Topic: Planning for the new season ..

[Daisy_Jane]

Hello; everyone in the house is asleep following Boxing day dinner (tatties from the lottie  :) )- so I am planning what to put in to the allotment this year. Only had the plot for a year and in the first season it was quite difficult getting the quantities right. Why do some seed packets give you huge quantities of seeds - can you save those you don't use for next year? Also, any ideas about where/how to germinate seeds, I don't have space for a greenhouse in the garden, can't really have one on the plot and windowsill space is limited...

Thanks,
Happy New Year,
Jane

[MikeB]

You can always use an airing cupboard to get your seeds started.

[Derekthefox]

I convert my seed packets into entries on a spreadsheet, then add all the necessary information, eg planting and cropping dates, bed location, comments etc. I keep a printout of this in my shed, sorted by sowing dates ...

Some seeds are ok to sow for a couple of years, ones to avoid are parsnips, yield drops off rapidly with old seed, as does sweetcorn ...

I am sure there are many others too ...

Derekthefox

[Daisy_Jane]

Thanks that's very helpful. I have made a spreadsheet and a powerpoint slide with all the beds - maybe someone should bring out an allotment design game ...

Thanks for the tips about the sweetcorn, I had some left over and was going to use them, will buy new now.

Snowing this morning so will have to carry on planning rather than pottering!

[Derekthefox]

I know that jennym made a spreadsheet calculator for her college course and is willing to share it, so I can possibly pass you a copy if you pm me your email address. Other members have found it fascinating. I don't use it myself, but that is only because I do the maths in my head, being a firm believer in mental arithmetic. Well we all have our weird hangups  ;D

Don't throw your old sweetcorn seed away, you may as well try to germinate them, any additional germination are essentially free plants.  No one can have too much sweetcorn !!!

I try and grow 100 plants a year, we have about 40 corns left in the freezer, they will be consumed in the next few months.

[glow777]

Hi
This is my first post - so be kind!

Following the thread can anyone name the other seeds that are likely to keep for more than one year and the best way to keep them (and the ones to throw).

I currently store in sealed plastic boxes. I have heard that brussel seeds keep OK and have used lettuce seeds from prevous years. Seeds are relatively cheap when bought thru our allotment program but I hate the idea of throwing them away and no one is overly keen to split packets.

[Derekthefox]

Hello Glow and welcome !
It is easiest just to remember the seeds that do not keep as most will germinate for few years. I put all my new seeds in one biscuit tin, and the old ones are in other tins. I don't throw anything away, and currently have four old tins full of seeds. You may find you can trade a few seeds with fellow allotmenteers, although most will willing just pass on what they dont need. There is also a seed swap programme running on this site, although I have not got involved in that. Supersprout suggested a fun way to deal with a bit of ground that has been cleared, and that is to throw some old seed down as a green manure ... you can sometimes get surprise crops from the results !!!

Good luck

[glow777]

Hello Glow and welcome !

Thanks Derek - looking around this a great site, only had an allotment since April made lots of mistakes but found many friends, lost some weight and had plenty of veg & eggs. Hope to make some more friends and get some good tips on here.

Cheers

[John_H]

One tip I read about, was to use older seeds later in the season, so if you two year old carrot seeds and have just bought some new ones, the new ones will more likely to germinate in more difficult conditions earlier in the season. In other words don’t always do the tidy thing and use the oldest seeds first.

I always resented having to buy parsnip seeds every year ( 300 seeds and I only eat about 10 parsnips), then someone on our plots said it was really easy to harvest parsnip seeds, just by leaving a couple of the biggest ones in the ground.

This will probably sound too anorak, but I just made each of my seed planting dates into an ‘outlook task’. I use one of those palm-top organiser gizmos, so it will remind me to go and plant things on the right week. So if anyone asks me if its time to plant runner beans I will be able to say : computer says no!

[Robert_Brenchley]

Problem with that is, so often theory says yes and the weather says no! If you plant parsnips, say, when it's too cold they just rot like mine did last spring. I planted them twice and still got a pathetic crop.

[terrace max]

Interesting post John H. Thanks.  :)

[Derekthefox]

Ditto John H.

I am impressed by your organisation using outlook tasks to plan your planting !

[flowerlady]

Hi guys,

When sowing seeds, how many of you are mindful of the activities of the moon?  ie waxing and  waning etc!

[derbex]

I pre-germinated the parsnips last year on kitchen paper to see if they would come the second year (they did). Like you we don't need that many and the first year they grew so big that they would do the family for at least one meal -possibly 2/parsnip.

Jeremy

[Derekthefox]

I am ignorant of this flowerlady, but believe that some plants may involve it as part of the trigger to germinate. Can you provide more details, either here or via pm ... ?

[flowerlady]

Hi Derek, I have heard it said that plants and seedlings are affected by gravitational pull,  was just wondering how much effect this had on the timing of sowing seeds,  will have to go away and do some reading ... will be back   ;)


I'm back!  Just found this link - on moonlight gardening

http://www.greencuisine.org/articles/article7.xml

I'm a scorpion, at least I have a good sign for sowing seeds!  ;D ;D ;D

[Derekthefox]

Thanks flowerlady. As I see it, there are various factors that can influence the germination of a seed. The parameters that I can envisage are light (ie light/dark ratios), temperature (thresholds or cycles), moisture (the same), time (period of dormancy) and gravity (ie the moon link). These factors may be combined so that several triggers need to be set. There may also be some chemical triggers that need the presence of certain minerals, or other elements. All in all, a potentially complex control system.

I have reasoned all this using simple logic. I hope one of our more educated members can shed more light on this.

[Derekthefox]

At the end of the day Redclanger, it does come down to the practicalities of when we can sow. But at least we can be more educated ...

[jennym]

Erm... technical germination issues, well here goes:
For germination to occur, the seed requires sufficient water, oxygen, and warmth, and some seeds require light. These are known as abiotic influences, external to the living seed.
Biotic factors, those connected to the nature of the living seed, also affect germination. Certain seeds have built in dormancy factors that stop a viable seed from germinating even when sufficient water, oxygen, and warmth are available, until specific conditions are met.
Seeds with hard seed coats need to have the seed coat broken. This process is known as scarification, and can be brought about by scraping of part of the seed coat, or breaking down the coat by dipping into acid. These actions take place in nature by the action of winter, scraping by fragments of rock, passing through the gut of an animal, or attack by bacteria.
Seeds with chemical dormancy have chemicals within the seed, seed coat or fruit that prevent germination. They can be washed to remove the chemical, and in nature the fruit will be eaten or rot away, and rain will wash the seed free of the chemicals.
Seeds that are morphologically dormant are not fully formed at the point of dispersal, and need to continue ripening until they reach maturity before they will germinate.
Seeds that require a wet period and cold winter temperatures to start them into germination are said to have physiological dormancy. Substances such as abscisic acid are thought to play a role in this type of seed dormancy, which can be broken by activating enzymes within the seed which break down the abscisic acid, by keeping it at approx 4 deg C for between 4 and 12 weeks. This is called stratification.
I have info on the process of germination too, but guess that the above is enough to be going on with.

[Robert_Brenchley]

If I remember right some seeds, such as trilliums, have dounble dormancy (if that's the right term) and need two cold spells before they germinate. Then there are lilies, where some are epigeal, and produce a shoot first in the standard fashion, and others are hypogeal, producing a bulb first and appearing to do nothing, then putting up a shoot afterwards, There are endless complications. I haven't tried sowing anything but veg for a few years but now the thefts have stopped I'm planning to do more. There's nothing more discouraging that spending several years raising something from seed, then having some nutter walk off with it claiming it's 'their' stolen plant!