Adventures in Seed Saving!

Red Lettuce, Green Lettuce,
Red Bunching Onions, and Chives

There are two things I love most: Volunteer plants and Free Seeds!  Yes, yes, seeds are not very expensive, a two dollar packet of seeds will probably not break the bank.  However, I don't ever want just one kind of seed.   I want a whole variety of seeds.  That $2 can quickly turn into $20.

So, harvesting your own seeds can save money.  Additionally, you'll find yourself with way too many seeds, so sharing is a must!  Even better, swapping seeds with another enthusiast is a great way to gather a variety of seeds.

Things to keep in mind:

1. Forget about saving hybrid or GMO-type seeds.  The following crop will be unreliable.
2. Conducting a quick Internet search before you start collecting may save you loads of time and effort-- just to make sure you are not wasting time.  For example, some plants like parsley take two years before seeds will emerge.  Others, like tomatoes may need a few of extra steps before the seeds will be ready to store.
3. Some seeds are edible, so if you get more than you'd ever plant, consider eating them.  (Think winter squash)
4. Seeds will fall off the plant, into your garden, and will grow.  Remember, that when you let your plants go to seed, they have mechanisms built in to spread those seeds and create new plants.  So, if you let a plant go to seed, you will inevitably get seeds in your soil.  They may start growing! If you are not a fan of volunteer plants, you may have a bit more weeding to do.  (Those seedlings are usually edible, at least).

Here are a few examples of seeds I have successfully saved and re-grown:

Chives:  

I love growing chives.  They are so easy to grow, their flowers are tasty, and it so easy to collect seeds.  Another way to propagate chives is by division.  Back to the seeds.  The seeds come from the light purple flowers that frequently emerge from the plant.  Just a few flowers will give you plenty of seeds, so feel free to eat most of the flowers! You can see my post about making chive blossom vinegar here.  Leave the flowers on the chive plant until they look dry and dead.  When the seeds are ready for harvesting, you will see them emerging from the dead flowers.  They are black and nugget like and the size of a pencil tip (smaller than a peppercorn, but still large enough to pick up with your fingers).  Cut off the dead bloom with as little movement as possible (the seeds will start falling out with movement) and tap the dead flower over a sheet of paper, a bowl, etc.  You may use your fingers to loosen the seeds.  At this point, I like to place the seeds out in the sun or at least on the counter for a day or two to let any little bugs escape and to make sure seeds are completely dry.  The seeds are ready for storage.  I place them in mini zip close bags- they kind meant for pills.  Use them in the next year.

Bunching Onion/Scallions/Green Onions: 

Same directions as the chives, however, the blossoms are not delightful to eat.  The seed collecting procedure is the same.

Lettuce:  

Anyone who has ever grown lettuce knows that tell tale sign of the lettuce bolting.  Bolting is the term used to describe a plant that starts to shoot out a tall stalk and produce flowers.  It happens particularly when your spring plants start to feel the summer heat.  If you want to eat this plant for dinner, you had better harvest asap because bolting is detrimental to the taste of the plant.  On the other hand, if you want to collect the seeds, let that lettuce bolt away.  It will be ugly.  The bolting is ugly, the flowers are ugly.  Deal with it if you want the seeds.  Let that plant bolt.  Let the flowers die.  You will see cottony looking flowers as the flower dries out.  You can pinch the feathery flowers off and you will see little oblong shaped dark brown things at the end of the feathery petals.  Those are the seeds.  Let those seeds dry out a bit, try to remove as much of the feathery petals as possible and bag those seeds.  I have a volunteer green leaf lettuce making its presence known as I type.

Parsley:  

Parsley is much like lettuce and chives.  The plant will shoot out flowers.  You let them die on the plant, carefully remove the flower, and tap out the seeds.  Remember, though, parsley will not set seeds until its second year in the garden.  They will give you so many seeds, you will not know what to do.  I have had so many volunteer parsley plants cropping up in crazy places in my garden.  

No Poo/Sorta Poo- How it works for me

(Though this post has nothing to do with gardening or veggies, I'm going to share any way.  Mostly a pay it forward and a way to say thanks for all the bloggers that wrote about their trials giving up commercial shampoo and helped me work it out for myself).

'No Poo' is a method of cleaning one's hair without using commercial shampoos.  Why, you ask?  The theory: When you shampoo hair with (regular) commercial products, the shampoo strips the natural oil from your scalp and hair.   Your scalp then goes into panic mode and starts cranking out oil to compensate that which was lost and re-moisturize the hair and scalp.  Your scalp overcompensates and your hair and scalp look (and are) greasy.  In order to get rid of all the excess oil, you must shampoo (and condition) again the very next day.   Thus creating a vicious grease cycle.  Conditioner adds another layer of trouble.  After stripping your hair of its natural oils with shampoo, your hair needs to be re-moisturized and protected.  In comes commercial conditioner to the rescue.  The conditioner coats your hair with silicone, this further confuses your scalp.  According to the No Poo movement, the silicone conditioner coating actually locks out natural oil and ensures your hair remains dry.

The No Poo-ers believe that if your scalp was not constantly stripped of oil and rather was allowed to do its natural thing, it would find balance with oil production.  Rather than pump out excess oil, it will learn to produce just the right amount of oil  Such balance would allow your hair to have more moisture, body, health, and require far less washings.

However, such balance comes at a cost.  First, no more lovely fragrant shampoo with luscious bubbles that us Westerners equate with "being clean."  Second, there is a ghastly in-between stage associated with weening off shampoo.  Lastly, no one formula works for everyone, there some trial and error that can be very frustrating.

My Journey going No Poo: 
My Hair Prior to No Poo:  I have straight medium/long regular brown hair.  It isn't frizzy, oily, or dry.  Basically, I have that kind of hair that people often say they want.  It dries straight and doesn't tangle.  I often went without conditioner.  However, every time I shampooed, it would be get so soft that I couldn't get it to do anything I wanted without hairspray, teasing, mousse, flat iron, blow dryer, etc.  You get the picture.  It was decent air dried, but very limp and so slippery that all the little fuzzy hairs at my hairline had to be shellacked back so I didn't look unkempt and adolescent.   Basically, if I wanted to look put together and polished, I'd need the help of products and appliances.  Additionally, if I dared put my hair in a pony tail, I'd be stuck for the rest of the day in the pony tail because my hair would kink so badly from the elastic.  Only water or sleep would do anything about it.  So I spent much of my time with a pony tail because I was in school or, after,  just in the office and had no reason so spend extra time with a blow dryer unless I had a meeting, date, night out on the town, etc.  For several years I had my hair cut with a cute super short A-line cut because I wanted to look sophisticated without all the time and without the pony tail.  Then I decided I wanted to grow my hair out again.  It was quickly back to the pony tail and products. 

The Early Stages: In April of this year, I decided to go cold turkey and stop using shampoo.  To be fair, I had already been using the Organix brand and RenPure shampoos that boast the lack of sulfates, parabens, pthalates-- you get the picture, so my hair was probably already accustomed to a gentler wash.  I chose to do the baking soda wash with vinegar rinse method.  The first week seemed okay.  Because I spend a lot of time exercising, my hair had to be at least rinsed with water every day.  So, I did baking soda dissolved in water "scrubs" followed by a  rinse of a tablespoon of apple cider vinegar diluted in water a couple times during the week and just a water rinse every other day.  My hair felt so "for lack of a better word" waxy and gross.  There seemed to be constant sticky 'lint' in my brush and I spent a ridiculous amount of time brushing with that natural hair brush.  It was still icky.
I read blogs and experimented with eggs, more baking soda/less water, more water/less baking soda, tea rinses, boiling water and adding baking soda, and letting the vinegar sit on my hair for longer amounts of time.  On several occasions I added a bit of conditioner to the ends because it just seemed still so "coated" with waxy stuff.  My hairbrush was not pretty.  But it was spring and summer, I work from home, and I could manipulate it enough to look good on the occasions I needed to look good.  I broke down after three weeks and shampooed.  I felt like I needed to start over with a baseline and get all the gunk out of my hair.

The Turn Around:  At this point, I just figured I would go back to shampooing, just less frequently, like once a week.  But, I was not ready to totally give up yet.  I had spent a week in Cancun on vacation and my hair was fabulous.  So, I figured it was probably all the hard water that was causing such issues with my hair.  Around that time I tried using Dr. Bronner's Castile Soap in my hair.  It had been 5 weeks.  I knew that I had to do a vinegar rinse with the Bronner's and that it was gentle soap-- not detergent.  So, I figured this was my compromise.  I wasn't exactly no poo, but I was sorta poo.  The Bronner's does get rid of oil, just not in a Shampoo kind of way.  Plus, it didn't have all the scary other stuff that so many shampoos have-- silicone, SLS, phthalates, fragrances, you name it.  I was still getting the waxy hair feeling, but not nearly as bad.  Then, I finally tried rinsing a third time with vinegar rather than the two cups I had been using.  My method was a dollop of ACV in a 32 oz plastic cup, fill with water, rinse hair.  I did that twice.  When I adopted the third ACV rinse, EVERYTHING CHANGED.  I just did it a third time, making sure to kind of scrub it into my scalp and squeeze it through my ends.  Finally, I could feel the slippery feeling all the blogs described with the vinegar rinse.

Today:  I use Dr. Bronner's as a wash about once or twice a week depending on how much exercise I've been doing.  I do three ACV rinses after the wash.  If I do only two, my hair feels waxy.  But the results are fantastic. Soft, manageable hair.  The color has changed a bit, I guess all the dyes have come out now.  No tangles, no smell, no wax, nothing.

The Perks:  Now I have some body to my hair.  It never looks limp and sad any more. All without product.  Sometimes I work a bit of jojoba oil into the ends to smooth it out, if it dried a little frizzy.  I can now wear my hair in a pony tail and take it out without the elastic kink to it.  It holds curls, braids, clips, and head bands in place without any hair spray.  (I do still use hairspray if I am doing my hair for something social and fancier, just to tame and ensure it stays put).  I don't use any mousse any more.  Blow drying looks great.  If I put it in a bun for a few hours and take it out, it looks pretty and wavy.  AND, I can wake up in the morning, brush it and look really good! Like in the movies, with body and no weird bed head issues.   I am still a pony tail/ low bun kind of girl when I am working at my house, but it is so nice to be able to pull on a pair of skinny jeans, fancy shoes and lipstick, brush my hair down and be ready to go out to happy hour. 

Future:
I see myself sticking with this method of washing my hair.  It takes a bit longer to wash with all the ACV rinses, but I am only really doing this once a week, or so.  I love feeling free from buying all that shampoo, conditioner, mousse, shine serum,  pomade, etc.  People do think I am an odd bird when I tell them, but really I like being a bit granola.  Actually, last week I woke up with one of those, I can't move my neck kind of muscle spasms.  I didn't exercise, so I didn't wash my hair (or rinse with water!) for 5 days.  By day 5, I thought it was looking greasy, so I washed, but whoa-- 5 days not a drop of water on my hair and it looked good up until that 5th day.  I suppose I could have just rinsed with water, but it has been a heatwave here and I wanted to feel fresh.  Perhaps I will give the baking soda another try at some point, especially now that I know about the third rinse of vinegar, but I'm not sure I feel it necessary.  The castile soap method works for me.  Maybe it will work for you too!

PS. I do still do a rinse with coffee and tea sometimes when I am not using soap :)  What can I say, it still seems fun and a good use of left over beverages.  I hear that using honey works for other people.  I'll give that a try sometime-- but honey is a bit pricey and that negates all the money saved on organic bouge-y hair products.

PPS.  Dr. Bronner's can be a bit pricey.  However, I only use a few drops in my hair when I wash because it is so concentrated.  Also,  Bed, Bath, and Beyond sells it for a good price (at my local store you can get the big bottle (32 oz I think) for 10 bucks.  With the 20% off coupon it is the least expensive place with a good selection of the scents.  Trader Joe's sells the same size Peppermint scented one for around 10 dollars as well.  And you can use it as body wash too, so less clutter in the bathroom.

UPDATE: Oct 11, 2012
 I continue to shun commercial shampoos and I made another breakthrough in my quest to find the perfect measurements for my sorta poo quest.  I ran out of my apple cider vinegar last week and substituted regular white distilled.  Turns out that I prefer the distilled to the ACV.  Not only does it smell better (in my opinion), but it detangles my hair better and I don't use as much as I did with the ACV.  So, if ACV is not doing it for you, give distilled a try!

UPDATE: May, 29, 2013
I was so good at no poo for months.  Then a couple of months ago, it just stopped working out.  I never felt like my hair was having a good hair day.  I think my problem is that my apartment has hard water, so it always feels a bit greasy.  On the other hand, when I do use shampoo (the organic, paraben and sulfate free stuff) and conditioner, my hair is too soft for days.  I end up having that fly away look.  So, now, I shampoo my hair once a week, or so, and just use water on all the other days (sometimes conditioner on the ends).  I realize now, that if I want to have fabulous hair, I have to whip out the hair dryer and flat iron.   So, I am glad that I still shampoo a lot less than before and am still happy with the results.

I Didn't Mean To Grown Onions!

Red Onions Curing

 Growing Red Scallions

I didn't intend to grow red scallions, but there was a package of three dozen bulbs on sale at Walmart for something around $1.50.  I figured it was winter here in San Diego and I had enough room for them in my Earth Box, so what did I have to lose?  I plopped the bulbs in lines in the back of my Earth box with very little fanfare.  I was pretty lazy about the whole thing.  I didn't want to invest a whole lot of time on bulbs from a giant box store-- I wasn't convinced that many of them would sprout up.

I was wrong, all the bulbs became scallions.  I snipped them and ate them regularly all spring.  When they started looking a bit old, I pulled up all but a dozen and chopped them up and froze them for use in soups and other fun dishes.  They are just fine when heated in a soup, but a bit wilty if used in a salad or other raw unheated dish.  It was way worth the $1.50 and the very little effort on my part.

 I left about a dozen scallions in the pot.  They have developed big poofy white flowers that are now developing seeds. I pulled up half of them when the leaves turned brown to find that several had become largeish red onions.  I've had them hanging to dry and cure out for a couple of weeks.  It is the plant that just keeps on giving.  Green onions first, red onions later!

Drying and Curing:
First, I left the onions on my counter to dry out the roots for a few days (it has been very warm here).  After, I twirled up the greenish/dying tops and secured them with a rubber band.  I placed them on a nail in my hall closet to keep them in a dark dry spot.  But I promptly relocated them when my hall closed began smelling like onions! They are pretty dry now and since I intend on eating them relatively soon, I didn't bother with a long drying/curing stage.  If I had a huge crop and intended them to last well into the winter, I'd have been more particular about this stage.

Eating:
Chopped up one of these guys yesterday with a few homegrown tomatoes, avocado wedges, salt, and olive oil.  Perfect onion flavor without a huge oniony bite. 

Infused Onion Blossom Vinegar:
I lopped off one of the blossoms and covered it in vinegar, to make an infused vinegar.  It has been steeping for a few weeks now.  The other four blossoms are still on the plants.  I am going to harvest the seeds once they fully develop and hope to see more bulbs next spring.  Why not?