January=Garden Planning

National Seed Swap Day is the last Saturday of January

I spent some time preparing for National Seed Swap Day by harvesting zinnia, marigold, and flaming celosia seeds from the dead flower heads I collected at the end of last summer. It's easy and very gratifying because these little seeds are free and they will produce beautiful plants in your garden this summer.

Watch my video showing the process of collecting seeds from your dead flowers.

I will bring 20 packets of seeds to the event I am attending on January 27 in Maryland. And I will leave with lots of new seeds for my garden this year! #SEEDSWAPDAY is a way to meet other gardeners in your community and learn about flowers, vegetables, and herbs that you may have never heard of. Like last year I got some seeds for a variety of tomato called Abraham Lincoln. Who knew! Search for a seed swap in your area.

The seeds above will grow into this beautiful plant.

 

Garden Planning

Garden planning gets me through the long cold winter and helps with my success this summer. I have time to dream about my outdoor space and what I want it to be this year. During the COVID period when I was working from home five days a week and not leaving the house except for the grocery store, I started looking at my outdoor space in a different way. It brought me serenity every day whether I was working in the dirt, cutting flowers for bouquets in the house, eating my lunch on the patio, reading in the evenings, and so many other ways. It became part of the living space of my home. I had never looked at it that way before.

It's Time to Start Seed Saving

Now is the time to start saving seeds, when your garden is in full, beautiful bloom. I save zinnia, marigold, and green beans for seed swapping and growing next year. This year I am going to experiment with saving tomato seeds.

(Clockwise) Tomatoes, sunflower, zinnias, nasturtium

Saving Flower Seeds

I posted previously about this process. I am a voracious dead-header and I always have cut flowers in my house so I identify a few flowers that I am going to leave on the plant to completely dry up so I can collect the seeds. The larger the seed, the easier it is to save. If you have a favorite flower in the garden this year, consider saving seeds for next year. 

Saving Vegetable Seeds

I grow green and wax beans every year so I save seeds from the varieties I really like and/or grow well in my climate. If you want to save green beans, leave a few beans on the plant. You will see the pod dry up and the seeds will get very hard. That's when you can harvest the seeds for next year. Be sure to mark the container with the information you need for next spring. Side note: leave your green bean plants in the ground because they will add nitrogen to your soil.

This year I am going to experiment with saving tomato seeds from some of the heirloom varieties I am growing. I start all of my tomatoes, heirloom and hybrid, from seed. This year I have Abraham Lincoln, Thessaloniki, Brandywine Pink, Tula Black, Parks Whopper, Big Rainbow, Black Cherry, Large Red Cherry, and Red Pear. My source is seed swapping (watch for Seed Swap Day in your area, it's usually at the end of January) primarily. 

Apart from the Black Cherry, I have not gotten any ripe tomatoes yet this summer, but all of my plants have a lot of fruits and very few dead leaves that would indicate disease. Once they ripen they will be ready for seed saving - and eating! I did some research and there a couple of ways to save seeds from your tomatoes and I will share in a later post.

Note that saving hybrid seeds won't replicate the plant you have this year. According to The Spruce, "Seeds from hybrid tomatoes, while they may sprout and grow, often produce tomato plants that revert to one of the genetic parent plants, which can produce much different fruit than you're expecting."

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Saving seeds is easy but takes time and a bit of patience

Harvesting seeds for the spring

Seed saving saves money, provides you with extra seeds to share with other gardeners (watch for #seedswapday on January 29, 2022), and ensures that you can grow the same plants the next year. Like this summer, for example, there was a particularly beautiful yellow zinnia in my garden. Saving the seeds from that plant will allow me to grow that flower again next year. This whole process starts during the growing season.

This short video will illustrate how to recognize zinnia seeds on your dried flower blossoms.

How to start

Later in the summer in my flower beds and vegetable garden in Maryland, I intentionally keep a few flowers or vegetables on the living plants so I can save the seeds to use the next year. For example, I keep a good number of zinnia blooms on their plants so they can die and dry out on the plant. That is the important part because the seeds have to form. It is kind of ugly having dried up, crunchy flowers on a living plant, but it is really worthwhile.

And don’t wait until the very end of the season. I have had the experience of an unusually early hard frost that killed many of my plants before I had a chance to save any seeds!

Have you tried winter sowing?

What is winter sowing?

A couple of years ago a method of seed-starting called winter sowing appeared on my radar. I was intrigued because it sounded so easy and pretty foolproof, and it does not require any special equipment like lights and heat mats. But at that time, after doing a little research, I had the sense that the weather had to be consistently cold for it to work. That winter seemed to be too mild here in the mid-Atlantic so I decided to not try.

And it's back

Winter sowing has come up a couple of times at gardening events this winter by people who LOVE it. Back in February at a seed swap there was an unplanned discussion and lots of questions. I came away hearing that it was getting too late at that point in early February. I am ALWAYS late starting my seeds, but I was not ready so I let it go, promising myself, “There’s always next year.” 

And it came up AGAIN last night at my garden club meeting. The guest speaker just started what she called her tropical vegetables – tomatoes, eggplant, peppers – using the winter sowing method so I am going to finally try it. Don’t be scared off by the rules, gardeners!

My first attempt at winter sowing, a method to start seeds.

How to do it 

Essentially, you start seeds in clear, enclosed containers, like a milk jug or bakery clam shell that resemble a tiny greenhouse, put the trays outside in a sunny location – yup, you read that right – and leave them alone. This process is replicating seeds that are sitting in your dirt right now waiting for the right time to start sprouting. You can see in the photo:

1. I used a cupcake container from the grocery story
2. Poked drainage holes
3. Labeled each well
4. Filled the wells with seed starting mix that I thoroughly watered
5. Plopped 4 seeds per well in the mix and lightly covered
6. Placed outside in a sunny spot that is sheltered from wind

I hope you are going to try it, too! Check back so see how it goes.

Winter sowing resources on the web

Wikipedia 

Maryland Grows Blog 

WinterSown.org

Seed Swap Haul

The seed swap I attended last weekend was really fun. There were tons of flowers, vegetables and herb seeds to choose from and the variety was overwhelming. That’s the best part of seed swaps for me, seeing so many varieties all in one place. My haul included kale, dill, sunflowers, heirloom tomatoes and mini pumpkins.

A few of my highlights

Clockwise: False indigo, suyo cucumber, Barry's crazy cherry tomotoes, Cosmic purple carrot

• How could I pass up something called “Barry’s Crazy Cherry Tomatoes”? The package did not have a picture, but the name caught me in a way I don’t think a picture would  have. They are the yellow tomatoes in the photos.

• Pea King Tut Purple were in the goody bag that I received when I registered. I have not grown peas in a few years, but I love the color of these peas! We were given the idea to grow these in a container using a tomato cage as a support. Great idea!

• I love growing carrots; how could I not try Cosmic Purple Carrot? And what’s with my purple vegetable theme?

• The curly Suyo cucumber are something new for me. They look fun and will be perfect in the community garden plot I hope to score this spring (fingers crossed).

• False indigo is a native plant that will keep coming back – I love easy plants. I have a new sunny bed in my year because my neighbor recently cut down a very tall tree (it was 50% dead and dangerous) that shaded part of my yard.