THE CHINESE HERB GARDEN - Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard - page 150

til they begin flowering to assure good yields. Once plants reach the flowering stage
they tolerate drought.
How to Harvest
Harvesting the seeds is a little tricky for two reasons. First, the seedpods burst open
when ripe, so if you don't gather them in time the seeds will fall on the ground. Second,
they don't all mature at the same time.
The timing depends on catching the first seeds to ripen. Leaves and stems start to
turn color when they mature, and you want to catch them before this happens. Watch the
bottom seeds, since they ripen from the bottom to the top. When the bottom seeds seem
to be turning tan and the top seeds seem full-sized though still green, cut the whole plant
and put it upside down in a paper bag. Hang the bag with a thumb-tack in the garage or
some other warm, dry place and let the seeds shatter and shell themselves for you into
the bottom of the bag.
Varieties
Look for sesame seeds under “herbs” in most catalogs. Black sesame seeds are a dif-
ferent variety of Sesamum indicum . Japanese sources call unhulled white sesame seed
shiro-goma and black sesame seed juro-goma .
For commercial growers, a variety has been developed that doesn't shatter so easily
and that matures at about the same time all along the stem. This needn't concern the
home gardener, who can harvest the plants as soon as the first seeds become ripe.
Varieties to look for: Black Seed, White Seed.