Dill seeds harvested -- but have aphids

First of many dill seed harvests happened today.  Tons of seeds from just a few umbels (is that the right word?)!  The first set had tons of green aphids in them though, so rather than keeping them I scattered them where the amaranth is, hoping they won't germinate until next spring?  But whatevs.

The second set which I didn't notice until dark had at least two aphids in it, but light was low so I put them in a tupperware, for a closer inspection tomorrow before deciding whether to store or scatter.

Birds eating lettuce seeds from the plant

Saw sparrows (house, I think) having a buffet of lettuce seeds from the Ruby plants I let flower.  I've collected a good amount of seeds already; happy to share.

Garlic bulbils scattered randomly in central bed

The one volunteer garlic, which I had let the scape be, turned into the cutest little bulbils.

Today I decided they had dried enough (on the plant) so harvested them and scattered them in the central bed.  Didn't dig them in or anything.

Don't try to get seeds out of the buckwheat

Yeah, definitely grow it for the soil enhancer, but my seed collection attempt didn't quite work out.  First, I had only 30% germination rate for the final batch of 10 seeds I had collected.  Second, during stormy weather many seeds fell off the plant and were eaten (the eater opens the seeds for the insides) so there were a bunch of seeds I never got to harvest.  Third, the plants go all spindly and lose a lot of biomass during the seed stage, so less soil enhancer given there was no extremely minimal seed collection.

Was worth a try, though!

Broccoli seeds self-germinated within the pods!

Noticed two such seeds today, in two separate pods.  Planted them, and a couple of other broccoli seeds from dried pods, in the cucumber area, just for fun.

No collected buckwheat seeds have germinated yet; started new batch today

(Have discarded the two earlier batches of collected seeds, because they did nothing even after 4-5 days.)

Started a bunch more today in PT.

A few sunflower heads harvested from the NW multi-branching sunflower

I'm doubtful that the seeds are viable at this stage, but the branch broke off so I figured I'd take the seeds and see what happens.

Buckwheat seed test: The first ones didn't germinate; started 3 others

The 3 buckwheat seeds collected and started in PTs on Sep 6th didn't germinate, so I tossed them.

Plucked 3 more today and put them into PTs.

That first pot of buckwheat is looking really tired -- leaves/stems turned/turning orange, like autumn.

Test: Placed 3 collected buckwheat seeds into PT

Figured I'd do this test to see if the seeds at this stage are viable.  I had to pry the seeds off.  I imagine when viable the seeds would fall right off.  So, we'll see!

Sowed lettuce directly from this year's seeds!

The lettuce left to go to seed by the air conditioner has tons of seeds at the moment, so I sowed a bunch of them in the same spot, by the air conditioner.  Right off the plant and back into the ground.

Forget-me-not seeds harvested from a great plant

This particular plant grew so nice and big and strong, with lots of flowers.  I harvested some seeds from it in past weeks but the branches weren't fully brown/dry by that point.  They are now so I harvested a ton of seeds.

Seeds collected from a so-so forget-me-not

From the front bed.  A decent forget-me-not, but not the best --  Collected these seeds as an insurance policy in case a tragedy were to befall the stunner of a plant (super tall, had so many flowers) before its seeds have a chance to mature.

Tall zinnias from collected seeds are all yellow/orange/reddish!

This year I started the tall zinnias from only the following 3 baggies of collected seeds.  Interesting that so far, every single one is on the orange/red/yellow spectrum (varying shades, especially some pure oranges) -- none in the pink/purple/peach range!

- "neat special orange/red, I love it!" collected 2018

- "nice orange red by living room door" collected 2020 from previous year's collected seed

- "yellow" collected 2020 from previous year's collected seed

Black Seeded Susan lettuce flowers appearing, though still green

The flower buds started appearing ~ a week or two ago.

The Ruby Leaf lettuce is growing a tall stalk too but no flower buds yet.

Stinky smell from beets gone to seed

Gross, I couldn't figure out where the smell was coming from at first, but I'm sure I've identified the source as the re-planted fridge beets that are well into seed now.  Google suggests it's due to their methyl content.

Fridge beets going to seed

The beets from last year that lasted all winter and that I planted back into the garden this spring are going to seed.  The seed heads are there, just not opened/flowered yet.  Cool!

Black Seeded Susan lettuce bolting; others not bolting yet

Still tastes good though.  Will leave one or two to go to seed.  Apparently lettuce is easy to collect seed from, doesn't cross-pollinate.

Reference: Collecting lettuce seeds

Saw a comment on the Edible Gardens group about saving lettuce seeds.  For some reason it never occurred to me that I could save lettuce seeds.  Lettuce starts bolting, gets bitter, gets pulled and put into the compost bin.  Well, guess what I'm going to do this year...  Cool!

Came across this handy webpage about how to save lettuce seeds.

https://www.urbanfoodgarden.org/main/seed-saving/seed-saving-methods/seed-saving-methods--lettuce.htm

Short zinnia all true to colour so far

So weird... the tall ones' colours were all over the place, whereas so far all of the short ones' colours have been true.  They're not all showing open flowers yet so we'll see if they'll be 100% or not.

Zinnia pollinating and seed-saving references

Cool, learning stuff about zinnias here!  This year I will net some of the flowers, and those are the ones I'll take seeds from, to avoid random/cross-pollination.


- Net flowers
- Floret must be newly opened that morning

A stigma will remain yelllow and receptive for a week to 10 days, so you have multiple opportunities to get it pollinated. When the Stigmas you have pollinated shrivel and die, they are no longer receptive, but that could mean that your pollination was successful and a seed is developing an embryo inside the seed at the base of the petal.

Remember which zinnias you have pollinated and save seeds from them. I don't depend on my memory, so I attach a label to the stem of the blooms that I pollinate.

it is actually preferable to gather zinnia seeds in the green state. It takes only about three weeks for a zinnia embryo to develop to a matured stage, and the seeds are still green, with the attached petals fully alive and with color at that time. The quicker you gather the seed, the less chance seed-eating birds, like finches, have to eat them. And brown mature seeds in a brown seedhead are susceptible to pre-germination in the head if you have a rainy spell. 

I do my pollination in the morning as the pollen florets open and I use tweezers or forceps to pick the pollen florets and use them as "brushes" to apply the pollen to the stigmas. So there is nothing left for the bees on my breeders. Bees are only interested in pollen florets, and are not the least bit interested in a zinnia bloom that doesn't have any pollen florets remaining.



Excellent detail in these posts, with photos:

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/4576083/how-to-hybridize-zinnias-it-s-easy

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/3272916/are-zinnias-self-pollinating-how-to-produce-more-of-a-new-strain


The same fellow leads this discussion:

https://garden.org/thread/view/34248/It-can-be-fun-to-breed-your-own-zinnias/

https://www.google.ca/search?as_q=+&as_epq=It+can+be+fun+to+breed+your+own+zinnias&as_oq=&as_eq=&as_nlo=&as_nhi=&lr=&cr=&as_qdr=all&as_sitesearch=houzz.com&as_occt=any&safe=images&as_filetype=&as_rights=