#Seed propagation

[chokrihizem]

🌸🌱 "From Blooms to Seeds: It’s Easy!" 🌱🌸 Your Gomphrena garden starts here! 🌼🌿 Find out how to gather, save, and store these magical seeds ✨—keeping your garden blooming season after season! 🌸💖

➡️ Click for step-by-step instructions: How to Collect and Store Gomphrena Seeds!

💬 Comment below your seed-saving tips!

[farmerstrend]

How Does Plant Breeding Work? And What Are F1 Hybrids?

Plant breeding is an age-old science, deeply rooted in the quest to enhance crop quality, yield, and resilience. Whether you’re a farmer aiming to improve your harvest or a curious gardener fascinated by the diversity of plant varieties, understanding how plant breeding works—and what F1 hybrids are—offers a glimpse into the fascinating world of agricultural innovation. Let’s break it down step…

[natureisthegreatestartist]

[capnsans]

So I was warming up a bit using colors because I plan to color in some comic panels today and I got to thinking about how much I like green peppers lol You can use them in a lot if different dishes when cooking but even better is how many fricken SEEDS they have. Say you go to the store to grab a bell pepper for use in tonight’s dinner, you have to cut the top off and get seeds out anyway. Why throw them out? Save those little bad boys to start towards the end of February inside and you’ll have pepper plants to put in your garden/bigger pots in the spring :) if you keep up on them when they start to fruit (yknow make the peppers) then they’ll produce A FRIGGEN LOT OKAY. A LOT. I’m not sure exact numbers but the amount of peppers I’ve gotten off of plants through out the summer is more than plenty to freeze and give to my friends. Anyways that’s today’s little warm up/gardening post.

Remember kids, the government doesn’t care about your grocery prices or your health. Grow your own food and be kind enough to give what you can (if you can)

[jensownzoo]

Minor amount of transplanting done this morning.

My two pots of Thai sweet basil have grown sufficient roots so into a deck railing box they go.

They've got nasturtiums and a French marigold to keep them company. And of course because of squirrels:

A nice protective grill to keep them put until the box fills out a bit more.

My original transplant of Thai sweet basil flanked by parsley in another deck railing box but in the back. Yes there is a wire napkin holder upturned over the basil (squirrels again). Doing good despite a decent amount of shade throughout the day. The direct-seeded French marigold is just starting to get hints of true leaves. So many came up that I'm going to have to start transplanting some of them out of the box next week.

Volunteer coleus growing in a decent-sized pot on the porch. Since coleus and pineapple sage are both thirsty bitches, I decided this was a good place to transplant the rooted cutting.

One of the two surviving cuttings is definitely healthier than the other. I'll give the second one a chance, but if it hasn't perked up in a week or so it'll get culled.

Two cells of loofah (luffa, luffah...however you want to spell it) seedlings in one of the raised beds in back.

And here's the structure they'll grow on. The loofah and passionflower vine can duke it out, one on each side. Hopefully by planting out the loofah now it will lure all the striped cucumber beetles into the back of the house so next month I can plant cucumbersnin the front with fewer problems. Probably not as I think the best strategy is just timing, but I can hope.

Volunteer redbud tree that I had to remove from a garden bed. Put it into this Tidy Cats litter bucket planter with the extra Chinese cabbage to see if it wants to be a tree. If so, I'll retransplant it later when it's big enough to stand above the ground cover in the side yard.

Bonus flowers:

The peas are going nuts. Hoping for a good crop. What I don't use right away will get blanched and frozen for stir-fries later.

[ellensilica]

Drosera glanduligera seedlings from the seed bank seedlings are a few weeks old (as of January 2025); the seeds were collected in the field in 2008! The center image is a standard agar plate size (like 8 cm) - the seedlings are very small!!

[thecryptidwizard]

Wanted to show y'all how some of my plant babies are doing :)

[semprvivum]

Spider plant seedlings 🌱

[aloehoarder]

Open pollinated Aloe hybrid I grew from seed, repotted today

[dknightlight]

Look at my plants boy

[bumblebeeappletree]

Jerry has lots of dollar-stretching ideas for saving money in the garden.

1. Free plants:

Saving seed can be a life-changing experience. You can easily save lots of seed, giving you lots of opportunity to experiment without fear of failure, as well as the option of giving some away. Store in airtight containers such as old jars; save silica gel to go with the seeds to keep the seeds dry in storage.

To collect seed, use old panty hose to slip over the ends of plants with pods that explode - as some pea plants and brassicas.

You can also propagate by cuttings. Jerry prunes plants at a good time to take cuttings - usually after they’ve finished flowering. Jerry also uses recycled pots and potting mix, making it even cheaper.

2. Free fuel:

Animal manure is great and often freely available - Jerry managed to source some camel and buffalo dung when a circus recently came to town!

Always compost manure first, to remove any weed seed or residual chemicals they may be carrying.

Jerry also recycles any dead cane toads he finds as roadkill, by burying them under his fruit trees.

Mulch is essential in any garden - Jerry uses several types - but it can be expensive. Check with your local council to see if wood chippings from pruned street trees are available, or make your own leaf mold from raked up leaves; simply pile up the leaves, keep them moist, and wait for them to decompose.

The result is low in nutrients and high in carbon so it’s perfect as a surface mulch or for growing ferns and palms.

Potting mix - Jerry makes his own, using equal parts of garden soil, horticultural sand and old potting mix.

3. Upcycling:

Repurpose material that would otherwise end up in landfill, such as polystyrene foam boxes, which are great for growing plants as they are lightweight and they insulate the plants’ roots from heat and cold.

Other uses include as part of a worm farm or as a self-watering container.

Jerry grows strawberries in these boxes – the extra height helps keep the fruit from pests on the ground.

He also uses them to store pots with cuttings in as it keeps the plants at an even temperature, plus it’s easy to cover the boxes to create a mini greenhouse or shadehouse if needed. For shade he uses old net curtains found at op shops.

4. Trading:

Some plants give you more than you’d ever need, especially citrus. Jerry makes loads of different marmalade, which he trades for eggs or avocadoes that he doesn’t have.

5. Buy once, cry once:

By this Jerry means pay more for quality equipment that will last. Cheap equipment is often not meant to be serviced or repaired, but good-quality items will be designed to take replacement parts and are worth fixing. Jerry still uses his grandfather’s hand mower and mattock, and has other equipment that is many decades old.

Filmed on Quandamooka, Turrbal & Yuggera Country in Brisbane, Qld

[aisling-saoirse]

Plant Growing Post: Lupinus perennis sub. perennis

Hello everyone, with February coming around it's a great time to start thinking of growing. If you're like me and are into experimentation and love threatened species, consider growing the Northeast's only native lupine: the Sundial/Wild Lupine

Why is it important to grow this species? 1. It is the larval host plant for the Federally listed Karner Blue butterfly whose range once spread from parts of Wisconsin to Maine but is now restricted to very localized areas of Wisconsin, Michigan, and New York State. (Species survival is complicated due to restricted mobility and climate change). 2. The plant itself has also become incredibly rare in NJ, New York, and Pennsylvania due to land use changes and lack of natural fire regimes.

Why am I doing this? To hopefully teach people closer to existing Karner Blue (image above from inaturalist) populations with successful grow methods. Reddit guides were so snarky and rude I wanted to make a nicer guide. Also, personally, in NJ there are only 4 known populations of this lupine, historic populations were once more plentiful, and the Karner Blue may have existed here as well.

The natural habitat of Sundial/Wild Lupine is Oak-Savannah, these aren't necessarily rare but they're more common in acidic mountain tops and sandy barrens. The key growth factor needed for our native lupine is open canopy with enough sun to remain successful. I'm letting you know the native habitat to key you in on its tougher-to-grow features: infertile soils and a DEEP taproot.

Okay let's begin: I'm always a proponent of collecting wild local seed from native populations, unfortunately, local populations were on private land so I settled for a trusted seller who does genetic testing: Prairiemoon (ignore the Carex) but there are other local sellers in New England. Genetic testing is important because some nurseries will sell you hybrids which are not helpful to the Karner Blue and potentially invasive. I have grown wild lupine before but my dogs killed them so this was a new attempt.

Wild collected seeds require moist cold stratification for 60-90 days, though some will germinate with no stratification and my most successful germination came from scarification and quick stratification (the sellers germination process essentially). For this you want to place the seeds in between a sheet of sand paper and rub until the outer shell is nicked enough to allow water to penetrate.

Here is where inoculation comes in: members of fabaceae have a relationship with a bacteria which allows the roots to capture nitrogen from the air. Some places sell the specific inoculation but the bacteria is present in most soils. This is rather taboo on my end but for species like this I usually take some soil near an existing legumous species (where this bacteria is basically guranteed to be present) mix it with water and take a light amount of this water where I'll briefly soak the seeds in a shallow dish before stratification. This is optional but I've done this for years and have noticed better growth in my Fabaceae than those I haven't preformed this on. If you include too much silt in your liquid you will introduce harmful bacteria as well. Also, it's possible I'm not really doing much with this but better growers than I will correct me.

Finally cold stratification: place the seeds flat in a moist (not soaking wet) paper towel then place in a bag in the fridge for a minimum of 10 days. Once the seeds swell in size they're ready to plant (Day 0). Don't be like me and do this wayyyyyy too early by mistake.

I started my seedlings in a seed starting tray with peat to ensure germination, by [Day 5] they should begin to sprout. On [Day 9] the first leaves form and the taproot develops, you NEED to move them to a deeper pot quickly or else the taproot will be damaged. I got cloth deep root (10") pots and filled them with an infertile mixture (remember they derive nitrogen from the atmosphere) of peat and sand... you don't have to use peat, you can mix soil I just had a lot of peat left over. If you transfer everything correctly and not over water, the taproot will happily continue to develop as true leaves begin to form [Day 16 and 18 below]

I personally sit my plants on a south facing window and then give an additional 3 hours of LED lights after sunset. I've given them around 6-8 hours of direct light but I'm probably spoiling these plants because I'm growing them with my orchids. If you do this 10 days before last frost, you can leave it outside. I currently have 12 Lupines: starting at 90% seed viability, 18 seedlings (only tranferred 14), only two seedlings died after the first 15 days

Continued development: [Day 26] image below left- second leafing. [Day 29 Image 1] continued growth. Last image [Day 38] with third leafing. When it's time to plant out I recommend making sure you dig a hole as deep as the taproot and plant in full sun in dry soil.

I do not believe these make flower in the first year, like many lupines they go dormant in summer, this batch's survival is questionable because it's February. I'll keep everyone updated!

[cantankerouscatfish]

a mimosa being silly. what good is a fully white limb!

[vamp-orwave]

Top 10 songs that make you want to listen to The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

The Chain by Fleetwood Mac

[wildrungarden]

5/14/24 ~ Started back school last night, and they were getting rid of some stuff in the greenhouse. So I scooped up 3 rooted elderberry cuttings. I’ve never grown elderberry - but here’s to new things 🌿

[thesunisatangerine]

Ah! New story!!! I’m so excited :)))

The little teases of backstory are making me so excited, oh my god. Can’t wait to find out more :)

glad to see youre excited for it, i am too (especially when you guys get to the 'seed scene' 😇) thank you so much for this and for reading it, i appreciate it! <3