Seed gathering

I mentioned in a recent post that my peas had dried up while we were on holiday.  I harvested the dry pods, from varieties ‘Early Onward’ and ‘Douce Provence’, anyway, looking for peas to sow next year – and found that nearly all the pods had suffered pea moth damage.  Not a pretty sight.  There were a few peas that were unaffected, and, making the best of a bad situation, I’ve saved them for future use – and put the pea moth caterpillars out on the patio for the blackbirds and sparrows to feast on.  Interestingly, the climbing pea ‘Alderman’ was less affected, at least by the moths, although there had been damage from the sparrows perching on the climbing frame to eat the flowers!  I was able to salvage some broad bean seeds from the early bean plants, again for sowing next year; these were variety ‘Aguadolce Claudia’, although I also grow later-cropping ‘Imperial Green Longpod’ and broad beans cross-pollinate, so these seeds may not produce plants that are suitable for very early sowing.  In any case I’ve decided that autumn-sown broad beans aren’t worth the trouble in this garden, and sowing them in late winter should give me reasonable results.  We’ll see.

Peas and beans

The earliest-sown lettuces are setting seed in the veg plot, and I’ll collect some from them when they’re ready.  The radicchio plant is still in flower, but looking at the old flowerheads I can’t see usable seed; maybe I need to look more closely!  However a couple of dill flowers with seed are drying off well in the greenhouse.

Dill flowers drying off

Having started on seed-collecting, I’ve been going round other plants that I’d like to propagate.  Last year the weather was too wet and cold for viable seed to be produced; my favourite Cosmos ‘Xanthos’ flowered, but the seedheads were too wet to do anything with, and I ended up buying a new packet of seeds.  This year I’ve collected and dried a nice little envelope-full of fresh seed, and am having a go at doing the same with the tall pink variety C. bipinnatus ‘Dazzler’ that has been brightening up the old herb bed.  The ‘Xanthos’ seedheads ripened nicely in the dry of the greenhouse, and I’m hoping ‘Dazzler’ will do the same.

Cosmos bipinnatus 'Dazzler'

I liked the pink corncockle plants in the rather experimental wildflower patch (most of which has now flowered and died off), and have picked some seedheads in the hope of growing more next year, in a flowerbed among ‘proper’ plants, where they won’t look too out-of-place.  Likewise I’ve gathered seed from the calendula and cornflower plants in the tulip pot.  

I’m on a bit of a roll.  Next up will be to take cuttings of other plants for next year!

Following on from the views we’ve been enjoying from the summerhouse, the fox has been back in the field again, possibly in search of the juvenile pheasants which are roaming the countryside at the moment.  When we spotted a cat hunting in the field, then making a hasty retreat towards our garden, we thought that the fox was on its trail – until we noticed a young pheasant determinedly pursuing it through the grass.  The cat presumably wasn’t taking any chances with that big beak.