From Seed to Seed

One of my goals when I started my vegetable garden this year was to try to get seeds from my plants to use for the next growing season. So despite the fact that they hog up my gardening space, I've been letting all my bolting plants stay put in hopes of a seed harvest :D

Problem is, I have no idea how to harvest these seeds. And they seem to be forming quick! I'll definitely swing by the book store after this post for some research material.

So far this is what's going on:

My radishes! I never got to eat a single radish from my first batch since they all bolted, but they made really pretty flowers and I'm thinking these pods are what the seeds will be in. Do I pick them then dry them? Or do I let it dry out on the plant?

My spinach. I see little clusters of tiny orbs on the base of the leaf stems so I'm guessing these are their seeds. Again, do I let them be? Or do I pick them off and dry them out?

My cilantro. I hear they self seed, but since I've got them in pots (shared with basil) I was hoping I could save the seeds and plant them in various parts of the garden next year. I see no seeds yet on these but the flowers sure do attract a lot of bees! A big plus for the overall garden.

The runners from my strawberries. This is a great big surprise for me. Well I knew that strawberries send out runners and multiply every year. What I DIDN'T know was that they send out multiple runners per plant!! Each one of my strawberry plants are sending out about 4-5 runners. Not only that, upon closer examination you can see that my runners are sending out runners! (pic on bottom right) I'm gonna have so many strawberry plants next year yay!!!

Overgrown Plants

A big part of my new vegetable gardening experience is to see how much seeds I can get out of my plants this year and be able to use them next year! So despite the fact that my radish grew flowers instead of radishes :( and my spinach bolted before I could get a single big cookable leaf, I'm letting them all overgrow in hopes to harvest their seeds for next year :)

Top Left: Flowering Radishes

Top Right: Tall Cilantro

Bottom Left: Wild Rosemary

Bottom Right: Bolting Spinach

I do need to do more research on how to do that though. Yay Internet! Oh and i know the rosemary will keep growing... I do need to trim it down though. It just looks so ridiculous! LoL

I'm Getting So Much Done :)

Everything is growing beautifully well. I love the Seattle rain. I haven't had to water the garden in weeks!!




top left: transplanted squash and zucchinis
top right: zucchini
bottom left: radish
bottom right: spinach


I transplanted the squash and zucchinis right under the trellis. I can't wait until it grows high enough to start crawling on them! :D Their true leaves are starting to sprout too which is very very exciting.


The spinach are finally starting to look like spinach! As you can see, they're way too crowded together so I need to thin them out. I wonder if I can replant them? I seeded them in a row but it's growing only from this little patch here :( So strange... I'll try it out and if it whithers away, well... I was gonna toss em anyways, right?


There's a little hole in my spinach leaf. I wonder what it's from? The slugs? Or another pest I don't know about? Whatever it is I hope my beetle army takes care of them :)

My First Seedlings!!

Top left: parsley
Top right: squash
Bottom left: peas
Bottom right: radishes


There's signs of life all over my garden!!! :D OMG this is so exciting!!! Everything is starting out so beautifully! These were taken about 6-9 days after their sown date. As you can tell, I went a little overboard when sowing the radishes so I probably need to thin them out by 70%. Same for all my vegetables I seeded directly into the bed (lettuce, spinach, broccolli, turnips, and carrots).

Half of the seeds in the starter pots are starting to sprout but I'm a little worried about my peppers. I wonder if it's not warm enough or maybe they just take longer to germinate. I think all my herbs have started sprouting (parsley, basil and cilantro), while my spinach started sprouting but my lettuce have not. Either that or I'm just really bad at distinguishing between weed and veggies.

While I was excitedly snapping photos of my seedlings, I almost missed this pest!!!

Dun-Dun-DUUUUHN!!!!

This little rascal was just hanging out on my strawberry plant right across from my vegetable patch. He is the start of my evergrowing snail population in spring :(


Well this time, they're not going to have such a fun time in my backyard like they did last year! With leftover beer from last summer's countless BBQ's, I've set out beer traps by my garden so hopefully they like beer bars better than salad bars!

I want to try and avoid a store bought snail killer the best I can (Mostly for it's cost, but also for the fact that I want to run my garden on household items and steer clear of any chemicals and such)


I can't wait for my seedlings to grow into big tall veggie plants!!! :D