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!!!

My Garden Moves in Slow Motion

Long overdue for an update!

But you didn't miss much lol. While everyone throughout the bloggosphere is harvesting their large vegetables, I'm still struggling to grow the simplest of crops...

Best example being my lettuce!

I sowed these lettuce seeds in mid March. 10 weeks later, it's finally looking like a lettuce but nowhere close to harvestable. and the slugs/snails got to the bottom leaf! Grrrrrrr.

And while everyone harvests their beautiful broccoli, mine looks so puny!

I guess the good thing is that it's still alive and no pests seem to bother it :) So maybe there is still hope! These were sown in mid-March as well. Maybe I need better nutrients in the soil?

Well all is not so pathetic in my garden though. Slow, sure, but there is definitely some progress in my garden that I can't help but be proud of :)

Top Left: Zucchini blossoms

Top Right: Close to harvest Peas

Bottom Left: Corn corner

Bottom Right: Tiny but very healthy Basil

Not only that, my spinach in pots have been working out great :D They're growing so much faster, and seems to enjoy the partial shade it gets from the herb pots on the shelf above them.

Oh and we finally got rain a week and a half ago. (28 consecutive days of no rain! VERY rare for Seattle) It's been consistently showering daily since then so my garden is just soaking it all in and lovin it! :)

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

First Harvest!!!!!

My very firs harvest was baby spinach! :D They've been getting attacked by leaf miners though :( Not too big of a damage but there were a lot of teeny tiny eggs under a lot of the leaves. I've been going out every night to scrape off the eggs to hopefully decrease the damage. I never see the suckers though. I just find their eggs. Grrr...

My friend's dad let me take home one of their chicken's freshly laid egg to try. I've never had a "fresh" egg like this before so I didn't really know what to expect...

My breakfast. Salt and peppered pan-fried egg, spinach with olive oil, pepper and feta cheese.

Here was my breakfast. Very small and very simple but VERY satisfying :D I've never had such a delicious and flavorful meal!!! I think it also helps that I'm finally eating my spinach I've tended to for over a month. Soooo good. And the egg? Unbelievable. The whole egg was so thick and the yolk had so much more flavor than the store bought ones do.

I can't wait to get my own chickens!! I've been doing tons of research and my boyfriend and I are finally starting on making the chicken coop. I've narrowed down my choices to an Orpington, an Australorp, or a Wyandotte. Maybe I'll just get one of each. I think I only want 2 though. We'll see what happens. :)

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 :)

Sprouts, Sprouts, Everywhere!

Everything is suddenly growing so fast! I was expecting maybe 10% of my seeds to sprout but almost 75% have sprouted!! 8D How amaaaaazing!

top left: spinach
top right: turnips
bottom left: squash
bottom right: peas


So I've come to realize that gardening is very.... therapeutic. It's nice to escape into the garden and be able to create my own little world. I feel like a little kid again, eager to see something new each and every day :)