Topic: Seed Saving Circle 2024

[JanG]

Yes,they’re lovely aren’t they. They fade almost to white as they age. I usually grow Mariana each year, which is quite close to a wild pea colouring, but I deserted them this year in favour of Enigma. A delightful change.

Lots of other delights too. Hungarian zucchini, thank you Galina, from the year before, has romped ahead of the others and gave us our first courgette last night. Born mangetout has been wonderful, thanks Markfield Rover, giving plentiful pods very early and I’m looking forward to the very long podding pods of Alex, which are nearly ready. They were contributed by Vetivert.

The list of wonders could go on and on. It’s so delightful to be introduced to new varieties, several of which would be otherwise unavailable, and have fresh surprises every day!

[galina]

Nice Potimarron squashes peeking out.  The plants have rambled into the grass area and the fruits are turning colour from yellow to orange.  Nice and early.  Thank you Sparrow for seeds from the seed circle before last. 

[JanG]

Great stuff! You’re doing very well to have squash so well advanced. I’ve had my worst year ever with squash as they were severely attacked by far more slugs than usual. Some I replanted from spares and so they’re very behind. I was very sad to lose Sibley from your seeds, Galina, but luckily there are more seeds to try again next year.

There are so many Seed Circle delights to be enjoyed daily. Picking out one for the moment, I’ve been really enjoying the bean, Red Swan. Thank you, Juliev. I have in fact grown it before in the fairly distant past but I’m pretty sure the pods weren’t as beautifully red, so it’s lovely to have this strain. The pods are also surrounded by lots of delicately pretty pinkish flowers. They’re very well behaved too, not flopping everywhere like some dwarf beans. Definitely a delight.

[markfield rover]

The slugs and pigeons certainly got organised this year , this appears to have abated and and the first seeds are in!

[JanG]

Thank goodness the threat has abated at last. What are you sowing now that August is here?

Starting brassicas always seems difficult here at this time of year with cabbage whites and flea beetles threatening seedlings.

[markfield rover]

Sorry I meant to imply the first of the seeds are gathered in, tomato Essex Wonder , I am though sowing Dragons Breath greens! Should do well in all this rain, impeding the cabbage whites.

[JanG]

Silly of me to have misunderstood. It did seem a bit unlikely the way I took it!

I just began to ferment my  first tomato seeds too - a little row of small jars on my kitchen window-sill, including Black Plum and Dancing with Smurfs.
I’ve got as far as a white bucket full of Brune d’Hiver lettuce seed heads, yet to be dealt with. It’s one of my favourite winter varieties of lettuce.
Peas were very poor for me this year but the few I have are drying down now and yielding a few seeds. I enjoyed your Born mangetout, Markfield R. They were our earliest pea variety and one I look forward to growing again. By way of pea seed, I should have good quantities of Carouby de Mausanne and Sugar Magnolia, another Alan Kapuler variety.

[galina]

A thank you for the Thelma Sanders squash seeds again, Sparrow. 

Doing very well this year, two fruits are already in storage, 3 more very nearly so.  Both lower fruits having changed colour to buff white, which is a sign they can come off the vine and get stored.  The third fruit with the marker is handpollinated.  It is still ivory white coloured, so needs a few more weeks on the vine.   

After failing twice to save pure seeds before, including last year, it finally worked out this year.  And they are still flowering, so who knows how many more fruits these two vines may give us.   

PS  Sorry the photo of the whole vine does not load properly, not sure how to fix it.

[JanG]

Well done, Galina, especially for your success in hand pollinating Thelma Sanders,and for being able to crop so soon. My squash disaster this year extended to Thelma Sanders too. They seemed particularly delicious to slugs. I planted out two which were munched completely down to a mere stub. I then planted a substitute having doused the area with nematodes and this one disappeared completely too. At least with other casualties, a token skeleton was left, but Thelma Sanders were their particular favourite.
☹️☹️

[galina]

Squashes really are your problem crop this year.  I sympathise.  These Thelmas started off as seeds inside a cut off plastic bottle.  Direct seeding worked fine, but with bottle protection.  When I removed the bottles, the leaves were all squashed together, but they recovered within a day and spred.  I have one larger cloche, which used to be a water cooler bottle that had been thrown in a ditch, but that was reserved for the rarest squash I have this year.  Sometimes mineral water comes in huge plastic bottles,  they would make decent cloches.  But if the slug predation is bad, they will take out whole plants here too.  And what I hate most of all, is when I have handpollinated a female flower and that is then eaten the next day after all the effort of trying to save seeds.   And when I have succeeded, like with Todo el Ano last year and have half mature hand pollinated fruit, then the voles come and sever the whole plants at ground level.  I share your frustration Jan.  There is a lot of it here too.  Which is why it was great to get repeat seeds for Thelma.     

We also have enormous slugs which tend to come out just as I go in for the evening.  They get halved with a trowel karate chop, but in a bad year it is so difficult to keep on top of them. 

[JanG]

Thanks for your sympathy, Galina. Both squashes and beans grow in my second growing area which is fairly recently reclaimed from meadow which has been left completely wild for decades. The pest predation seems higher there than in my longer established area where I think the variety of things grown, including quite a lot of flowers, encourages a more balanced system.

Bean success has been mixed and there has been a small handful of unexplained deaths. But on the other hand there have been some great successes from Seed Circle donations. I believe I've already mentioned the dwarf beans, Bobis d'Albenga, which was very early, and Red Swan, which is very beautiful. Thank you, Juliev. Also very early and productive was Markfield Rover's Black Valentine. It's lovely to be growing Garrett's Selma Zebra, especially now we've sorted out the difference from Zelma Zesta. It is beautifully streaked and nicely healthy and productive. Melbourne's Mini, as the name suggests, is also producing lots of smallish snap beans, and Italian Snap is also providing good pickings. There are several others too and I'm very grateful to all our generous participants for such wonderful variety. 

[galina]

I would like to agree heartily.  I believe my favourite beefsteak tomato this year is Green Cherokee, which has a beautiful flavour.  Beans too, aren't the Ice/Christal Wax beautiful when the pods age and the tips go purple? 

As if nature wanted to underline what I had written earlier, I just found this.     Fortunately it was only the second and not the first handpollinated Potimarron. 

[JanG]

A sad sight. ☹️

As someone who struggles to find flowers to hand pollinate, I’m a little puzzled by the implications. If this flower has already been pollinated and the centre is intact, might the squash still develop as hoped?

[galina]

The squash hopefully yes, but since I don't know when the slug dined (I suspect during the night)  and what other insects may have repollinated afterwards with pollen of another variety, the seed purity is in doubt.  I would never use such a squash for seed sharing. 

If I had no other, I would take the seed and observe purity of variety next time I grow them.  Luckily I do.  And that fruit is in storage already - it was the fruit I photographed earlier peaking out from the grass.  And this sad flower is just as likely to get aborted by the plant, which is carrying two fruits already.   

[JanG]

Ah yes, of course. You had tied up the flower to stop other pollinators having access to the centre. Hence the forlorn tie lying on the ground beside it. I have rarely got to that stage and had forgotten. 😏

[galina]

Yes, exactly.  if you don't retie the female flower after handpollination with the right pollen, you wil be likely to get further visits from insects with stray pollen.  A garden friend quoted research on this, which said that on average a squash flower gets visited by insects, especially bees, 8 times.  And that could be a lot of stray pollen.  Which is why we need to retie afterwards and leave the tie on until it drops off naturally, after the flower has wilted. 

It is also recommended, if possible, to use more than one male flower.  To mimick nature where flowers are pollinated more frequently.  But, as you say, it is quite an ask to have both female and male flowers ready at the same time, to have multiple male flowers available is quite rare.  You can't use a male flower that has already opened either for the same reason - it could have been visited by several bees bringing wrong pollen already.  Takes a bit of practice to spot male and female flowers in the evening, that are both at the same development stage, ie still closed  but already large and yellow, and tie them up for handpollination the next morning. 

I also found it more difficult in UK and at times had squash in the greenhouse, just for the purpose of getting more flowers in the warmer environment there.   

Easiest squashes to handpollinate are cucurbita pepo and cucurbita maxima.  You don't need to worry about Fig Leaf, cucurbita ficifolia, as it is so rarely grown that there is unlikely to be stray pollen around - other than maybe in an allotment setting.  The most difficult are the cucurbita moschata squashes, the butternuts.  They need the most warmth and good weather to produce enough flowers.   It can be so easy, but i very much sympathise with your frustration.  For me each successfully handpollinated squash growing to maturity, is still a bit of a seed saving triumph. 

[JanG]

Yes, thanks for this further detail and scene-setting. This year I’m growing three plants of Waltham butternut in my polytunnel, which is a long way from my squash beds, so I’m assuming (hoping) they will remain true. They’re 100 metres apart with a small, wooded copse between.

This year I put bags over two courgette flowers I thought were ready to open, quite large and still pointed. The weather was grey and they failed to open for three days, by which time one flower was looking sickly. So, as you say, it does take some spotting.

 I’m assuming it’s rather too late in the season now?

[galina]

No August is still fine, but so much depends on the weather.  If you have the right flowers, just do it anyway and hope the weather holds.  Even early September is still ok.  With squashes the post harvest seed ripening matters a lot.  If you handpollinate in early September and let the fruit grow for as long as the weather permits, then post ripen indoors until after Christmas, you should still get good seeds.  I have handpollinated late, but to give them a better chance, have taken off any other fruit already on that vine.

It is very unusual that a large, yellow flower would hang on for so long before opening.  I always tie my flowers and wonder whether the bags were causing this somehow maybe?   Just one half knot, not too tight, so it can be opened again the next day.  It is easier with thicker garden twine or with really thick coloured wool which doesn't cut into the petals as you make the half knot.  The coloured wool makes it easier to see the flower the next day when you come to handpollinate. 

RealSeeds use rubber bands, which I find more difficult.  Others even use clothes pegs for a quick flower close.  I have experimented with clothes pegs too and it worked, but found that, since you need string anyway to mark the stem of the handpollinated fruit, you might as well use string to keep the flowers closed. 

I must say I have been thinking about experimenting with little organza baggies, but not if they hold the flower development back. 

 

[JanG]

Yes, I think I need to get hold of some coloured wool (not a knitter so none to hand) for pollinated peppers too. I experimented with plastic bag clips but they cut into the flower too much.
In view of your encouragement I shall continue to look for likely pairs with string, for now, to hand.

[JanG]

I've just picked three beautiful large tomatoes from Garrett's Grandma Viney's. It's amazing. The largest weighed over 2lbs and they're a wonderful yellow and pink colour. I wonder whether anyone else has grown it and found it so unusually productive. I haven't tasted it yet. It seems a shame to cut into such beautiful fruit!