Saving Spinach Seeds

So here's how we save spinach seeds.  Saving seeds is a cool thing to do.  We purchase Heirloom Open-pollinated seeds to enable us to do this.  You can't really do this with success with hybrids.  This Galilean Spinach seed I'm saving are coming from seeds I actually saved last year.  We'll see how long we can keep this going without buying new seed.

Galilee spinach is from the Holy Land.  It is delicious spinach.  Once it starts warming up, the spinach plants quickly bolt.  It flowers and goes to seed.  I let it dry on the stalk until it is brown and dead-looking.

 I gently pick up each stalk so the seeds don't fall off.  They are very dry, so they are fragile.  I did drop some, but perhaps they'll come up volunteer next year.  Can you spot the seeds on the stalk?

Once I pluck the seeds off the stalk I put them in my hand so you can get a better look at them.  The seed has two spines on either side of it.  What do you think those spines are for on a Galilee Spinach seed?

I think it is a seed distribution strategy designed by God.  Look at the seed sticking in my finger below:

If the spines stick in my finger that easily, how much easier to you think it would stick on your socks or your pant leg?  Or animal's fur?  Anyone or anything passing by the plant would inadvertently pick up these seeds and distribute them to a new location, thereby furthering the range and survivability of the plant.  It is brilliant, really!

I was unaware that spinach seed did this.  Growing up on the farm, I remember a noxious weed called a cocklebur that made numerous seeds that employed this same distribution method.  The cocklebur was FULL of spines on all sides.  It spread all over the place.  It was not a good thing to have in your soybean field.  At least Galilee Spinach is good to eat!

When I had collected quite a bit of seed, I still had some work to do.  The seed also had stems and leaves mixed in.  I'd like to do something about that.  So I thought about Gideon from the Bible that was threshing wheat.  I figured I'd do the same thing, but I used a fan.

I turned the fan on high and placed the seeds in an egg carton.  I would lift the seeds, stems, leaves and trash and drop back into the egg carton.  The heavier seed fell back in the egg carton, while the lighter stems and leaves blew away.

While not a perfect seed cleaning machine, it is good enough for me.  Mostly what I'm left with is Galilee Spinach Seed that I'll plant this fall.

I labeled a dark colored jar with the variety and date and poured the saved seed into the jar.  I'll store the jar in a cool, dark location.

This fall I won't have to order spinach seed.  I'll pull out this jar and plant.  We'll harvest delicious spinach and then save the seed again.  A beautiful cycle we'll repeat year after year.

Popeye Would be Proud!

We plant two different types of spinach in the garden - Galilee Spinach (from Israel!) and Monstrueux De Viroflay Spinach (from France).  The Galilee Spinach has already bolted and I'm waiting for the seeds to dry so that I can plant again this fall.  The French Spinach is still producing and producing well, but with several days approaching 80 degrees, it won't be long until it bolts as well.

With that in mind, I picked a big colander full of the leaves and packed them down.  I wanted to get all the leaves I could before bolting.  I'll try to get another picking off of it, but we'll see how that goes.  The leaves are dark green and healthy.  There is no pest damage to speak of on the leaves.

Now, we've been eating fresh spinach salads for a while now, and we enjoy it that way.  We also make a Creamed Spinach side dish that is a copycat of Ruth's Chris Steak House recipe.  We'll make that next.  Tricia wanted to try a spinach quiche with a twist.  The crust is made of sweet potato.  Turns out we still have some sweet potatoes that we harvested over the fall.  They've stored well.  Tricia sliced and baked the sweet potato, lined the pie dish, poured the spinach and egg and topped with cheese and baked.  Voila!

Looks rich and delicious!

And as it turned out, it was.  Now, I'll admit, I would rather a regular crust, but I love sweet potatoes, too.  I would think vegetarians would like this.  I'm definitely NOT a vegetarian, but it was good.

The final thing we did with our 'spinach-fest' was a good ol' Cream of Spinach soup.  Tricia had just made some fresh chicken broth from one of our chickens and that was just what we needed for this dish.  Creamy, spinach-y, and it was kinda cool last night so the soup hit the spot.

Popeye the sailor man would be digging our meals this week!

Growing a New Variety - Galilee Spinach

I remember watching "Popeye the Sailorman" cartoons growing up.  Things would go bad and then Popeye would get mad, grab a can of spinach, squeeze the can, causing the spinach to go into the air then down into his pipe.  He would immediately grow huge muscles and take care of whatever business he needed to take care of.

Moms everywhere used this as an enticement to make you "eat your vegetables."  Mine did.  "Eat some spinach and you'll grow muscles like Popeye's."  Except eating spinach from a can was not good (to me).  At all.  Not to mention, if I managed to force down a forkful of spinach, my muscles did not grow.  There was really no incentive at all to eat spinach.  EXCEPT...

As an adult gardener, I tried it again.  And I liked it!!  I've tried growing several varieties and I've settled on one that we really like.  It is an heirloom called Galilee Spinach.  It is from Israel.  It is suited for warmer climates.  It grows well in our area.  The leaves are pointed.  They are lush and grow quickly.

A few weeks ago we picked a bunch and made a Cream of Spinach Soup.  Spinach is great just raw in salads, too.

We tried some sautéed in butter.  While not the most aesthetic-looking dish, it was certainly delicious.

I see that we have a few beginning to put some seed heads on.  I'll try to save the seeds off of some of these for next year's crop.  Popeye would be proud of me!