My Tiny Plot

I’ve started to chit my Potatoes. As you can see I’ve got a small clutch of a standard variety of first earlies (Rocket) and two rather unusual varieties (Congo and Highland Burgundy Red). The smaller seed Potatoes were given to me while I was on a pruning course last year.

I put them in an airtight container and placed them in the potting shed all winter. They’ve saved well so I’m hoping to have some really unusual Potatoes in this year’s harvest.

The problem is, I was a bit worried that they might cross-pollinate and I would end up with a large batch of darkish or purply-red Potatoes instead of ones that are true to one variety. So I did some research.

It turns out that Potato flowers have both male and female parts and so are very likely to pollinate themselves. I watched a video on how to create a new Potato variety by cross-pollination and it looked like it was pretty difficult to do actually. So the likelihood of the bees managing it for me is very slim. Plus, I suppose people plant three, four, sometimes five varieties of Potato on one allotment sometimes and you don’t necessarily get cross-pollination, do you?

So, I’m resolved to give all three varieties a go. I might plant them separately, away from each other just to be on the safe side. But I think I should be okay.

Does anyone have any more data on this? Is there a definitive yes or no answer?

While I was on a pruning course a few weeks ago I met a very interesting guy called Bill Whitehead. He knew tons and tons about Potatoes and their history in the UK. He showed me an example of the oldest known variety of Potato still grown in the UK – The Yam. It dates from 1771.

He also gave me two Potatoes to save and plant next year. They were a black variety called Congo and a red variety called Highland Burgundy Red. I’ve always understood that it’s risky to save your own Potato seed because you risk building up disease and that it’s better to buy disease-free seed from a merchant – which I normally do. However, since I’ve been given these interesting varieties I thought I would have a go at saving them for next year.

It seems you need to keep a few things in mind:

1. Put them in the light first to let them go a bit green (to encourage dormancy)
2. Store them in a dark, frost-free place
3. Ensure that air can circulate around them (storing in egg boxes is a good idea)

There is quite a nice post about saving Potato seed here.

So I’m going to give it a go. If I’m drowing in a sea of Blight come this time next year, I give you full permission to say, ‘I told you so!’.

Whoah! I just realised there’s a lot of ‘S’s in that title – but anyway…

Today, I sowed my Sweet Peas. I planted them at the same time last year and they seemed to do very well. I’m planting three varieties, Blue Ripple, High Scent and Rose Pearl, with a fourth pot of mixed saved seed from last year.

Some people will swear by RootTrainers for Sweet Peas, but, although I think RootTrainers are a good idea, I’ve never used them for Sweet Peas and mine have always germinated and flowered fine. I also don’t soak the seed. Again, I’ve had no problem with germination in the past – of course that’s not to say I won’t be smited by the seed Gods this year.

I thought I would plant my saved seed in a separate pot as a sort of mini germination experiment to see if the saved seed was as viable as the bought seed. I’ll let you know how that goes.

I’m hoping the saved seed does do well because it was so easy to collect that it could save me a small fortune in seed costs during these crunchy times.

Here’s how I did it. Once your Sweet Peas are nearing the end of their flowering life, all you need to do is to let some of them run to seed. Don’t do this at the beginning of the season because, just like edible Peas, once they have set seed the plants will stop flowering.

The seed pods will start to swell. Leave them on the plant for as long as possible, or until the weather turns rainy. Then cut the pod, leaving a bit of stem, and hang them in a cool, dry place. A month or so later, pop the seeds, label and store them in a cool place in an airtight container.

My Sweet Peas normally live life alongside my Runner Beans. I have a teepee that I grow my Beans on and the Sweet Peas make a lovely sight, just twining themselves around the beanpoles, attracting bees, smelling gorgeous and just begging to be picked.

Whoohoo! summer is coming, guys. Get ready!

Oh and by the way, here are some other Jobs for March, that I’ll be getting on with quite soon.

I’ve started to do a bit of basic seed-saving, Carole Klein style. If we’re being completely honest we’re a bit spoiled these days aren’t we?. Garden centres are everywhere and usually open 7 days a week and even the supermarket has at least one carousel of cheap seeds. All very convenient and brilliant for those addicted to seed like you and I.  

However, there’s nothing quite like saving your own seed. The excitement of cracking open that crispy casing to see if you’ve got some perfectly dried seed or a pile of rotting mush (sometimes it happens). Seeds are full of promise. At this time of year, when everything is dying down and going a bit brown, collecting seed can be very uplifting. It’s like nature’s saying, ‘it’s okay dude, there’s always another year.’

And who can resist that? Not me… I’m saving Peas, Runner Beans, French Beans, Garlic, Shallots and Sweet Peas on a regular basis now. Some people will tell you that you can’t save Pumpkin seeds because they won’t grow true next year but I might give it a go anyway, just to see what happens. I’m sure in the days before supermarket seeds your average head-gardener would’ve given it a go too.

Anyone else had success with seed-saving? What do you save?

I’ve let a few Radishes go to seed this year. The flower stems are very tall with pretty little white flowers at the top. The flowers disappear quite quickly to be replaced by a small pod which gets larger over time. The slugs seem to like eating the pods so I have tied them up like a bunch of flowers to lift them off the ground. This seems to have worked. I’ve had great success this year with Peas that I saved from last year and also Runner Beans. Both germinated fine and we have eaten lots of sweet and juicy peas for free!

This year I have decided to do my first bit of seed collecting. I think I will stick to ‘easy’ seed for the moment, which means large ones like pumpkin, peas, runner beans and the like. I have already collect a ton of Klevedon wonder peas, Futsu and Uchki pumpkin, and the seeds pictured here are Enorma runner beans. The secret is to leave them on the plant to dry out for as long as possible. If you harvest the seeds when they are still green, they will rot in storage (as I found out with a previous batch of peas). They must be bone-dry before you pack them up into paper bags (or envelopes which is what I’m using). As usual store them in the dark in a cool place.

I had no idea what lettuce looked like once it had gone to seed. Most people warned me that I had planted too many lettuce and that they would go to seed before I could eat them all and well, they were right. I admit it, 70 lettuce was a tad too many. But what no-one tells you is that when they do run to seed they look as attractive as ever, more so I would argue. So I have left a few of them in the ground to become these tall, architectural statues and I think they give mtp a certain majesty (but then I would). They’re just about to flower and after that hopefully I can collect some seed for next year. I also let some of the Pentard Red go to seed and they turned into amazing deep purple pyramids about two foot high. But the rain battered them down and I had to pull them up. They’re now rotting nicely in the compost pile. But you can’t win them all…