A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

The best way to save seeds from those is to wait for ripe fruits to fall to the ground. At that point, they will be yellowish & soft. I let those ripe fruits cure for an additional couple weeks, then cut a bunch of them in half, mashed them, and allowed them to ferment for 2-3 days. Stir the container at least twice daily; when the mash turns mostly liquid, the seeds are ready. You can then clean & collect the good seed using the same float process used for fermented tomato seed... the good seeds will sink.

You can use the same process for Liso Calcutta; but the ripe fruits are too hard & dry to make much of their own juice. I had to add extra juice from some ripe cucumbers I was processing to get the gently sliced Liso Calcutta to ferment properly.

Thanks @Zeedman ! I really appreciate the tips! I'm always a little wobbly kneed the first time I harvest seed for a species I'm not familiar with, I don't want to mess anything up!

 

[heirloomgal]

I decided to move the Morelle De Balbis plant from the patio where some of the tomatoes are, there are too many bees showing up! And I could see them drifting over to my tomatoes, so that had to end. I moved it to the other end of the garden where I put the Painted Serpent cucumbers since they need insects anyway. It's a good plant to have if you need to draw pollinators! (The thorns are pretty vicious though!) Bees are also coming in droves to the nemophilias so I separated them too just in case they can cross.

Been snacking on my black currants (which need to be harvested and frozen), which are so big and juicy this year. Immature they are seriously medicinal tasting, but deeply mature they're surprisingly lovely off the vine. Ground cherries are coming in too, so yummy. I should have planted more!

Tomatoes are all sizing up pretty good. I found a new natural slow release fertilizer that I'm LOVING for them. I don't need to mix it with water (ugh!) and the kids can apply it all for me, 4 tbsp per pot. It's mostly feathers and rock phosphate, couple other things in there at 5-7-7. Too much nutrition weakens tomato flavour and I'm picky with my tomato fertility closer to harvest because of that. This seems just about perfect; leaves are still nice and green and healthy but not too green nor hyper growth. I'm going to try it on the eggplant pots tomorrow. Those are tricky with fertility I've found - too much and aphids show up. Desert plant I guess, low water and nutrition needs.

Of the 5 lettuce varieties I planted, 2 have now bolted. 'Cocarde' bit the dust this week. I am looking forward to saving these seeds though. I think I'll use paper bags and tie them on. Maybe I'll even pull them when the September rains threaten and hang them under cover to finish.

 

[ducks4you]

@heirloomgal , I looked up the Morelle De Balbis plant.
Sounds like a torture device to grow them!!

 

[heirloomgal]

Watered 1/2 the gardens with a 7 litre can tonight. We are nearly out of catchment water, so I'm trying to ration what's left carefully until the next rain. I've made small ridges around some of the pea rows and beans so I am essentially watering a small, enclosed shallow trench straight over the roots of things. Hopefully the rain will arrive next week but the forecasts have been so wrong I'm not holding my breath. Apparently the province is in a drought; we really haven't had much rain even though the last rain was a good one. The wind we had today was quite drying and the garden was almost dusty when I hoed a little. I can't complain though! I've got close to 70 bean varieties out there, it's a real bean year this round, and excessive water would spell disaster!

It's the pots that are the real drinkers. Minus 2 tomatoes, all the peppers, tomatoes and eggplants are in pots. I haven't counted but it's got to be close to 80, plus all the annual flowers are in window boxes. Plus my fertility amendments require watering in. I can burn through 1, 000 litres pretty fast at this point in the year. Phew, these pots are reminding my why I sort of moved away from this type of gardening. Every time I do a round of organic nutrition it hurts my wallet! In ground I usually don't add much aside from a bit of chicken manure here and there.

All in all, the weather has been generous. Everything is developing fruit and flowers with no major issues or problems so I feel grateful. I can recall summers past when there was lots of rain, overcast skies and cooler temps and certain crops really didn't do well. Those years are good for pea grow outs, but you never can predict when those seasons will occur. Happy for the pretty balanced weather this year.

 

[ducks4you]

I harvested about 20 sugar snap pea seeds from my lousy indoor starting/transplanting/bad stewardship effort, for Fall planting.

 

[heirloomgal]

I have met my match when it comes to saving seed from some of my new experiments. Amazingly, there seems to be no info, at all, about certain kinds of plants and getting their seeds - claytonia in particular. Turns out they have 'jumping' seeds and they'll fly a few feet. Also the seeds are tinier than a flea beetle. So hard to see. I keep wondering how on earth the seed companies do it. It may not be worth it since I didn't find there to be much taste, but still, I'd like to be able to know the technique. It is a lovely little plant with pretty, delicate white flowers. I'm thinking to lop of what is left and lay it between paper so the seeds can't jump away.

Anyway, couple discoveries/conclusions thus far this summer. 'Liso Calcutta' gherkins are actually superior to cucumbers! Earlier, more prolific, more hardy. My 'Kaiser Alexander' cukes are good but not near as fecund. (I thought they'd be white, but they're green!?)

I can never garden without 'Bird Eye Gilia' and Kenikir flowers again! The best flowers I've ever grown, though I do like some of the others. 'Fairy Bouquet' linaria, nah. 'Lemonade Cosmos' is okay, not a revelation. Scarlet Flax is a real beauty, and is a fantastically beautiful true red. Needs massing, but a highly undervalued annual I think.

'Brown Dutch Winter' lettuce is the only non-heading lettuce that hasn't bolted. It's a keeper, and the 'Jester' is wonderful and has resisted quite high heat too. I actually thought all the lettuces were great, the 'Amish Deer Tongue' isn't 'as notable as the rest but DD likes it best though so it stays. Oh, I hope I succeed with the seeds!

Some photos of the garden, and a little currant harvest from today.

'Early Green' is turning out to be a great variety, and actually early. All eggplants this year are grown in pretty small pots (they were all seed crops this time) of less than 12 inches. So, I am surprised the size many have put on as well as number of fruit.

'Lemonade' Cosmos; prosaic but easy to save seed for. Only about 15 inches tall.

Kenikir hedge, behind the watermelon vines. Such a lovely annual, already about 4 feet tall. Keeping this one forever. Orange blossom colour is nuclear.

'Caterpillar' plants are strutting their salad 'worms'. I'll eat these, but no other bugs! Haven't pranked the family yet, but certainly will.

'Sart Roloise' getting some antho shading.

'Chinese Giant' peas are living up to their namesake! Pods are longer than the length of my hand.

The block planted peas with twig supports. Best of all supports this year bar none. Everything else is flopping over, falling back, etc. Too bad it needs so many sticks and is time consuming to do. However, the yields are so much better it's worth it to me to spend the time.

'Pink Popcorn'. Much taller than I expected for a dwarf (over 7 feet) but the cobs have appeared in pretty good time so in the end that's all that really matters to me. Thank goodness I didn't plant them anywhere else though.

Chufa nuts are chugging along. The 'grass' leaves are quite stiff and strappy.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

My 'Kaiser Alexander' cukes are good but not near as fecund. (I thought they'd be white, but they're green!?)

Then I think you are picking them too early. I think you are supposed to wait until they turn brown and crackly skinned (the ARE a kiva type, after all).

 

[heirloomgal]

Then I think you are picking them too early. I think you are supposed to wait until they turn brown and crackly skinned (the ARE a kiva type, after all).

Isn't that the seed saving stage though?

 

[Pulsegleaner]

Isn't that the seed saving stage though?

Dunno. All of the Kiva type cucumbers I have BOUGHT at farmer's market stands and in Chinatown have been at that stage, but, then again, Indians and Southeast Asians use cucumbers as much for cooking as eating raw, so maybe they're USED to them being more ripe. From personal experience with Russian Brown last year the seeds are usually still semi soft at the yellow stage; they don't start getting woody until they start turning TOTALLY brown (and even when they do, there's nothing to stop you from scooping them out and eating the rest.)

 

[ducks4you]

Does anybody know if I can start a blueberry from the seed of a fresh blueberry?
My blueberries look AWFUL, and one is practically dead.
They survived the winter, they are heavily mulched, watered well and the soil drains well for both of them.
Frankly, I'm tired of buying these small perennials from a nursery that ships. 1/2 of the grapes I bought last year died over the winter, even though they were Both in the same window, similar pots, same soil, same amount of watering. The 2 I bought from a local nursery have been Much hardier, but righ now is a bad time to buy a blueberry bush locally.
I Read This:

Growing Blueberries From Seed - Cooperative Extension: Maine Wild Blueberries - University of Maine Cooperative Extension

Prepared by D. A. Abdalla, University of Maine Cooperative Extension Service, Orono, ME 04469. February 23, 1967. Lowbush blueberries can be propagated quite easily from seed. The plants can then be set out in prepared rows, vacant areas in fields or as an ornamental ground cover plant for home...

extension.umaine.edu