Seed saving - worthwhile, and how?

Yes please save seed. new parcel coming soon, all contributions welcome.

 

Zigs is there anything that you haven't tried?.......be careful how you answer.

 

Cucumbers.

 

Can't give sound advice unless you've tried it

 

You know those little caps that kids throw on the ground that go bang?

Don't eat them.

 

Okay, I'm waiting for the outcome Zigs..........

 

True story. When I was a teenager, for a while it was 'cool' to have agricultural bird scarers (like bangers, but instead of a feeble pop, more like an ear piercing boom). It was 'cool' to set them off near unsuspecting friends to make them jump out of their skins. You'd light the touch paper, then after about 2 seconds there'd be a blue flash, then about 2 seconds after that the main charge would go with an almighty bang. One lad I knew was unfortunately not blessed with great intellect. He thought he could impressed a young lady we all fancied by pretending one of these things was a cigar. His plan was to hold it in his mouth, light it, weight for the blue flash, then nonchalantly remove it and flick it on the floor just in time for the main bang. His timing was slightly out. The result was severe burns to his mouth and throat, a fractured jaw and several missing teeth.

 

Did they end up marrying?

 

No. The blonde girl laughed at him and told everyone, after she'd taken enough pity to phone an ambulance that is. She actually tried to pull me, but I was too shy and the night I was supposed to call for her to take her out as agreed, I walked past her house several times and couldn't pluck up the courage to knock on the door, so I missed out and she ended up with some big bloke instead. All's well that ends well though, the daft lad did eventually find himself a match.

 

Aww, thats good then.

I'm shy too, know what its like.

 

Personally I'd skip anything that was F1. They are unlikely to be sterile - i.e. if they set seed at all then it should germinate OK.

Trouble is you have no idea what you are getting - colour-wise but also the habit, shape, disease resistance and so on. If you then plant them in your hanging baskets and they turn out to be useless would you mind? For me it would represent the time to grow them, and then for the baskets to be useless, and I would curse the lost time

Worth, next year, growing some heritage varieties because you will be able to collect seed from them. But you might find that they are boring compared to the F1 varieties ...

Its worth considering taking cuttings and overwintering them, instead of collecting seeds, and then potting-on in the spring. Won't help with annuals, but I do do that with Geraniums, Coleus, Iresine and a bunch of other things.

 

The problem I find with collecting seeds is that there is usually an awful lot left over that I won't use next year.

I donate my seeds to my local wildlife trust visitor centre, put them in little wage envelopes, then stick instructions on top and they sell for about 50p per packet there.

I've always put my little seeds, like foxgloves in button bags as they are so tiny. Although I dry them out in a paper envelope for a few weeks before hand.

I've seen a drying method using tights and rice, has anyone used this method and does it work well?

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/Drying.html

 

I use yoghurt pots, as I go around collecting seed heads I write a slip of paper with what it is , and push the seed heads in ,if it`s possible I remove the seed from the head and just leave in a cardboard tray, so the pots don`t get knocked over, to dry in my spare room.

 

Here's a link which might be of interest to Seed Savers:
http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html

a-a

 

And another useful site .http://theseedsite.co.uk/