"A Rich Spot of Earth" - Seed Saving and Fall Planting

Prologue

Michael Tricomi:

It's September at Monticello and we're still harvesting summer vegetables, like tomatoes and okra. But some fall vegetables are coming in too. One of my favorites is the Spinning Gourd or Cucurbita pepo. Jefferson called it "the minutest gourd ever seen." You can dry it and make a spinning top. I’ve tried it and they spin really well.

The flower garden is filled with warm season annuals: zinnias, geraniums, heliotrope, French and African marigolds, ageratum, and globe amaranth. The beds look less manicured than in the spring, more like a wildflower garden, especially now, as the plants set seed--one of our topics today.

Introduction

Michael Tricomi:

This is “A Rich Spot of Earth,” a podcast about gardening and the natural world. I’m Michael Tricomi, Interim Manager and Curator of Historic Gardens at Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s home in Albemarle County, Virginia.

Seed Saving

Michael Tricomi:

I recently sat down with Curator of Plants Peggy Cornett and Flower Gardner Debbie Donnelly to talk about seed saving.

Peggy Cornett:

This is the time of year when we're focusing on saving seeds, from the vegetable garden, the flower garden, all of these important historic varieties, it's essential for us to save the seed, but we also make them available to the public, so there's a lot of seed cleaning and packaging that goes on throughout the winter months, actually.

Of course, in Jefferson's day, seed saving was critically important if you were going to save your crops from year to year. In certain areas of the garden, we know that seed was started along the border beds. I think some plants were allowed to go to seed in those areas so that they could save the seed. We also know that sometimes seed was lost, very easy to do. Your crops may not ripen properly, or they may not be stored well. We do have records of Jefferson going to his neighbors to reacquire seeds.

There is a very detailed account of a portable seed rack that Jefferson's friend, Margaret Bayard Smith, who visited Monticello during Jefferson's retirement years, she described this portable seed rack that could be taken into the garden. It had seed that were saved in either jars or glass vials or tin containers. We have a reproduction of what we believe the seed rack looked like. It's on display in the Monticello Greenhouse today.

Michael Tricomi:

Debbie talked about saving flower seeds.

Debbie Donley:

Seed saving is a three-season activity. Of course, your early season blooming things like the columbine and larkspur, poppies, things like that, they will mature sooner, so we are actually starting to save seed as early as May and then it continues right on up through October, November, with different species of plants.

But it's real important to wait until the seed is properly matured and dried out. One thing to look for is the seed capsules often start to open, and that's the plant's way to disperse its seed. One funny problem we often have, though, is getting the seed before the birds do, because they love the bachelor's buttons and the lettuce and zinnias and marigolds, and so it's a real challenge to allow the seed to become mature before the birds start eating it.

Michael Tricomi:

Some seeds are tricker to harvest than others.

Debbie Donley:

A fun one to collect is the balsam or touch-me-not. The reason it's called touch-me-not is because the seed pods, when they are ripe, when you barely touch them, they spring open. That's the plant's way of dispersing its seed. But another interesting thing about that is often, if we've had a lot of rain, those seeds have germinated inside the pod or the seed capsule, and you can actually have baby plants growing inside. Peppers will do that as well.

Michael Tricomi:

We see that a lot with beans, too. Lima beans especially, and they have the same characteristic. They'll pop open when they get really dry. They'll start to germinate inside of the pod if they get moist.

Peggy Cornett:

In the wild, I guess the fruit would drop on the ground and it would just continue growing from the seed that's germinating. It's probably feeding on the fruit itself to give it some energy.

Michael Tricomi:

One of our favorite late summer flowers is the Four-O’Clock or Mirabilis jalapa.

Peggy Cornett:

Jefferson called it the “Marvel of Peru.” They call it the Four O'Clock because it flowers at sunset -- the flowers open at sunset, and then they close the following morning. The regular Four O'Clock is pretty common. People know that. It's an old-fashioned flower in people's gardens.

The sweet scented Four O'Clock, which Jefferson called the “Sweet-scented Marvel of Peru,” they're both from South America. That one almost looks like strands of spaghetti during the day, but then in the evening it opens and it's a long tubular flower.

There's a wonderful passage in a book by Laura Simons. It's called Dear Mr. Jefferson. She's a contemporary writer and she talked about what it would be like to correspond with Thomas Jefferson about her gardening today. It's a wonderful book. She talked about when she first discovered that flower, and she said it was like a clarion that a fairy would sound on a lily pad. It almost looked like a horn. It's a pure white and very fragrant.

Debbie Donley:

I believe the pollinators enjoy it in the evening.

Peggy Cornett:

Oh, yeah. Moths, I think, definitely like that plant. The sweet scented Four O'Clock, the seed caps, where it's held, the calyx, it's really sticky. It's hard to get the seed out. But the regular Four O'Clock that we all know, the mirabilis jalapa, the seeds just pop right out. You can tap it with your hand. The two different species, one of them is easy to collect and the other one is much harder.

Debbie Donley:

It's in a bed where we traditionally plant Sweet William and tulips. It starts with the tulips, then the Sweet William and Johnny Jump Ups. The Four O'Clocks can make a big tuber, almost like a sweet potato, and so some people actually don't like Four O'Clocks because once you have them, they're hard to get out of there if you don't want them there, but they are beautiful.

Peggy had mentioned how they bloom around four o'clock, but it's funny because even yesterday they were in full bloom, it was a bright sunny day, it was ten o'clock in the morning, and they hadn't gotten the message that it wasn't four o'clock yet.

Peggy Cornett:

They'll extend through the morning if it's shady, and then they start to shrivel up.

The sweet scented one is rather rare. We did get seed of that originally from friends of ours who are from Texas. The seed was collected from some wild populations out in the field by some botanists. It's not commercially available, really, in most places. We do collect seed and make that available just about every year, because it is one of our rare ones.

Seed saving in the vegetable garden

Michael Tricomi:

We also collect seeds in the vegetable garden.

Michael Tricomi:

There are a lot of different types of vegetables and a lot of different methods for seed saving. There's just drying out pods. There's fermentation. There's scooping out the seeds from a squash or a melon. There's lots of different ways to extract seeds and to save them so that you can replant the following year.

Peggy Cornett:

Tomatoes are probably one of the more complicated. You have to ferment the pulp off the seed, basically.

Michael Tricomi:

It has that gel coating on the seed and so that has to be taken off before you could dry it and save it. And so what we do is we just slice up the tomato, we squeeze out the seeds, and then we add a little bit of water to a container, and we just let it sit at room temperature for five days or so. It ferments, so you have to scoop off the top and strain it out, but then you have some nice seed at the bottom, and then that you can strain the excess water out and just dry it on a paper towel or something. Then that'll be totally dry and ready for storage.

Peggy Cornett:

They're very papery, really, when they dry properly.

Michael Tricomi:

Yes. Tomato seeds have a funny, fuzzy texture to them too.

Peggy Cornett:

Yeah, exactly. You could do that with other melons as well.

Michael Tricomi:

You could. Eggplant and cucumbers also have that kind of coating on them as well, so that's usually a recommended seed saving process for them. Melons and squash can be complicated, because you have to separate all the pulp from the seeds. Squeeze them out. But they're fairly easy to separate and dry them out after that.

Debbie Donley:

The seeds that float to the top, are they not viable?

Michael Tricomi:

Typically, they're not. I did set some aside, some pepper seeds that floated to the top before, and I was able to get some to germinate. Not all the time, but it's a good indicator that they're not good seed to use.

Lettuce, they'll flower and then they'll form these little white puffs at the top and that's a good sign that's ready to be harvested. We normally come through our rows of lettuce and we just cut the tops off. We'll dry it out in our greenhouse and then when it comes time, you just crush it all together, and it's a long process of sieving and blowing with air. If you have a fan, that can definitely help. You can winnow it, you could use a paper towel. Cleaning lettuce seed really well, it takes time for sure.

Debbie Donley:

And it's not a good job for someone with asthma.

Michael Tricomi:

It can be a very dusty affair.

Michael Tricomi:

So what do you do with seeds after you harvest and dry them? And what if you bought seeds and didn't get around to planting them?

Michael Tricomi:

It's really good to refrigerate them when you can or freeze them if you want to save them for a long period of time. There are seeds that have lasted in a frozen state for many years.

Peggy Cornett:

Tomatoes are one of the longest viability. Some plants don't have a long viability. You may want to plant them in the next year. Otherwise their viability is gonna drop right away.

Debbie Donley:

Some can last, some don't. They found seed in the pyramids that did germinate.

Michael Tricomi:

There's a seed company we use that advertises the 5,000-year-old cave bean. It's remarkable how long they can last.

Vegetables to Plant in Fall

Michael Tricomi:

September is a good time to plant seeds for fall crops.

Michael Tricomi:

A good guide that I've used in the past is the Virginia Cooperative Extension's planting guidelines. They have a really great chart for different zones that you live in. We're currently in 7A. And so They list a number of crops that you could plant in the fall: your brassicas for sure. Your carrots. You could do radishes, and lettuce, and spinach. There's a wide variety of things that you can plant in the fall, for a late fall, early winter harvest.

Debbie Donley:

Peas sometimes make a bumper crop in the fall.

Michael Tricomi:

Peas are another great one, yeah.

Peggy Cornett:

Carrots were really popular in the Jefferson household, as well as potatoes and beets, but in 1814, Jefferson recorded harvesting 18 bushels in November. Potatoes were a very, very popular crop, and Jefferson documented that they needed 25 bushels a year of potatoes. They were needing some large quantities for all the people that were coming to visit Jefferson and the family, of course.

Michael Tricomi:

Those root crops, they store for so long, so it makes a great fall crop.

Debbie Donley:

And you hope that you don't have an early freeze, or early frost.

Michael Tricomi:

It's always a gamble. Gardening is always a gamble.

Peggy Cornett:

Rutabaga was also a popular crop. Do we plant that at all? We need to plant rutabagas.

Michael Tricomi:

I have seed for it.

Peggy Cornett:

I want to see more turnips in that garden. Real turnips, not just the greens.

Michael Tricomi:

We've done turnips before.

Peggy Cornett:

Turnips were very popular. Not Jefferson, but other contemporaries of Jefferson were converting their lawns to turnips then.

Michael Tricomi:

That's one that we've used both for demonstration and for harvesting to eat or to donate as well as different varieties for cover cropping, too. Some of them have a really good taproot, and that's a great cover crop to use as well, turnips.

Peggy Cornett:

Early September was the last planting of lettuce in the garden, but they did eat lettuce all through the summer. It was boiled, and it was considered superior to spinach. I think with a little butter, everything tastes better, right?

Michael Tricomi:

Yeah. We'll have to try some boiled lettuce. Can't say I've had that before.

Current activity in the Garden

Michael Tricomi:

We also talked about other garden activities for September.

Debbie Donley:

We will be pulling the beds late September, early October in order to get ready for the bulbs. Except for like around the biennials, we'll plant the bulbs around those plants that we put in in the fall, like the Sweet William and Foxglove and Canterbury Bells, things like that. Because they do so much better if they get in in the fall and have that whole season to grow, to bloom in the spring.

Peggy Cornett:

You want to get them in the ground and growing before the cold weather sets in. They're called biennial because they're growing vegetatively through one season, and then they flower in the following year. A true biennial will flower and then set seed and die, but some are weak perennials, or they reseed themselves, so they just keep coming back. But a true biennial, that's its life cycle.

Michael Tricomi:

Just to clarify: annuals live for just one year. Biennials, as the name suggests, have a two-year life cycle. And perennials live three years or longer. For the biennials Debbie mentioned, Sweet William, Foxglove, and Canterbury Bells, start seeds in a greenhouse or under a grow light at the end of spring or early summer. Then plant the seedlings in the garden in August, September, or even October.

Peggy Cornett:

They're pretty hardy. Unless you get a serious winter.

Debbie Donley:

Last year, we did have a stretch of very cold winter. Most of the winter was mild, but that long stretch, I don't know if it was five days or something, it severely damaged the gardenias, it totally killed the foxgloves that were absolutely beautiful, they were huge plants, and the thing that wasn't harmed at all was the Siberian wallflowers. The sweet William, it made it fine. It did have a little cold damage on the tips of the leaves, but.

Peggy Cornett:

They can grow out of it.

Michael Tricomi:

That's funny, because our Siberian kale also overwintered without a problem.

Peggy Cornett:

Some years we have cabbages all through the winter, but I don't think we did last year.

Michael Tricomi:

We did have cabbage. They did not really form heads this spring. They just sprouted and went to seed. They were a little off, I think, with the fluctuating temperatures. We had parsley, too, that set seed the year before, that wintered over. The cardoon, some of the artichokes they held on that sprouted back again.

Peggy Cornett:

Every year is different.

Debbie Donley:

It was an odd spring. Twinleaf never even bloomed.

Peggy Cornett:

Figs got hit, because of a late freeze, I think. They were growing and then they got nailed.

6. Visitor Spotlight

Michael Tricomi:

Let's hear from some recent Monticello visitors and we'll be right back.

Hi, my name is Joanie Willett. I’m from the University of Exeter in the UK. On the one hand you’ve got this amazing man, who’s only actually able to be an amazing man because of the family he came from but also they people who supported him, many of whom we know very little about. The women in his family that help to run his household. But, of course, the enslaved people and that enormous contradiction between the Declaration of Independence and slavery. It’s complicated, isn’t it?

 

Fall planting at Tufton

Michael Tricomi:

Ana Lobianco-Sims joined me and Peggy to talk about fall planting at our farm.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

In the past few weeks, we have started a couple varieties of carrots, turnips, beets. And radishes. We did a row of swiss chard. Spinach we got in the ground a couple days ago. Might still be a little too warm, a little too early for spinach, but we're gonna keep it under a row cover, keep some of the sun off of it, hopefully it germinates.

Peggy Cornett:

That's a problem with lettuce as well. They don't like to germinate in warm soil.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

For the past like month, we have had lettuce in the ground, but we transplanted it. So we started in the greenhouse where the soil temp can be controlled and it's a little cooler, and then we'll put it in the garden, and then after it germinates, it's normally okay. Probably could have done that with spinach, but the quantity of spinach that we like to grow, sometimes it's easier to just throw it in and whatever germinates.

We typically grow those under row covers. The row covers also act as a frost protectant, especially for lettuces. The spinach, actually, under row covers, we had it from, I think, October through April. It just keeps the frost off of it.

Michael Tricomi:

The temperatures really affect the flavor of these crops too. In the heat, they're not as flavorful, but especially after a nice frost, things like root crops can definitely benefit. Cabbages, too. They definitely benefit from those cold snaps, those cooler temperatures.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

Carrots, as well, tend to get sweet after a light frost.

Michael Tricomi:

Beets.

Peggy Cornett:

And kale, all of that.

Michael Tricomi:

For us, too, in the historic garden, you don't have the risk of these things bolting and going to seed, your broccoli and your cabbage. That's a common thing that happens in the spring. Sometimes 50 to 75 to 90% of your crop just bolts. We're using these historic varieties too, and they're really prone to that. So planting them in the late summer for a fall harvest definitely helps with that. You can get a lot more from the crop that way.

Peggy Cornett:

These are biennial crops. Cabbage is a biennial, basically. The leafy parts, the vegetative part is what you're going to eat, is the cabbage head, and then in the spring, it will send a stalk up right through the center of the plant and totally transforms and flowers.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

Usually flavor is totally lost once it bolts. Lettuce, once it bolts, it gets really bitter and unedible, really.

Peggy Cornett:

Of course, you want certain things to bolt because we're saving seeds.

Brussels Sprouts

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

We put brussels sprouts and some broccoli in. Still pretty young, but especially brussels sprouts, they're a very long season crop, so you need to start them really early and then get them in fairly early so they can get established before the frost. It's a trial and error thing. We'll see if it works this year. If not, we'll know better for next year.

Peggy Cornett:

That's one of the harder ones to grow, I think, successfully, because you need really good, deep, rich soil, but you need to grow it on quickly. Many things can go wrong with brussels sprouts.

Michael Tricomi:

We don't have any this year. We have had them in the past, and it was a challenge getting them to grow and getting sprouts from them.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

It's a very heavy feeder. The timing has to be right. You have to get them in the ground at the right time so they can get fully established before the first frost hits. I think you're supposed to give them like 10 weeks or so before the first frost. It's really like a numbers game. We're trying to combat some issues with the temperature and the sun and the animals with shade cloth, trying to keep them out of the direct sun while they're still small and getting established. Hopefully that'll help.

Peggy Cornett:

You're able to use this, it's like a mesh cloth. We don't really do that in the historic garden, but you're able to do it at the farm garden, which helps.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

The shade cloth that we put up, I think lets about 70% of the sunlight through, so it provides about 30% shade and you can get them in varying darknesses.

Peggy Cornett:

Historically, you can make an 18th century cloche covering. It's made out of paper. It's beautiful. I've seen them at Williamsburg in the smaller gardens, but with our larger long rows, it'd be a lot of work. But it is a way to protect things.

Using the farm vegetables

Michael Tricomi:

A lot of the vegetables Ana grows at our farm go to the chef at our farm to table restaurant on the mountaintop,so visitors to Monticello can enjoy them.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

I think things like, especially turnips, beets, a lot of the root crops, the chef really likes to use in soups and roast vegetable mixes and things. Stuff that people really anticipate come fall, that fall menu that's really nice. If we get a good crop of butternut squash, that's another really popular item. Similar idea with the pumpkins and squashes and things like that.

Peggy Cornett:

You probably won't have it in September, but that gazpacho is incredible.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

Oh yeah. You might have to get it quick.

Peggy Cornett:

Every time I go there, I get a cup.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

The fall into the winter is when our greens also tend to shine, the spinach, the lettuce, arugula, kale, things along those lines are always a big item for salads and such.

Peggy Cornett:

It gets very sweet during the winter.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

The leaves get nice and big. It's really good.

Michael Tricomi:

Another one that we plant in the fall is garlic.

Anna Lobianco-Sims:

We'll put those in the ground and then after maybe a couple weeks to a month at the farm we'll normally mulch it pretty heavily, because garlic doesn't like a lot of competition in its roots, and it also kind of insulates it for the winter while it's still young and tender. Nine to ten months later, you get garlic. It's a very long season crop. It's well worth it though.

Normally look for two to three of the bottom leaves when they have died, and that's a good indicator. maybe pull up a bulb or two, see if it looks nice and big and eatable. And, knock on wood, we're going to try to sell some at the upcoming CHP plant sale.

Peggy Cornett:

Garlic does impart a distinctive flavor in cooking, and apparently according to Jefferson's granddaughter Cornelia, that his love of the boule and vegetables with garlic in it was looked upon with good humored indulgency by his friends and considered by his enemies as many proofs of his being under the influence and conspiracy of Bonaparte.

 

Michael Tricomi:

Jefferson was a Francophile who loved good cuisine, so. of course. he loved garlic.

That's it for September. Next month we're going to talk about growing and harvesting wine grapes. So don't miss it! In the meantime, thanks for listening and happy gardening.