2014 Gardening

Nod said:
Had a clear up of some of the outdoor stuff. Disposed of an out of control Fuchsia and hacked a honeysuckle right back to a couple of trunks as well as pulling the beans up and harvesting the few remaining pods on them for seed for next year. Also cleared the (disappointing this year) sweet peas from the bed and planter. Got a few toms slowly ripening on the outdoor plants as well as the last few courgettes. Quite a few more on the way on the indoor toms and cucumbers, although they all got a bit cramped and dark while we were away - might have to rig up a better watering system for next year. About a dozen chillies on the turn as well. Will save some seeds for next year. Very few seeds in the indoor toms - more space for the flesh, so a good thing! Forgot to buy an extra ripe one from the market on holiday (for seed) so picked the core out of Mrs Nod's last salad one and will use them. Biggest tom so far was a touch over 10 oz and delicious!
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Do you just let the seeds dry and then use them as normal next year? Both for the toms and beans?
 
With the beans, I let the pods go brown and crispy then split them and removed the beans, Will only keep the biggest and plumpest ones. (Actually, TBH, I just pulled the forgotten/missed pods off as I was pulling the plants up!) With the toms, I rinsed as much of the pulp off the wet seeds and left them out on the balcony overnight to dry out as much as possible then left them on the window sill for a day when we got home last week Worked very well with last year's lot - planted 48 seeds (expecting a significant failure rate) and they all came up!

In the dim and distant past, I've tried growing toms from bought toms' seeds but have always been disappointed with the results, generally lacking in flavour. Speaking to a Cretan friend (I rather naively asked where the best place to buy seeds was!), they advised just getting a tom and using the seeds from that. The "mother" we used last year was more a SuBo than an Elle McPherson but tasted great, as have the offspring we've had from the plants we kept. If any of the as yet unharvested fruits have a lot of seeds, I might try growing a few to see what happens.

Has to be said that I'm generally a bit of a salad dodger here in the UK but the satisfaction of growing my own toms and cucumbers (as well as having developed a taste for Greek salads on holidays!) means that I'm now happy to tuck in to one as and when the ingredients are ready for harvest!
 
Thanks Nod, much appreciated. We've kept a few of the bean pods that have gone brown so will "rescue" the seeds. I've still got a few toms on the vine and they have been lovely this year so I'll grab some seeds from them and see what happens :) Not a great fan of salads either, but I do like tomatoes!!
 
The best thing about growing harvested seeds is that they're free! Some cost involved in bringing the plants up to fruiting but it's sometimes rewarded so not a waste. As for the beans, it's all but impossible to spot and harvest them all when they're just right so I leave them to go brown (easier to spot) or until I strip the vines down. As with the toms, if they were grown up from F1 seeds, they're unlikely to breed completely true to the parents but they should still be edible.
 
Julie1979 said:
What does everyone have planned for the year ahead?

I'm having another year of maintenance unfortunately. By summer my daughter will be crawling and potentially walking so it'll be a struggle to do much in the garden when she's around.

I have a new (free) wooden compost bin coming from the council as we don't have food or garden waste bins. I also have my wormery composter up and running so will hopefully have a decent amount of compost for home grown herbs and strawberries, that's assuming the worms in the bottom layer decide to move further up the high-rise.

I'm also going to use a patch of garden to plant lots of sunflowers in memory of my cousin who died in January and also because I love sunflowers.
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I think this is one of the rare times in my life where I stuck to plan :)

I maintained the garden and did a decent job of keeping weeds back.

The new compost bins are composting down nicely so i'll have lots of compost next year for veggies.

The kids really enjoyed lots of home grown strawberries, we had a bumper crop this year.

I did my sunflower patch and have kept all the heads to harvest seeds and planning to pop some out for the birds but unfortunately a neighbouring farm cat is loitering in our garden so i've not set the bird feeder up yet. I think he is after the pole cats, we seem to have a few at the moment, probably attracted by the fairly bad vole problem we had for a bit.

Last weekend I shovelled lots of compost from my old compost bins into my veggie patches and covered them over while I decide what to plant next year.

The kids will be much more involved in the garden next year. I just hope we get another superb summer :D
 
If it is dry this weekend, then I will cut back the dahlias, remove and dry the tubers, and then plant the Spring bulbs. I may empty the hanging baskets and tubs, and see if I can rescue the begonia corms (they all perished last year). Mind you, the geraniums are still flowering, as are the fuschias and roses.
 
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