Do you do what I do? Every year, I forget to harvest some of my radishes on time and they end up growing thick stalks and the radishes become woody and inedible. In previous years, I wasn’t sure what to do about this, except to throw them on the compost pile (if I had one) or throw them in the green trash dispenser that our city provides for us. But this year, I got smart.
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| The view from across my growing onions and bolting lettuce, taken in April 2012. |
I became interested in seed saving last year which led me to some research on how to save seeds from the plants that I grow each year. One of those, of course, is radish, and so rather than yanking the woody radishes out of the ground and throwing them away, instead I allowed them to continue growing.
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| A little closer view over the bolting lettuce. I’m not sure if you can make out any of the pods, but there are a ton of them. |
They grew to about 4 feet high and bloomed with the most adorable, delicate little flowers. The bees loved them! The pollinated for days, allowing the plants to produce an abundance of lovely little seed pods, hopefully full of seeds!
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| After the whole bunch of pod-laden branches are dry. |
Once the plants start dying off and the seed pods turn brown, it’s time to pull up the plants and set them in a well-ventilated area to dry. You can stack or hang them, either way is fine, they just need to be able to dry completely.
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| A closer look at the dried pods. |
Once the pods are completely dry, they are ready to be broken open for seed harvesting. You may notice that the inside of the pods are very similar to styrofoam. I wonder if that’s where man got the idea for it?
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| Radish seeds in the pod. That white stuff inside feels a bit like styrofoam. |
Once you have finished your harvesting, store the seeds in a sealed container in a cool, dry place. Seed viability is about 5 years, so make sure you label your container with what type of seeds and the year you harvested the seed.
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| Radish seeds. Don’t mind the “styrofoam”, just separate that before you plant. Or leave it in, I can’t imagine it would matter. |
*Aside from the experience, any additional seed harvesting information came from the book Seed Sowing and Saving by Carole B. Turner (Storey’s Gardening Skills Illustrated series).
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Preparedness Fair, Beautiful Thursdays, Farmgirl Friday Blog Hop, Farm Fresh Friday, Homesteader Blog Carnival, The Old Saturday Homestead Trading Post, The Country Homemaker, Homestead Barn Hop, Frugal Crafty Home Hop, Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Homestead Abundance Link-Up, Wildcrafting Wednesday
“Sow” Interesting!! Hah! We aren’t radish lovers, but this is a good lesson in harvesting seeds! I’m always so intent on the fruits of our labors that I don’t think to grow our own seeds!! Something we should be doing, I could save a lot of money not buying those expensive seed packets! Thanks for the info and THANKS a bunch for linking up with Farm Fresh Friday!!
I save flower seeds from my native plants and from a few annuals I know will come true. Veggie seeds I buy every couple of years because our plot is so small, but still provides enough for two.
Thank you ! I was looking for this exact post as I let my radishes go to seed!
Awesome! So glad you could use the info!
Thank YOU, Lisa, for making FFF available to bloggers like me! And thanks for your kind words.
I know what you mean about being intent on the fruits of our labors, rather than seeds. Collecting seeds has been sort of a ‘science experiment’ stemming from my own garden goofs, so there ya go.
It’s been fun and interesting to learn, though, and will be sure to help me for years to come!
I understand Lavender Cottage. Small plots make it difficult to grow and collect seeds. I have 4 smaller plots, so I have the luxury of rotating and giving up a few plot sections.
Whatever useful seed collecting we do saves us in the long run, so you go girl!
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I saved some radish seeds at the end of my first season growing radishes, because like you, I just let them grow. But! I ended up not using my saved seeds, because my clever radishes had re-seeded themselves. My first day out in the garden for spring tilling, and what do I find, but radish seedlings all over the place! I wrote about it on my blog: http://dinkygreen.blogspot.com/2012/04/garden-bonus.html
Thanks for posting at Wildcrafting Wednesday.
Great to have pictures to go with this. Never tried this before, so thank you!
Thanks for sharing this at the Preparedness Fair. The past week/2 have been chaotic, so I’m late commenting. So appreciate your contributions! Hope to see you back.
Natalia
http://preputilityvehicle.blogspot.ca/
No worries, Natalia! I don’t always get to everyone on my list so I really do understand! Will be back next week, hopefully not late!