Seed Collecting - Some Fundamental Advice

What's missing here?

What's missing here? How about some organization. 

Last Wednesday, KL, our provider of native plants took us on a tour of the Parking Lot Garden and Road Garden pointing out each plant, showing us how to tell when the seed was ripe and demonstrating how to remove the seed from the plants. 

Here is the list of seeds that we collected last week.

I now need to take a photograph of each seed sample. The bags are identified (thanks DH!) but I do not have photographs of what the plant looked like before we harvested the seed. Now, for some seeds, it's quite obvious what the source plant looks like e.g. coneflower, monarda, iris. However, that is the minority. So here is my advice when accompanying a plant expert on a plant id workshop:

1. bring a camera and take a picture of each plant when it is identified by the expert
2. bring a notebook and record and number each plant identified, or, in the case of seed collecting, number each bag in order along with the name of the plant identified
3. when reviewing your photographs after the workshop, add the number and plant identification to each photograph
4. and of course, with seeds, then take a picture of the individual seeds and add the number and plant identification to each photograph

The reason for this post is that I only remembered Step 1 with about three plants to go. The bags are identified (thanks DH!) but not numbered - so much for Step 2. I don't think I can match the photographs I took to any of the bags and I do not particularly remember what the original plants in their ripened state looked like - also no for Step 3.

I can do Step 4. Yippee!

Hidden Harvest

Hidden in Plain Sight

In the fall of 2016, HP, our newest volunteer, asked out loud if we collected seeds since the plants in the Road Garden and Parking Lot Garden were starting to ripen and she was concerned that the seed would be lost. Frankly, we had never thought about seed collecting as we were still focused on the summer production of ornamentals in the Entrance beds, nurturing the vegetable gardens, and generally weeding everywhere. HP proceeded to collect a few of the more obvious seeds from the Road Garden.

This year, KL, our provider of native plants, showed all the volunteers how to identify and collect seeds from the native beds. We spent two hours last Wednesday identifying and collecting seed samples from twenty-seven different plants, then storing them in paper lunch bags to dry. Here is the list of seeds that we collected.

Thank you KL for giving us excellent guidance in seed collecting. 

We now recognize that there is a second harvest at Riel House. Once the vegetables have been collected and donated, then it will be time to rigourously harvest the native plant seeds. We will require larger paper bags than the lunch bags we used last week, more patience than what is required to harvest vegetables, plus dry weather so that the seeds will not develop mould once they have been harvested. Our goal is to sow these seeds in other parts of Riel House so visitors may see what the property looked like before it was overwhelmed by non-native species.

HP has now moved to other volunteer opportunities. Thank you HP for inspiring us to gather this Hidden Harvest.

July: Growing towards Harvest

Tomatoes from the Past

Tomatoes hiding in the 2017 Produce Garden

Right at the top of this photograph, you can see tomatoes growing among the potatoes, borage and weeds. These tomato plants are from seeds of fruit abandoned in 2014.

Here are the parent tomato plants in the Produce Garden in 2014:

2014 tomatoes protected by gravel in the Produce Garden

2014 tomatoes sitting in bare soil in the Produce Garden

In 2014, we planted twenty heritage tomato plants in several clumps in the Produce Garden across a wide expanse of bare soil. As 2014 was also a very dry year, we struggled to water consistently and eventually most plants perished, either by lack of water or because we broke the plants as a result of dragging the watering hoses across the Produce Garden.

The tomatoes just dried out in the garden.What we are seeing this year are the seeds that were dormant in 2015 and 2016. 

In 2015, we decided to create formal beds and paths, raising the beds in the Produce Garden specifically to retain moisture in the garden. The raised beds and lowered paths have helped to retain water; however, as you can read in our post regarding Small and Misshapen Potatoes, we still struggle to keep sufficient moisture in the beds. 

Small and Misshapen Potatoes

This year, we have started early to harvest the potatoes in spite of our "scheduled" date of September 16. The results are - uh - how shall I say - challenging.

The soil is very hard. It takes a lot of strength to push the garden fork into the soil which then comes up in large clumps. The potatoes - russet burbanks this year - are quite small and misshapen. We may struggle to get 300 pounds. This is well short of the 629 pounds of potatoes that we harvested last year.

On the positive, there is no slug damage. The potatoes are smooth and look great.

Some thoughts about this crop. Misshapen potatoes are a result of potatoes under stress - It has been very dry this year and so we'll put that aspect down to lack of moisture. The small size may be a result of the hard soil. We do not disturb the soil once it has been planted and so the tubers may struggle with this condition. Next year we will plan to have sufficient much so that we can mulch the beds as the growing season progresses,

In gardening, there is always next year.