The ups, the downs and the insides out of growing your own in 2024!

slackgarry

How do you harvest  wildflower seeds, to use next year. There so expensive in the shops.

Farway

slackgarry said:

How do you harvest  wildflower seeds, to use next year. There so expensive in the shops.

Have a search on YouTube, loads there

alicef

@Suffolk_lass - very good point regarding re-using spent compost.  I have all the polytunnel annual veg in pots with our compost so plenty to keep back for next year - also I'm hoping that any weed seed in the compost will have germinated this year and won't be an issue if using the compost for seed sowing next year.  

Blackcurrant cordial topped up with prosecco - there's an incentive to get harvesting!  I just need a bit of dry weather.

@slackgarry as Farway has mentioned there's loads of info on seed harvesting and storage.   I belong to a wildflower meadow charity; they have a petrol driven seed collector, and some years they collect and clean seed from a local SSSI meadow - as members we get a share of this seed.  I've collected green hay and strewn this back at home - quite hardwork and all has to be done the same day, (collection & strewing).  Once the seed has dropped the green hay has to be raked off. I've also collected yellow rattle seed from local NT meadows, at their invitation, using a pillow case attached to an old squash racket.  At home, I usually cut off seed heads and upend them into a paper carrier bag which I hang up in a cool area and wait for the seed to drop.  I don't usually store the seed but prep. and sow the same year; if I leave it until next year chances are the seed won't get sown as other things take precedence. 

alicef

ok - this week did a couple of collections of yellow rattle seed.  Sorted out a couple of areas where the seed will be sown, (grass cut/raked off/ground scarified/another raking - good to go!).  The benefit of collecting all the grass is that we can fill up our compost bays as they are looking rather depleted.

Harvested stuff; did some deadheading.   Potted on watermelons; avoided the weeding.

Climbing beans are flowering.  The first sowing got hopelessly tangled as I was too tardy in planting out.  So far, I'm very impressed with C. Dowding's approach to sowing beetroot in modules first and then planting out.  These plantings are looking good - the seed I direct sowed hasn't germinated - same seed.

droopsnoot

My tomatoes seem to be needing much larger pots this year - I've had to re-pot several just because roots are growing out through the bottom of the pot and into the tray. I don't remember this happening before, or perhaps I just didn't notice. I'm running out of larger pots to move them to, and space to put them. Most have flowers on, though, so at least I might get some tomatoes.

alicef

@droopsnoot I start my tomatoes in cells; !!!!!! out to 9cm pots and then pot on into 10L pots, having first attached string.  These go into the polytunnel. The beds in the tunnel are covered with mypex but the membrane has circles cut out and the pots are placed over these, which means the tomato roots can access the tunnel soil.  Seems to work okay.  I use a comfrey feed, (when I remember).  My tomatoes are setting fruit now. 

-taff

Mine go in supermarket flower size pots whtever that is, a couple of inches from the top full, sat on gravel in trays I fill with water. the roots always come out and go into the gravel for extra moisture. I usualy stop the at four trusses for normal size fruit or beefsteaks, and more for cherry types. They will usually easily get to six foot. And they are in a greenhouse.

droopsnoot

Thanks, both of those sound like much larger operations than mine. I start out in seed trays, then on to small pots, then bigger and bigger. Once the weather is warm enough (which usually coincides with them being big enough to put into individual pots) I put them in a lean-to greenhouse on the back of the house, then just keep changing them to larger pots as it seems as if they need them. I don't currently have a way to put them in the ground and keep them inside, and if I just put them in the outside vegetable patch, the local cats will **** on them as they have with the onions (that haven't survived) and the potatoes (the above-ground parts are shrivelling up now, leaving potatoes somewhere in the ground for me to find later in the year). There is another greenhouse, but it's paved and full of stuff. I have hundreds of very small pots.

The ones I've grown from seed are all Money Maker or Gardener's Delight, but I bought a Beefsteak from a local sale, and picked up an Ailsa Craig from a neighbour who had a "free plants" table out. The Beefsteak had a few flowers on it, which I hope will turn into fruit at some point. The rest currently have flowers, with a couple of actual tomatoes in view. The chillis and peppers are all without flowers, apart from one I bought.

alicef

As the last few posts are on the topic of tomatoes I thought I would post a picture on how effective it is to grow extra tomato plants from pinched out side shoots.

Just stick the shoots into a glass of water - new roots are soon formed.  Then pot on the plants. Plants for free!. The other benefit is that harvest times are extended.    

@droopsnoot I do love beefsteak tomatoes.

droopsnoot

alicef said:

As the last few posts are on the topic of tomatoes I thought I would post a picture on how effective it is to grow extra tomato plants from pinched out side shoots.

@droopsnoot I do love beefsteak tomatoes.

I've never tried one, hoping that might change. The flowers are disappearing, so I'm just hoping they'll turn into actual fruits at some point. I can never tell whether I'm under-watering or over-watering. When I pot on, the bottom always seems to be really wet, so I've cut back a bit.