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These are arugula, cilantro and dill seed, saved from plants grown inside and outside last year. The cilantro seeds represent the 18th or 19th generation of seeds, brought over from the greenhouse of our old house on the other side of Wasilla, when we moved to Neklason Lake in 1995. I’ll be planting them next week.
In the house, I’ve got three kinds of tomatoes and three kinds of lettuce coming up in starter planters already.
We’re having beautiful, sunny weather this week. Although it is barely getting above freezing here in the afternoons, in the greenhouse, it is getting up into the low 80s, which makes it a pleasure to work on 2012 gardening projects there.
I saved seeds last year from tomato, cucumber, zucchini, basil, arugula, cilantro, corn and dill plants.
Do you save seeds and plant them?
Of the seeds I’ve saved and planted the following year, it seems that three – cilantro, arugula and Stupice tomato, which I’ve generated now for years, have taken on their own “Alaska-ness” from being regenerated again and again. The Stupice, especially, tends to fruit earlier than Stupice plants I might buy at a nursery. And the Alaska-regenerated arugula seems to go from seed to edible greens in less than 25 days.
And the regenerated cilantro – It has been incredibly productive, long-standing, slow to bolt and delicious. I wrote about it for fdl Food Sunday last year.
Meanwhile, here’s what it looks like outside the 80-plus degree greenhouse.
10 Comments
What direction does your greenhouse face?
Directly south
I’m only saving the big seeds, presently, garlic cloves. I have a few varieties that have acclimated to the area, fourteen years for a couple of my favorites and about nine years for a dozen others. Winter storage is planting before it snows.
My cilantro replants itself pretty well, but it would take over five winter’s accumulation to get the snow depths you’ve got there.
You may not be surprised to learn that cilantro is one of life’s binaries: you either love it or hate it. Current learned opinion apparently thinks it’s genetic, having to do with a sense of smell, and a gene that influences the olfactory.
In my neck of the woods, organic farmers are trying to relearn everything that used to be passed along by word of mouth before industrial ag came along & trashed them. The task is made doubly difficult bc industrial ag has introduced so many more chemicals and diseases than earlier generations had to deal with.
We’re fortunate up here in Alaska. Big Time industrial agriculture never considered moving here, so we’ve so far been spared from what is ravaging so many farming communities down below.
Aha. Would not have thought of that.
They were lucky — it was considered too cold for industrial-scale farming, so those folks who did subsistence farming were left largely unmolested. Hoop houses and full-scale greenhouses are big there.
Very cool. I have 3rd generation Tomatillos which are incredible. And wonderful 3rd generation Russet potatoes that are naturally small,plentiful and disease free. Perfect skins.
Too bad our government is working hard to make seed exchanges difficult,or illegal.
Not that that slows down an avid gardener.
Sorry to be late here.
Chard, chard and more chard. Got it coming out my ears now because it will grow in one gallon containers over the winter inside and it is real food, not just a condiment like lettuce. Easy to transplant too. [And big seeds, nonquixote] You can have it ongoing in relays and it produces mega seeds. Parsley. Peppers. All things you don’t need a greenhouse for, just sun and you will get seed aplenty and winter food. Totally agree on the stupice – that is one smart tomato! Another is Russian fir, very adaptable and likes to start out cool. Pretty too. I call it ‘Russian fern’ because of my kiwi roots.
My canaries love the kale best – not the gigantic varieties in stores, but dwarf plants with tender leaves – does best here protected outside for winter. [I train my seed plants to think they are perennials - it works.]
What I like is when things die – that’s good! Cottonwood died next door – all its roots in my garden are rotting, megajump in fertility and worm population, not to mention more sun.
You live, you learn.
((juliania))
Just really needed to hear that tonight.