A Seed Saver's Garden

[ducks4you]

Years ago I tried growing daffodills under my south yard pine trees. ONE survived. Since it is spent, but the leaves are still up, I put an old tomato cage on top, bc I intend to move it this summer and, once the leaves are spent it is be invisible.
@heirloomgal , are you zone 3? I had tulips for Easter. Beautiful pictures!!

 

[heirloomgal]

Years ago I tried growing daffodills under my south yard pine trees. ONE survived. Since it is spent, but the leaves are still up, I put an old tomato cage on top, bc I intend to move it this summer and, once the leaves are spent it is be invisible.
@heirloomgal , are you zone 3? I had tulips for Easter. Beautiful pictures!!

I think we're in a zone 4, but I feel like our seasons can be so variable with frost free days that it could be anywhere from 3 to 5. We did have a VERY late spring/warming period this year, much later than usual. And then we had a heatwave.

I'll get to test the old wisdom that the daffodil & tulip leaves need to die down before pulling out, because I've pulled out half already before the leaves have died down to plant other things. They had enough energy to make baby bulblets, so I'm thinking that there is some wiggle room with the leaves. We'll see!

 

[heirloomgal]

my discouragement with bulb companies was fully engaged after years of trying to get things that looked like what i'd ordered. several times the company would ship me replacements at no charge because that was their stated policy. however, many times the replacements weren't right either. i gave up. we now have thousands of daffodils and many of them all look alike and they need to be thinned out and/or removed.

More blooms have arrived since my last posting, and jeepers, more packages were false advertising! Even the tulips. The 'Petit Fours' mini daffodils I was so excited to see did not look anything like the cover photo!
Oh well, I enjoyed them all anyway and they were economy 'bulk' bags of bulbs, so perhaps I got what I paid for. Some of the blooms were truly a surprise in a good way. Like ordering something from a restaurant, and it wasn't what you ordered, but it tasted great and you liked it even if it was a 'surprise'.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

I suppose this is one of the few cases where I will be talking completely on point, as it actually DOES relate to saving garden seed (or, more accurately the difficulty/impossibility of doing so.)

Now that spring is semi on it's way (though it still is frikin' cold and rainy most days, and probably will continue to be until the end of June.) our Mazus reptans has finally stared to show up again. This is always a very iffy proposition here. It's not that the plant has any trouble here (it doesn't) or can't spread (it can, sort of). The problem is that, except during the very brief period when it is actually in flower, it looks EXACTLY like a kind of ground covering plant that grows wild and weedy around here (actually, it looks a lot like it when it IS in flower as well, but at least then, you can tell the Mazus because the flowers are bigger.) That means that getting it to come out each year is sort of a dance with the gardeners. If the first show up for the season BEFORE it flowers, they yank it all up along with the other border weeds. And when they weed AFTER the flowers are gone, they pull it all up again before the seeds have a chance to drop. So I have to keep BUYING the stuff to prop up the edges, which is itself not that easy (the local nursery has flats of it, but their strain is rather weak, and doesn't really take that well. So I have to rely on the odd more robust single plant I find here and there.

As is, I think we may have lost ALL the white ones (I only saw purple this year.)

 

[heirloomgal]

I suppose this is one of the few cases where I will be talking completely on point, as it actually DOES relate to saving garden seed (or, more accurately the difficulty/impossibility of doing so.)

Now that spring is semi on it's way (though it still is frikin' cold and rainy most days, and probably will continue to be until the end of June.) our Mazus reptans has finally stared to show up again. This is always a very iffy proposition here. It's not that the plant has any trouble here (it doesn't) or can't spread (it can, sort of). The problem is that, except during the very brief period when it is actually in flower, it looks EXACTLY like a kind of ground covering plant that grows wild and weedy around here (actually, it looks a lot like it when it IS in flower as well, but at least then, you can tell the Mazus because the flowers are bigger.) That means that getting it to come out each year is sort of a dance with the gardeners. If the first show up for the season BEFORE it flowers, they yank it all up along with the other border weeds. And when they weed AFTER the flowers are gone, they pull it all up again before the seeds have a chance to drop. So I have to keep BUYING the stuff to prop up the edges, which is itself not that easy (the local nursery has flats of it, but their strain is rather weak, and doesn't really take that well. So I have to rely on the odd more robust single plant I find here and there.

As is, I think we may have lost ALL the white ones (I only saw purple this year.

It's a pretty flower! (I had to google it )

 

[heirloomgal]

Some of the last bulb blooms. I've never grown a parrot tulip before, and they were certainly unique. The colour was not what the box indicated but the blooms were attractive in an underwater sea creature sort of way. I'd plant them again.

Mini daffodils that were supposed to be pink and white...

A daffodil variety that looks to me a little like a peony variety I have. Later bloomer than the others.

Weeded the perennials. Not my favourite task since this garden has very hard soil. It's not clay, I don't know what it is really, because it's lovely textured after a rain or being watered, otherwise it cakes like cement. I've added peat with little improvement, though it may have needed more than what I gave it. Not really possible to amend it now, as the crowns would all get suffocated.

Someone gifted me with a new lungwort a few years ago, which I didn't think I needed, but mine was white and this one turned out to be a nicer colour.

Chufa nuts are all in the ground. Too bad we're getting a cold spell, I probably would have waited had I known. Weather has been so unpredictable. Added shrimp compost and kelp and alfalfa to this raised row before planting.

Currant bushes are all growing well; transplanted these to a pretty undesirable location 2 years ago or so and I'm surprised how well they've done. Maybe the small animal bedding is helping.

The 'Dead Viking' peas I ordered (mostly because of the name and rarity) turned out to be rather different. I put one green regular snap pea seed in with them for comparison, these DV ones must be 1/2 the size or less. And some of the pea sees are actually black, most are very dark coloured. I'll be curious to see how these will grow. It's still a Pisum sativum too.

'Jester lettuce'. I think these look so funny! They picked a good name. A red flecked iceberg type lettuce. Lettuce seed is one of the next seed types I'd like to master growing and collecting; I have not found this species easy by any means. Fall rains are often a problem, and a longer season would help. Hopefully this year I can finally get it right. I just love the icebergs, longest lasting high quality lettuce bar none IMHO.

Lupini beans are doing okay with our recent cold spell, they probably like it from what I've read. Was a good year to pick to grow them so far, with the cool and high moisture weather. I didn't trust the rabbits would leave them alone so I was covering them every night. That got a bit tiresome after a while, so I have been leaving them uncovered and no problems. The fava beans next to them have been left alone as well. I saw canine footprints across their bed actually, so I'm hoping the fox I've seen around has gotten them.

 

[flowerbug]

...
I'll get to test the old wisdom that the daffodil & tulip leaves need to die down before pulling out, because I've pulled out half already before the leaves have died down to plant other things. They had enough energy to make baby bulblets, so I'm thinking that there is some wiggle room with the leaves. We'll see!

i've planted some gardens while the tulips and/or daffodils are dying back, it doesn't make for perfect straight rows or sometimes the spacing between seeds might vary but they end up doing ok in the end.

i don't remove any green leaves unless i'm trying to get rid of those bulbs to begin with (and at the point i might as well dig them up). those leaves are what are making the bulbs form and to get larger and also forming the next season's bloom. if you remove those then you're going to end up with smaller bulbs or possibly no blooms the next season.

 

[flowerbug]

for the hard crusty soils in perennial gardens mulching them with wood chips on top will encourage your worms to do some digging for you.

 

[meadow]

I have Jester at just that same stage! I love Frank Morton lettuce. TIL crispleaf lettuce is also called iceberg.

 

[heirloomgal]

I have Jester at just that same stage! I love Frank Morton lettuce. TIL crispleaf lettuce is also called iceberg.

What does the 'TIL' stand for @meadow? Did he also breed Brown Dutch Winter? I'm growing that one too, which is one I've always wanted to try. I'd love to be a lettuce aficionado, but I'm too terrible yet as saving the seeds. I'd grow a bunch of them if I was confident. But because I still need to figure it out better, I'm sticking this year to only a couple; Tennis Ball, Feuille de Chene, Cocarde, Amish Deer Tongue and Jester & BDW. Really want to try Brown Goldring!