BYC gardening thread!!

[hennible]

Lazy gardener, you do not sound lazy. Happy to see another seed saver. Do you have any tips on saving zucchini seed... Something keeps going wrong with mine.
Any way happy gardening

 

[tarahtt]

Cut your zucchini open long ways down the center. Scoop out your middle with a spoon, and space them out to dry on a paper towel. After they dry for a few days, you might want to let them sit in the fridge for a week so they think they've over wintered.

 

[hennible]

Crazy! I'll try it. So you don't ferment them? Interesting.

 

[tarahtt]

Just leave one on the vine until it is well ripened to be sure the seeds are mature. I do the same with my cukes, i take the seeds from the fruit that has grown past the point where i would have eaten it and use it for seeds.

 

[hennible]

Thank you very much

 

[jerryse]

Some of my squash and gourds . The one alone is my own hybrid . Yellow straight neck x zucchini . Been saving seed for over 40 years . X2 on letting them mature before removing seeds . Fried some of the zucchini for lunch and zucchini bread in the oven .

 

[hennible]

Wow jerryse. Nice hybrid, great squash! I've had some great hybrids in the past ( mostly accidents) my favourite was a sweet mama currie type cross spaghetti. It was a giant! And tasty too, sweet with the pronounced spaghetti strands. So what is your preferred seed saving method? Any tips? I ferment most of my "wet" seeds before drying and storing... Any way.

 

[tarahtt]

Yummy!

 

[jerryse]

Wow jerryse. Nice hybrid, great squash! I've had some great hybrids in the past ( mostly accidents) my favourite was a sweet mama currie type cross spaghetti. It was a giant! And tasty too, sweet with the pronounced spaghetti strands. So what is your preferred seed saving method? Any tips? I ferment most of my "wet" seeds before drying and storing... Any way.

For squash I just scoop them out and separate the seeds out by hand . Air dry them on paper or paper towels until they break not bend . I ferment tomato seeds . I always tinker with breeding seeds . Mostly squash and popcorn . Tried green beans this year . I will find out next year if they are truly hybrid .

 

[lazy gardener]

There's a gardener who lives about 1.5 miles from me. I've often bought squash from him. 2 years ago, I bought the biggest butter cup squash he had. It was massive. I saved the seeds and planted them last year. They were planted in a single hill along with seeds from my usual variety. In that one hill which was about 4' x 3' I harvested 185# of squash. I weighed them, and couldn't believe that yield. I still have quite a few seeds left for next year. Interestingly, last year, he had the usual variety of small butter cup. I save seeds every year. Cucurbits are the easiest. I've never done any deliberate crossing, and try to grow only one variety of an OP if I plan to save seeds. But I'm not too proud to try saving seeds from hybrids.

Hennible: My "LG" name refers to my preferred gardening method: I keep my garden under layers of mulch. I don't till, unless opening up new ground. I often sheet or trench compost. Why cart the stuff off your garden to a compost pile, tend it in a compost pile, only to cart it back to the garden when it's finished. I often let seeds from this year's crop fall to the ground for next year's crop. If my lettuce goes to seed, but I want to have lettuce someplace different next year, I just yank the plants out of the ground and lay them where next year's crop will be. Garlic? I only harvest what I need, leaving the rest in the ground as a perennial crop. Garlic scapes go to seed and produce an abundance of heads for future use. My garden is a wild hodge podge of produce mixed in with the weeds that manage to make their way through the mulch. I don't view weeds as a horrible thing, unless they are crowding out a vegetable plant. (free cover crops... or green manure) I've purposefully left a lot in the garden this year, so when the girls get turned loose in the garden after first frost, they'll have a bonanza of seeds. If potatoes manage to evade harvest in the fall, they'll sprout in the spring. Sometimes, i move them to where I intend the next crop to be, other times, I just throw some mulch over them, and step over them throughout the growing season. My best crop of potatoes was one I never planted. I had volunteers sprout in my corn patch. They were absolutely huge, producing better than the potatoes I planted that year.