Topic: Seed Saving Circle 2016?

[Jeannine]

Jay has been breeding Broadies too...my goodness that gal deserves a horticultural medal. I was examining the size of tomato flowers yesterday with the view of crossing a couple of micro  toms but they are so small...  I will have to bring the pots into my sewing room under my magnifiers  where I do my miniature stuff to even stand a chance.. I wish I had that ladies skills I really do.

[sunloving]

This should have been the first broadie I grew. I remember the time well, I was in  my early twenties
If I had had plain white blooms I may not have a crooked toe...


Oh heck,, the tearful joy of remembering times past. sniff sniff

Jeannine, ouch!  Glad it didn't put you off gardening!  Somewhere on here are photos of Jayb's broadie crosses and their flowers.  Fabulous shades. 

These will be a super addition to the seed circle, Sunloving.  Fingers crosses they will just do their stuff for you.

Yes that meeting at Squash64s allotments was magic.  I remember so well how you (in that lovely red dress) broke the ice, gave us all a hug and introduced yourself - and had us all chatting in no time at all.   

Oh how lovely of you to say that! It was a really nice day and we all went home with all sorts of new things to try, I'm still using the salad seeds from that day as there were so many, I'd forgotten it was squash and not betula!

X sunloving

[sunloving]

Hello all, my salmon flowered peas have all got fascination and so I'm not sure how many peas will emerge.

[galina]

What a lovely sight Sunloving!  The fasciated stems are normal for this pea, they should all have it.  Another name for them is Crown Pea, because all the flowers come out at the top, like a crown over the thickened stem.  In theory each flower will make a pod.  From memory these pods have 3 to 5 peas in them.  This gives you some sort of an idea of how much to expect.  They are shelling peas, not mangetouts and tasty.  But of course the beauty, or front-garden appeal of these peas is the main reason for growing them.  Harvests are lighter than other peas, but as we can all see, there are plenty of flowers in the 'crown'.   

[sunloving]

 Gallina, that's great to know as I was scratching my head as to how they could have all got damaged! 
Fingers crossed then for lots of pods!! They are very pretty. Almost as lovely as the Shiraz mange tout. He res to lots to swap later on! X sunloving


G

What a lovely sight Sunloving!  The fasciated stems are normal for this pea, they should all have it.  Another name for them is Crown Pea, because all the flowers come out at the top, like a crown over the thickened stem.  In theory each flower will make a pod.  From memory these pods have 3 to 5 peas in them.  This gives you some sort of an idea of how much to expect.  They are shelling peas, not mangetouts and tasty.  But of course the beauty, or front-garden appeal of these peas is the main reason for growing them.  Harvests are lighter than other peas, but as we can all see, there are plenty of flowers in the 'crown'.   

[galina]

Sunloving, my Salmon Flowered crown pea is not as advanced as yours.  Here is one crown with tightly packed flower buds, which have almost no pink showing at the moment. 

[galina]

The replanted Erfurter Winter Radish has grown as tall as I am.  We have flowers and also the first seed pods.  It isn't only the Rat's Tail variety that has edible, fleshy and crunchy seed pods, every radish does.  Just that we usually have to wait and replant before flowering starts, whereas Rat's Tail skips the stage where it produces a root.

At the moment these lovely seed pods are just right to put into salads, there will still be hundreds left for seeds for the seed circle.  They are crunchy and just a little less hot than the radish. 

The seedpods will grow larger and later get tough, then the seeds inside will develop.  When the seeds are mature the seedpods will have turned into a grey-brown, dry, papery shell.  At this stage they can be collected, crushed (underfoot inside a muck bucket) and the seeds sifted out with a colander and given a final dry off before packaging   

[sparrow]

Have just come back from a few days away and the peas are loving this wet cool weather! My plants are pretty laden with pods so I should be able to add in Magnolia Blossom Tendril Pea to this year's circle.  (that's if I can stop myself snaffling them all for dinner!)

They are a really tall pea, currently at about 7ft and still climbing. The net's had to be propped to stop it toppling over.

[galina]

Is Magnolia Blossom another Alan Kapuler pea,  Sparrow?  Sounds impressive

Just wanted to report that I thought I had ruined a good pepper flower with my pva glue dipping (the bottle is new and almost full to the top, so it was easy to dip the whole flowers) but yesterday I noticed a little pepper growing out of the 'crippled looking' flower remainder.  So it's all good! 

[sparrow]

Is Magnolia Blossom another Alan Kapuler pea,  Sparrow?  Sounds impressive

It is! Am very impressed...

The fewer leaves with the massive tendril clusters really helps with airflow. The plants are in much better nick than the purple podded peas I'm also growing.

I had to sample a few and they are a really brilliant sugar snap - really juicy and crisp pods.

[galina]

Is Magnolia Blossom another Alan Kapuler pea,  Sparrow?  Sounds impressive

It is! Am very impressed...

The fewer leaves with the massive tendril clusters really helps with airflow. The plants are in much better nick than the purple podded peas I'm also growing.

I had to sample a few and they are a really brilliant sugar snap - really juicy and crisp pods.

Great stuff - between us we are saving all the Kapuler peas over the years. I am hoping to add Magnolia Blossom's purple podded counterpart to the seed circle, if all goes well.  They are called Sugar Magnolia and Jayb has kindly given me seeds of the hypertendril version she had.  Equally impressive, especially this year with all the rain 

I am looking forward to Magnolia Blossom as I have not grown these before, Sparrow!   

[galina]

One of the seeds I would like to add to this year's seed circle is a pea called 'Purple Lancashire Lad'.  This is a working name.  How this came about is written up here:

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,61940.msg781756.html#msg781756

There is nothing worse for a heritage variety than being stripped off its heritage    The pea itself has done absolutely nothing wrong to deserve this!  It is an early maturing, tall,  purple podded shelling pea and the pods are easy to find.  Grows well in all weathers.  Best of all  Purple Lancashire Lad yields pod after pod with nine seeds inside.    

In order to prevent this variety from slipping into oblivion, I would like to add it to the seed circle under its given name of 'Purple Lancashire Lad'.  As far as history goes, it is definitely an old variety and dates back to Victorian times or even older.   

[sunloving]

One of the seeds I would like to add to this year's seed circle is a pea called 'Purple Lancashire Lad'.  This is a working name.  How this came about is written up here:

http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/smf/index.php/topic,61940.msg781756.html#msg781756

There is nothing worse for a heritage variety than being stripped off its heritage    The pea itself has done absolutely nothing wrong to deserve this!  It is an early maturing, tall,  purple podded shelling pea and the pods are easy to find.  Grows well in all weathers.  Best of all  Purple Lancashire Lad yields pod after pod with nine seeds inside.    

In order to prevent this variety from slipping into oblivion, I would like to add it to the seed circle under its given name of 'Purple Lancashire Lad'.  As far as history goes, it is definitely an old variety and dates back to Victorian times or even older.   

Gallina that sounds great.i especially like the Lancashire connection as my parents live there.
 My salmon flowered crown peas are almost dry and ready for saving, early Alaskan are a bit slower! And lots of pods on the oldambuster wierboon broad ies. Here's to a good seed saving July! :) x sunloving

[sparrow]

It's really early days, but I am  - I have 2 Kajari melons set in the greenhouse. Both still in net bags as my local slugs like snacking on immature fruit. Please pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let this work!! It would make up (a bit) for getting blight in the greenhouse.

[Hector]

Quick question :) how many cucumber seeds do you think is a "good" packet. It's a challenge stopping my other half eating the inside bit :)

[galina]

Quick question :) how many cucumber seeds do you think is a "good" packet. It's a challenge stopping my other half eating the inside bit :)

I would put seed cucumbers away from eating cucumbers.  It is like squashes and they need to get more mature than the eating stage for the seeds inside to mature.  With green cucumbers I put over mature fruit aside and they turn yellow.  When I harvest the seeds months later, the flesh is only just about ok for cooking, no longer nice eating.   

What is a meaningful amount?  As many as you can manage.  3 if you can, but 20 is also most welcome   

[Hector]

I'll beat other half off with a stick and keep them to one side :)

[Jayb]

My plans for this year are completely out of the window, I've ended up growing pretty much nothing!
But I do have a few things and I am hoping to add a cherry tomato, likely one of these, Bite Size, Garnet, Sunrise Bumble Bee or Lucky Tiger. Taste wise I'm not that enamoured with the last two, they are I think on a par with Blush, which I know lots of people love. But as we all have different tastes and growing years can make a big difference.

I'd like to add a tps either Abbot, which a very early new potato, unusual to have an early set seeds and would make a nice and easy one to select earlies from. Or Athlete a quite new variety with Late Blight resistance, for those who are troubled with this.

I'll be adding in a chilli and likely a few other things too.

I'm enjoying reading everyones progress and hope you all are having a better year than me 


Edit to remove squash, accidents happen!

[galina]

Sorry you are having a mare of a year, Jayb.  But still so many candidates for the seed circle?  All sound good.

I had berries on potato Athlete, but Abbot went early with blight.  Pity, such pretty flowers. The tubers were baker sized around the pound mark!  Huge for earlies.   Athlete is definitely good with blight.  Plant still looks very good, but no further flowers here.   

[earlypea]

This is also my worst year ever. 

The early season was dismally cold, then wet on wet so I couldn't sow anything direct and to finish me off a huge deluge left about a third of my plot sitting underwater for days - I'd just planted out lots of summer crops.  My potatoes were exhibiting signs of blight from June and I've never seen such pitiful quantities.

What's left?  I have a tomato Wapsipinicon Peach.  Nice, light, fruity flavour (I say with a hint of spice as an aftertaste, though others can't taste this) - I did grow mainly for it's peachy looks, but it's tasty too.

Did people already have Grushovka (pink) bush tomato?  It's a favourite and doing alright.  I know a lot of people don't actually like bushes though.

I was wondering whether I could also add Winterkefe mangetout, which has been a real show-stopper, not to mention 'a cropper' these last two seasons on my plot.  I believe it originally came from Galina in the 2010 circle.  Anyway, as a must-have item I intended to save a good quantity of seeds for myself.  I have enough for the circle and as a lot of people joined later than 2010 and in fact none of us can save all seeds all years, would that be OK?

I can't think of anything else I could add

Originally I said I'd save Caro Rich tomato, but that died after the floods and Sacred Basil, but that bolted extremely early due to the late frosts I think.  Actually, I don't like the taste of it anyhow - much too clovey for me.