Spring Seed Saving

Just though I would share with you a few of the vegetables that are going to seed in my garden,

Borage, this will come up everywhere, excellent for attracting bees and providing potassium.

Rocket flowers, I will shake these inbetween my beds and around my fruit beds to encourage seeds to sprout in new spots.

Rocket seed pods starting to form, these plants were producing all through winter, left for another 4 weeks they should be sending seeds all over the place.

Dill, starting to flower. As I'm not growing any fennel at moment I should get fairly pure seeds. Fennel and Dill will cross so only grow one for seeds

Parsley Flower

The first group are the Volunteer Plants, these are the ones that germinate on their own accord in the garden.  I don't make an effort in planting or collecting seeds, I just let the flower heads develop from the best plants at the end of their life-cycle. After the seeds have formed and dried, nature disperses them around for me. Sometimes a gentle shake in the direction I want the seeds to fall is all that is needed. The next step is to manage the volunteers and create order from the chaos. Identifying plants while they're juveniles is a very important gardening skill that gets better with practice.  In my garden these plants are the rocket, Lettuce and parsley, borage, parsnips and dill and I'm always guaranteed a constant supply of these if I plan my beds to leave a few of each plant to go to seed.

The next group are the ones I spend a little more effort on and plan to let the plants go to seed, which I will then collect and dry for storing until the next suitable time for planting.

Peas, the best pods from the best plant was clearly marked so it wasn't picked.



Carrot sending up thick flower stalk



Carrot flower just forming, i will stake to give it some support as it will be a good 4-6 weeks before seed is mature and ready for collection

Broad Beans again like the peas these are the best pods, from the best producing plants.

This group of plants are the peas, broad beans, carrots, and Kale. I have to plan these a little better, leaving the ones I want to save to mature, then collecting for drying. The Peas and beans will dry on the bush then once the whole plant has started to brown off and dry I pull it up and hang them up for another week to dry out some more before I pick the pods off. The carrots will have been in since last spring, so I have planned to leave this space in my bed for them to sit over winter and send up a big thick flower stalk. I also need to stake these, keeping a close eye on the seed head as it starts to brown so I can cover with a paper bag before the seeds fall and spread all over the place, I will also leave these to hang  with the bag covering them for several weeks before I process them for seeds.

As for the kale I want to save the cavalo nero  seeds, not much is needed but I have been picking out the flowering heads of the other varieties I don't want, as this season I grew several types. I have also been picking out the flower heads of the cavalo nero plants that have been attacked more by insects, and haven't really preformed well at all, this ensures that the weaker plants don't breed with the better ones.

I hope these hints have helped you decide what you might leave to go to seed and which ones you need to give a little more thought to.