Saving Vegetable Seeds

As part of my journey in self sufficiency, I am starting to save my own seed.

I'm already saving my own maize and bean seeds.

Now I'm moving on to green vegetables.

Sometimes I buy vegetable seeds from the market that turn out to be nonviable because they are too old.

These are black nightshade fruit that I saved from a few bushes.

I don't need a lot of seeds because my garden is small. These are enough and they are ripe.

My kids wanted to eat them but I sent them to the shamba to pick their own.

Comments

My First Carrot Seedbeds

I made my first carrot seed bed and it feels so good to see my first carrot shoots. Germination rates were low because I covered the seedbed for too long and I think some of the shoots died before they could push through. Next time I will only cover the seedbed for one week and thereafter I will water it at least once a week until I get my carrots. But for now, I am just happy to see my first carrot shoots. Within the next few months, I will be eating my home grown carrots. I am not adding any manure because I have been told that carrots do not respond well to manure. You can use NPK and wood ashes, though.

My very First Managu Seedbed

Making my first managu seedbed was easy. The seeds were from Simlaw Seeds and I bought the smallest sachet. The germination rates were very high. Someone warned me that the commercial seeds are not the best but I like the results I have seen. I have used chicken manure in the seedbed because I have plenty of chicken manure in store. This will not be an easy crop to maintain because the rainy season is over now and I will be relying on irrigation to keep the garden going. But one thing that I want to do is to keep the garden planted all the time, even during the rainy season. So I will proceed with the transplanting , even though I will be managing my expectations. The risk now is that even with irrigation, I may not get the results that I want because of excess heat. I will mitigate that risk by watering every week and mulching as much as possible. This particular variety is simply called Black Nightshade . Simlaw has another variety t...

Chicken Dilemma

Of late I've been plagued by a dilemma. I'm torn between keeping improved chickens and pure kienyeji chickens. Kienyeji's are slow growing. They are ready to butcher in six months, but they also hatch their own eggs and brood them. So they are self propagating. You don't have to buy new stock. The improved kienyeji are fast growing but they do not hatch their own chicks or brood them. So you have to keep buying new stock. I now have a barnyard mix of one kienyeji hen, two improved hens, and one improved rooster. I thought this would be an ideal solution because the two improved hens supply us with eggs continuously and the kienyeji one can be the mother. The problem is that the improved jogoo gets too big for the kienyeji hen. She has no feathers on her back from the big rooster stepping on her constantly. The last rooster I had grew all the way to 3.2kg and I butchered it because it was too big and still growing. Since I got rid of the offending rooster, I...

Jani Farm

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