A Seed Saver's Garden

[Decoy1]

In my experience sunflowers have been one of the trickier seeds to save because the plant tissue on the back of the seed head holds a lot of water, and can be difficult to dry down. If you decide to try saving sunflower seeds take measures to quickly move the moisture out of the spongy white fleshy backing, as it is so very prone to moulding. I'm wondering if cutting slits in the back of the sunflower head and placing it on a rack face down might help (in nature the heads bend and face down as the seed ripens). Maybe placing it in a nice warm location might speed things up, and have a fan blowing over it could help wick away humidity as well.

An interesting exchange. I hadn’t realised sunflowers are prone to inbreeding depression. Thanks @heirloomgal. I have a liking for the bronze coloured sunflowers, the darker the better. They self-seed readily in my veg garden and I have quite a lot, so perhaps that mitigates any effect of depression. But I have noticed this year that there’s a tendency to revert over the years to more yellow. Not much of a problem; I love yellow too!

I haven’t had a problem with mould forming when seed gathering, but perhaps I leave them longer on the plant to dry naturally. The problem then is getting the heads cut off before the birds get them. I’m happy to share to some extent but the timing is critical as the whole head’s worth can disappear very quickly.

 

[flowerbug]

...sunflowers...
I haven’t had a problem with mould forming when seed gathering, but perhaps I leave them longer on the plant to dry naturally. The problem then is getting the heads cut off before the birds get them. I’m happy to share to some extent but the timing is critical as the whole head’s worth can disappear very quickly.

yes, we have never been able to leave the heads out to fully dry (if we're lucky enough to get any at all to flowering stage) due to how many birdies and chipmunks are after them.

 

[heirloomgal]

An interesting exchange. I hadn’t realised sunflowers are prone to inbreeding depression. Thanks @heirloomgal. I have a liking for the bronze coloured sunflowers, the darker the better. They self-seed readily in my veg garden and I have quite a lot, so perhaps that mitigates any effect of depression. But I have noticed this year that there’s a tendency to revert over the years to more yellow. Not much of a problem; I love yellow too!

I haven’t had a problem with mould forming when seed gathering, but perhaps I leave them longer on the plant to dry naturally. The problem then is getting the heads cut off before the birds get them. I’m happy to share to some extent but the timing is critical as the whole head’s worth can disappear very quickly.

I didn't know about it either, until I talked with this seed saver who dabbles in breeding , which includes sunflowers. It looks like this inbreeding depression is recognized in the seed saving texts since I looked it up, so they recommend 20-50 plants and mention loss of vigor and so forth if you go with less. Seeds of Diversity in Canada recommends 40. This fellow believes 200 is better and said it can get quite severe the genetic depression over time. I personally haven't saved seeds for them so have no idea or experience really, but it looks like lots of sunflowers sold in packets are hybrids for this reason. I'm guessing that if hybrids get planted they can probably go on a long time self seeding without problems since there is a lot of genetic diversity present in their offspring?

 

[heirloomgal]

Not sure how visible they are, but there are at least 12 bees and there were more hovering. I don't know if I've ever seen bees so attracted to a flower besides maybe borage. The cosmos are popular with them, but not this popular.

They like the little ones too. But not quite as much.

I planted a new phlox a little while ago, discounted from the nursery and in bad shape. But as is the way of phlox it's flowering already and coming to life. I broke the flower off so it doesn't divert energy away from the root development before fall. I am not a huge fan of variegated plants, but I like this one 'Nora Leigh'.

I bought a couple hollyhock plants in June, hybrids so I could get the double blooms (I like them so much better than the single flowers) and you never know when you get transplants if they'll flower as biennials that first year or the second. I assumed because they were so small that it would be next year, but I guess not. They bloomed this week surprisingly. The tag said peach, which they are not, but I quite like the two tone blooms anyway. Been a long time since I had a double flowering variety!

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

@heirloomgal fantastic sunflowers, verigated,eaf phlox and hey my favorite color and plant Hollyhocks…

You have a beautiful garden…

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal fantastic sunflowers, verigated,eaf phlox and hey my favorite color and plant Hollyhocks…

You have a beautiful garden…

Thank you @Shades-of-Oregon I love hollyhocks too, I wish they would come out with some open pollinated double blooming varieties!

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

Thank you @Shades-of-Oregon I love hollyhocks too, I wish they would come out with some open pollinated double blooming varieties!

That would be a great idea. I have seeds from burpee in my seed stash. They are the doubles same color. Hard to find. So pretty the double flowers are so perfect they don’t look real.

 

[heirloomgal]

The garden this year was blessed from mid-June to mid-August with sunny skies, and nice hot temperatures for growing beans and tomatoes. A solid, deep rain once a week for about 5 weeks. Just the range that they like really, though the runner beans admittedly were not thrilled with stretches in the mid 80's. There was some drought in August though, but I watered plenty to keep up. It was manageable, if a lot of work. That said, mid June to mid August is not very long warmth for seed saving activities.

May was incredibly cold right till the end, and so was May last year. That's 2 years in a row where I am hardly able to harden off plants before the necessary planting out June 1st to be able to get in enough growing days. And now we are getting cold temperatures again, some nights have been as cold as 7C degrees/45F. My neighbour told me we had high frost on the roofs last night, though it didn't come down. Parts of Eastern Ontario have had frost already. The season isn't over yet, but it is seemingly turning out to be a short. Or at least, lacking in heat for 1/3 - 1/4 of it. The yields on most of the plants seem slightly lower than usual. Some plants are stunning, but overall it's not what I usually see.

I really hope this is a temporary situation, just the randomness of seasons. I can't help but wonder though if this is the effects of the Grand Solar Minimum; I went looking to see if there have been any reports lately. I know some grain crops are suffering, and these are considered the canary in the coal mine for the Grand Solar Minimum within the agricultural sector. Interestingly (and also frightening) the olive industry announced in July that 'reduced solar activity may result in irreversible photosynthetic damage to olive trees', an announcement of concern for olive crops in the Mediterranean. That is the language of the GSM. And summers in a solar minimum are much like our summer this year.

Impossible to say without a time machine, but this short hot summer, bookended by very cold temperatures sure seems to describe what Valentina Zharkova (astrophysicist at NorthUmbria University) described in her paper on the upcoming decrease in solar activity and terrestrial cooling. I sure hope she is wrong.

 

[Shades-of-Oregon]

We have similar weather here too… Mother Nature is very Fickle lately especially since climate change . I think my zone has changed. It’s colder in winters and hotter in summers. It’s touch and go when it’s warm enough to harden off plants or when ground temps are warm enough to plant.

We have a very short growing season . I live 800’ above sea level and we can have some really wicked wind , ice and snow storms. Lightening and thunder summer storms.

But to be honest my growing saga isn’t really the weather it’s more the critters we have inherited … the horribly destructive ground squirrels, chipmunks, gophers, moles , voles , deer , bobcats, owls and opossums. The pastures look like a mine field from all the different critters digging as well as the gardens. Definitely dealing with constant critter wars around here, squirrels are even steeling tubers , bulbs and corms from pots. Keeping the garden safe from hungry animals and keeping my animals safe from the bobcats that are the predators attracted by the ground critters and quail. I barely have enough time to garden. After all the hawks and raptors seem to help with some of the field mice , since they were living here way before I moved in and of course living next door to a forest doesn’t help matters much either. Seems like I spend more time managing critters than the gardens planted many moons ago.

So … well… I have all the traps , and gadgets and techniques to scare the ground critters off as well and dogs and cats. But at this stage of the game I think I’m really just tired of cleaning up after the mess ground critters leave every day. Especially the ground squirrels that dog around the perimeter of the foundation. I’m ready for a winter break… but a it’s time for a Really Really nice winter nothing that will take out trees or homes this winter. No ice storms that shuts down power ior roads blocked as well as bridges turned into bumper cars navigating the ice.
Just a nice soft easy winter with a beautiful white Christmas is my plea to Mother Nature this year. Next spring will be another season to ponder later. For now… I’m hoping for a beautiful autumn.

 

[Decoy1]

Thank you @Shades-of-Oregon I love hollyhocks too, I wish they would come out with some open pollinated double blooming varieties!

In UK it’s quite easy to find a mix of open pollinated double flowering hollyhocks called Chaters Mix. I don’t know how easy they are to find in Canada. I’m not aware of any single colour double strains.