using sweet peas seeds from plants

gillian0808

Hi All,
As a bit of a novice I am turning to the experts for advice please!

I have some beautiful sewwet peas and that are starting to show "pods" for want of a better word.
Do these contain seed I can save for next year?
If so when do I collect them and store them etc?
many thanks
Gillian

savemoney

Yes I let them get fat and then dry them out and out the seeds which by then will be dark brown into a old enveloped double flapped so they dont fall out for next year

RAS

Yes, but if you let a lot set, then the plants will stop flowering. So leave say one per plant to go to seed and then dead-head the rest of them.

jjjme

Make sure the pods turn brown and feel 'crispy' but don't squeeze too hard or leave them too long as sweet pea pods 'explode' to sow the seeds - once thats happened theres not a snowballs chance in hell of finding them. I remember my dad used to put them in a plastic bag and leave them in the greenhouse - occasionally you'd hear a pop as another pod went off.

Like RAS said, its still a bit early for leaving the seed pods to develop; I'm currently removing all dead flower heads on a daily basis and will probably stop in about a months time OR until the plant starts to yellow as I want to save some seed too.

WASHER

My lupins have got seed pods on them, can I plant them?, I usually just thrown them away, it never occured to me I could possibly plant them. New to this gardening lark and to money saving, as you can tell.

savemoney

Save them to next year once the pods are dried and go brown the seeds inside will go hard

I save them because every year I loose lupins due to slugs/snails loving them. I lost 3 plants I bought last year because of the blighters despite putting slug pellets out

WASHER wrote: »

My lupins have got seed pods on them, can I plant them?, I usually just thrown them away, it never occured to me I could possibly plant them. New to this gardening lark and to money saving, as you can tell.

covgirl

I've got self-seeding sweet peas all over the place - even though I try to be careful saving seed there's always some that gets away lol. Same with the columbines, lady's mantle, poppies... but the overall effect is lovely! So this year I think I might leave them to seed at will, and just move what's in an inconvenient place, rather than going to the faff of saving the seed, sowing it, pricking it out and transplanting it. My garden is organised chaos anyway, so I don't really mind what comes up where as long as it looks pretty. Does this sound like an okay sort of a plan?

Swan_2

WASHER wrote: »

My lupins have got seed pods on them, can I plant them?, I usually just thrown them away, it never occured to me I could possibly plant them. New to this gardening lark and to money saving, as you can tell.

they'll probably self-seed too, just keep a lookout for baby lupins in the spring & don't hoe or pull them up, unless they're in an inconvenient spot then you can just move them

I used to get loads of them when I had a garden