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Saving tomato seeds is super easy, and we love that you can both save the seeds and eat the fruit too.  1.  Tomatoes are (mostly) self pollinating so you can save seed from just one plant if that's all you have.  Keep the varieties separate though if you want them to stay true to type.2.  Tomatoes will ripen off the vine, but for fully ripe seed you need to allow them to ripen on the vine before picking.3.  Cut off the top and squeeze seeds and juice into a cylindrical fermentation container like a bucket or jar.  The fruits themselves can...

Watermelons are cross-pollinators who need pollinators like bees and butterflies to spread their pollen in order to set fruit.  No pollinators- no watermelon.  Disaster!  As cross-pollinators, its best to save seed from as many plants as possible to prevent inbreeding.  Keep that fact is in mind when you're picking the fruits for seed saving.Watermelon seeds are easiest to harvest after a day or two of fermentation- here's the SUPER EASY step by step process of that:1.  Let watermelon fully ripen on the vine before picking- the seeds need to come from fully ripened fruit.2.  Dig seeds out of watermelon flesh and...

  For ease of seed cleaning and saving, milkweed seed is best harvested just before it "fluffs out" as seen in the third photo.  The fluff helps carry the seed far and wide, but makes storing/saving any quantity of seed tricky.  Milkweed seed is fully mature right before the pods open and fluff out, so the timing for this can be tricky- following these steps can help.1.  Start to check seed pods in late August or early September, the timing will depend on your climate.  It's hard to miss the seed pods, but just in case they are the oval...

10 Steps to Great GarlicEarly fall is the time to plant garlic and shallots!Growing great garlic is a relatively simple, follow these few steps will have you turning out beautiful heads next summer.1.  Plant individual cloves with the root side down 2-3 inches deep and 12" apart September through November, depending on your climate.  Wait until after your first frost, but before the ground freezes.  It's a pretty forgiving time frame compared to other crops, but garlic that has had a little time to get roots growing will be more frost tolerant when it comes time for deep freezes.  Cloves...

Bee WatchingReady to do some bee watching this year?  One reason we love growing seed crops is that you get to see a plant through it's whole lifecycle- from seed through to flower and fruit and back to seed.  Having lots of plants flowering affords lots of opportunities for pollinator and bee watching.  One of our favorite insects to watch is bumble bees- and it's probably yours too!Did you know you can turn your bumble bee watching into data that can be used to help track and conserve bumble bee populations?  The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation has an ongoing citizen science project called...