YJL

Sometimes, surprise comes from nowhere. I was going through some stuff, then I found a few packs of old seeds. Only one had packaged date, January, 2004.

Last night, I went to bed after seven, two hours later, still awake. That cup of coffee kept me awake for hours. I finally went to bed again, around 3:30, at 4 or 5, I got up and took a shower, then went back and got up again at 7. Basically, I didn’t sleep much. I will never try to not wasting any coffee. Well, this morning I drank a small cup of tea, maybe 100cc with mint, again, didn’t want to waste. I hope I won’t be up all night.

The sugar snap and snow peas both have a few coming up, so is onion bottom, three green shoots. The celery bottom is growing even greener, more leaves. I hand-pollinated the Christmas cactus, if all goes well, fruits should be setting in a few months.

I pruned a bit of that purple dick and potted that new seedling, also saved a 1-2cm taproot of marsh pennywort, which was growing in the same container. I really hate that plant, it grows everywhere. I cleaned up most of roots, it will have its own smaller container.

51 radish, 5 sunflower, ~20 French marigold (Tagetes patula), and 50+ Hollyhock (Alcea). I sowed four radish seeds directly to the container of purple dick, the temperature is fine for the radish. The rest in seed tray along with kabocha squash.

Decade old seeds, if they do germinate, that’d be a record, even well stored, I doubt they would be viable. The radish seeds art not in sealed pack. The other three are in sealed plastic bags.

This is the second time I roasted squash seeds, I think this is a variety of winter squash.

The first time, I added olive oil, salt, and seasonings, same way I make oven-baked French fries. The result was good and tasted nice, but the seasonings were burn and dark, not really good looking. And the seeds were coated with oil. Even you couldn't really tell, you still could feel.

This time, nothing was added. After pulling the seeds out, they went straight into oven along with squash. Much cleaner look, even without salt, they already tasted great, little sweet and nutty flavor.

There is no trick or needs for recipe like vegetables roasting, well, you don't really need recipe for that, either. Just pop in and crank up the heat, then check once a while. You may need to toast a bit to make sure they don't stick on the pan, that could burn them.

When it's almost done, the seeds would have turned brown color from natural white color. As you bite into one, you can easily eat it whole. They are nice tiny snack, though you don't feel you just eat like a hundred seeds of one squash.