Sara's Garden MarketSustainable Living, Gardening, Flowers, and Food

When a frost is coming it is important to know which vegetables to harvest first and how to get the most out of your garden at the end of the season, or try to extend it further into the season.

Warm-weather vegetables should be considered first. If frost is a “maybe” you can harvest all the food, and then try covering the plant to save it. If frost is “for sure” you can harvest the food and then in certain cases there are things you can do to still get the vegetables to ripen on the vine, or to get the seeds from the plant even though the vegetables are still immature.

Here is a list of vegetables that will go very quickly in even a light frost:

• Basil (especially sensitive)
• Cilantro
• Tomatoes
• Squash
• Peppers

For each of these you want to harvest ALL the usable plant and vegetables.

If you have all green tomatoes and you were hoping to save seed (which should be taken from 100% ripe fruit) uproot the entire plant and find somewhere to hang it. The plant will die but the tomatoes should still ripen (better and faster than on your counter but that will work too) and you can gather the seeds after they turn red.

To save seed from cilantro and basil if it isn’t ready yet: If there are seeds but they are still green uproot the entire plant and hang upside down until the seeds turn brown and very dry for cilantro and black for basil. You can then save the seeds for next year.

Vegetable plants that might survive, or at least do a little better in a light frost:

• Peas
• Lettuces and Cabbages including Broccoli
• Carrots
• Onions, and other leeks like Fennel
• Certain kinds of green beans/beans

Carrots and onions can even be left for next season and will just start right up growing again next year if you simply leave them in the ground.

Happy Harvesting!!!

-Sara

For more helpful information about all kinds of vegetables check out my Seed-To-Seed Book Club. Get a free gardening book in your email each month for a year!

Seed saving has started here as frost will be coming within a month or sooner. So I will start posting how to save the seeds from the plants you want to start over the winter to have again next year.

How to save pepper seeds:

1. Wait for the pepper to ripen all the way. Even most green bell peppers will turn red when they are totally left to ripen. If you think a frost will kill the plant up-root the entire plant and hang upside down in a cool location until the pepper ripens, and then harvest the pepper for seeds.
2. Cut off the bottom of the pepper and scrape out the seeds onto paper towel to dry.
3. Dry for several days, shaking every day or so to loosen if they stick together.
4. Label and save in a seed packet.

How to save tomato seeds:

1. Wait for the tomato to ripen all the way. If you think a frost will kill the plant up-root the entire plant and hang upside down in a cool location until the tomato ripens, and then harvest the tomato for seeds.
2. Cut the tomato in half the short/across way. Scoop out seeds and jelly into a glass container you can see in. If you are only doing a small amount (1-2 tomatoes) add a little bit of water to the glass.
3. Cover the glass with a paper towel.
4. Leave on your counter for 3-4 days, stirring once per day. A fungus will develop which will eat the jelly off the seeds and also release antibiotics that will keep the seeds and tomato plants healthy later on.
5. After 3-4 days pour more water into the glass, almost to the top. Stir very gently and that will release the rest of the tomato parts from the seeds. Viable seeds will sink to the bottom of the glass, anything that floats to the top can be carefully poured off.
6. Strain and then dump the good seeds out onto a paper towel. Dry them for several days or until you can crack one in half when you try to bend it = it’s too dry to bend, so it just cracks and snaps in half.
7. Label and save in a seed packet.

How to save green bean seeds:

1. When you are harvesting to eat and some get too large to be tasty just leave them on the vine.
2. They should have nice large seeds in the pod by the time a frost comes, if they don’t you may want to pull the entire plant and hang upside down to ripen and dry.
3. If you get some nice large seeds in the pods by the time a frost comes just leave them on the vine until early next spring.
4. In spring time wait for a lot of dry weather, and almost all snow (if you have some) is gone. Harvest the seed pod which should be nice and brittle and brown.
5. Spread the seeds on paper towel for a few days just in case there’s some moisture left in them from the temperature change.
6. Label and save in a seed pouch.

If you buy nice heirloom seeds that are NOT GMO you really shouldn’t have to ever buy them again. Just save the seeds and grow them again next year!!!

Happy seed saving,

Sara

My daughter Maddie suggested that we can use the indoor garden to propagate the strawberry patch!!!!!!!! What a genius idea!

As you may or may not know strawberry plants only produce fruit the first or second year. They send out shoots (like a vine) and plant new plants them selves each season, and those are what give next year’s fruit. In Minnesota, and in a very small area in our garden we only get a handful or so of delicious (and I mean delicious) strawberries each season.

So today at breakfast she says, “Mom, we can have more strawberries if you dry one strawberry, and take those seeds and make plants over the winter.” WOW! Yes, we can!

So, (of course you need to start off with non-GMO and non-Hybrid seeds in order to get plants that come from seed correctly and don’t mutate themselves!) here is a great link for how to store your own strawberry seeds and sow them: http://www.ehow.com/how_2106637_preserve-strawberry-seeds.html

The trick is to find any strawberry plants or seeds that are non-GMO and non-Hybrid! Mine are coming true to plant, so I think I have a good batch. I have yet to try preserving and sowing the seeds though. I tried to google non-gmo strawberry seeds and plants and the general consensus is that there aren’t any. 🙁

(stop reading now because what’s below this is a major downer!)

Thanks for stopping by!

-Sara Murray

(This is a huge tragedy, and if it continues to happen with more and more food seeds we will see the complete destruction of food as we know it and it may lead to a great starvation on this planet! So, please whenever possible use heirloom seeds and buy non-gmo produce and seeds if you can.

50 years ago my daughter and I wouldn’t have had to think twice about if the seeds of any fruit or vegetable would produce more of that fruit or vegetable. Of course they would! Now… you never know.But that’s another blog post all together!) between this and the bees big business and big agriculture can really get you down…