Archive for the ‘On the plot’ Category

The tomato season is upon us and it is time to think about next years crop as well, not just enjoying the well deserved harvest. You can save your tomato seeds with a little work very easily. Open pollinated and heirloom varieties are most suitable to save the seeds, as the hybrid ones could not come true the next season, as being a hybrid they have been produced by crossing 2 different parent plants.

Getting the best seeds:

Choose the healthiest plants and the healthiest fruits to save the seeds from. Leave the fruits to ripen fully on the plant. The easiest to get your tomato seeds out to cut the tomato across the equator and scoop the seeds out into a small jar, bowl. The seeds protected by the jelly like liquid, this is what you have to get rid of nicely.

Smelly business:

What happens in nature is that the ripe tomato drops on the floor, the fruit rots while the seeds inside go through a fermentation process. This is what you have to speed up a little. Got rid of the flesh, great, now you can ferment the seeds a bit!

Poor a little water over the seeds, make sure you have the jelly bit as well, this will help the fermentation. Cover the jar with a paper towel, or plastic, if you use plastic make sure you make some wholes on it. Place the jar in a windowsill and leave it for 4-5 days. Preferably somewhere out of your way as during the process mould will form and the mixture will be quite smelly.

Separating the tomato seeds:

To get the seeds out of the horrible fermented liquid add lots of water to it and stir it well, often you will be able to remove the top of the mix before adding the water as it will become very mouldy and the seeds will sink on to the bottom of the jar. Let the tomato seeds sink to the bottom again after stirring the mix, and then pour the seed liquid mixture through a sieve and wash the seeds under running water.

Dry the tomato seeds on a plate on your windowsill, or anywhere dry. Make sure you don’t force the drying process by exposing the seeds to some heat. The seeds should be viable for quite a long time, 5-7 years. Store them in a cool and dry place.

Enjoy your tomato seed saving experience and have a great harvest over the weekend!

Broad beans are ready to harvest now from an autumn sowing. These great long pods are from the Broad Bean Aquadulce, which is a very hardy variety, the standard for overwintering.

One great thing is about broad beans that they are ready to harvest in late May, when there is hardly any other veg available to pick, from an October sowing, and it is really satisfying to sow the broad bean seeds outside in the autumn. An other main reason is for the autumn sowing is to avoid the damage caused by black flies. These insects love to feed on the top of the broad beans and on the joints of the flowers, but with overwintering the plants you can easily avoid this, as the plants will flower and the pods will be ready sooner than the black flies can do any damage to the crop.
The advice is to pinch out the growing tips of the plants as soon as they are in full flower, this will help to avoid black fly attack and the plants will put their energy towards producing tastier and bigger pods rather than vertical growth.

Sowing:

Sow the broad bean seeds outside in the open ground in October-November for an early crop, under cloches in January or March-April. Alternatively the seeds can be sown inside in February and later transplanted out when the seedlings about 30 cm tall. Harden off the seedlings properly by keeping them outside during the day and putting them back inside for the night. Do this for 4-6  days before planting them outside to their final position. This is very important with the broad beans as the cold spells in March can easily damage the young, inside grown plants.
Sow the seeds in double rows 5 cm deep, 20-25 cm between the rows and leave 70-80 cm between the double rows. Plant them in blocks, this way the plants will protect each other from wind.

Growing:

Once the seeds sown the broad beans need no or little attention. Make sure they have enough water when in flower and keep them weed free. The only thing what you should do is to pinch out the growing tips when the plants are in full flower.
After harvesting the pods make sure you leave the roots in the soil as they contain plenty of precious nitrogen.

Pot marigold (Calendula officinalis), often called English or garden marigold is most probably native to southern Europe, although its long cultivation history can shade this statement. Commonly grown in every Mediterranean countries and here in the UK too, for centuries.

Marigolds grown as hardy annual flower and can easily self sown so don’t be surprised to have the plants appear the next year. The leaves are oblong, 5-10 cm long, slightly waved or toothed and have tiny hairs.

Cultivated as a flower in many garden, but can be a really useful herb. The seeds can be sown directly outdoors in May, or propagated in the greenhouse from April. The beautiful seedlings alone worth growing these wonderful plants.

The leaves and the petals are edible and used widely in cosmetics, medicines. Pot marigold is a well known and really versatile herb in herbal medicine. It is, above all, a remedy for skin problems and is applied externally to bites and stings. The cosmetic industry uses the extracts in different cosmetics, because the content of saponins and essential oils. The flowers and the leaves are antiseptic. The flowers are used fresh or dried. For drying the petals is best to harvest the flowers when they are fully open. The edible yellow dye in the petals is a saffron substitute and used to colour and flavour rice and soups. The leaves can be used in salads when young.

Pot Marigolds are pungently scented and attract hoverflies (aphid eaters) to your garden. Commonly grown as a companion plant with tomatoes and the marigold will repel the white flies which cause problems in many greenhouses.

Sowing the leek seeds:

The seeds can be sown inside in the winter if you want crops in the autumn, however it is most common to sow in early spring indoors or later on directly outside. Sow the seed in a seed tray or in seed cells about 1cm deep in fine seed compost, it will help to separate the seedlings later on without damaging the fine roots. Outdoor sowings can be done in a well prepared seedbed if you wish to transplant the plants or directly to their permanent position. If you sow the seeds directly it will take the hassle out of transplanting the fragile seedlings later on, which is preferred by many gardeners. Germination can take 2-3 weeks. After the seedlings appear start thinning them out, leaving about 5cm between the plants. Later on, if sown in a permanent bed, thin the plants to 20-25cm apart.

Transplanting:

A more traditional way is to transplant the seedlings from an earlier indoor sowing, into a well prepared bed. This is normally done in June, when the seedlings 17-23 cm tall. Make 12-15 cm deep holes, slightly trim the leaves (this is to compensate for any root damage during transplanting) and place the seedlings gently into the whole, setting each plant so that its leaves lie along the row not across it. That way you will be able to hoe between the rows more easily without damaging the leaves. Do not fill the holes with soil, just gently water the plants in regularly. Water the seedlings well in the first few days and when there is a dry spell.

Sweet peas are as popular as ever, and nowadays a wide range available, both old fashioned heirloom varieties and modern, long stemmed cut flower varieties too. Most of the flowers are highly scented and have a long flowering period, especially if taken care of (will expand on that a little later).

Sowing:

Many experienced gardeners sow the seeds in the autumn (September-October) into a cold frame or open ground and then plant them out later before the winter. This is not advised in the North of the country though. You better off sowing the sweet pea seeds in the spring, in March and then plant them out to their final position when the seedlings are 5-7 inches tall.

The sweet pea seeds have hard coats. To aid the germination the seeds can be soaked overnight before sowing. For most successful germination, crack the seeds a bit by rubbing them between two sheets of medium grid sandpaper and then soak them for about 10 hours. With this method you will crack the seed coat and the let the water in through the cracks before sowing into fine seed compost. This is not absolutely necessary, some studies show no difference in germination rate if you just sow the seeds without any treatment and soaked seeds sowing. However this method will speed up the germination.

Sow the seeds about an inch deep into small pots. A propagator or a windowsill will be a good place to germinate the seeds, keep the temperature at around 15 Celsius. The seedlings should emerge in a week time and when they grow out of their pot, plant them into their final position.

Growing:

The sweet peas are climbers, so they will need some support. They like an open, sunny location and a fertile, well manured soil. In the autumn dig deep where you want your sweet peas, add lots of organic matter, a handful of bone meal, this way you will give the best possible start to your sweet peas. The most common method is to train the plants onto a wigwam built out of canes or build a row of canes, but any frame, trellis will do the job perfectly. If you grow the flowers for competition, it is a common practice by many that the side shoots and even the tendrils are snipped off. The idea is that the side shoots, tendrils and the flowers running to seed take energy which ought to be directed towards producing bigger and better blooms. And the sweet peas respond very well for such a hard job and will produce larger blooms. Combine this with regular feeding and you beat everyone at the local allotment show. If you remove the tendrils you will have to replace them by tying the plants to the canes, but you might have to do this job anyway to give the plants a better support. If you want a lovely display in your garden and some cut flowers in your home, there is no need to go to such lengths, enough to cut the flowers to encourage the plants to produce more fragrant blooms.

Most fruits and vegetables grown around the world by farmers are hybrids, especially the ones ending up in the shops. These varieties created from interbreeding two or more separate strains. Over generations of selective breeding and cross fertilizing, hybrid plants and therefore the fruits can be tailored to have any specific characteristics. They may have larger fruits, longer shelf life, sweeter fruits, faster growth or greater resistance to pests and diseases.

Simply put if two open pollinated varieties are crossed the first generatin, know as F1 hybrids, has the dominant qualities of its parents. As a result F1 varieties can produce more abundant crops than either of their parent varieties. In the real world it is much complicated than that, plant breeders work hard to develop new hybrids, carefully selecting the desired qualities over many generations by cross pollinating only the best performing strains.

Many of these hybrids are developed for their long shelf life, often having the taste only as a second most important factor. The hybrid veg seeds sold by seed companies are developed mostly for their incredible taste, like the sungold tomato, for their diseases resistance and vigour like the carmen cucumber.

The genetic principles of creating hybrid varieties was discovered by an Austrian monk called Mendel. He even published his results, based on experimenting with garden peas, in 1866.

It is commonly know as dry set. During the fertilisation period, the pollen dries out. When this happens only miniature fruits are formed and they will not grow any bigger. Usually the high temperature and the dry atmosphere to blame for such an incident. It can also be caused by infertile pollen. To prevent this to happen to your tomatoes, you should open the ventilation of the greenhouse regularly, especially in the middle of the day. If you don’t have an automated system installed on your greenhouse and you know that you will be out all day,  it is better to leave the ventilation open in the morning. In very dry conditions you can create some mist around the tomato plants by spraying some water around them, don’t overdo this as fungal disease love dump too, or just poor some water on the floor of your greenhouse to make the air humid.