I think that is awesome star! These chat threads are great for helping each other figure out specifics of seed collecting- great for informing newbies how to prepare seed for trading.
Cottage Garden Seed Swap and Chat #39
I just added my name to the new piggy swap. I must be nuts - I don't have enough room for the plants I have! Meanwhile, I have been digging up my irises (yes, I know I was supposed to do this in August, but Iwas away) Anyway, do you realize how many iris plants you end up with? I am giving soooo many away - it's kinda fun giving stuff to my neighbours and colleagues. ^_^
Really, I am just passing the favour forward. so many of my plants have come from DG people. I am really soooo grateful.
Explain away, this little piggy wants to learn how to do everything so it won't hinder the more knowlegable piggys. Do i go head and send my seeds in little envelopes? I have my labels made for some, still got to do more. "How to prepare for trading" yes, that is what I want to learn. charleen
Charleen, right, you package up little envelopes of seed, each labeled preferably with botanical name, common name, year collected, and your user name. The amount of seed per envelopes kinda depends on how rare or unusual the seeds are or how much you have to spare or how many participants you're divvying them up for. Last year, I packed up seed envelopes first, then posted how many of each I had, then any extras that weren't oinked for, I enclosed for starlight to share with disaster survivors. There are also some companies, like Swallowtail Gardens, that sell larger quantities of seed for really good prices- some participants chose to divvy up some of their commercial seed to include in the swap.
Last year, I just used sandwich baggies, each labeled with participants user names, and as folks oinked for a particular type of seed I just tucked it in their baggie. I kept the baggies in a little tray in alphabetical order, and my packaged seeds in another, then I could just snatch from one and add to the other.
When Star says "go!" we will list what we have to offer. Last year we kept that on a seperate thread which was the absolute best idea IMHO. No chatting on that thread and only one post per person which makes accessing the shopping list so much easier. In that post we listed what we have to offer and many of us also used it to keep track of what seeds we had promised to others. But remember...one post per person on the "have thread" to keep it short and simple.
Once Star has given us the green light we all post our contributions on that thread and the 'shopping' begins. If you see something you'd like to have you oink for it - but the oinking is done in the chatting thread. For example I may post on the "have thread" that I have orange zinnia seeds, purple cosmos, yellow dahlias, etc. If you see something that catches your eye you will post on the chat thread, "Lala I'd like some zins and cosmos" and I will set a bag of each aside for you. This continues until the swap closes and we all send our offerings to Star.
To make things easy on Star we pre-bag the seeds for each person we promised. If Sally asked for my marigolds, daisys, salvias and coneflowers, I'll put each of those packets in one baggie with Sally's name on the outside. That way when they arrive at Star's house she doesn't have to sort through them, all she has to do is toss Sally's baggie into Sally's trough.
I hope that helped explain it, trust me you'll catch on in a hurry. Sorry if I cross-posted with anyone else.
Girl's, where do I find the address to Star's house ? I think I better start my labels sooner than I thought.
Rides you will only be sending one package to Star and not until the end of the swap. When the swap officially closes you gather all the seeds that you have earmarked for other participants and send them altogether to Star. She will then divide them up and send our requests out to the rest of us. The only labels you need right now are the labels for your seed packs.
I'm editing this so that I can make the swap concept easier to understand for the newbies. Hopefully, LOL.
Star's role as hostess is to act as sort of a clearinghouse for our seeds. We actually do all the trading, and keeping track of who wants which seeds. This is all just done on paper (well on the computer actually) until the end of the swap. At that time we gather all the seeds that we have promised to other people and send them to Star...our clearing house manager. She will then sort them out as to which seeds go to which person, put each person's seeds in one big envelope and send them to us. In otherwords we only send seeds one time and that's to Star at the end of the swap.
This message was edited Sep 8, 2009 3:58 PM
Ok guys, to insure that you don't get some seeds that aren't seeds, HERE'S SEED QUESTION #1:
Helenium seed: Are all of the hundreds of brown "sticks" that are stuck to the hard center of the dried flower the seeds? Has anyone successfully sown them?
Anybody remmebr which thread has soem of the pics of evrybodys seed troughs and what the trades kind a look like, that might help some fo the newbie s too if we cna show them pics again.
I outt a batterie s or I woudl show how a seed packet trade and such looks like.
Perennially me. I not sure. I was gonan google propagation of Helenium seeds when I got achance to see for myself. I have helenium Ballerina and am tryign to figrue out too which part do I collect.
I haven't tried takig the seed head and banging it yet to see if anythign shake s out , so my gues s righ tnow is ya that what is the seed unless you look in the seed head and look between them and see if you see anythign small resembling a seed.
I was gatherign somethign up the other day with a conehea d type flower and when i starte d pullign the see dhea d apart it wasn't the logn brown sticks that was the seeds, ther e was few tiny regular seed s hidden down insid eof it.
I have had the best luck gathering seeds off heads like coneflowers and helenium by placing them in a brown bag in a dry place for a week or so then shake the heck out of the bag. The seeds fall out of the cones.
Thanks star. I can't find anything besides those sticks, and they do have a little white bit at the end of them. I let them completely dry on the plant, so I really don't think there's anything else, but want to make sure - unless it's in the little center that's left on the stem, but I don't think so.
gardengus, we cross-posted. Have you collected and successfully germinated heleniums?
Yes , THese were winter sown and flowered this year,I must admit a bit of a surprise.
They do not have a good germination rate (or at least not for me) I only got two plants and I do not skimp on seed.
I had 0 germination on the ruby dwarf.
I had been wondering about that, as I hadn't noticed any self-seeders, even with hundreds of flowers not all dead-headed. So was it the "bristles" you planted? If those are the seeds, it would be easy to send hundreds in a pack and just tell people to sow lots in a small space.
perenniallyme, I think you are seeing the seeds (hiding inside). That sounds like what I sowed last winter. Slugs got all my seedlings, but I'm going to try them again. The part directly connected to the central cone should be the seed. The bag idea works well for me too with cone type flowers. There are often little sheaths surrounding the seed that are hard to tell apart from the seeds- my eyes give me more problems with that every year.
I have pulled apart many seed heads and the ''little bristle things'' are the only things I have ever found, It could be not to many get polinated,I do not see many bugs on the plants.
Thanks, guys. I think the bees have enjoyed some of mine. I guess I'll let them dry and bag them up and people can take their chances. If they don't grow, I'll offer a refund of the price paid - how's that? Think I'll also keep track of who they go to, so I can find out later if they germinate. Heleniums are some of my favorite perennials, so it would be a shame if they don't have seeds that work.
Question: Has anyone tried to grow cannas from seeds? My neighbor has some huge orangey cannas and I harvested some of the seeds for this trade, but I don't do cannas and didn't know if the seeds would work or not. Probably take longer than buying the tubers (?). I'll snap a photo of the color of the cannas tomorrow and post it. They are taller than I and I am 5'3", so I'm guessing they would be called canna gargantua!
Angie
oink, oink! i followed some tips from older/wiser oinks year fore last, when i planted some of them ther canna seeds! basically they says scracht the seed and soak in peroxide 24 hrs. they grows great. in a container they be bout 36 inches tall! i beleives iffn i put theys in the ground they woulda been much bigger! Would love ta try some of yer seeds, tho!
Gardengus and Per-me, two years ago I planted Helenium seed. Seed that a person from Dave's sent me. :o) She had never tried to grow them from seed before, but hey, she sent me what she thought was the seed. And out of a ton of seed/chaff I managed to get 5 plants. I hope they are Heleniums. lol
Last summer was their first summer, one stem each,no blooms. This summer, one stem each, and one of them had a bloom, but I have them at the cottage, so I missed the bloom. What was left certainly looked like a Helenium. I hope the 3rd year is the year of BIG GROWTH.
So the seed is worth a try.
toofew
Two few.. I ha d seedling s I plante d last year and they only ha d like one stem too. I trie d pinching them back to see if that would help branch them out. Think it was a mistake. Didn't actually see wher e they made mor e branche s but they did put up a coupel of extra stems.
I didn't think mine wa s gonan flower at all but surprisingly they did, but they didn't start blooming until maybe about a month ago. I just got most of mien transplante d up into one gallon containers and hoping that over the falland winter that they will make mor e branche s now.
They say they not suppose d ot bloom until mid summer early fall.
I had one Helenium survivor! I'd forgotten all about it, and found it blooming while weeding yesterday! Its the most gorgeous deep red! Its a first year seedling, only about 8" tall- I'm so glad it had a bloom, or I would have just yanked it right out!
Star: Please do not say "Go" for a few more days! I am busy gathering seeds and still have labels to print and seeds to dry, so I won't know for sure what I have to offer. I will also go through my commercial seeds and offer some of them here.
I'm getting excited again!
Angie
Angie. We won't be saying go for quite awhile yet. I just trying to stay a bit better organize d than last year and with the weather being so bad for so long in some folsk are a they didn't have much of achance for blooms and have a feeling winter gonan be coming way early this year and want to have the list of particpants and giv e folsk time to go ahea d and start getting stuff ready, cuz knwo how it cna be such a mad dash and folsk all trying to get stuff ready all at once.
This give s folsk tiem to tak etime and gatehr and get their lists all rady and seed organized. Now sayign all that, I wil probably be my messy self as usual and racign aroudn at the last like always hehehehh wondering now wher e did I put them seeds .
I just bought thre epackets of hollyhock seeds and they arrive d a coupel days ago and already I can't find wher e I put them but did find in the fridge a pack of seeds been huntign almost a year for LOL
I be a mess. LOL
We'll be getting seed packets done and adding on to our lists all the way up until the day it ends, so no rush. I got some thign that just forming pods and they won't be ready for quite awhile yet.
I am one of them most organized , disorganized people I know. heheheheh
We put up our lists but the list change constantly a s folks oink for stuff and a s othe r stuff gets ready.
I stil have to go out and see what friend s have that I cna scarf up too that different or unusual.
Thanks toofew,star, gemini. It'll be interesting to see if anyone can get some plants out of these helenium. You'd think that with an alias of "sneezeweed" that they'd be multiplying all over the place. I have two tall reds- don't know which is which, and mardi gras that I've collected, but they're all planted together so may have crossed. Anyway, will be awaiting your oinks when we post, and hope you'll have better luck with these than your last ones.
I'm glad this won't be happening for a while, cause I have a longggg way to go to have the seeds ready! I think I'm going to start a word document of what I have and how many..then when it's time, I can just cut and paste the list into the thread here :)
Sounds very organized, doesn't it??? Now we'll see if I actually do it LOL
The first Helenium I had several years ago got yanked because I thought it was a weed.
This one pictured below , I had to ask what it was, I did not remember the flower heads not having color when opening.
See doesn't it look like a weed?
Good idea ClanC! Oh yeah, the seed harvesting has really just gotten under way here, there are tons of ripening pods out there that won't be ready for a month or so. But starting early like this is really awesome, its reminding me of so many things I would typically not think to collect seed from. There's a lot of stuff that is perennial and/or reseeds with such reckless abandon that I never thought to collect seed from them till I realized how many others would enjoy them as well as I do. There are several things I'd received from Jill (critterologist) in the past, that she usually has listed, so I didn't save those to avoid duplicates. Well, she's got her hands full with a new baby this year (Yayyyyyy!!! hugs to Mom and Joyanna!), so I'm collecting Thai Basil, Ox Eye orange perennial sunflower, Bronze Fennel, Honeybee blue Agastache, and Torenia seeds to make sure we've got plenty to go around.
Lately, I've been walking around the garden with a pad and paper, listing things I need to collect as I see them. Then mark them off as I collect the seed. That's about as good as it gets for now, LOL.
gardengus, it sure does! I need to mark mine really well, or I'm bound to yank it.
Whew! I was afraid I'd be unprepared and do such a poor job no one would let me come back to the trough next year! At least now I can relax and get better organized (maybe) and at least be prepared with some decent seeds to offer.
Angie
Regular piggies. If ya cna try an dhelp keep a count now . All regula rpiggie s are allowe d in , that a given. I had figure d on automatically saving all thei rspaces and now after Cheles-Garden on the seed swap sign up thread, I have room for no mor e than 13 mor enewbie s if w e get that many more.
I figured if we had all of last years that would be about 35-40 people and abotu 30 newbies to get a good mix of stuff and get them started. They won't have much this year , liek all of us starting , but then next year there big a good ne w group to help spread the seeds .
I could tak two hundre d people no problem except for liek I said on the seed sign up thread. What slow s em up is not knowing if soem see dis aprennial or an anuual or maybe I have a scientific name and not a common and if it ain't somethign I heard of before then I have to go look it up. That the slow process.
That and wish lists. If anybody has an ide a of how to get folsk to do wish lists ahea d of time , I all up for suggestions.
As stuff comes in marked perennial, annual, biannual or a zone on it then I cna automatically put them in each seperate group and when it coem s tiem to divide if somebody wants only certain type of seed it alot easier to find and sort.
Star: Just let us know all we need to do to make your job easier. You're kind enough to host this swap and we should be willing to do our part and I know everyone is. My understanding so far is the info that needs to be on each seed packet is as follows:
Common name
Botanical name
Annual/perennial
Sun/shade requirements
DG name of contributor
Year date of seed harvest
With this info, the recipient can check the plant files here and get more info as needed. Am I correct so far? I'm going to try also to incorporate a small photo of the plant on my label.
Angie
Here's a photo of those cannas I harvested seeds of yesterday:
Another shot:
And this will give you some idea of their height:
yippers! bootiful! kin i put in bid fer some of these? pleas!
Certainly. I'll put your name on a couple. These pods usually only had one seed to a pod, but they're big seeds. Some pods had more, but most was just one. I'll try to harvest some more and see if my neighbor knows what cultivar it is. She's not very conscientious about naming her plants.
Angie
Those cannas are really pretty. I planted some of the Cannas from the swap last year, and they are doing fine. No blooms this year, but nice foliage.
Lynn: Did you plant yours from seeds or tubers? I know nothing about cannas, so I can only offer the seeds.
Angie
Seeds. I chipped/soaked 48 hours, then wrapped them in moist paper towel, put in baggie, germinated (I didn't keep a record of how long, but I think it was approx 1 week or so). I had seeds of Indian Shot, and NOID on the other. Unfortunately, I planted them together in the pot, so I don't know which is which.
I would love to try some of your seeds. Are you going to be in the Piggy Swap this year?
