This year I had three varieties of dianthus growing in my garden: Sweet William, Spangled Star and a Neon variety. Like the daylily, once the bloom expires a pod behind the bloom begins to swell with seeds. Allow the pod and stem to turn brown and dry out. The little pod will usually open at …
Year
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2008
Harvesting Daylily Seeds
I discovered that daylilies are one of the easiest flowers from which to collect seeds. After the flowers have bloomed and died back the portion just behind the bloom begins to swell and form a pod. The pod starts out green and supple the seeds are not ready yet. Allow the pod to turn brown …
Harvest a Peck of Pepper Seeds!
These are easy, but be careful with the hot varieties. The capsicum in the pepper that makes them hot can make your life miserable if you get it on your face and can even make the tips of your fingers burn. So, when handling hot peppers and the seeds WEAR GLOVES and wash your hands …
Harvesting an Avocado Pit
When the avocado fruit has turned black and is ready to eat you can remove the seed. Take a knife and half the fruit from stem end to bottom twisting gently to separate the halves from each other and the seed. Use a sturdy smooth blade kitchen knife to whack into the side of the …
Storing Seeds
Every gardener has a different way of storing seeds. Some like plastic baggies others like paper envelopes. Personally, I like the paper envelopes since they don’t retain as much moisture and keep the possibility of mold to a minimum. Look on gardenhere.org for patterns for large and small seeds envelopes or find ways to make …
Lull in the sowing process
There has been a bit of a lull in the sowing process lately. I’ve been trying to fly under the “husband radar”. All my tools and seeds got put in a cabinet out of sight. Hmmm. Could this be a case of “out of sight, out of mind”. The wintersowing experiment is still underway though …
Yay for snow!
What? You may be asking, but when you have winter sown seeds precipitation, especially snow is a welcome occurrence. Just because I set the little greenhouses outside doesn’t mean I don’t have to keep them from dehydrating. The snow is very welcome because not only does it act as a source of water but it …
Breaking free of cabin fever!
February 12, 2008 is the date I will remember as the start of my winter sowing experiment. I’ve spent most of my “free” time – time in front of the TV or sick time – making mini greenhouses for a winter sowing project. It was fully intended to begin in mid-December, but sickness and other …
January Heat Wave in Zone 5a
 1/10/2008 The new year is here and things are strange. Strange, you ask? Here in zone 5a in early January we typically have a few inches of snow on the ground, chilling winds and salt trucks around every corner. Save the storm we got right at the beginning of the year we haven’t had …