Seed Snatchin' XIX

hey, anybody can snatch seeds... it takes a special kind of enthusiasm (or love) to snatch water lilies!

One nice thing about Alaska... no snakes! However we have huge mosquitos, so a few hungry snakes wouldn't be so bad, I guess!

Any black flies up there, Weesingreens?

Oh, yah. We get black flies, and some little fellows we call 'no see 'ems'. Boy, you can sure feel them though!

Yes, I am from the westcoast and I am very familiar with no-see-ums! But we never had black flies. Had horse flies, sand flies, and deer flies, however.

We have some rather large mosquitos here, as well.

Yes - the mosquitoes here are small - and very fast! hard to swat.

I've actually watched mosquitoes burrow out of little holes in the snow of early spring. We must have a special Alaskan strain!

I have gotten 7 or 8 big mosquito bites while no one else
in the group sitting with me even got a nibble. Why is that!!!
I guess I'm just yummy. Grump.

tam

Weezingreens
Was that a joke about the mosquito & the snow or are you serious?

I can't believe I haven't thought of that. I steal stuff from my sons house, and my own, but that's as far as I've gone. Now I know what to do with all my extra time!!
With my luck, I'd just get arrested.
Onr thing I do is if I'm at Wal Mart, Lowes, or some garden store. If I see seeds on plants I usually manage to get some. Only problem, I never know what I'll see, so when I get home I have no idea what I've got.

Well, I have it figured out. My son in law and daughter are both deputies. She at the police station, he at Sheriff's office. Can't you just imagine someone telling them "there's this nut outside messing around in the plants, they look out and there I am. I'll be sure to wear old stuff so I look like a bag lady, maybe even find a shopping cart.

Also, where are places you go?

Last night we had dinner at a Mexican restaurant. There were double ruds planted outside. The one dead looking blossom went into a seed bag, which I carry in my purse.

Karen

I did it again...Forgive me for I have sinned!!!

I pulled ripe seed pods off 3 hosta scapes at a local nursery. One had the seeds falling out! I had my eye on the mamager; his back was turned and he was talking to someone, so I went for it!

Karen, I keep a pad in my purse. After snatchin', I pocket the seeds (I'm usually wearing jeans at a nursery) and I move away from the poached perennial and scribble the names, carefully scanning the other plants. It makes me look like I'm a big time landscaper who needs to calculate how many plants per square acre I'll need!

When I run out of pockets (2 front, 2 back) I will pull out my makeup case and toss 'em in there. Maybe I should have special seed bags. I'll have to be careful not to write "Stolen Seeds" on it... LOL

I just carry the small plastic seed bags. When I score some I come home and take out of the bag to air out, most important step.

I've had seeds labeled "yellow, western hills plaza" etc, so I remember what it is and where I got it. Last night's restaurant is called Cancun. Those seeds are labeled "double rud, Cancun"

Karen

You guy are naughty! HaHa!!!

It's not sinning....seed snatching is giving a seed new horizons to soar in a new garden!

I snatched some at the post office the other day.

Yup, Pam, mosquitoes did come out of little holes in the snow. They must not need warmth to hatch. I can only hope they flew around for a few minutes, froze, and went to mosquito heaven. Tam, mosquitoes are sometimes attracted to body lotions or shampoo scents.

I like to collect seeds in those little paper bathroom cups. That way, the seeds have an opportunity to dry. Once dry, I sift or sort them and bag them.

My hubby calls it 'stealing/sinning' , the same thing he says. He laughs at me and I tell him I am helping God to clean the earth. I walked down to my sons school to walk the track and found myself deadheading plants and popping seeds in my pocket. They have all kinds of herbs that grow in 'Touch and Smell Garden', then they have an ABC garden that has everything alphabetized by a clay pot that has been painted with the appropriate letter on it. I should take pics, but then you would know where it is and the seed snatching police might show up at my house LOL!!!

Raggedy Ann, you can always take pictures of the pods and the seeds when you get home and enter them in the Plantfiles. That's very helpful for new seed snatchers. I like to put a coin or my hand next to the seeds so people can see the seed size.

That's a good idea. Since I am going to be walking more often now that it's cooler, I'll probably take some baggies with me and a pen.
I don't remember my mom or her sis as being seed snatchers. My aunt could take home a cutting from anywhere and it would grow. My dad still tells me stories of how she would lie a fig branch, etc. on the ground with a brick on it and it would root.

Some gardeners just have the touch!

Oh, I went to an Italian restaurant yesterday and what did my eyes behold? AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH, Huge outside gardens of EVERYTHING!! You could eat outside there too! I chose to sit inside next to a window so I could BROUSE all I wanted at the red peppers, green peppers, HOT peppers ! Red, pink, yellow, and peach roses all in bloom!! All kinds of daylily seed pods, with seeds in tact! And morning glory seeds everywhere!Hibiscus and rhodys! The grapes!! green, red, and purple too!! Oh and back to the seeds, I am not sure what flower plants they were, BUT I GOT SOME SEEDS :) OH, the food was wonderful too :)

Well my story isn't about snatching seeds but I still think I have everyone beat. A couple years ago they tore down our KFC to build a CVS. After they razed the bldg I stopped to ask if they were going to destroy the landscaping. They were & they said I could have it. My son & I dug out 3 pickup loads of irises, daylilies, golden spirea, & miscanthus grass. That wasn't everything but we left the rest for anyone else who was brave enough to ask. LOL

Seriously, when commercial builders renovate they don't save the plants. So if you time it right you can clean up. Sadly, this year I missed out when they renovated what used to be a nursery. I waited too long & they turned a flower bed into a parking lot. An ugly gravel lot at that. (:-( Sniff!!!

Pam, your story falls into the last "extreme gardening" poll!
I had a long post about stealing rocks from a construction site (another CVS!!!). All this really nice round fieldstone was kicked up and bulldozed to the back of the lot. I grabbed a couple of loads before they just buried the rest. I couldn't find anyone to ask, so I snatched and ran! Gardening forces ordinarily honest people to do terrible things... ;0)

Actually the construction guy offered to dig the plants out for me with a front loader ( or whatever it's called) but we opted to dig it up in manageable size pieces that were ready to put back in the ground. A lot of work but you should see those plants today!

Yes, reclamation is a nobler version of snatchin'. Even if you don't ask, you are saving the life of a green thing.. or several! As for rocks, they are essential for my gardening efforts, as they hold the heat of the sun and help warm the soil and plants on into our often chilly evenings and nights. I consider rocks as furniture for my plants... a warm place to rest.

"a nobler version of snatchin' "

LOL!

I love rocks. The silver lining to the fact that the field behind us will eventually turn into a new housing development (yes, we knew this when we moved here) is that I will be able to get lots & lots of ROCKS as they dig out the foundations!

I'm a rock nut!
I use them for mulch- I put rings of small rocks around my many perennials that die back to the ground. The soil under the stones is always damp and wormy!
Robbing construction sites is SOOO much easier than digging my own yard up! So is visiting the beach!!!

I love finding out that I'm not the only nutty one. When I relocated my garden a few years ago I had it plowed with a tractor the 1st year. The farmer could not plow some areas b/c the rocks were too large. So I dug them up by hand. Used a spud bar to leverage them out little by little. Figured if I could get them out of the ground by myself surely someone could help me move them. My son said no way could they be moved to where I wanted them but one of his buddies said come on & we did it. It took 4 people & a lawn tractor but we moved them. They are an amazing addition to my flower beds.

I've gone so far as to buy individual boulders from stone yards and had a forklift place them in my truck. When I get to the spot in my garden where I want them, I climb into the bed of the truck, lie on my back, and shove the rock out with my feet!!! (It works!)

I've dug up some biggies on my own. I got them out of the hole, and using a crowbar and wedges, got them onto pieces of plywood. With help, I can drag the plywood quite a few yards! But I find that some stone yards will sell "pre-dug" boulders for not much $.

BTW, I am female, 46, and 5' 5"! I DO own my own pick up truck; a Ford F-150 Supercrew. I ruined all my "normal" cars with bags of compost, mulch, fertilizer (yuck!), sand, cement, dirty rocks, spilled soil from potted plants, you name it! Since you can buy a truck with lots of features for much less than a car, I got "my baby" for my 40th b-day present to myself! I LOL when people look at me with a puzzled expression and wonder why on Earth I would be driving a truck!!! To the ecology minded (of which I am) I don't use it to commute to a job, so I put fewer than 10,000 miles per year on it. And that is the distance between all the trips to garden centers (AND rock-poaching venues) and my house!

My CR-V (miniature Honda SUV) with its rubber cargo mat is not quite as good as a pick up truck... but it's close, and I hauled several loads of great stepping stones from a nearby construction site last spring!

When our house was being built, I slipped the foreman a little extra to move some boulders from a site down the street... there's a nice rock by the driveway anchoring the bottom of our front bed, and there are 3 rocks around the perimeter of our patio (which was only a plan on paper when the rocks were moved there). :-)

We are rock rich in this part of the world... but I never take it for granite! LOL... groan, groan. You can scoop lovely gravel from the rivers, as well as rounded river rocks... granite with bands of quartz, some with pyrite that is a lovely orangey gold. My favorite rocks are the ones that have been blasted. They have flat sides that make them suitable for stacking in rock gardens or as edging. We have tons of shale, but while it makes a good walkway, it usually chips and shatters in other applications.

Gravel is quarried from the rivers by local companies who grade it and haul it. As far as I know it's a reasonable price here, but if barged in to the villages in interior Alaska where rock is scarce, it is quite expensive. As for rocks, no one buys them. For blasted rock, I look for areas that have loads of rip-rap dumped as fill. I used to load a few rocks at a time, but now I just ask my son to do it. He also helps me dig up the beds and seat the rocks. The last time we worked on a bed, he blew out the tires on my two wheeled wheelbarrow! LOL!

I am sure Alaska has the most magnificent rocks!!! I'm jealous- all we have is glacial till, all granite; there is lots of basalt, too. I particularly like the striped basalt. There is a vein of purple granite running just past my house. I have to go out onto the rte 95 road cut to gather any; it makes for tough haulin', and I worry about the state police.

I wish rocks weren't so heavy!!! I'd buy whatever you had- I have one chunk of pyrite that has a place of honor at my front door. Am I the only person in the world that has hauled a special rock or 2 home from a trip in their suitcase???? I have rocks from all over!! What an idiot I am!

My DH got so fed up w/ my rocks in the house that I keep all but the smallest outdoors. I don't know what I think would happen to them if I left them outside! LOL!!!

I've blown wheelbarrow tires, too!!!

Ha! I like rocks but my mom is a real rock freak. And yes, she has them from all over the country. She visited my brother in Oregon one year and found this gold mine of river rock. I have to admit they were pretty cool....cresent shaped and smooth as could be. Well she had traveled light that trip so she left them stacked behind my brother's garage. Guess who got to tote them home in HER suitecase her next trip to Oregon?

I have a basket of rocks from Idaho. We visited my son when he lived there & - You guessed it - they flew home in the suitcase.

Well what have we here? I found this little beauty on my evening stroll last night (which of course I take while carrying a divided deli tray, a pen, paper, and camara) Does anybody know what I stumbled on to? They were growing in the downtown area of Smallville right across from the local pub. I'm sure everyone sitting at the bar was getting a kick out of watching my adventures from across the way.

And planted right beside the above flower was this little gem (which is actually a much darker burgandy than the picture shows.) There were not as many dried heads on this one but trust me I'm going back. LOL

I know! I know!

They're bedding dahlias. The trouble with seed from them is if you wait too long, they germinate in the pod, but if you get them too early, they won't open properly. They also don't always get pollinated by insects, so the seeds can be empty and undeveloped. A good seed looks like a boat oar and will have a white inside if you break it in half. A bad seed has one of the following probems: a very rough exterior; frayed ends; bent in a crescent shape; or is lightweight compared to the other seeds.

Soooo, get them when you know they have been hanging for 5 days (see photo 2 and you'll see a pod on the right side. That pod needs 2 days and it will be ready to pluck.) Put it on a plate somewhere where it will get good air circulation. In a couple of days the inside will turn cripsy, papery brown. When this happens, manually split the outer husk in half and then let it finish ripening.

If you have dahlias at home, it's best to "milk" them....a trick the dahlia breeders use. As soon as the petals drop off the pod, the pod swells and faces down. You milk the juice or water out of the pod so the seed doesn't rot and doesn't germinate. Just pull down from the stem to the tip and your hand will be filled with yucky sticky geenish water-stuff. Oh, yeah, you need to do all the dahlias at once and then go wash your hands. :)

Suzy