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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Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance

Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

That quote is appropriate for me this time of year because my mind is filled with images of overflowing vegetable beds and lush flower rows. Everyday I am out in the elements, carving out time in the day, creating the best possible condition that I can to realize my ambitious gardening goals for this season. You can relate, right?

But the reality is that many seedlings don't survive the transplant from the safety of the starter cells tray to the big bad world of the beds.  



Some of the survivors: Carrots, tomato, green beans



I have a terrible problem in the spring with birds chomping on seedlings. I don't really get it. They aren't eating them because I find the broken off plant laying there in the dirt. While I thought I would be giving away all the tomato seedlings I would not have space for,  I am actually replanting the starts that have not survived. 

So. Frustrating. 

Last year I used twisted metal hangers to keep them away. This year I grabbed, well not grabbed, more like very carefully placed rose bush trimmings around the tomato and bean seedlings to keep the birds away. These tactics work to a certain degree, but are not the perfect solution.

I have to remind myself that as soon as the little plants reach a more mature size the birds won't bother with them anymore. Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

Color in the garden - Yellow

Yellow is everywhere in my garden this year - florals and edibles. In the past I have been known to really over-do the yellows so I am much more aware of bringing other colors into the beds to create visual interest. Purple and yellow next to each other in the beds create tension because they are contrasting colors, or complimentary colors, meaning they are opposite each other on the color wheel. This creates tension to the eye and makes you want to look at it. My watercolor painting background comes in handy in the garden, too!

On the left: Pumpkin that appeared out of nowhere. Top left to right: Lantana, mouse melon, sunflower, blackeyed susan, State Fair zinnia, tomato.

What’s Growing in mid-July in the Mid-Atlantic

I am astonished that the lettuce (Burpee gourmet blend) has not bolted in this prolonged heat near Washington, D.C. I was planning on using the space for tomatoes when it opened up. It’s going strong and I don’t have the heart to pull it out. I have planted the tomatoes among the lettuce as it gets taller and taller. Mind you, the arugula and the spicy lettuce mix bolted weeks ago.

Clockwise from top left: Pumpkin, lettuce, mouse melon, tomato

I was able to collect mouse melon at a seed swap in February. Two plants survived from seedling and they are growing like mad. Must like the heat! They have tiny tiny flowers now and I am excited to see the fruits develop.

I got a couple of heirloom tomato varieties (German Johnson and Rinon Rippled Delight) at the seed swap and also grape variety. I had not started tomatoes from seed before but I was up for the challenge so I was seeking tomato seeds at the swap. I do not use lights or other contraptions, except for the light from the windows, and I was able to grow about 12 seedlings and get them in the ground in mid-May. Most survived – I have birds that really enjoy snapping seedlings in half in the spring and they found a couple of tomatoes and marigolds to decapitate. Because heirloom varieties can tend to grow very slowly and not bear much fruit, I also bought a couple of hybrid plants a few weeks ago to ensure a good harvest this year.

Stuttgart onions were set on St. Patrick’s Day and are going strong. That will be an empty area at the end of the summer in the raised bed. Beets? Spinach?

Green and wax beans are being planted in succession which means as space, any space, opens I put some seeds in the ground. I will continue that through the summer, curious to see how late I can plants seeds and see them through to fruit. I suspect the daylight will determine that. Bean freeze really well so I try to grow as much as possible.

Surprise, it’s a pumpkin growing in the backyard. It must have come from the jack-o'-lantern carcass I threw out there last November. I grew pumpkins intentionally last year, although I don’t think they were pumpkins at all, and they did not survive. Stay tuned!

Clearing the decks for fall crop

Was I overly optimistic when I declared "There is Still a lot of Summer Left"? It bothers me when the stores and media start rushing fall in August. Halloween candy in the isles at Safeway, the start of meteorological fall, my friends in northern New England reporting a tinge of color in the leaves. Makes me crazy.

Fall Plot Prep
Alas, yesterday I cleared out the beans, pulled the rest of the carrots, picked some kale (my spring plants are still going strong). The Brandywine tomatoes are still really green. Actually all of the tomatoes are still really green. I am now going to remove any flowers that form on the tomato plants in order to direct all of the energy to ripening. And I started the plant list for the fall crop:

• Spinach
• Carrotts
• Radish
• Kale
• Beets
• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Onions
• Garlic

When Are Carrots Ready for Picking
I ask myself this question every time I go in and pull them out. I have been relying on the size of the leaves. Yesterday when I picked all of the carrots that remained in the ground, I discovered that the size of the leaves do not correlate to the size of the carrot. I had one PERFECT beautiful carrot (pictured on the right) and the leaves were quite small. I have other kind of smallish carrots with very large leaves (pictured on the left). Good experiment!

On the left, skinny carrot, dense leaves. On the right "Perfection." Large carrot, no splitting, evenly tapered, straight. Very skinny leaves.

Garden Progress in Mid-July

It has been very hot and humid in the Washington, D.C. area lately, and there has been wonderful rain over the past few days.  Everybody is happy in the garden because they aren't parched-at least for a few days.

Clockwise: Parks Mix zinnia are super cut flowers; funky fresh carrots taste so good; pumpkin; stuttgarter onions are getting picked as the leaves dry out, really great flavor.

S.L.O.W. Tomatoes
A few weeks ago I noticed that my tomato plants were growing very slowly. Fish fertilizer was recommended so I gave it try. Here are after and before photos and the Brandywine has grown a lot with the fertilizer, probably doubled in size. The other tomatoes have grown, too, but not as much as this one. It has started flowering, too, so I am still hopeful that this guy will produce.

Left: Taken July 23 after using fish fertilizer. Right: Taken July 3 before using fish fertilizer.

Are these plants really pumpkins?
I have been documenting my experiment this year to grow pumpkins for the first time. I was able to get two types of seeds at a seed swap this winter-Jacky's and Cinderella. Two Cinderella plants and one Jacky's plant were transplanted early this spring. The Cinderella plants took off (pictured top), growing like mad with long, winding vines, while Jacky's (pictured below) is healthy but much more contained and no vines.

Then Cinderella produced some little fruits that have since all died. I read that it could be that they were pollinated sufficiently. And looking at some photos again, the little pumpkins were not round but kind of flat in the bottom-see the photos below. So I am thinking that the Cinderella plants are not pumpkins after all because of how differently they are growing as compared to Jacky's and the way the fruits looked on the vine. Anybody have any ideas about this?

Are these really little pumpkins or some kind of squash?

Find a Listserv of Local People for Gardening Advice and Community

Who do you turn to online when you have a garden problem or question? There are so many resources out there, but how do you know how knowledgeable the site is?

Find a Local Listserv

I like listservs because there are a lot of voices to offer advice.

I had a question this past week about my tomato plants that seem to be growing really slowly this year. This has never happened to me before! The plants look healthy and they have started flowering but they seem to be only about 1/3 the size they should be for late June/early July.

Left Brandywine heirloom, right Jet Set.

My trusty resource is a Yahoo group I belong to, the Washington Gardner. It is described as a “Free, open discussion list for Washington DC area gardeners -- DC, MD, VA, WV, PA, and DE -- to share gardening information specific to our region. Hosted by Washington Gardener magazine. www.WashingtonGardener.com” The group is so helpful and knowledgeable. Even when I don’t have a specific question, I learn so much from reading the posts.

Here’s my question (cumberland68 is me) – and you are never alone when you are having a gardening problem!

Every day Kathy Jentz, the group manager and edit of Washington Gardener magazine posts here “Gardening Tip of the Day.” So she answered my question with her tip yesterday.

 

This is trusted advice, off to Home Depot I go today. I will report back on how the fish fertilizer did.

I also am a member of the SilverSpringGardenClub and takomahort listservs that serve the Mid-Atlantic. Take a look at Yahoo Groups, there is probably a gardening listserv in your area.

Social Media

I really enjoy looking at pictures of gardens from around the world. Social media makes it so easy to share your garden pics right from your smartphone or tablet. Download the app from your app store to your phone, create your account and you are ready to go. I really like using the Hootsuite app to follow Twitter (@advncingtheplot) and I just started posting to Instagram (advncingtheplot). For ideas and inspiration I use Pinterest. It is a good medium for flipping through photos and archiving my garden’s progress.  

Hashtags make finding certain types of posts easy. I like to follow #gardendc, #gardenchat and #growyourown. Make sure you add hashtags to your posts, too.

What are your go-to social media resources for garden advice and inspiration?