Bagging

[grunt]

I finally started bagging, not to maintain purity, but to ensure that I get the seeds, rather than sow several thousand around each of the plants I'm saving from.
This is what my single Gloria de Portugal looked like:

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And this is what it looks like bagged:



I bent the whole plant over, so that the opening at the bottom of the bag wouldn't leak seeds. The pods are all fully mature, just not started to dry down. I figure the plant will carry on doing its thing, because the stems aren't particularly crimped by the bending.

I did the same thing with the Green Glazed collard plant:





Carrots I am bagging one umbel at a time:





There are only 3 carrots under all of that. I already have enough umbels bagged to supply me with seeds for the next 10+ years. I'll keep on bagging until I run out of tulle pieces, or patience, which ever comes first.
I wait until all of the petals are off of the blossoms on the umbel, and the seeds start to size up. I know that if I wait for them to start to brown off, I will have about a half pound of seeds lost to shattering.

[galina]

Grunt,

These carrots look great. I have never thought of bagging carrot seeds. They stick to the umbels, which I cut whole, leave to dry off further, then harvest by hand. If I left them until they were near falling off, autumn dampness would have rotted the whole umbel away. The same with parsnips.

Do you get slightly wheezy processing carrot seeds?

Bagging brassica is a good idea, because at the slightest provocation the pods 'ping' open and shatter. With my turnips this year I would have needed a giant bag. There will be spilled seeds and way too many turnip seedlings later in the year. I waited until half the seeds were mature, then cut off the stems, put them in a muckbucket, let them dry down (this matured most of the seed pods), and then I stomped gently, sieved and winnowed. Your method is better, if only I could find a bag that's big enough. I could make something out of fine-meshed net-curtain material (or bridal veil material). Hmm. Thanks for getting me thinking .....

[grunt]

Galina: If you have problems with flea beetles, leave or transplant a bunch of your excess turnips to the area they are a problem, and they act as a trap crop. I assume you are talking about summer turnips, not rutabaga or swedes = if so, they work for slugs as well = put them all around the border of your garden and slugs usually don't bother going any farther into your garden.

[galina]

Aug 1, 2010 14:59:16 GMT -5 grunt said:

Galina: If you have problems with flea beetles, leave or transplant a bunch of your excess turnips to the area they are a problem, and they act as a trap crop. I assume you are talking about summer turnips, not rutabaga or swedes = if so, they work for slugs as well = put them all around the border of your garden and slugs usually don't bother going any farther into your garden.

That would work. I tend to fleece brassica, but at the moment the flea beetles are so bad, I don't sow any. But I really need to get the late autumn/winter hardy rocket started. A distraction crop would help.

Yes these are turnips not swedes.