Can you tell me if there is a book that teaches you how to recognize seeds, how to collect seeds, how to clean seeds, how to store seeds, pictures of seeds and seedpods, longevity of seeds, sowing seeds, etc.
If there is a book that is helpfull, please tell me the title and author.
If you can’t find a book about seeds, please tell me what you want to learn about seeds.
All about seeds
Jonna, I think it's time for you to write such a book! I did a search on Amazon and saw only one similar book, and don't think it has seed pictures. It said 322 plants listed. It's called The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds - by R. Gough.
Thank you for your reply.
Well, it will be a project that will take at least 2 years. First I’ll have to find out if there is really no book that teaches beginners everything about seeds: recognizing , collecting, cleaning, storing, longevity, sowing, exchanging, etc. So this autum I will check all the links I got from all over the world, will order some books to see what the real content is. After that I will decide if the book I would like to write is really ‘new’ and will be helpful for newbies. I posted my questions on several websites that use the English language. I want to add a lot of pictures of seeds, seedpods and the plants. If there is interest in it, I have to make more pictures of seeds and seedpods next year. After that I have to write it in English. That’s not my motherlanguage, so I have to find someone who will help me correcting my English. And last, but not least, I’m not a botanist, I do not have experience with tropical plants and can’t make a book about all plants, so my book will be a bit limited. And I will only write about ‘natural’ plants and heirlooms, no breeded hybrids (they will seldom come true from seed). If I’m going to write it, it will be just for beginners. No scientific talk, just my own experience. The idea came up to me because I get a lot of questions about the subjects and I realized I had the same questions when I was a beginner. I tried to find books to help me, but I couldn’t find a book that could answer all my questions.
If I decide to write the book, I will offer it as an E-book first because that will be cheaper ( so many photo’s) , but I will also offer the possibillity to order it as a real book.
Any suggestion is welcome.
I would imagine that if you decide to do this, there are many who would be willing to help you out with pictures. I have been gathering seeds from my gardens (for Arejay and the DG newbies). I would be happy to take digital pictures of the blooming plant and the pods and the seeds. I hope you will add helpful hints like put seeds in the freezer for a week to kill off hitch hikers. (Hollyhocks) always have nasties.
Thank you so much for your reply mittsy !
It would be very helpful if you can take pictures of the plants, pods and seeds. I do have a lot of them, but I can't grow all plants.
And thank you for the suggestion to put seeds in the freezer for a while to kill hitch hikers. I never had problems with that, but I noticed that some warmer regions have problems with the hitch hikers. And now I see you are in zone 5 (I'm in zone 6). Do you have problems with the nasties on the Hollyhocks? I never had any problem.
Another thing to find out, why I never had problems with that and others have those problems.
They are pretty tiny, but there nevertheless. Now that i want to find one to photograph I probably won't find another one!
Will come back to you again late autumn. I really have to investigate all the links I got.
Jonna,
I am excited at the prospect of your book and believe it will be a great resource. I would be glad to proofread your English as you progress...used to proofread for a newspaper and always liked to proofread our son's college English papers. I'll check bookstores to see if any books have similar content whenever I have the opportunity.
I think many of us who collect seeds occasionally have 'mystery' seeds that we can't identify when we find them in our couch, carpet, and other places where they have been dropped. Pictures and ID of seeds would be really nice. Will you include both flowers and vegetables?
Thank you midwestfarmwife for your offer to check bookstores to see if any books have similar content.
The idea now is to include both flowers and vegetables, but the main will be flowers.
Does anyone know what Double Rose of Sharon seeds look like? They say there are seeds but I have never been able to identify any but I'm pretty sure there are because I found a young seedling growing in front of my bush so I'm sure it grew from a dropped seed.
Thanks
Jan
I don't know if that is the same Rose of Sharon I have mine is a double and I do know that there are a lot of varieties. The one you pointed out is a single I think and that may be different.
I have never seen a seed pod that looked like that on mine.
I have only had one seedling come from my 2 bushes and the post you indicated said that they are invasive and mine is far from invasive.
I'll keep watching it though.
Jan.
Jan, the seedpod of a single or double Rose of Sharon will not be different, they will really look the same. I suppose you have a cultivar that is sterile. But even sterile cultivars produce sometimes a few seeds.
Really I wondered about that maybe it was a sterile variety but then thought but there was a seedling coming up in front of it. And when I dug that seedling up I thought wonder if this is coming from the main plants root and it wasn't. So it must have come up from a seed dropping.
Guess that was a pod I missed because I always check it out for seed pods, I will just have to watch for them more. I would like to keep seedlings growing in my flower bed I gave that one away to my neighbor but would like to grow more. I'm not good at rooting things
Jonna, this might help yoy a little. Judy
http://theseedsite.co.uk/db49.html
Jonna, I would encourage you to write the book anyway. Only you have information that is unique to your own experience. It doesn't matter that you are not a botanist, but if it makes you feel better, you always have the option of consulting with a botanist.
I would not waste too much time trying to see if a book like the one you envision has already been written. It's okay for more than one book about a certain subject to be in circulation.
Your book is coming from your own unique gardening experiences, and you have many friends here on Dave's Garden and probably all around the world.
I say, Go for it! You have much to say. The idea of planting natural varieties that pollinate naturally and make seeds that may or may not all be exactly alike is very appealing to many of us.
I personally never liked the idea of buying flowers or seed packets that render sterile seed (after the plant has grown). That is a sad idea and probably originated just to make $$$ from gardeners.
Go, Jonna, go! You can do it.
~TJ
Thank you TJ for your heartwarming reaction.
I got a lot of reactions, also on other websites and by private mails. Some are very positive, but I also got negative reactions.
Those negative reactions and the fact I had to rebuild my website completely, made me think I'd better not write the book. It's so much work and it will take a lot of time.
Your reaction made me realize that I can't satisfy everyone.
Will now think about how to realize it and how I can coordinate the help some people offered me.
Thank you!
Jonna, independent publishing is happening all the time nowadays, especially now that the Internet is a vital part of our lives. Look into self-publishing and see what your options are.
There will always be detractors. It does not matter what line of business you are in or what skills you have or what truths you may want to impart. Take the bad with the good; it is not a perfect world that we live in.
I would do a Google search on self-publishing and read all the information. You could also find a local publishing group in your city or among your fellow gardeners to see if anyone is working as a group to get each one's book published.
We have some groups like that in our area, particularly in Christian ministries. One particular local group is called Fruitbearer Publishing. For a fee, this group will help with language, style, formatting, and designing the cover. The strength of the group approach is that the team is composed of people who have various skills. One might be skilled in organization of ideas. The other might be skilled in proofreading. Another might be skilled in graphic arts.
Such groups do the fine-tuning of your written manuscript and get the book ready for publishing as an electronic document to give back to you. Then you take (or send) that finished "book" to a publishing company. This means paying the group, then paying the publisher. (in some cases, the group also does the publishing as well; in that case, the fee would most likely be higher.)
This could include either e-book format or hard copy or both.
One cheap, visual approach to creating a book would be to use mostly digital images and upload those photos to such "book" sites as "Blurb" or "Mixbook". These can be found online and are really for people who want to preserve their digital photo files as books for recording moments in life that are precious to them. However, I do not see why you couldn't try making a basic photo book of your garden, your seeds, your business, etc. There is room for text according to the layout that you choose. It would be a place to get your feet wet and also to have something for yourself that is a record of your gardening work.