Growing Sesame

[heirloomgal]

Trying sesame plants for the first time, the black variety. The growing instructions say to start inside, and graduate to outdoors (after frost risk ends) planting in a hot and dry location. My plan is to grow the plants in pots. Does anyone have experience with these plants or have any tips to offer?

 

[flowerbug]

no experience at all, but i'll be interested in what you find out.

i was reading a few weeks ago about sesame as someone asked a question about sesame oil (toasted) and that got me wandering...

 

[Eleanor]

We grow sesame. Once established the plants essentially grow themselves. Flowers open from the bottom up on the stalks so the seed pods follow sequentially in the same order. As the pods brown I monitor them typically harvesting individual pods with scissors into an organza bag as its tip is just starting to open. I then hang the bag in a warm dry location and thresh when the pods are well and dry. Do expect some seed loss - wind, knocking into the plants, irregular pod maturity causing you to miss a few. It's a fun crop and makes a unique gift.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thank you so much @Eleanor! I really appreciate the feedback as there hasn't been much response to my post. Do you start the plants indoors beforehand? I was thinking to plant tomorrow, about 3 weeks before our last frost date indoors in pots, and then grow them in my greenhouse? Good to know you are growing them in a climate not hugely different from mine, relatively speaking.

 

[Eleanor]

Thank you so much @Eleanor! I really appreciate the feedback as there hasn't been much response to my post. Do you start the plants indoors beforehand? I was thinking to plant tomorrow, about 3 weeks before our last frost date indoors in pots, and then grow them in my greenhouse? Good to know you are growing them in a climate not hugely different from mine, relatively speaking.

I've done it both ways, planting 2-3 seeds per cell and thinning when starting inside and probably sowing double that if direct seeding. I direct seed last part of May / early June depending on the weather - essentially when I do our rice and other warm season crops.

 

[heirloomgal]

Here is what baby sesame plants look like. Tough little guys. My daughter was playing fetch with our pup and the pot got flipped up into the air in the midst of it all, with soil and itty bitty seedlings flying everywhere. I thought they had all met their demise, but I scooped up a few and patted them back in and set it aside. To my surprise, they looked fine the next day.

 

[Zeedman]

Never having tried sesame in the garden, I will be following this thread in anticipation of your results, @heirloomgal .

Yeah, like I need to add another crop to my garden. I do love sesame though, it is one of the components of my custom multi-grain hot cereal mix.

 

[heirloomgal]

The sesame experiment is complete. As complete as it can be seeing as the mice mostly wiped me out right before the seeds matured, but!, I did get to collect from almost three plants kept isolated as a test to see how well they grow outdoors instead of in a greenhouse.

This is about 1 1/2 plants I'm shaking to get seeds out of pods. Not as simple as a poppy, even though the seeds were bone dry. I had to pick at many of the pods using my fingernail to scratch them out.

Teeny 'filing cabinet' structure for the seeds.

This is the 1 1/2 plant total, AFTER I blew the chaff off. Definitely blew some seed out too. Not sure how they separate them mechanically, since the pods are so brittle it's near impossible not to break crud off while getting at the seeds.

It was kinda fun to grow it, and nice to see that it is actually quite easy to grow. They do thrive on drought & neglect - a quality I like. Here's the skinny on the flavour of my home grown black sesame seeds :
zilch, nada, zero, zippo. Not a a molecule of flavour to be found.

 

[flowerbug]

The sesame experiment is complete. As complete as it can be seeing as the mice mostly wiped me out right before the seeds matured, but!, I did get to collect from almost three plants kept isolated as a test to see how well they grow outdoors instead of in a greenhouse.

This is about 1 1/2 plants I'm shaking to get seeds out of pods. Not as simple as a poppy, even though the seeds were bone dry. I had to pick at many of the pods using my fingernail to scratch them out.
View attachment 44526

Teeny 'filing cabinet' structure for the seeds.
View attachment 44527
This is the 1 1/2 plant total, AFTER I blew the chaff off. Definitely blew some seed out too. Not sure how they separate them mechanically, since the pods are so brittle it's near impossible not to break crud off while getting at the seeds.

View attachment 44528


It was kinda fun to grow it, and nice to see that it is actually quite easy to grow. They do thrive on drought & neglect - a quality I like. Here's the skinny on the flavour of my home grown black sesame seeds :
zilch, nada, zero, zippo. Not a a molecule of flavour to be found.

toasted sesame oil is where the flavor is at IMO. just cold-pressed oil or plain seeds are indeed rather bland.

 

[Zeedman]

I agree with @flowerbug ,toasting should bring out their flavor.

This is the 1 1/2 plant total, AFTER I blew the chaff off. Definitely blew some seed out too. Not sure how they separate them mechanically, since the pods are so brittle it's near impossible not to break crud off while getting at the seeds.

What is helpful to clean small seeds is a set of screens, with holes or mesh of varying sizes. You can collect several sizes by re-purposing strainers, baskets from steamers, etc. One with holes just smaller than the seed allows dirt, dust, and under-sized seeds to pass through; one with holes just larger than the seed will catch most of the chaff & debris. Those two will clean out the majority of debris; and even if the hole sizes aren't perfect, they make the winnowing a little easier.

There are professional seed cleaning screens in many sizes, and I've often thought of purchasing a set of the sizes I need... but they cost so much, I'd have to sell a kidney.