Dill or No Dill

In THIS POST from back in March,we showed you how we dried our dill that we grew in the garden.  It was our first successful venture in growing dill and it was a success.  Tricia has used both the fresh and dried dill to make some homemade pickles that fill the shelves in our pantry as well as the fridge.  She also used some of the fresh dill to cook with some carrots.

In order to make sure that we have plenty of dill for next year, I wanted to be absolutely certain that I saved enough seeds.  With the amount of seeds that the dill produces, I didn’t think that was going to be a problem.  Dill blooms in a big cascade of little yellow flowers all over the tops of the plant that contrast against the green plant.

Fresh dill in bloom

Here is a close-up shot:

Each one of those flowers makes an individual seed.  You can see in this photo how the flowering ends and then you can see the swollen part that becomes the seed.

I simply let them dry in the garden on the plant until the plant dies and turns brown.  I check the seed heads each day as I don’t want the seeds to get over-ripe and then shatter on the ground.  Here’s what it looks like when the seeds are completely dry and ready for picking.

All dried out

The dill seeds kind of hang, waiting to be gathered for next years’ crop. 

Dill seed dried and ready to be removed from the stalk

I simply take my fingers and gently rub the seeds and they fall off into a container or into my hand.  The seeds give off such a nice fragrance!  They actually smell a little like licorice.  Some might think that is not a nice scent, but I do.

A handful of dill seed

Just to make sure that the seeds are totally dry, I collect them in a dish and set them on the window sill to dry a little more off the stem.

Further drying on the window sill

We won’t know how good the germination will be until next year, but I always like to save seeds and build my seed inventory.  A bird in the hand beats two in the bush OR Dill Seed in the hand beats thousands on the bush!

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Other than the photos you see above, I’ve saved lots more dill seed.  So much so that I’ve been wondering what I can do with all this?  Well, other than using dill for making pickles, I learned that you can do the following:

v  Sprinkle dill seeds on top of boiled new potatoes,

v  Use them as a topping for homemade bread similar to what you would do with poppy seeds,

v  Mix dill seeds with butter,

v  Sprinkle them on top of fish dishes,

v  Use dill seeds as a salad topper,

v  Add dill seeds to cooked cabbage,

v  Add them to potato salad or coleslaw.

Finally, I learned that dill seeds can be used as an aid to relieve indigestion if you chew on them.  According to what I read HERE, the conqueror Charlemagne had dill available at his banquet tables so that his guests who over-did it while feasting could benefit from dill’s stomach-healing properties.

We have plenty of dried dill and dill seeds.  That’s a good dill deal, in my book.