In the Garden with Kenny Heafner

Hello  again, everyone, and thanks for joining me In the Garden!  It’s been a while since we’ve been together here on the pages of BayouLife.  But a lot has been going on in the garden so let’s catch up.  How about the spring we had?  It was a real spring!  I credit our cool spring, late frost aside, with why I’ve seen wonderful vegetable production this season.  Blueberries, mayhaws, and peaches are another story, unfortunately.  

How is your compost pile doing?  That and seed saving are my two soap box topics right now.  Folks, if you’re not composting at home, you’re doing plants in your landscape a huge disservice.  They’re missing out on the single best soil amendment available.  Compost is a great material for breaking up clay soil.  And homemade compost is a nutrient-dense material.  Your plants will thank you by producing like crazy when fertilized with homemade compost, and I speak from experience. This season, I’ve turned sandy clay soil on my property into one of the best in-ground garden strips I’ve ever experienced!  Fertility isn’t a problem with clay soils.  Indeed, the small particle size just means that, per unit area, nutrients have more surface area to bind to,  so, nutrients are there.  Workability is the main problem with clay soils, and nothing will improve soil tilth and drainage like homemade compost.  Do yourself and your gardens a favor by composting.  Give me a call at the office and I’ll be glad to help you get started!  

If there is a silver lining that came out of the pandemic, it’s that we all have a renewed appreciation for how important it is to be more self-sufficient than we were prior to 2020.  It was a hard pill to swallow, but we learned going to the grocery store wasn’t always a sure thing.  Home gardening experienced a renaissance likely not seen since World War II-era victory gardens and with that came a heightened appreciation for the value of heirloom and open-pollinated crops and saving seeds for future seasons.  With seed prices predicted to rise by as much as 40% by next year and for a plethora of other reasons, I think it’s worth going into some detail about how to save seeds.  So let’s focus on vegetables.

Cucumbers, snapbeans, butterbeans, English and field peas, okra, squash, tomatoes, and watermelons are all examples of fruit.  They begin as the ovary of a flower.  Rule of thumb: fruit should stay attached to the plant for as long as possible.  Inside each ovary are ovules that contain an egg cell.  At the times of pollination and fertilization, the ovary expands into a fruit and the ovules inside the ovary become seeds.  Seeds are attached to the interior of the ovary by a strand of tissue called a funiculus.  The seeds and fruit will continue to draw nutrients from the plant for as long as necessary.  A fruit is “ripe” when the seeds are mature enough to be dispersed.  Remember, flowering plants do all this to reproduce.  Not to please or feed us.  We happen to reap the benefits.  The process of flowering, fruiting, and setting seeds can be an energy drag on the plant which is why many vegetable plants stop producing if they aren’t picked regularly.  Sometimes, we pick veggies (= fruit) before they’re fully ripe.  This is the case with cucumbers.  Cukes aren’t palatable when they’re fully ripe.  But the seeds don’t mature until they’re fully ripe.  Beans and peas are other examples.  So, if saving seeds is the goal, then the seeds need to draw nutrients from the plant for as long as they can.

For beans and peas, leave normally formed pods on the vine until they dry completely and turn brown or grey.  In many cases, you’ll be able to hear the seeds rattle inside the pod.  When the pod is thoroughly dry, it will crackle when it’s twisted and will split open.  The seeds literally fall out.  They will be hard.  Spread them out on a table or countertop for a week or two and they should be dry enough to store for next season.  I store seeds in airtight containers or Ziplock-style bags in the freezer.  

To save seeds from okra, simply leave a pod on the plant until it dries out.  The pod (botanically, a loculicidal capsule) will start to split open (dehisce) along the sutures and the black, BB-like seeds will be visible.  Simply twisting the dried okra pod should open it up; seeds will go everywhere if you’re not careful.

Eggplant should remain attached to the plant until the fruit turns yellow.  Slice the fruit open and place sections in a large bowl of room temperature water.  Seeds float out and the rest come out easily by running a finger through each chamber.  Viable seeds usually settle to the bottom of the bowl.  Fermenting is not required.  The seeds can be collected in a strainer, rinsed off under a forceful stream of water under the kitchen faucet, and spread on wax paper to dry.  

Seeds of cucumbers are coated in a jelly-like substance that will delay germination.  This material must be fermented away.  Cucumbers, like eggplant, will typically turn yellow when left on the vine.  The longer they stay attached to the plant, the more fully mature seeds you’ll harvest.  Select a fruit that is a good representation of the variety you’re growing and let that one be your seed fruit.  The cucumber will be ready to pluck when the stem turns brown.  The cucumber may even feel soft.  Slice the cucumber in half lengthwise and scoop the seeds and surrounding tissue out into a jar.  Mature seeds typically pop right out.  Once the seeds, surrounding tissue and juice are in the jar, add an equal volume of tap water.  Cover the jar with a piece of cheesecloth and let the jar sit on the counter for a few days.  Some seasoned seed savers put the jar outside in full sun.  As the contents of the jar begin to ferment, viable seeds will settle to the bottom.  Non-viable seeds will float and a definite layer of gel, tissue, and even some mold will form on the surface as fermenting proceeds.  After a few days, the top layer can be poured off, and the mature seeds can be collected in a strainer, rinsed thoroughly, and spread out to dry on wax paper.  As with cucumber seeds, tomato seeds will also need to be fermented to dissolve the jelly-like coating from around the seeds.  Viable tomato seeds will settle to the bottom of the jar.

So, give saving your owns seeds a try this season.  Remember, seeds only of open-pollinated or heirloom varieties will breed true.  The surest way for these rare heirlooms to fall into extinction is for us to not be growing them!  And extinction is forever.  

Be sure to tune in to Louisiana Living every Tuesday at 4:30 on KARD Fox 14 and every Tuesday and Thursday morning at 8:45 on KWCL 96.7 FM for the television and radio versions of In the Garden.  

See you next month!