Saving seeds looks a lot like forgetting to do the dishes

Yeah. That's not appetizing.

The process of saving seeds, particularly those that benefit from fermentation first (tomatoes, cucumbers, melons, tomatillos, generally any fruit with a gel around their seed), is just a bit nast.

I mean, firstly, you let that shit sit on the plant for evAR until it's all bulbousy (that's right, I'm bringing this Finny Original back) and sickly colored and attracting birds to peck at its grody soft spots.

FYI: *NOT* a lemon cucumber. Yeah. Wrong.

Then you bring it and its goopy ripeness into your house even though you pass the composter and it gives you a confused look, like, "Hey, isn't that for me?" and scoop out its grody innards while obviously calling Bubba in to check out the delicious lunch I'm making!

He was not amused. Or appetized.

And then you pour all the seeds and their gloppy grossness into jars and stir them around with tepid water until the seeds start to separate a little from the fruit and resemble vomit.

Not too bad...

Sun Gold, tomatillo and Solly Beiler cucumber vomit, respectively.

Then, while you're setting the jarred tomato, tomatillo and cucumber barf on the bar to ferment in front of your horrified neighbors' faces, you begin to noodle on how you better learn how to harden off seedling starts because all of this vomit-making shouldn't go to waste.

And then you think about you know it's way easier when the seeds start themselves as volunteers in the garden and you don't have to go through the vomit making process in the first place if only they'd just grow where you told them to grow jerks.

Which is when you decide to try another experiment because one's not enough when it comes to trying on a new hobby.

Just go with me on this, seeds.

See, I figured that I'd see about growing some identifiable, self-hardening off, don't need to be shuffled in and out of my house by yours truly pseudo-volunteers who also wouldn't crop up in the middle of next year's tomato hedge and hide from me until WHAT THE HELL IS THAT oh it's last year's tomatillo.

Not that that's ever happened.

And I'd just do it by planting the old fruits in the same soil in small pots and then planting that most of the way into the garden to get them to do what they do naturally except with the super fun benefit of me not having to grow barf in jars on my countertop.

And - hey - I wouldn't have to go through the soul-crushing process of destroying their tender shoots in the spring time trying to get them hardened off in the garden.

Nigh-night old fruits.

So, the seed saving experiment is now two-fold.

1. We save seeds the normal way and then try starting them directly sown into the garden because I suck at hardening them off.
2. We save seeds the abnormal way by just letting them *think* they're volunteers and leave them in the garden in safe little pots to start themselves and then WOO I move them wherever I want them to be in the spring garden as fully formed not-crushed seedlings TAH DAH.

We'll see.

For now, if you're trying the normal way of seed saving (which, probably a good plan given my not-knowing-dick-ness about the abnormal way), and you want to save some of these wet seeds, as they're called (nasty), here's your process:

1. Let the fruit ripen forevAR on the plant - until it's way past its prime.
2. Pick it, scoop out its innards into a jar with a few inches of tepid water and stir it up.
3. Let it sit around until it grows a very not-good looking layer of white mold and/or delightfully grotesque bubbles. (This is so that the germination-inhibiting protective gel will be removed before planting.)

4. Spoon the floaters off the top (these are the bummer seeds that won't germinate) along with the mold and other garbage and pour the seeds that settled on the bottom (winners!) into a fine sieve.

5. Rinse the seeds in the sieve until they're all clean and not gross and then lay them out on a paper towel or plate to dry for a few days.

6. When they're nice and dry (larger seeds, like cucumbers, should snap in half when you bend them), tuck them into a jar, tin, paper envelope or whathaveyou and set them in a cool, dry, dark-type place until spring.

Bonus: If you use a jar, like I have, you want to make sure that condensation and moisture don't develop and mold your seeds because that would completely fuck them up, so, if you insist on doing this because you have these super cute jars that are super extra perfect for this project and otherwise would be sitting around just begging to be used in a similarly perfect cute way, leave them somewhere that will let you keep an eye on them.

I have them on my craft bookshelf in the office so that every time I pass it to go lay down a beating on the printer or get some yarn to knit a thing, I will be able to check the seeds' status and crack the jar if anything suspect is going on.

Because putting them in paper envelopes is less cute. I know. I realize I'm ridiculous. Just go with me on this, people.

Then we just wait until spring and watch to see if any of the experimental pseudo-volunteers grow into viable seedlings and whether any of these seeds will direct sow into something viable.

And in case there's all around disaster, we also sit down with the Baker Creek catalog sometime in December and order up reinforcements.

Yay for seed saving.

Who's effed *NOW*?

Go BOOBS.

Yeah, probably Team Cucumber.

I mean, sure, both plants are still technically in the ground, but only one's still producing viable fruits.

The other is, well, not.

Not.

 In fact, the watermelon's managed - with ONE fruit - to surpass the entire summer's production of cucumbers by nearly a half pound.

Seriously. So far this year - 3.18 lbs of cucumbers and 3.59 lbs of watermelon.

Says a lot, that.

Like, the cucumbers suck this year, mostly. Especially compared to years passed. Last year - 17+ lbs of cucumbers. Year before - 13 lbs. Though, last year I did have 64 lbs of watermelons, so this was a weird wager anyway.

Whatever - you guys were up for it - don't be pusses about it now.

And since there's another watermelon on the vine and, like, a few scraggly depressing looking small ass cucumbers on their vine - we could perhaps have a pathetic mini produce drag race to the end of the season.

Or we could start eHarmony for produce.

The cucumbers keep doing cute shit like this, so I leave them in the ground. Cuteness wins every time with me, you know. But you know what does NOT win with me? Grossness.

You're gross, beans.

Yeah, I pulled the beans. They were getting too spooky and ugly and cobwebby and giant bean-y.

I mean, really, there's a fucking FLY on the dried out bean. Nast.

Not appealing.

Thankfully, when the beans wave the We're Gross flag, it's actually them saying that they're ready to be hauled in and saved for Spring 2012 because, yes friends, another hobby is afoot -- seed saving.

If you're not swooning, I just don't know you anymore.

I've decided that it's dumb for me to keep ordering more seeds every year when I never use the entire packet of the seeds that I buy. And in the rare cases when I do (like in the case of the beans, for instance), having saved a bunch is just a way lot easier than ordering them online.

OK, well, it's not easier, but it's more fun? Economical? Old timey? Uh...a new reason to start another hobby?

Yeah. That's probably it. But still! Cool, right? Yes. I think it's cool. I think seed saving is cool. Because that's the kind of weirdo I've become. I save seeds and I take a day off of work in the middle of the week to go to an heirloom produce and seed event.

Like a total fucking weirdo.

But that's OK, because you guys are used to it. And I bet maybe one of you wants to learn how to save seeds. So, all one of you can hang out here while I try it out in earnest for the first time.

Just to give you a heads up - this year we'll be saving heirloom varieties (because hybrids don't produce reliably from their seeds as the hybridizing process leaves them incapable of reliably reproducing - see you already learned a thing) of green beans (Fortex), tomatoes (Brandywine, Sun Gold cherry) and cucumbers (Solly Beiler).

I'll walk you through the saving process for each, as I learn it. So, you know, there could be errors as I get drunk and maul the garden for good looking shit to save.

First things first though - beans.

The first step in saving beans is to let them grow to maturity on the vine, let them dry right on there like big dangling turds, and then pick them, husk them and store them in a cool dry container.

So far, that's all I've done. As you can plainly see. We'll talk more though as I harvest another tomato for its seeds and then when I figure out how to save cucumber seeds, since I haven't looked into that just yet.

Good weirdo times around here, friends.

Also - Team Cucumber - you're effed.

Adopt a Crop Update: Team Cuke Officially Effed. Rematch in 2012.

It's officially over, Adopt a Croppers - Team Melons has won out by a pitiful pathetic margin over the pitiful and pathetic cucumbers.

These two crops this year - they wicked sucked. Though the melons only marginally less so than the cucumbers.

I'm cute, but we didn't measure for cuteness.

Final tally:
Cucumbers - 3.97 lbs
Melons - Something vaguely over 4.84 lbs
Total - 8.81

Yeah, this year was not a good one for the cucurbit family in NorCal.

Unless you like to cuddle tiny melons. In which case, this was your year.

How not good, you ask? Well, run your eyes over last year's totals:
Cucumbers -  17.8 lbs
Melons - 68.63 lbs
Total - 86.43 lbs

Wow - a 77.62 lb difference. Yikes and LAME.

Though, the melons are still technically in the ground with one softball sized fruit lingering on its withering vines, so who knows, the melons may crest the big five pound hurdle before all's told. Hooray.

A watermelon the size of a tomato. Yeah - well done, watermelons. Pfft.

So, with Adopt a Crop done and the garden coming down in stages, there's only one thing left to do - send a random garden-type prize unrelated to the mostly failed Adopted Crop to some random and marginally lucky commenter. That could be you!

You could be marginally lucky and the recipient of some random things!

Hooray? Yeah - hooray - because this year the randomness is also accompanied by Be My Seed Saving Buddyness.

What thuh?

Yeah, because I've decided that this year's finally the year in which I save seeds from the garden to plant next year so I can be all full circle-y, the Adopt a Crop winner will receive a sampling of seeds saved from this year's garden via the methods I've shared/will be sharing in my quest to undertake my 100th hobby: seed saving.

Also, probably some jam, pickles, relish, salsa, tomatoes or other preserved item from my garden and pillagings and probably some other random shit, too. It might even be garden related. Though it won't be anything derived from this year's watermelon or cucumber crops. Sorry.

Because we've eaten them all. Because there were only, like, three.

Sound good? Great.  

Leave a comment here by 10/15/11 and I'll announce the winner shortly thereafter and then send out the prize. 

FYI to you potential winners: If I announce you as the winner and you don't claim your shit, I'm giving it to someone else. And that person might not be randomly chosen. They may just be someone I like a lot or someone who posts a picture of a cute dog or my neighbor who's never even seen the blog.

Oh I am just drunk with the power of If You Don't Like It, Then Suck It right now. Phew!

But on a less bitchy note - I have a post coming very soon detailing these seed saving exploits, including how I'm going to set up the Cucumber VS Watermelons rematch in 2012.


Look forward to iiiiiiiiit.

The Death Clock of free time is at 18 days...

You may never get sleeves.

Friends, shit's been busy.

Which, obviously, otherwise I'd be posting here a lot more often because HELLO I have things to tell you about.

Like the fact that we harvested honey from our work hives last week and that my hive is about to go nigh-nigh for the season and that the garden is about to come down and that I made an awesome potato and kale soup without a recipe but just from my own pea brain and also I nearly snapped off a toe during a drunken descent from my Adirondack chair on Girls Weekend and...

We harvested one million jars of honey. It was glorious.

White Trash Dinner Season is upon us.

I blame the champs for my unscheduled dive off the patio.

Potato Kale Leek Sausage soup. I'll have to give you the recipe sometime. Except that's basically it.

Yeah. But then this pesky thing called work/life/100 hobbies got in the way and so here I am.

I've begun knitting a thing. A thing that, in a few weeks' time, will likely end up sitting unmoving in its lovely WIP bag (as seen above) until December.

Because in a few weeks' time, NaNoWriMo begins. Specifically, 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and ... seconds from now.

That countdown is like the deathclock of any remaining free time.

Yes! That's right! I'm still planning to carve out enough time on a daily basis to write 1600 or so words during November and, in a month's time, 50,000 or more words all pressed together in what is my new NaNoWriMo machine.

Sticker is not enormous - machine is just real small.

I wouldn't say I'm getting *too* serious about the NaNo business, but with Scrivener on Mac only (although I just saw something about it being available on PC soon - oh.) and us traveling back and forth from the mountains regularly and me needing to be able to AT ANY MOMENT write a word, I figured I needed a buddy.

So, a buddy I got. And thank you to a very good and nice friend of mine who loaned me her Apple discount so that this buddy could be 15% less wallet sucking.

Anyway, what I'm trying to say with all this is that even though I've been quiet-ish around here lately, I don't *mean* to be, but in a few weeks - if it gets quiet again - I *do* mean to be. Because I'm using all my words elsewhere.

In a novel that, for once, even has a vague outline and - TEE DAH - some research applied to it.

Weird.

Also, seed saving. I've been doing that. But won't be. In 18 days, 16 hours, 36 minutes and...

Remains of summer [+Adopt a Crop Winner]

I know I'm not the only one who takes a million pictures of shit and then never posts the pictures or talks about them, even if just to say Look at the awesome s'mores that I made in my backyard fireplace.

Good thing I didn't start avoiding sugar until fall.

Because there's definitely some added sugar in these.

Though there may just be more "Added other stuff" since it's more sugar than anything else. You know what I mean.

So, I'm doing a little fall cleaning of the summer photos to show you some of the good shit I shot while it was still warm enough for shorts around the firepit at night and naked butts in the high mountain lakes.

No. I will not be showing you naked butt photos.

Pervs.

This is close though. Go Lake Tahoe Derby Dames!

And here's a high mountain lake.

So, you can pretend I had a naked butt when I took this if you must.

And for those of you who just scrolled down to see who won the Adopt a Crop prize this season - you're in luck - I'm feeling generous and have bolded the winner: Mom Taxi Julie!

Shoot me your mailing address and real name (unless you like mail showing up as Mom Taxi Julie, in which case, right on) to finnyknitsATgmailDOTcom and I'll send you some randomness PLUS we get to be seed saving buddies next spring and summer. If you want. I mean, you don't *have* to. But - it'll be cool.

Come oooooooooooooon.

OK, back to the remains of summer.

I took approximately 100 photos of this volunteer sunflower. It was the prettiest. And the volunteeriest.

There were lots of bearding events with the bees and this wasn't even the half of it.

See those dots? Bees. All bees. Like the sky was vibrating. Awesome.

Volunteeriest sunflower some more.

All those wildflowers we saw while hiking in Tahoe. *wolf whistle*

Remember Kauai?

Yeah. Me too.

Oh, how I remember.

And then we had a bunch of BBQs.

Which double as dog parties. Obviously.

I'm sure there are a few photos I'm leaving out, but you get it - summer around here was short, sweet and we are lucky that we don't weigh a metric ton due to the eating frenzy.

So, with that, let's all give Fall a big hello while hoping it doesn't end up in our hair.

*Shiver*

Montana some more and The Ugly Librarian Sweater goes nigh-night

OK - I'm, like, one hundred posts behind y'all, and it's because I don't have dick for time and HEY! school just started back up again, I have events for Indie Farms going on and I'm desperately trying to get out on The Big Boss Lady whenever possible so my time having is slimmer than ever.

BUT - I don't feel right having all this stuff clogging up my brain all unshared with you guys because, you know, you're my people.

So, my people, I'm just going to share everything with you right now.

ALL OF IT.

Prepare thyself...

MISSOULA.

I fucking finally went to Missoula and I saw Dig and her fam and ALICE! (Oh how I've loved Alice from afar and hooray she's just as face-cuddle-friendly as I'd hoped) and oh my god I swam in Dig's river just like I'd been threatening to do for a really long creepy time.

Friends, my people, I think I got kinda creepy with my river swim wantings.

But whatever, because Donk and I took our yearly travels to Missoula this year and LO did we swim/soak/dangle our faces off in that fabulous Montana river.

Too cold to get in?

SHUT YOUR FOOL MOUTH.

I got right in. And then smiled my fucking face off.

Also my feet. They are clearly smiling here as you can plainly see.

People - my people - Missoula is badass. I love it there. Frankly, I pretty much love all the parts of Montana I've seen and every time I go (all three times), Bubba convinces me evermore that that this is a future home for us.

They have local breweries. Score one for Bubba.

They have roof patio bars with awesome food that you can eat while shielded from the approaching thunderstorm in a cozy nook just off the patio. Score one for both of us. We miss real weather - is that weird?

They have farms. Score one for me.

They have a long enough growing season for heirloom tomatoes. Score one for me.

They have the "Fuck the fucking farmers' market" with its ridiculous elbowy crowds but also delicious food and friendly vendors, which is score-one-for-me in a bunch of ways.

But I think Bubba is only thinking of one thing when he envisions our future life in Montana.

I happy Bubba.

Bubba likey Montana.

It snows here year round, right?

Yeah - I'm willing to let him think whatever he wants if that means I get to move here.

Meanwhile, Donk and I had a badass ol' time in Montana.

Just drinks in Dig's yard. That's all. IT WAS ONLY GREAT.

Kelli got to hug the kiddos.

I ate this chorizo burrito two days in a row.

The Missoula Art Museum happened and was ah-mazing.

Fabulous drinks were had.

And did I mention that I swam in the river for two days? Because I did. MY ASS OFF. Also, I got that visor from some random DirecTV vendor under the guise of "I'll wear it all around and show everyone how much I love DirecTV" which was a total lie because I hate DirecTV since they totally jacked their rates every year without offering any new programming and also were dicks that one time I called regular "customer support" instead of the "Premium Customer Support" that came with my monthly rape fee of $5.99 so HA! I wore this visor to the river where there weren't any people and then I left it in the hotel room for the sexy Mexican maid so fart on you, DirecTV. Wow. This is a long photo caption.

I also hugged Dig, though not here in this photo, and wandered her garden.

 I also let Margot run free with my camera and sunglasses, resulting in these very nice SUPER CLOSE UP photos.

And I played with the pancake machine at our hotel.

I guess you could say that I had a pretty fucking awesome time.

Then I came home and made all my man's dreams come true.

In the sense that I cleaned out my dresser (which has nothing to do with his dreams, only my nightmares) and *GASP* decided it was high time I donated the Ugly Librarian Sweater.

Oh yes, my people, The Ugly Librarian Sweater is on its way to the Salvation Army truck sometime next Tuesday whenever they swing by my front porch.

Farewell, old friend. We've had many ugly good warm times together.

See, lovies, Bubba gave me a bunch of great gifts for my birthday and one of those things was a big gray hoodie with a fun bike graphic on it and it's cuddly and soft and OH MY GOD IS THIS MEANT TO REPLACE THE UGLY LIBRARIAN SWEATER I see what you're doing here, Bubba and I won't fall for it or will I?

As it turns out, I will.

Because, as it also turns out, he fucking hates the Ugly Librarian Sweater.

It's ugly, he says.

It's SUPER ugly, he says.

I HATE IT SO MUCH, he says.

And when I ask him if he really hates it and wants me to get rid of it...he says nothing.

So, my thought is that if he went so far to gift me a really nice substitute sweater woobie (because this sweater has been my winter I'M FUCKING FREEZING woobie for a dozen years), I should probably wise up and ditch the old one, wear the new one and then score this winter as I prance about in the woobie HE gave me, even though it's just as shapeless and gray as the old thing that he apparently hates.

What? Is this not hot? Oh.

So, here's to hoping that by giving up the object of his apparently textile hatred, I will score this winter while wearing its substitute.

Admittedly, I do love it. 

Though I'm failing to see how this new gray sweatshirt is more attractive.

Perhaps it's the bike that makes it hotter?

I  wonder how he'd feel about the ULS if I drew a bike on it?

What? No go? Less hot somehow? Yeah. Agreed.

So, yeah, the new winter woobie sweatshirt will be on my body constantly as soon as the temperatures drop below HELL HOT and it's somehow blissfully sweatshirt weather again.

Go on. I'll wait.

Oh and geez, I have a lot of gardeny stuff to share with you guys, like my first ever BLOW THE DOORS OFF pepper year (including habaneros - woo!), seed saving like a fucking maniac and all the fall and winter stuff I'm putting in but...well, you chew on this mess for a minute and I'll see what I can do about rounding up some decent photos since I still haven't been able to reset my camera to pre-Margot settings.