Garden And Gossip Forums

JJB asked about growing sesame seeds today. https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...3#pid58993
This reminded me of something I've talked about doing for years but, surprise, surprise, not done much about. 
In the interests of Growing Food for Free, it maybe time to  actually do it!

I'm going to challenge myself to see how many seeds, peas and beans that, have been bought  for eating, can actually be grown and turned into food.

Last year I grew some Hodmedod peas but didn't plant them out so didn't grow them to maturity. I've grown pea shoots from dried peas which is easy and cheap. I should be able to grow some of the beans. Possibly some herb seeds - fennel, dill, caraway, cumin, coriander. Sunflower seeds for shoots. Mung beans for bean sprouts. Chia seeds.

I'll start by testing some for viability on damp paper. 

Anyone going to join me - or can suggest other seeds to try?

Not joining you this time. You could try bread seed poppies. Cardamom maybe? Linseed?

Sesame seeds put on damp kitchen roll.

If the small birds round you way are like the locals here, you will need to cover the pods when ripening. You are likely to have competitors for any small seeds. The flowers on sunflowers only need to fade for a day or 2 before they are covered with blue tits.One year I had a row of corriander ripening when we went away for a week. There was none left when we returned. Even quinoa which is supposed to taste bad for them is not immune. I saved onion seeds last year and covered them for the last few weeks as some started to disappear.

My kitchen cupboard hasn't got many dried seeds. I only started using dried beans since you've all persuaded me to save bean seeds from the garden. As SC said poppy and cardamon, what about bought bird seed, although I'm not sure of the possibility of eating that stuff.

Here's one I started earlier https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...t=hodmedod . I still have lots of the beans and peas in the store cupboard.

Cardamom is one of Jekka' recommendations for indoor herb plants https://gardenandgossip.org/showthread.p...t=cardamom
I'll raid my Cardamom seed pods and see if they'll germinate!

EDIT. I soaked 6 Pods for an hour then put them on some wet kitchen roll in a tub. They were BBE Sept 2020.

By our standards quite fresh then.

UPDATE. I've split open the soaked cardamom pods to release the seeds inside. Interestingly, 2 of them had shiny black seeds, the other 4 had dull brown seeds. I'm guessing that the black ones are the viable ones - no idea why!

https://www.britannica.com/plant/cardamom

I’ve often wondered what the difference between the black and brown seeds when I split cardamom pods. Which I do every time I use them because, I really dislike biting on a whole pod.