Not a mystery-and part of the war on the aphids

Well look what I found.  I initially thought I had an M3 here; (mystery plant #3) but upon closer inspection I found a seed casing on one of the leaves.  I looked through my recently planted seeds and Viola! It appears my Cosmos have sprouted! (I really need to start labeling shit around here)

so cute and pretty

I planted these guys a few weeks ago in my battle of the aphids. These guys will grow tall and set out some beautiful white flowers. See it's the baby lace wings that are voracious carnivores as adults they are strictly vegetarian.  The Adult Green Lace Wings eat nectar from the flowers. Since I have PLENTY of nymph food (aphids) and hopefully I will soon have lots of adult food the plan is that they will then stick around the garden to lay their eggs. These guys are way to small to explain the sudden increase in beneficials at this time but should they survive the winter I have a jump start on the spring planting and bug control.

Savers: Lettuce Edition

A tutorial to Collect Lettuce Seeds.

I was really confused about when to harvest seeds and how to keep track of the various stages of the budding/pollinating/maturing of the pods so here is a handy guide of how I learned to identify each stage.

After a season of Lettuce the plants sends up a long stalk, all along the stalk are small buds like this:

 See how most are "tight" buds and a light green? That means they are baby buds and not ready.  The seeds will eventually be at the bottom of each "bud".

Watch and wait and suddenly you will notice some of the buds have blossomed into small yellow flowers like This:

If you watch closely in a day you will notice the yellow flower "close up" 

Small closed yellow flowers

The flower bud will start to dry out and the yellow flower turns white and fuzzy.  This lets you know it was pollinated. 

See how green this bud is? Also it is not a
"fuzzy" white, that means it has not yet
turned into a yellow flower or been pollinated
it is still a baby bud

This one is drying; you see more white
and the white is "fuzzy" also the bud is lighter
this one has turned into a yellow flower and
then pollinated.

READY!

He is ready! see how the bud is brown and dry? If you look really close under the white fuzz you can see some of the seeds. I simply pinch the white fluff and pull out the seeds then drop them into a ziploc bag.

READY!

The seeds! the white fluff is in my finger.  and I have a fingerfull of seeds.  Each plant makes several buds and each bud makes a decent number of seeds.  Next thing you know you could have enough seed to grow another garden!

Sunflower

Awww, sunflowers.  What could be more "summer". These hot loving plants are supposed to attract birds who also eat bugs. They also attract bees to increase pollination. They also make delicious seeds.  But notice anything unusual about these guys?

yup, that is not a camera trick, those are TINY sunflowers.  I hijacked some seeds from a beautiful GIANT sunflower at my local community garden....seems that they are not true to parent. Turns out a little research clarified this problem

"Sunflowers will cross-pollinate and must be separated by ½ mile to ensure pure seed. Harvest the heads when they have completely filled out, lost all of their petals and the backs begin to turn brown."

Oops, That garden had a HUGE variety of sunflowers within a 1/2 mile by 1/2 mile plot.  I will follow these guys a little longer and maybe I  will still get some teeny tiny snacks out of the deal.  

Savers

To try to save some money I have begun to harvest some of my seeds. This way I can spend the money on other things like shoes  trellises (trellisi?). So here is my step by step to saving Zinnia Seeds.

 These are the first "productive" flowers I have been able to grow other than some native plants. This guy is HUGE and much bigger than I expected so he has provided some lovely shade to my poor butternut squash (more on that in weather issues).  I see tons of bugs hanging out around him, He has been bit a few times but seems to survive the occasional munch.

1. Pick a beautiful specimen-one you hope to repeat next
year.  This guy has a beautiful pink shade and he
is opening in a somewhat uniform manner-see that guy
in the back corner? too unruly

2. Let him dry til he needs some
Cetaphil. You know he is ready
When you pull a petal out and a
little arrow is attached.

(Those little pointy arrows circled in green are the seeds
they are attached to the petals)

3. Give him a good haircut. Cut as close to the
"center" part (which is hard) as you can, all that
extra petal is not necessary.

4. Pull off the seeds, these are really the bottoms of the petal
so what you have left is a pile of seeds/petal butts, and the
rest of the flower center-I don't know what it is called.
the petals should pull of easily, just rub your thumb over them
or gently pull them out.

 They needed to dry some more so I put them in an origami box since I did not have any paper bags. I will pull seeds from a few more flowers this year and grow at least two next year!

Cha Cha Cha...CHIA

Any one remember this:


I do...(and in the spirit of full disclsoure, I had one, I think a looney tunes one?). So why are we remembering terrible infomercials from the 90's? Because I never grew up Because I am trying to grow one again! I have tried growing chia seeds in the past, we never got very far-which is incredibly frustrating seeing as they GROW WILD IN THE DESERT! (useful wild western plants).  However there is incredibly little information on growing them. Why do I want them? Well glad you asked:

Omega 3x6 baby                                

See-healthy!

Chia seeds are amazing-besides being a delicious sprout to add to salads, they are are high energy food. They have protein, fiber and fat and are a whole grain food you can absorb (which makes them beat out flax seeds) and they are incredibly high in anti-oxidants and have Omega 3 and Omega 6 (I don't make this stuff up )They get "goopy" when you add them to liquid (technically called mucilaginous but that sounds gross.) and so when used with chocolate milk you get a rich desert. I add them to iced coffee for a delicious drink/snack halfway through the day.  My husband adds them to his protein shakes when he rides his bike.   However they are HARD TO FIND.  There has been a chia seed shortage) due to limited growers and natural hardship. This is just another example of how important your own foodshed is.  These little seeds are costly as well, I can find them at Costco for 6.99 a pound but the grocery store has them for 10.00 a pound.

So over the next few months I am going to figure out how to make these guys grow. I am growing from my last purchase of seeds from costco (http://nutiva.com/chia-seeds/). I have some sprouts going in sheltered spot and as they get bigger I am putting them into the garden. Follow along!

Where I started:

growing chia seeds: This is a great article to figuire out needs/size/temps/harvest

Desert Harvesters: A lot of sites say the flowers are harvest in the spring but Desert Harvesters guide tells me to plant in the fall-and they are one of my garden bibles here in this hot pot

"the baby plants". I put in small pinches and this patch has been thinned like crazy-i have probably pulled 50 seedlings out of this batch. These are some fertile babies, almost every seed I planted sprouted. 

Toddler Babies: These guys have been transplanted into the garden. They almost died the other day when after two nights of rain were no match for the sunny 100 degree weather.