My Garden: Growing Rice in Vermont?

It’s the time of the month when I attend my seed saving class. This class is so enjoyable and I always come away having learned something! This August class focused on harvest of seeds.

gardening, seed saving — Sylvia’s Gardens

Sylvia had several varieties of lettuce, which had gone to seed. She is very careful and harvests the seedpods when they are ripe rather than cutting the whole plant down at once. If rain is forecasted she often covers the whole plant with a tarp to protect the seedpods. The little yellow flowers are so delicate.

seed saving, gardening — Tango Lettuce Flowers

Leek and onion plants take a long time for the seed to mature. Often they get very top heavy and must be staked or trellised to keep the seed heads from falling over.

seed saving, prudent living — Leek Seeds

One concern Sylvia shared is the lack of pollinators this year. Normally the flowers would be covered with pollinators but not this year. The escarole is a member of the chicory family and the flowers are so blue. This seeds on this plant ripen from the bottom up.

The Bulb Fennel is covered with flowers as well. Sylvia is not sure it will produce mature seeds this year due to the lack of pollinators.

Two plants I haven’t grown in my garden before are Amaranth and Broom Corn. I think I will try both plants next year. You can eat the leaves of the Amaranth as well as the seed plus the flowers are just beautiful!

Broom Corn is actually used to make brooms and you can certainly see why.

The most exciting part of the class was to see how well the rice experiment is going. Sylvia has several varieties of rice growing and they all look so healthy. Several of the varieties are already producing seed. How exciting to think that we can actually grow rice in Vermont.