The even newer good, bad and ugly of growing your own in 2021!

carinjo

Dropped off a bag of compost on allotment yesterday and some of the plot was under an inch of water!
Today Ms C and I walked a few large pallets from the roofing supplier over to the back plot for me to build an easy peasy deck under the golden plum tree. Ms C wants me to build her a table around the tree, so will add that to the to do list.

Suffolk_lass

Yes, 15cm of water in the side road just because the run-off from the saturated fields has nowhere else to go. Despite having good drainage it is too wet to stand on the soil

droopsnoot

Suffolk_lass said:

@droopsnoot Just be aware that some of the peppers you buy in supermarkets are grown from F1 hybrid seed which is not designed to be fertile the following year, so be prepared to grow from a seed packet (not all, just most).

Sorry to dredge this up again, but when you say the pepper seeds might not be fertile the following year, how would this manifest itself? Would the plants not grow from the seeds, or would the plants grow but produce no peppers?

I noticed the other day that I have two shoots sprouting in my seed trays, so I wondered whether this means the seeds are good, or is there still room for disappointment? Out-of-date lettuce seeds haven't done anything yet, but they were planted a bit after the peppers, so there may still be time for them.

DiggerUK

Is anybody else experiencing very good germination of seeds? 

We've now got Cosmos up in two days. Our onions and leeks were all up in under five days. Everything has been done in covered trays without heat.

Most of us were sharing horror stories last year with all manner of seeds..._

Suffolk_lass

droopsnoot said:

Suffolk_lass said:

@droopsnoot Just be aware that some of the peppers you buy in supermarkets are grown from F1 hybrid seed which is not designed to be fertile the following year, so be prepared to grow from a seed packet (not all, just most).

Sorry to dredge this up again, but when you say the pepper seeds might not be fertile the following year, how would this manifest itself? Would the plants not grow from the seeds, or would the plants grow but produce no peppers?

I noticed the other day that I have two shoots sprouting in my seed trays, so I wondered whether this means the seeds are good, or is there still room for disappointment? Out-of-date lettuce seeds haven't done anything yet, but they were planted a bit after the peppers, so there may still be time for them.

There are three limiting possibilities with F1H seeds as I understand it:

1. They do not come true to type - shop bought produce especially in their controlled environment are primed for pollination by certain things, not open pollination. You may be OK or you may not
2. They are sometimes treated so they don't grow (less so if they were grown in the UK) or don't fruit - my reading stopped there as I was on a discussion forum for people growing from SM foods
3. They can introduce disease from outside UK (again, dependent on their origin) - I don't know what they treat Spanish salad crops with.

The received wisdom is to buy seeds from UK seed merchants as fruit and veg seed has been developed for our climate. There will always be exceptions and you might be lucky - if they have germinated already you might be OK. If it is F2H you might not get fruit

droopsnoot

Cheers. I have nothing to lose by letting them carry on growing for a bit, so I think I'll do just that. It's all a bit of an experiment - I like the idea of growing my own, but there's a limit to how much pepper I can eat, and they're only about 40p in the shop.

The out-of-date lettuce seeds aren't doing anything at the moment, but they haven't been in as long as the pepper seeds.

RAS

Hi

if the peppers were grown from F1 seed, you're now growing F2 seed.

F1 seed produces plants that are identical, crop at the same time and produce identical produce. Which is why they are sold as good for the freezer (and not great for the home gardener.)

F2 is usually much more variable, although I know some people have found very little variance in F2 tomatoes. So you may not get peppers that look like the ones you grew last year; they are likely to be less uniform, and may be better, or worse, depending on your idea of what is an improvement. Assess and self pollinate the ones you like. It's how seed growers develop their range.

Suffolk_lass

Of course the other thing is to buy "heritage" F&V and grow from seeds (apples excluded) to have a better chance of replicating what you like eating. Personally, I like roasted squash seeds as a snack

droopsnoot

@RAS, that sounds quite complicated. However, I will leave them to grow and take it from there as it seems that time is the main thing that will be definitive. I've never done this before, so it's all new to me. Quite a few more are sprouting up now.
@Suffolk_lass I hadn't planned on doing this at all, just saw the seeds and wondered. Next year (once I've seen what happens with these) I may do things differently. I didn't think any further forward than buying a pepper to have with some meals.

Suffolk_lass

Some of the seeds I have this year have come from a commercial seed merchant so I was able to choose 50 seeds or 1000 in the packs (!) - so the long and the short of it is that I have too many of certain things (in contrast - the sweet peas came in packets of ten - perfect if they all germinate. I did explore a seed-swap site but found I did not trust it and am wary of getting seeds from sources I don't know. I think I shall pop a note on the Village FB page, maybe just grow on the seedlings and then offer them on