seeds and sweet peas

It's always fun when a seed order arrives in the mail. 

I discovered Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds a couple years ago and this year, I made an order for the first time.  I ordered their new book too. (take a look!)
So much good stuff from these folks, especially for those who want to learn about growing open-pollinated varieties so they can save their own seed.

(by the way, if you live in my Canadian neck of the woods, there are lots of local heirloom seed sellers to discover at Seedy Saturdays in Victoria and Vancouver) 

Seed is hot stuff these days!

I like how Baker Creek sells a good selection of sweet pea seed in individual colours rather than a lot of  mixes...good for me when I'm growing for market. And the heirlooms have a stronger fragrance. So as soon as I got the box, I was in the greenhouse sowing the sweet pea seed that I found inside.

 I hope to have lots of lovely colours this summer for the Farmer's Market and for the early summer weddings.  I offered up little bundles like this one at the Farmer's Market last summer.  They sold out  in the first hour.  Beautiful and oh my....the fragrance!  I plan to have lots more this year!

Striking, bold colours are my favourites.  When I first started gardening, I had a bad attitude about sweet peas...didn't like 'em.  I only really ever knew of the pastel mixes but then I saw some of the these rich beauties and now I just can't get over them!  Real eye catchers both in the garden and in bouquets.

well, ok some pastels are beautiful too when in a bundle all on their own  : )

Last year I ordered my single colour sweet pea seeds from Thompson and Morgan.  The above colours are 'Midnight', 'Matucana', 'Apricot Sprite', and 'Orange Dragon'.....love the names!...almost as good as paint colour names.  

The lighter lilac blooms were from seeds I picked up at the garden shop 'Dig This' in Victoria (impulse buy!)  They're from Renee's Garden, 'Mary Lou Heard'.  

This year, I'm starting 'Black Knight', 'Miss Willmott', and 'King Edward VII'.....and a few others.....

If you want to grow some of these gorgeous, frilly, fragrant beauties, now's a nice time to get them going inside for a good start...I soak the seeds overnight first.

saving some seeds

I felt really lucky earlier this month because I'd managed to get some of the seeds I'd been saving in the garden harvested and into the dry before the unexpected early soaker rains of this month arrived.

Ideally, I'd like to be saving so many more seeds, but for now, there's so much stuff to do so I try to keep it simple and save just the super-easy ones that almost look after themselves.

I think seed pods are one of the most fascinating things in a garden. They're beautiful and kind of captivating, really. An awe-inspiring example of nature's genius design abilities. When I look at them I can understand why artists, especially sculptors and jewellers are often inspired to recreate them in metals, clay, wood, papier mache, felt.....

check out these images...some are inspiring and fun to look at.

Here are some dried pea seeds in their pods, on the vines, waiting for me to gather them....

Kale is one of the easier seeds to save. It's amazing how many seeds are on just one plant. This is a black tuscan kale plant that I've saved to go to seed...it was planted 1 1/2 years ago! Last winter, we ate delicious flower buds from these plants. I was careful tho' to leave enough buds to form into flowers and then seeds...especially from the plants that looked the hardiest.....and now look at all these seed pods, waiting to be harvested!

I cut the stalks off near the top and drop them into paper bags (the bag helps to catch all the seeds that come out of their pods on their own) where they'll sit for a while in my garden storage area and then later in the winter, I'll sort through and separate the seeds from the pods.

These are a couple lettuce plants I left to go to seed. They're an heirloom variety called "Goldrush" and have frilly yellowy-green leaves when young...beautiful in salads.
I'm glad to be saving these seeds since I can't get this variety from my usual supplier anymore.
For folks who don't have a garden plot, this is an easy cut-and-come-again style salad plant to grow in a container on the deck and easy to let go to seed there too. You could thin the plants in the container to one or two when you're finished harvesting and let it flower and go to seed. It's a good idea to stick a bamboo pole into the pot and tie the lettuce stalk to the pole as it grows taller...this'll help it stand tall even while it gets top-heavy with all those wonderful flowers turning to seed.

The flowers blooming, close-up.

The flowers gone to seed, close-up.

Thousands and thousands of tiny seeds on one plant. So many salads. Food security. One day, I hope to be able to save many more seeds of my favourite garden plants and package them up for sale in my garden shop. Can't wait!