it's dead of winter here in the hollers. there's about six inches of snow on the ground, with more to follow. there's plenty of time to sit down and reflect here at the computer.
i don't believe i've posted since the beginning of fall.
harvest time ... when the hillsides explode in an array of fiery color before the leaves fall and the dormancy of winter ensues. it's a time to gather the fruits from the trees, and the seeds from the garden and wildflowers that recede beneath winter's gray sky and cold snow.
well, it is, and it isn't. (the more one engages in a practice, the more one learns!)
after gathering the garden seeds, i have discovered there are a few "tricks" to be aware of. i imagine, of all the seeds i have gathered this year, the ones that will actually turn into new plants next year will be the arugulas.
not only is it important to collect seed at the proper time, it is also important to collect from the best specimens, as well as from various plants of the same species, as this will insure the gene pool is variable enough to keep a healthy strain going.
one error i made with my favorite cultivated herb, was that i continued to pinch the flower tops (or deadhead) my basil well into september ... which meant the plants didn't have enough time or daylight to produce flowers that could mature into seed before the first frosts came. i managed to cull one seed from all of my basil and am thankful i still have seed left over in the packet as well as more on order.
next season i plan to choose three choice basil plants that i stop deadheading in august, to allow the flowers time to go to seed!
if you like pasta, and you like basil, pesto's super easy to whip up with a food processor to control the texture of the different ingredients. although true italian pesto is made vis a vis chopping the ingredients in a selective manner to control the texture of the ingrediants, the order in which one processes the ingredients in a food processor can also offer some measure of control over the consistency or texture of the ingredients.
i use:
4 c. fresh basil, choice leaves, no stems.
1 c. fresh quality parmesan or asiago cheese
1/4 c. pine nuts (you can substitute with any other nuts as a variant)
3-4 healthy sized cloves of garlic
approximately 1 T of extra virgin olive oil for each cup of basil used
chop the basil, olive oil and garlic with pulse setting on your food processor, and grated cheese and chop on pulse a few times before adding chopped garlic cloves along with whole pine nuts. chop with pulse setting a few times until nuts are chopped to the coarseness you prefer. pour your pesto into a clean container and top it with a thin film of olive oil. for preservation. the container should be kept in the refrigerator or put in the freezer for long term storage.
the great thing about pesto, is you can play with the basic recipe, increasing and decreasing the amounts of the ingredients to suit your taste.
you can also make pesto from other garden greens if you're an adventurous cook!
if you don't like garlic, you can leave it out, like the french do, but i LOVE garlic, so i often press fresh garlic and add it to the mix when i'm serving up pesto for consumption.
while i came up short on basil seed, i gathered a TON of perilla seed (first image on left), which is sort of ironic, as this native asian plant is also known as "japanese basil". somewhere in my research on it, i read that the seeds are high in omega 3. while i didn't process or plant this herbaceous plant this year, it is considered an awesome medicinal for allergies, inflammation, and the list goes on and on.
medicinal japanese pesto, anyone?
bag number two is a plethora of marigold seed.
if you want to plant some marigold round your garden next season, just leave a comment, and i'll send you seed!!
if you have calendula (a medicinal of the marigold family), i'd LOVE to trade some seed with you!
and last, but not least, is a grip of red castor bean seeds that i gathered from a volunteer in the yard this year.
we thought about planting castor beans as a fence around the yard, to mitigate the mole or vole problem here. after H ordered the seeds, we discovered that we had a spectacular volunteer in the yard. it reached a height of at least 8 feet.
i gathered these seeds after the second or third frost, because i was afraid of them, basically.
i had read that the whole plant from root to seed is highly poisonous to ALL mammals, as it is full of renin, a very toxic substance. i was not certain how to handle the process of gathering seed while protecting myself. my research told me WHEN (after the first frost) one should gather them but not HOW to gather them!
while i'm not certain, i assume the third frost is as good as the first, fourth or fifth.
since this plant was a volunteer, i believe it spent a good many seasons in the soil here, before circumstances and serendipity allowed it to germinate and bloom.
once you have hulled, shucked, or otherwise gathered your seed and removed the chafe (i spent hours upon hours with a cookie tray, a magnifying glass, a #5 water color brush, and a plastic credit card to go through this process with a good deal of my seed), it's time to throw the batch of seed in a light colored bowl filled with water. the seeds that sink are supposedly the ones worth saving and trying to germinate in the spring.
my luck with this was such that i didn't have the heart to do it with all of the seed i collected.
for example?
i had ONE pumpkin seed out of a several dozen that passed the water test.
i decided to keep a few of these failed seed in order to test the truth of the matter.
i plan to try to germinate them in hopes that a couple of plants actually result.
i'm not too hopeful about the success, due to the universality of this seed test information on the web.
however, in all of the literature that i have read, NO amount of time for soaking the seeds before one should start skimming the "bad" ones off the top was given.
hope springs eternal ... and the optimist in me wants to believe that i just didn't have the patience to let all of the "good" seeds sink.
once the bad seeds have been skimmed off the top, and the viable seeds have been gathered from the bottom of the bowl, you're supposed to spread the good seeds out to dry in a warm dark place for few days. if you care to be an connoisseur, you can go one step further with a germination test, before putting them into envelopes (labeled & dated) and storing them in airtight containers, until the time comes for germinating them in the spring. it is advised to keep them where temperatures are stable and to add a bit of flour or rice to the jar to absorb any errant moisture so the seeds don't mold.
note: perennials, wild flowers, shrubs, and tree seeds ALL benefit from stratification: the process by which the changing seasons are mimicked, by placing these types of seeds in your refrigerator and/or freezer for a duration of anywhere between two to six weeks time.
i made a couple of single content salves:
jewel weed and goldenrod (pictured in 4oz. jars in front).
some witch hazel and jewel weed tincture (red fluid in back).
gathered golden rod and rose hips for medicinal tea (back row left and middle)
white willow bark for pain and making root starter (left middle row).
dried some basil for spice (center, middle row).
and some rosemary for spice and medicinal tea (right, middle row).
i also have some oils i'm cold steeping: lavender, rosemary and basil.
the lavender is steeping in almond oil, and the other two herbs are steeping in organic olive oil.
the lavender was gathered from a friend's cache, and i'm afraid it was gathered too late in the season, as the oil still smells of almond. one should actually collect lavender for it's medicinal benefits shortly after it blooms in late spring or early summer, as this is when it's natural volatile oils are at their height.
the picture to the right is of the cuttings on the very first day of my attempt (a more recent pic would make you laugh and me cry). before i discovered these plants were in trouble, i made some root starter from the white willow growing in the creek bed, and put some of my choice cuttings dedicated for medicinals in some jars with water, in case the others did not do well.
this seemed to hold promise ... until the water they were in froze recently in the sun room of the house. haha!
live and learn. this is life at it's finest!