One seed produces hundreds. My God provides in abundance to feed His children.  Through patience and wisdom, one can feed their family.  Here we see what happens to the lettuce plant if we forgo eating it, and allow it to complete its life-cycle.

The main stem shoots up, aka bolting.  Flowers develop, bloom and then turn into these seed clusters with their very own parachutes that they can use to ride the wind and spread their seed.

Rubbing the seed clusters between your fingers will separate them from the plant.  The seeds and the chaff fall below, and we recommend working over a clean surface.  Next we use a technique called winnowing to separate the seed from the chaff.  Lightly blowing over the surface will clear the lighter chaff from the pile and the heavier seed stays in the tray.  Continue to rub and lightly blow until the seeds have been cleaned of most if not all of the fluff chaff.

Finally, store the seeds in a cool dry place.  I’ve heard it told that there is a “rule of 100” when it comes to storing seed.  If the temperature plus the humidity level exceeds 100, then the seeds will not store properly.  We keep these in an envelop in a cool, dry place, and have plenty of seed for the following growing season.  He supplies us in abundance; Praise His Holy Name !!

Last year we shared a picture of the radish we allowed to go to seed.  Today we are harvesting those seeds and will share with you this experience.  First, here is a look at the seed pods that grew from the radish.

First we removed the pods from the dried radish plant and discarded the largest stems and stalk.

The radish seeds are small, round, hard balls which are heavier than the dried pods that encase them.  Next we need to liberate the seeds from the pods by crushing them.  With this amount of seed pod, the quickest way was to gather them up in my hands and rub back and forth.  I considered getting a meat tenderizer tool to crush them with, which I don’t think would have been a bad idea, but I had enough hand strength to crush them between my hands, or even between my fingers.

The smaller, heavier radish seeds are all inside this pile of pulverized pods.  Now we need to separate the seed from the chaff.  The easiest way I found to do this was to tip up the lid from the tote I was using as a working surface, gently work the chaff back and forth, and the round seeds would roll down the lid to the bottom.  I could pull the chaff material back to the top and continue the process, liberating more seeds.  Because the chaff is lighter than the seeds, I can now lift off seedless material from the top and set it aside.  Also, I can use a technique called winnowing to remove additional chaff material from the pile by blowing gently on it.  The lighter chaff will blow away from the top of the pile, leaving more material dense with seed below it.

Through this patient process of rolling, blowing and moving the chaff around, the vast majority of seeds collected will roll down to the bottom of the lid.  Once the seed has been separated from the chaff, the next step is to store the seeds in a cool, dry location for future use.

And this is how we can turn one or two seeds into hundreds of seeds to use in the future.  God is good.

So the end of the 2016 home garden season has come to a close.  Here we share our successes and failures so that we can learn from our history and make this valuable hobby more fun and productive.  Bottom line of the 2016 season … we grew a lot of food … for the deer.

Our main focus next year will be to set up some sort of fencing system.  We may install a sonic deterrent as well.  Additionally our wood chip project should be completed, at least in the garden area.  I’m still so happy about having scored about 10 yards of free wood chips!

We didn’t grow as many greens in 2016 as in seasons past.  I’m contemplating if we should focus on that a bit more in the early and late part of the season.  We really need to be eating more greens!

Also, because of the cold May and our late start on things, the compost and leaf mold wasn’t prepared in time to add early in the season.  The low effort techniques we are using backfired for us due to the cold May, but we will be more than prepared for 2017.  Also, we don’t anticipate adding more 4×4 SFG boxes in the next year or so.  My hope is that the wood chip project will be conditioning the soil underneath such that we could perhaps grow some tomatoes up electrical conduit and pruned to a single stem as a way to increase our tomato production to make fresh salsa and better utilize the space in between our 6 established 4′ x 4′ gardening beds.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 ESV 

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; a time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing; …

Dried fennel ferns make a great addition to meat dishes.  But how do I roast a fennel bulb?  That is the question.  As you can see in the picture below, we had some success in growing our first fennel in our square foot garden this year.  The fennel ferns have been plucked and set aside for drying.  The task at hand now is to find some cooking instructions or even a recipe for this delightful little fennel bulb.

Reminds me of a celery heart.

Welcome to Humbleville, USA!! September has been beautiful in SE Michigan. The deer, however, has emphasized the HUMBLE in Humbleville. We will be considering putting up fencing at some point if this continues to be an issue.

We have only spread about 7 of the 10 full yards of FREE wood chips we took delivery on a month ago. Although it’ll take quite a bit of human energy to get them placed where we desire, you can’t beat the price. The project will include us laying down cardboard from reclaimed cardboard boxes to kill any weeds or grass, and then heaping a minimum of six inches of mulch on top. Not only will this help us keep the weeds and grass from growing in our gardening area, but as these wood chips break down over time it will actually recondition the soil beneath it, potentially increasing our usable and viable garden space!

The mint and chives are the crop of the season. Very easy to grow. We also harvested and ate the watermelon we grew which quit growing when it was under the size of a basketball. The crown jewel of the garden this year is the single pumpkin. Unfortunately the butternut squash we were looking forward to have been eaten by Muchie, the deer. The peas are done, but they were fun. And I’m not sure it mattered that we forgot to plan cucumbers this year as the deer have eaten nearly everything that we had growing on the trellis.

Another success? Container gardening! We didn’t do the container tomato update in this video, but we show you a couple of our “porch peppers”. We will need to consider doing more container gardening along with some sort of fence project in 2017.

Here are some thoughts on wood chips from our blog: https://humblevilleusa.com?p=162

Speaking of the blog … we also have a new blog at www.HumblevilleUSA.com!! Have a look and see! Please continue to join us on our journey by SUBSCRIBING to this channel. It really helps. Thank you and God Bless !!

Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love.
Ephesians 4:2 | NIV

The spreading of the wood chips is going slow but steady.  Of course we got the weather with temperatures in the high 80’s and 90%+ humidity the week after we obtained this huge pile of free wood chips.  We’ve learned that continually making small steps in the right direction will be met with huge results in the longer term.

One task that is slowing this project down just a little is in obtaining free cardboard to lay down under the wood chips to help kill the weeds and grass underneath.  Admittedly we have not been diligent in getting the cardboard, so the slow progress is honestly self induced.  The cardboard will break down nicely over time, as will the wood chips, thus conditioning the soil underneath and eventually building the soil back up to a state that would allow for some direct planting into the ground just outside of the garden boxes.  I’ve seen one fellow on Youtube who now drives in some steel electrical conduit (like we’ve used for our trellis) and prunes his indeterminate tomato plants to a single vine which he gently ties to the steel pole for support.  In several years when our soil is conditioned, we may try this technique.

Genesis 3:17-19

And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”