Saving Seeds

[robby]

I'm saving seeds again this year. I just picked an eggplant that I left growing beyond the edible stage and now I'm drying the seeds for next year. I started saving seeds as a lark, but I've learned that my own seeds are more viable than those you buy. Earlier, I did the same with a yellow squash, and let it grow so big and hard that I had to cut it open with an a hatchet.

With tomato seeds you have to let the seeds ferment in order to be viable. The fermentation simulates the natural rotting of the tomato fruit.

With onions, the plant flowers only in the second year, so I'll plant a few bulbs from this year in the fall, and they will be my seed onions the next year.

Comments

[robby.livejournal.com]

I have a patch of evergreen bunching onions, and I'm thinking of keeping a few in the ground over winter, and let them go to seed in the spring. The problem is if they flower along with the red bulb onions and cross with them. I could bag the blossoms and hand pollinate, I suppose. I live in the San Joaquin Valley of California.

[mdehners.livejournal.com]

So you basically have the same WInters we do without the ocassional Freeze;>.
I've been surprised at how little distance can be needed between cultivars of the same species to prevent Crossing. With Squashes I always handpollinate the blossoms in the early morning and twist-tie them closed but the other crops I've gotten away with 10' easily.
I've never had any Alliums bloom at the same time...even cultivars of the same species but "brown bagging" before oppening and hand pollinating is always a good option. After this yrs weather pretty much wiping out the Squashes and their relations, I think from now on ANY cultivar that does well is welcome to Mate. After all, that's how regional cultivars often got started anyway and since the seed companies were reeeaaaalllyyy good at their jobs here in the 50's, there are NO local veggie cultivars remaining. A few onamentals that were Passed from garndma to grandma but no veggies survived...
Cheers,
Pat(who has to re-glue the PVC pipe connecting the well to the garden in the next couple of days...weather permitting)

[robby.livejournal.com]

It gets down to 25F a few times each winter, and I cover my Meyer lemon, and avocados (Stewart and Zutano), when I get a hard freeze . I've planted in the fall, but things tend to struggle and get stunted through the winter, so next year I will plant in February or March and then again in the late Spring.

[mdehners.livejournal.com]

We get short periods in the low 20'sF, though when I 1st moved here they were in the high teens. There are a few "perks" of Climate Change, esp. when you live on the borders of two biomes;>.
I still cover my 'Mexicola', though it's presumably hardy in this area. My ROT is that once a tender tree gets as tall as I am, it's on it's own. I had a 'Gainsville' but it never did well here and finally died this yr. Luckly, 'M' is self-fertile. I also cover my 'Cara Cara' Orange, though the last two yrs it's had less Winter damage than my 'Owarii' Satsuma, which is supposed to be almost a zone and a half hardier. The big Citrus producer in the ground(as opposed to the Blood Orange I drag into the greenhouse every December) is an Orangequat I planted the 1st yr we moved onto the property. It basically produces 'Meiwa' type 'quats the size and shape of small Pears. The strangest was my old Kaffir Lime that got too big for the greenhouse so I left it out and had planned to get a new one in SPring but it's protected position in the back yard has been enough to keep it alive. It's too shaded by the Oaks to bloom but since I usually use the leaves;>....
Cheers,
Pat