Yours in Green

Yours in Green is a garden blog for not-so-green thumbs and keen gardeners alike. It's written in layman’s terms with a dash of humour thrown in.

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Posts with Tag:seeds

20 May 2011 ,16:08 Sowing the seeds of love

By Jody Rigby

Letting your plants go to seed in the garden may not be the most appealing idea to a lot of people, but for some plants sowing seed is the only form of propagation. The best example if this is with annuals - whose sole purpose in their short life span is to flower, set seed and die. So rather than spending money on these types of plants commonly sold as ‘Potted Colour’ why not try collecting and storing your own seed. It’s an easy and rewarding pastime with lots of plants being produced from not a lot of effort.

Seeds can also be extracted from a lot of vegetables and herbs. I let all my herbs and annuals go to seed and delight in them popping up in unexpected areas. By collecting them you can raise them in seed trays or pots to be planted out in the desired beds.

The time to collect the seeds varies from plant to plant but watch for the flower to die off or fruit to ripen. One way is to tie a paper bag over the seed head to catch them as they fall, or gently shake the spent flower head over a white piece of paper (this works well with small seeds like poppies).

With fleshy fruits such as tomatoes, let them ripen, then pick them and mash the fruit to extract the seed. Soak them to remove pulp, and dry them before storing.

Always store seeds in a cool, dry environment. The simplest method of storage being paper bags or envelopes or even an airtight container such as a jar or plastic lunchbox. Always date and label seeds and try to use as soon as possible because the older they are the less viable they become.

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Jody Rigby
Jody Rigby is a well-known horticulturist and TV presenter.

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A constant learning curve, gardening is all about trial and error. Knowledge grows from sharing information between friends, passing down through generations, or just getting it wrong a few times before you get it right. It's about getting grubby outside and aching from digging too much, but then feeling that fall away when you get your first flower or prize fruit off a new tree... and getting so excited you need to tell everyone.

Yours in Green is everything I’ve learnt so far - what to do when, how to do it right the first time, and of course, some frustrations along the way and how to remedy them.

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