I’ve got a few flowers seeds saved for next year. You may notice the white powder in the bags in the photo. The white powder is DE (Diatomaceous Earth Food Grade). I always put DE in with my saved flowers seeds in case some lil’ buggers hatches out during the winter. DE is helpful in killing bugs, insects, spiders, ants and stuff. We discovered it back a few years ago during a brown recluse scare. DE gets into the exoskeleton and causes the pests to dry out. I’ve used DE on a centipede and it killed it, so that impressed me greatly. I feel better thinking that I may help prevent some little pests or no-see’ums from surviving in my flower seeds.
I don’t have to put DE with my squash seeds since the seeds are clean, dried and will be put in labeled envelopes. I saved a lot more seeds than I actually plan on using (because I can’t make myself throw them away.) I told my husband that I plan on planting only 4 squash plants next year. He laughed at me and says, “Oh yeah, that’ll happen.”
I always go overboard with starting my squash seeds and then I don’t have the heart not to plant all the seedlings. But the problem is that I never know how productive my plants will be. I don’t plant 3 seeds or seedlings in a hill, I plant the individual seedlings about 4 feet apart. This year I started 9 round squash seeds, but 6 plants were all that survived. Those 6 plants covered us in round squash. Other years I’ve planted as many as 18 plants and we only got a moderate harvest. We’ll just wait and see how it goes.
Do you save seeds each year?
Do you have any special things you do with or to the seeds when storing them?
Have a terrific Tuesday.
🙂
We had sort of a corny weekend with gardening. We harvested a lot of produce.
Some of the potatoes are huge.
The onions are drying on a table on the back-porch, and the potatoes are drying on garbage bags in my craft room.
It may not look like a lot of potatoes, but it’s more than plenty for us. After the potatoes dry a couple weeks or more we’ll put them in mesh bags and stack them somewhere…Â and then I’ll have my floor back. lol
We used the normal method of shucking to prepare our corn for freezing. We’re happy we had about a bushel of corn. We put up 26 bags of corn-off-the-cob.
We had another good harvest of squash and beans. I figure we’ll get one more squash harvest about half this size. Right now I have more squash than Carter’s 
As for the beans, we put up a couple dozen quarts. We have enough to do through the winter. We don’t plan on picking any more beans. We figure it’d be stupid to let the plants stay and get completely infested with bean beetles, so my husband pulled up all the bean plants and tossed them away.
My dahlias are blooming real pretty.
If you look to the left of the dahlias you can see a volunteer cherry tomato plant. It already has several tomatoes on it. I can hardly wait for them ripen.
A lot of the flowers in my husband’s 
You’ll notice that there’s sparse spots where the Gerber daisies are. The rabbits and squirrels have been hard on them.
On a final note, our walnut tree is loaded with walnuts. It looks like it’s going to be a bumper crop year. We don’t use the walnuts for anything, but it’s still a joy to watch them grow. We leave them for the squirrels to eat or store for the winter. There’s been many times we’ve watched 
Normally when I start posting about our squash harvest, I would begin with recipes, but this time I’ve decided to start with a bit of fun with my squash.
A bit of netting wrapped around a squash and a bit of shiny ribbon makes the squash a bit fancy or a bit slutty. I haven’t decided yet. lol
In honor of 4th of July coming soon, I set a squash on a mason jar and dressed it as an Uncle Sam character. I drew his eyes and mouth on sticker paper so i could remove them easily from the squash. I put a hat on it and then put a bit of polyfil under each side of the hat for sideburns. I glued some polyfil to a piece of sticker paper and then stuck it on the squash for a beard. The patriotic bow pulls it all together nicely, I think.
I thought I’d go ahead and waste a squash since I have so many. I made a light out of it. It looks really pretty in real life. I cut out the top of the squash to use as a cap for it. I hollowed out the squash and drilled holes in it. I put a piece of plastic on the inside on the bottom so the moisture won’t get in the tea light and short it out. I then put a battery operated tea light in the squash and put the cap on it. It looks charming.
We’ve already given the neighbors so much they won’t take anymore. lol It’s been a good year for squash so far. Sadly, It could end any day because of weather or pests. So, I’m enjoying them while I can.
Joys Of Creating 