Hola,
We have been harvesting seeds this past week. We have calendula seeds as the plants have gone to seed. They are self-setters, but they are in a pot that we want to use to grow vegetables over the winter, so we decided to harvest the seeds. It’s pretty simple: you just leave the flower head on until it has gone brown and crispy, then remove and harvest the seeds. You get around 12 seeds per flower head.
We harvested sweet rocket, another self-setter. The whole plant had fallen over as they can grow to around 90 cm, so we pulled it out, allowing the seed pods to dry out. Then we removed them all from the plant. You have to split the seed pod, and there is a strip down the middle that holds seeds on both sides, so you get around 20 seeds per pod.
We harvested nasturtium seeds. These can be found on the spent flower head. They are very green, so we have put them aside to dry out. You get around five seeds per flower head.
We also harvested sweet pea seeds, but we are waiting for those to go brown and crispy, they produce a seed pod very similar to a pea pod. Its our first year harvesting seeds, our neighbour saw us doing it and said it looks like hard work it's not hard work it just takes time that is all and you're basically getting free seeds.
We joined the committee of the gardening club and are now the treasurer for the club, so we are learning all about that at the minute. It’s nice to be part of something again and to be treated with respect. I have spent quite a bit of time with the lovely chairperson, Linda, who gave me a tour of her beautiful garden and allotment last week. Both of which were incredible, by the way, and I was super impressed by her no-dig plot down the allotment and the companion planting. Linda also has lovely chickens. One day we would really like to have chickens and ducks.
We took part in a gardening club show competing this weekend. We didn’t get a place, but it was fun to take part and spend time with fellow plant enthusiasts. It was much smaller than the last one, and they had an auction towards the end, auctioning off anything that competition entrants left behind. There was a lot of slap-and-tickle comedy involved, and it had a lovely community feel to it. There is another one in a few weeks, so we plan to take part in that. We also fancy becoming a judge. We mentioned it, and then, low and behold, there was a leaflet all about a course running this winter for new judges, so we believe that it was possibly fate.
The stress is still at maximum levels in my life, and I seem to add to it a lot by taking more on. Lol. I need to get much better at managing my time, that is for sure. This week, we have to job hunt for 35 hours a week as per the job centre’s request, work 20-plus hours at my job, sort the back garden out, take my car to a garage to do diagnostics on it, attend the gardening club garden meeting, and store twice. I also need to make a batch of lip balm for a customer, attend a meeting at the job centre, sort the garden out more after erecting some garden shelves and painting one of them to keep everything in order. We need to pot up some indoor plants and do all the usual chores, as well as create posts for my social media accounts, which I have decided to post to less frequently as daily is just too much at the minute. I also would like to sow some seeds and do a spot of learning, as well as post to my membership site, and continue writing the two books I have on the go too.
Muchos love and thank you for taking the time out to read.