Browsing Archives for Garden

Back in February, I ordered several varieties of heirloom seeds including six packages of beans.

When I saw how pretty the seeds were, I had to photograph them for my blog.

This would be why bloggers are a special brand of crazy.

But look at them!

These look like they could be seeds for killer whales!

Or Holsteins!

Or Penguins!

This one is called ‘Dragon’s Tongue’.

Yes, I know they are laying by a package labeled Cupidon, but that is because I laid them beside the wrong package.

I can’t wait to try them!

I planted them today.

I don’t know if it is right to be this excited about what really amounts to a hill of beans.

But I am.

Gardening is a special kind of crazy too.

My first crop of cilantro came up long before I had any tomatoes ready to make salsa…

Then it went to seed and I dutifully bottled up some of those seeds because they are the spice known as coriander.

Which is a spice I never use, making this task seem doubly erratic.

But some of the seeds dropped to the ground and produced a second crop of cilantro.  This second version grows on thick purple stems and spreads out like a ground cover.  It has the same soapy taste that people either love or hate.  And just in time for Christmas dinner! 

 Because who doesn’t love a little cilantro in their eggnog!

I decided to try to collect some of my own seeds this year.

As I ran my thumb over the massive seed heads to loosen the seeds from the plant, the prickly ends stabbed my fingers over and over again.

With raggedy, shredded fingers, I filled several envelopes with different kinds of sunflower seeds.

And then limping, bleeding and alone, I staggered over to get some seeds from my Zinnias and my Mexican Sunflowers.

The seed heads on these flowers are just as stabby as the sunflowers are.

Plus!  They have the added bonus of not having easily identifiable seeds.

So I just put the entire seed head into an envelope.  I’ll figure out the whole seed part next Spring.

I also left plenty of seed heads behind for the birds.

Because I’ve decided that collecting seeds from my prickly headed flowers is for the birds anyway!