square type bell peppers so last year I got myself some different kind of sweet pepper seeds, they are long and pointed and very tasty. They produced much better last year then any of the bells I grew before, so I think I will just be content with growing these in the future. They are still in the ripening process.
The varieties I grew were 'Marconi Op'- yellow and red variety; 'Cornaletto Corno Di Capri' -red, 'Romanian Rainbow' -from white to orange to red; 'San Salvatore Calabrese'- red;
'Red Lamuyo'; 'Red and yellow Bullshorn' and 'Giant Szegedi' - white to orange to red.


I even managed to coach a few Melons to ripen. I found these small type of melons at Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company which said to have a shorter growing season. Melons are really difficult to grow in Western Oregon. I had to try one more time. I grew them under this special, green plastic mulch made for melons and I managed to get a few melons to ripen. They were small but tasty. I could have had more melons maybe, but the snails ate most of my small seedlings. Nevertheless I called it a success, so next year I will try again.
These were the varieties I grew: 'Collective Farm Woman'; 'Gaucho'; 'Minnesota Midget', 'Oka-bizard Island' and 'Prescott Fond Blanc'
Toward the end the Powdery Mildew got them and they weren't producing anymore.

Other success stories: Turnips grew well in Spring; for the first time I harvested some Celery, which never grew good for me; Peas did alright; Lettuce, grew for a long time this year, which tells you something about our weather; Swiss Chard never fails me; Garlic and Onions did okay, the Shallots did the best; Leeks are doing good; my salad greens grew well, Arugula always does good and I even managed to get some Radishes out of my garden, which have not been successful for me in Oregon so far. Russian Kale did really well in Spring.

Carrots in the beginning didn't sprout, then after I got them to sprout, the cats dug them up and I had to replant. Now they are growing happy under the covers. The same happened to my Fennel, which after a time you can't really replant, so I did not harvest any. I have had no success so far growing Cauliflower in Oregon, it just won't grow or it bolts, same with Broccoli Rabe. Broccoli I usually get only a little bit out of before it flowers. My cabbage got eaten by snails and then the cabbage worms and aphids got the rest.

For next growing season I need to amend my beds with better compost; I should try to fertilize more often, something I often neglect to do; I need to keep the warm season plants warmer and start them earlier in the house before transplanting. I also need to figure something out how to better cover the plants to protect them from pests, before the pests get to them, and something the cats cant get to. I think maybe my automatic drip system, even it works great with most plants, once they have sprouted, does not work as well with starting seeds and maybe that has been my problem with growing Radishes successfully the last few years. Then this year I had Radishes growing with a micro sprinkler and they grew much better.

Luckily there always will be another growing season, you always get to try again.

Seed Catalogs I like to support

In the world of buying seeds, if you don't want to support Monsanto-Seminis and you are interested in buying from companies which support unaltered, open pollinated and heirloom seeds. There are many alternatives to buy from.
I think there is definitely a new trend going for open pollinated, heirloom seeds. More and more people asking for non hybrid, non gen. altered seeds, seed catalogs are responding in adding more of these seeds to their offering and if you search for Heirloom Seeds on the internet, every year there are more new catalogs in that category.

The only way we can stop Monsanto in endangering our food supply is by buying consciously. Buy seeds from the companies which sign the 'Safe Seed Pledge', buy from companies which don't sell seeds owned by Monsanto, support the companies which try to preserve our food heritage. Buy Heirlooms, Open Pollinated Seeds. Don't buy products made with genetically altered plants. Read the fine print, read your labels when you shop, inform yourself where your food comes from.

We are not all powerless, those companies are only as strong as we let them.

So these companies supposedly are not selling Monsanto owned seeds and quite a few of them grow their own seeds.

Companies I have bought from before are marked by a '*'

Abundant Life Seeds *
Amishland Seeds
Baker Creek Seed Co. * this is right now one of my favorites, they got a great selection of Seeds from around the world
Berlin Seeds - no web site
Botanical Interests * luckily for me, I can get their seeds locally in a garden store
Bountiful Gardens
Diane's Flower Seeds
Fedco Seed Co. - phasing out seminis seeds. Fedco's catalog notes for every variety they sell a number code 1-5, which tells where that seed. came from 1=small independent farmer, 2=family-owned seed companies or co-operatives, 3=domestic & foreign corporations not part of a larger conglomerate, 4=multinationals not engaged in genetic engineering, to Fedco's knowledge, 5=multinationals engaged in genetic engineering.
Garden City Seeds
Heirloom Acres Seeds - rumored to have bad germination rate & bad customer service
Heirlooms Evermore Seeds
Heirloom Seeds* nice variety, it took a bit longer this year to get my order, they said they were overrun with orders (a sign of the times?)
High Mowing Seeds
Horizon Herbs* I found 'Bärlauch' a German wild growing herb there, they built special meals around this herb in Germany when in season. It grows wild in Germany.
Irish-Eyes
Kitchen Garden Seeds* I have been buying from them in years, before they were affiliated with Van Engelen, Inc., they have signed the 'Safe Seed Pledge' and have a interesting assortment of seeds
Lake Valley Seeds
Livingston Seeds
Local Harvest
Mountain Rose Herbs* I ordered a few times from them when I lived in North Carolina. They sometimes had mislabeled plants. Otherwise a nice selection of herbs
Organica Seed
Peaceful Valley Farm Supply* I have not ordered seeds from them, because many of those seeds I can get locally. But I have ordered garlic, organic fertilizer and other garden related things from them. They have a great selection for organic gardening
Pinetree - this one I have been trying to order online a few times, unsuccessfully. Due to Shopping cart problems. I emailed them at least twice, never heard back. They got a nice seed selection if you can get them
Renee's Garden* Renee always has some nice seeds. I used to buy from there before she sold her first Seed catalog business. I do miss the old Renee's catalog. More selection and not so much packaged deals, like 2 different beans in a pack.
Richters Herbs
Sand Hill Preservation Center
Seed Saver's Exchange
Seeds of Change*another company I have bought from for a long time. They are owned now by M&M/Mars- this supposedly because one of the Seeds of Change founders is related person at the top from M&M/Mars, so when the seed company needed financial support they arranged the buy-out. Seed of Exchange say are in complete control of the company, the marketing and in choosing what seeds to sell.
Southern Exposure
Tiny Seeds
Tomato Fest - seed germination from this company is reputed to be poor
Underwood Garden Seeds
Uprising Seeds
Victory Seeds
Wildseed Farms
Wood Prairie Farm

What is growing in my Kitchen Garden

I used to not have anything in my Kitchen Garden over the Winter but with the years I figured out an easy way to always have at least some Greens and Lettuce for fresh eating at a time in late Winter when most people haven't even started planting their Spring Garden yet.
My Winter Garden Secret? Just let the late Summer/Fall plants bolt and the seeds fall to the ground. For me it sometimes is just more reliable then planting them at a specific time. The seeds know when it is the right time to sprout.
Naturally you don't want to do this with Hybrid Seeds. Hybrid Seeds are seeds produced by artificially cross pollinating different plant varieties to produce a new variety with specific characteristics. So when you plant their seed, they do not reliably produce true copies of the new varieties. You don't know what comes out of them.
To get true copies of the plant you have, you need Heirloom Seeds or Open Pollinated Seed.
Because most of my vegetable plants are now Heirlooms or Open pollinated seeds, I now collect seeds of many vegetables I plant. Some I don't even bother to seed out, I just let some seeds fall to the ground and let them do their own work of seeding out. It works well for me. In late fall or Spring I just dig up as many plants I want and move them to the new prepared beds.
Sometimes some plants, especially Arugula will seed way more out then I can move. I just let it grow where it is, even if it is in the walk ways and just harvest as much as I can before it bolts again. Arugula is a welcome Greens in my late Winter Garden, when there is not much else to harvest. It seems to be real hardy and grows well through the winter.

So this is what I have planted so far and what can be found in my Kitchen Garden Spring 2009 Garden Season.

Peas: They have not sprouted yet - planted mid February '09
Shelling Peas
'Kleine Rheinländerin', from Gourmet Seed International
'Eclipse' >> Johnny's Selected Seeds
'Dakota' >> Johnny's Selected Seeds
Snow Peas:
'Snow Wind' >> Johnny's Selected Seeds
'Norli' >> Shepherd's Garden Seed

Italian Arugula >> from Gourmet Seed International
This comes up real early in the season, because I just let some seed out in Fall,
I am already harvesting and eating Arugula

Machè/Cornsalad/Feldsalat >>Old Unknown German Variety
I also let this seed out late Summer, I am never without in late Winter, already harvesting

Spinach: has not sprouted yet - seeded out mid February '09
'Bloomsdale' >> Gourmet Seed International
'Oriental Giant' >> Renee's Garden Seed

Kale:
Russian Kale >> Seeds of Change
planted last Fall '08 - overwintered

Broccoli:
'Red Arrow' >> locally bought - Mr. Fothergills Seeds/UK
'White Sprouting' >> Gourmet Seeds International - Mr. Fothergills Seeds/UK
'Zamboni' >> Territorial Seed Company/local company in Cottage Grove, OR
all planted Summer '08, overwintered and are starting to grow heads

Cauliflower:
'Gigante Di Napoli Marzatico' >>Gourmet Seed International
planted in late Summer and overwintered, it is growing nicely while some of my other Cauliflower, which was a different cultivar all froze this year.

Cabbage:
'Red Cabeza' seeded in late summer '08 >> Gourmet Seed International
and 'Super Red 80 F1' two small Red Cabbages, which I harvested, but then left the root in, so it regrew two small heads. >> Johnny's Selected Seeds
'Cour Di Bue' - these ones did take a beating in this cold winter, but now seem to make some heads >> Gourmet Seed International

Endive:
'di Ruffec' and 'Bubikopf' >> Italian Seed & Tool Co
I have been letting it seed out in late Summer '08 and will be eating Endive soon

Raddichio:
'Palla Rossa 3' also from letting it seed outside. So far I only found 2 of those so I probably will seed some more out >> Gourmet Seed International

Lettuce: I have a variety of Lettuces, which I let seed out last fall. So far I see I have growing
Butterhead Lettuce 'Sandrina' >> Seeds of Change,
Leaf Lettuce 'Verde Riccciolina', Butter Head Lettuce 'Santa Anna',
Red Butter Head Lettuce 'German Brown', Crisp Head Lettuce 'Ice Queen',
Head Lettuce 'Trotzkopf' >> Italian Seed & Tool Co
Romaine type 'Cimmaron' >> locally bought 'Botanical Interest' Seed
Crisphead Lettuce >>locally bought 'Botanical Interest' Seed
Loose Leaf Head lettuce 'Red Prize'>> was a free Seedpack, 'Ferry Morse Seed' it is very similar to 'Four Seasons'
Leaf Lettuce: 'Dark Red Oak Leaf'-white Seed' >>my own Garden Seed I had for a long time
and a lighter colored variety 'Light Red Oak Leaf-white Seed' my own Garden seed
Red Loose leaf Head lettuce 'Four Seasons' >> Seeds of Change
'Green Romaine-white Seed' >> my own Garden seed, don't remember Cultivar
Butterhead Lettuce: 'Green Leaved-white Seed' >>my own Garden seed
Butterhead Lettuce: 'Green Leaved-black Seed' >>my own Garden seed

Parsley: I have different varieties
'Curly Parsley', 'Italian Flat Leaf', 'Giant Flat Leaf'
>> Originally from Territorial Seed Co
I let them seed out last fall and then moved the young plants to where I wanted them

Garlic: planted Early November '08
Elephant Garlic, Softneck 'French Tarne' , 'Siciliano' and 'Transylvanian'.
Hardneck 'Georgian Crystal', 'German Porcelain' and 'Purple Glazer'
>> The Garlic Store

Onions:
Shallots 'Dutch Yellow' and 'German Red'
>> Big John's Garden/Klamath Falls, OR
Italian Red Onion-long day type 'Cipolla Rossa Piatta D'italia'
>> Italian Seed & Tool Co
I planted those late Summer '08 and let them overwinter

Leek:
'Primor' - Baby Leek size >> Renee's Garden Seeds
and 'Sherwood Leek' a large type Leek >> Seeds of Change
from harvested Seed and planted late Summer '08 letting it overwinter

Celeriac:
Variety 'Brilliant', from harvested Seed from '08 >> Territorial Seed Co
seeded in late Summer and overwintered

I also seeded out a variety of Carrots Summer '08, but the freezing and thawing this winter pushed them out of the ground, so there will be no Carrots early this Spring.