Seed Saving : Cucumbers

I have made my very first attempt at saving my own seeds. A couple of my cucumbers were left too long on the plant so I decided to give seed saving a go and see what happens. Of course, I won't know until next summer whether I've managed to save any viable seeds or not but you have to start somewhere.

I started out with an over-ripe cucumber and cut out all the seeds:



Then soaked them in water overnight:


I read somewhere (I only wish I could remember where - if it was your blog, let me know so I can give proper credit) that unviable seeds float on the top and you can scoop them off. That had me worried as most of my seeds floated to the top.

However, by the next day, there weren't nearly as many floating on the top:



Phew! I thought I had a dud cucumber on my hands there.

I scooped most of the seeds floating from the top and then dried those that were on the bottom on some paper towel. Now I just have to wait until next season to see if any of them work.

First Summer Harvest

We've popped home from the beach for a couple of days and I've been meandering through my garden.

SCORE!!!

6 cucumbers - a couple of them a little on the big side for lebanese cukes but they still taste nice.

My first harvest for this season.

In other garden news:

The tomato bushes have gone crazy in my absence but at least they're growing a nice amount of fruit. Will investigate them more closely tonight when it gets cooler.

The corn has taken off and gone from dwarf corn to nice tall ears. Not sure how much fruit is on them but there is some. The poor corn has taken such a battering from bugs that I'll just be pleased to see some of it come to maturation and bear fruit.

My 3rd attempt at planting beans and zucchini has again come to nothing. *sigh* I do love me some fresh beans too! :(

Never mind, you win some, you lose some.

The Summer Garden Is Finally In

With going away and then the family health hiccups we've had, my poor garden has been totally neglected.

Last weekend, DH finally prepared the garden beds for me. We've built one of the beds up a level and topped up the second bed with compost. He also built me 3 strawberry beds.

On Wednesday I bought some seedlings and last night they went in.

Strawberries

I bought 5 more plants to bring our total number of strawberry plants to 10. Those that have survived from last year have increased in size so I'm hoping we'll do better with our strawberry yield this year.

DH used 3 truck tyres filled with compost for me to plant into. They're nice and close to the vegie garden so will hopefully get watered more there.



I bought one punnet of sweetheart plants (4 in the punnet) and a single plant in a variety I've not heard of before - Eureka. It's supposed to grow large fruit.

Tomatoes

I was disappointed with how the Roma Tomatoes yielded last year and the Diggers Heirloom punnet I bought didn't even survive. So this year I'm trying a couple of different varieties. Mighty Red and First Prize. Each came in a punnet of 4 so I have 8 tomato plants in. A couple are looking a little on the sad side so we'll see how many we end up with in a week or so.



Cucumber

Last year my cucumbers got choked out by overzealous zucchini so I've tried to give them more room this time. I planted apple cucumbers last year but the kids weren't real keen on them. This year I've stuck with lebanese cukes (which is what I normally buy from the supermarket).



Sweetcorn and Beans

I bought a different variety of sweetcorn this year called Tasty. Last year we grew a variety called Sweetest which had a combination of yellow and white kernels. I couldn't find seedlings for this variety this time so we're trying something different.



I read somewhere recently that if you plant your beans at the base of your sweetcorn plants, they can grow up the sweetcorn plant. My beans were a total flop last year so I'm giving this a go. I think the biggest problem was they struggled for water being right on the edge of the vegie patch. Hopefully this way they'll get some of the water.

Squash, Zucchini and Pumpkin

I bought a punnet of green squash plants to try this year. We quite like the small yellow button squash but it's quite expensive. I've never seen green button squash before so hopefully it tastes okay.



The only zucchini seedlings the store had were black jack and we didn't really like the blackjack zucchini I grew last year. I thought I had some green zucchini seeds at home but I don't so we don't have any zucchini in so far this year.

The pumpkins took over the vegie garden (and half the rest of the yard) last year so the plan was to plant them outside the yard in the orchard (where they can grow to their hearts content). Unfortunately, I don't have enough of the right soil out there yet so I haven't been able to plant. I did pop a couple of butternut seeds in the edge of the garden yesterday in case I don't get the chance to plant any others. The butternut plants weren't quite as big.

Why So Many Seedlings?

I usually try to plant seeds where possible and only buy seedlings for those plants that are harder to raise from seed (like sweetcorn and tomato) but time wasn't on my side this year so I've gone for more seedlings.

While I really want to learn to garden as frugally as possible, for now we have decided that we'd rather spend the money and actually grow something. There is so much more benefit from the garden than simply low cost food. We're going for freshness, nutrition and taste above money saving. Hopefully as my experience grows, we'll do better at gardening on a budget.

Treasure Hunt

I think I've found a positive to a wild, wandering garden.

Surprises!!!!

Last night I poked my head into the middle of my corn crop, just to see how many cobs are left and whether I've missed any of the bigger ones. It won't be too much longer and the corn will be finished I think.

Lo and behold..... look what I found....


A CUCUMBER!!!!

Frightened off by the evil zucchini, the tiny tendrils of the cucumber plant wrapped their way around the tall strong corn stalk, hoping to somehow camouflage themselves amongst the greenery.

The clever cucumber has thwarted the efforts of the evil zucchini and will LIVE to see another day!!!! Yaaaahhhh for the cucumber!!!! :)

I also found some shrivelled up pumpkins so I guess it wasn't such a good idea for the pumpkin plant to hide amongst the corn as the poor fruit didn't get fertilised. Never mind, there are other pumpkins growing.

It has occurred to me that had I gotten myself a little better organised and manually fertilized, I may have gotten more fruit from the pumpkin and zucchini. However, I am a somewhat lazy gardener so I'm happy to see that nature has taken it's course at least some of the time.

Maybe next year I'll work on that.....