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Saving seeds
By mama | August 20, 2009
In the outdoor compost pile, we had cherry tomatoes and millet volunteer this year. The harvest from the tomato plant has been meager though the quality has been very good. I think that the millet is foxtail millet. It has soft, feathery heads and tiny seeds that would actually look nice in a vase with some fall flowers. I picked a handful of the seed heads that were drying on the stalks to save seed. I brought them inside, laid them on a paper towel that I’d set on a wire rack, and the seeds should finish drying, then be easy to strip from the stalks without damaging them. Once they’re dry and off the stalks, I’ll package them in an envelope to plant next year or to trade with other seed savers.
We don’t have enough millet for hulling and eating at this point but because it has proven to be so hardy, I definitely want to keep the seeds. I think that home grain production is an important and almost forgotten art.
I’ve been doing further experiments with the solar oven. Today I baked some bite-size spinach tarts by laying a silicone baking mat on the floor of the oven and setting the frozen tarts right on it. They cooked all the way through in about three hours. They didn’t brown quite like they would have in an electric oven but they were perfectly edible. I warmed tomato soup in a small pot on the side for an electricity-free dinner that was quite tasty. The more I use my solar oven, the more I like it. Someday I’d like to build a stand for it to sit on with an electric eye that would move it to follow the sun for longer cooking times and less time spent turning the oven for maximum sun.
I’ve been spending so much time on creative projects lately that I realized my house is in need of some attention. Oops! I guess this is a cleaning weekend.
Topics: Chores, Cooking, Equipment, gardening | No Comments »
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