Tomato and cucumber seed saving, onion seeds, and lots of pictures

Happy Labor Day! As I sit here pecking at the keys, the skies are gray and the rain is gently falling. Kind of a nice slow day. We scrambled this morning to get a few things done before it started raining too much, getting some onions and spuds out of the ground and planted some more fall greens. It always seems strange to be planting seed this time of the year, but the reality is that many greens actually prefer the cooler, wetter, short days of fall more than the blasting dry heat of summer. (Which, obviously, we really didn't get this year, but ..............) When planting the beginning of September, it seems I should go get my head checked out. :) But, as a gardening friend says, when I had mentioned myself being a bit loony having cucumber plants about a foot long now, for late cukes, she said I'm just being optimistic. Thanks for that kind comment, J.M. :)

Had a few tomato plants start ripening outside quite a bit earlier than most of the others, so I saved some seed. My planting records said they were the heirloom variety called "Rose" (a name I really like, one of our daughters also bears that name); having grown the Rose tomato in the past, however, I know these were most certainly NOT Rose tomatoes. I think they were an extra early variety called Glacier, which we also planted a few of, and which obviously got mixed up somehow. Small, red, but with a good flavor, especially considering their earliness. Started by cutting them in half, across the equator, so to speak, then squeezing out the gel and seeds into a cup and labeling them.

Tomato seed saving on the kitchen counter

Squeezing out the gel and seeds

Some of next season's tomatoes

Did essentially the same thing with a pickling cucumber (which by the time it was ready for seed saving was far past being a good pickle). Got my seed saving operation booted out of the kitchen by the two head cooks here, my lovely and gracious wife Janice and our oldest daughter Melissa, who is following in Janice's footsteps and is becoming a great homemaker in her own right. But I don't mind getting moved out of the kitchen, it means good eatin' is in the works. :) So I had to use the little octagonal cabinet/table in the living room to snap this photo. Here's the cuke seed pics.

Seeds ready to be scooped out

Here they are, with the cuke juice and a little water added.

In a few days, the containers looked like this, which they are supposed to look like.............

Mold grown across the top

Rinsed off, lighter mostly immature seeds poured off.

I'll let them dry down on the coffee filters for a few days, then get them in a envelope, and into the freezer for next year's cropping. Here's a picture of the onion seeds we saved earlier. They are still sitting on the old pump organ (boy, it's nice to hear that thing squawk, I like to sit and play a few songs now and again), but when I get some time here, I'm gonna blow off the chaff and get those seeds into a packet as well.

Next season's onions, ready for your salads in about 11 months. :)

Now, a big photo blast, in no particular order.

Two of the little squirts, "helping" make sauerkraut.

Cucumbers and heirloom tomatoes, with a cilantro/parsley/oil/vinegar dressing.

Big caterpillar, was on one of the plum trees.

Fall crops, loving the weather.

Lots of baby lettuces in the little portable greenhouse.

Huge cabbage in the home garden, for more sauerkraut.

Bee balm and Korean hyssop. The bees love them!

Peppermint, growing back from the recent cutting.

Cabbage was harvested, now it's making mini-cabbages. :)

Huge Blue Hubbard squash.

It's strange to see the pond so full this time of year.........

Echinacea purpurea in bloom.

The big caterpillar that was on the plum branch is of an unknown variety. We saw a couple here last year as well. If anyone out there knows what kind it is, I'd be interested to find out. One really strange one last year would shoot out it's orange horns/antennae at you when you touched it. We usually put them in the woods and let them finish their life cycle. I guess that's one of the results of planting lots of flowers and pollinator habitat- you get lots of pollinators, which is of course what we want.


Well, it looks like the rain is letting up a bit for now, so I better run along. Y'all take care now...........