Daft questions, but ...

... what should I look for to know when to harvest lupin seeds?

... once collected should I store them (how/where?) or plant them immediately?

... how long before the new plants might flower?

I said they were daft questions!

 

Not a daft question at all - Fidgetsmum. I once had an ornamental grass, a Pennisetum glaucum, and to this very day I still have no idea where the seeds where - I spent a long time looking for them.

Luckily a Lupin is a bit easier. Its a member of the pea family, so it has long pea-like pods that grow and hang down. Wait till they are very dry and getting black. I would suggest then removing the pods and keeping them in a paper bag, or at least an open container. If you put them in a closed polybag there is a danger of them staying damp and going mouldy. This will allow them to ripen as much as they want and the bag will hold any seed that falls out. The seeds are small, and black and very hard and will keep for several years.

If you sow them soon after harvesting, ie July/August they should flower next year. Or if you keep them and sow them at the more usual time in the spring of next year, they won't generally flower until the following year.

The seeds are so hard that a lot of people soak them for 24 hours before sowing. Its a lovely plant so good luck.

 

Thank you for that. I don't know which is more exciting, watching my pea-pods filling out, or watching the pea-like pods of the Lupins. At least I know one thing - only one of them is edible!

 

Sorry Fidgetsmum - Lupins are members of the pea family, and I found this on the internet:-

Lupins as Food
From Rome to the Andes, lupin bean pods have long been cultivated for food. The plant was spread through the Mediterranean by the Romans, where even today lupini dishes are common. In North and South America, native tribes ate lupin beans, often after soaking them in salt water to make them edible.
:lollol: - I didn't know that either.

 

But do you think the seeds always come true PeterS.
They don't always for me. Mostly they just seem to revert to purple.
But sometimes they come out nice, but not true to the parents.

 

Alice, If you look at Chiltern's (or any other) seed catalogue, they do sell seed for specific colours and if the plants were segregated I have no doubt that their offspring would come true. In fact I have some red ones of 'My Castle' that I keep segregated from other colours, I collect the seed each year and they always come out pure red.

But you are quite right. In general, the coloured plants are not kept seperate and the resulting cross pollinated seeds won't come true. You interested me when you said purple. I hadn't given it a thought, but there probably is a predominant colour, and indeed most of mine from mixed parentage did come out purple this year. So I suspect you are right on that too.

 

According to a project my daughter did at school many moons ago, the Romans also ate dormice. Well, that's Sunday lunch sorted then!

 

:lollol: :lollol: :lollol: