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brin_bellway[fairly mild cw: food]
(part 1)
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I harvested my experimental amaranth crop yesterday! Went out there with some hand clippers and a paper grocery bag and collected all the seedheads.
(It's not the same variety depicted in part 1: upon reflection I was concerned about invasiveness, and bought a packet from Ontario Seed Company for planting instead.)
Turns out each of the three test plants produced *several* seedheads, so it actually worked out very well. There's something very primal about learning a harvest went better than expected, like I can *feel* the space of possible futures shifting in my favour.
(A third of a grocery bag of amaranth seedheads doesn't *directly* do much to shift the space of possible futures in my favour, true, but the *knowledge* gained from positive subproject results in Project Low-Effort Garden does.)
After letting them dry for a few days, the next step is to strip the seedheads off the stems, crumble them up, put them in a tray, and blow gently on them to blow away the petals and leave the seeds behind. (There are a couple of other methods, but I'll try that one first.) They can then be boiled into porridge, popped like popcorn, or more complicated things that I'm not planning to try at this time.
Next year I hope to plant somewhat more, and to neglect them...neither more nor less than this year, but *differently*. Get them into the ground earlier instead of leaving them lying around in seedling pots until mid-July, but not pay as much attention to fencing them in and watering them. (Although I did stop watering them after the first month or so in the ground.)
I'll likely also experiment with just broadcasting some seed into the backyard and seeing if they make it. Most of our backyard is a feral meadow, and I've been thinking it might be more useful as an amaranth field...
---
(edit: part 3)
(part 1)
---
I harvested my experimental amaranth crop yesterday! Went out there with some hand clippers and a paper grocery bag and collected all the seedheads.
(It's not the same variety depicted in part 1: upon reflection I was concerned about invasiveness, and bought a packet from Ontario Seed Company for planting instead.)
Turns out each of the three test plants produced *several* seedheads, so it actually worked out very well. There's something very primal about learning a harvest went better than expected, like I can *feel* the space of possible futures shifting in my favour.
(A third of a grocery bag of amaranth seedheads doesn't *directly* do much to shift the space of possible futures in my favour, true, but the *knowledge* gained from positive subproject results in Project Low-Effort Garden does.)
After letting them dry for a few days, the next step is to strip the seedheads off the stems, crumble them up, put them in a tray, and blow gently on them to blow away the petals and leave the seeds behind. (There are a couple of other methods, but I'll try that one first.) They can then be boiled into porridge, popped like popcorn, or more complicated things that I'm not planning to try at this time.
Next year I hope to plant somewhat more, and to neglect them...neither more nor less than this year, but *differently*. Get them into the ground earlier instead of leaving them lying around in seedling pots until mid-July, but not pay as much attention to fencing them in and watering them. (Although I did stop watering them after the first month or so in the ground.)
I'll likely also experiment with just broadcasting some seed into the backyard and seeing if they make it. Most of our backyard is a feral meadow, and I've been thinking it might be more useful as an amaranth field...
---
(edit: part 3)
