Sprouting Basics

Seeds

When I first began thinking in terms of serious prepping, I considered my gardening options. Here in the wilds of Wyoming, we have a very short growing season. In my particular situation, I also live at 7,000 feet altitude. It can snow any day of the year.  Even though it is now early July, we can end up with nights in the high thirties or low forties.  It can literally snow any day of the year up here.

Dehydrating Melon Seeds

Did you know you can dehydrate any type of melon or squash seeds? These seeds are power packed with nutrients.  It seems a shame to toss them out!

Cantaloupe Seeds



Cleaning Your Seeds

Seeds harvested from your garden come in two forms:

They are either wet seeds or dry seeds.  Depending on what kind they are determines how you clean and save them.

Creativity in making fruit leathers

Here are a variety of things you can do with fruit leathers: 

These suggestions come from the University of Utah Cooperative Extension Service.

• Different fruits can be blended together.
• Seasonings such as
• cinnamon can be added
• or powdered drink mixes or
• Flavored gelatin products.
• Season to taste, but remember it will be more concentrated when the water has been removed.
• Add undiluted, thawed frozen juice concentrates to add flavor.
• Sprinkle puree with
• shredded coconut
• chopped dates
• other dried chopped fruit
• granola
• miniature marshmallows
• chopped nuts
• chopped raisins
• poppy seeds
• sesame seeds
• sunflower seeds
• Make a fruit leather, then lightly frost it with cream cheese. Roll it up and slice it for a pinwheel effect.
• Applesauce makes a convenient leather base to which other flavors may be added. One example is Christmas Leather. Grape juice, orange, and berry frozen concentrates are possible variations.

Homemade Granola Bars

This recipe was submitted by Vickilynn Haycreaft as a document posted in Facebook Dehydrating Way Beyond Jerky.

From Excalibur site: http://www.dehydrator123.com/tag/granola-bars-recipe/    

As  a parent, I’ve learned all sorts of tricks to getting my kids to eat  healthy foods. The number one way to get my kids to eat healthy was to  allow them to cook their own food – with my supervision, of course. By letting them cook their own healthy meals they were more likely to want to eat their own creations, take pride in their work, and gain appreciation for the amount of effort that goes into feeding a family.   One of their favorite healthy snacks to make is granola bars.

Harvesting Seeds

Seed harvesting and cleaning techniques fall into two main categories according to whether the fruits and seeds are dry or wet when mature (actually, a third category exists of seeds which will die if dried out after maturing... see Preparing Seeds for Storage).

Seed Saving Handbook

This is a very important resource. Do keep it somewhere so you can find it. http://howtosaveseeds.com/index.php

Linda's Note: heirloom seeds are antiques.

• They are not modern hybrids, but come from the ancient plant stocks.  They are important because hybrids, although they may be prolific, extra-large, more colorful varieties, or whatever… tend to be more susceptible to disease and disaster. 
•  Additionally, hybrid seeds are either incapable of reproducing at all, or incapable of reproducing themselves. Each successive generation must be re-created in the laboratory garden or test tube.
• Today, it’s hard to know whether or not a seed, plant or crop is a natural one or whether or not it has been genetically altered. If you are concerned about the as yet unknown and untested consequences of genetically altered foods, you will want to grow your own from heirloom seeds.

Here is a brief synopsis

of some general information you need to know.