Making Food Blog

I returned home from Japan to a snow-covered Arkansas. Travel is always enjoyable, but returning home is always special too. Seeing what has become of my world while I was away is thrilling. I must admit I did not think too much about my plants while I was away because I knew they were in the capable care of my wife.

However, it was like Christmas morning when I walked in my home and immediately saw flowers blooming. The first eye-catching blossom was from my chamomile plants. Those little white flowers with their bulbous yellow centers were such a delight to see.

Other exciting blossoms were spotted from my basil and my baby choy, but the blossom I was most excited to see were on my Japanese Indigo plants. Seeing all the blossoms is exciting for me for two reasons: first it is wonderful to have flowers blooming in my house when the temperature outside is in the single digits; and secondly the blossoms indicate that my plants are well on their way to seeding.

I have never successfully grown a plant to maturity, preserved its seeds, and then successfully grown another generation of the plant from those seeds. Using some artificial pollination techniques (e.g. a Q-tip) I am trying to do the work of the pollinators for my self-contained artificial environment. Since Japanese Indigo seeds are so expensive, I am extremely hopeful that this is a way for me to expand my indigo crop without having to spend more money on the expensive mail-order seeds.

There is so much knowledge involved in growing things, and much of it is gained through experience, so by jumping in and seeing what happens when I do different things, I’m building experience to help with my farming journey challenges to come. It’s very exciting.