Seed Bouquet

Encouraged by Ottawa Gardener, I made a seed bouquet. She's challenging people to post a photo of a seed-saving bouquet on blogs. It was just the motivation I needed to clip some seeds that I've been meaning to harvest.In my bouquet are cilantro/coriander seeds,
Carrot seeds (look like queen anne's lace), and winterbor kale seeds (gray and spiky seed pods).
I won't get many seeds from the kale as I left them in the garden too long. Many fell apart as I picked them. That's not such a bad thing as I may get volunteer plants. I still have plenty of seeds from the original seed packet and since these were only saved from one plant I may just use them for making sprouts to eat this winter.

Since the seeds were so fragile, I put each variety in it's own paper bag to hang to dry in my attic. You can find out the contest details here.

Seed Saving

Here are some plants that I will be saving seeds from this year.

From my cold frame at the old house I transplanted:
One Winterbor kale,

six to ten assorted carrots,
two Chicory or Italian Dandelions,
and five to ten mache plants.

In the new garden I found four red kale that survived the winter after being pushed over and buried under the snow. I don't have any red kale seeds so I'm excited to expand my collection with these.

I have the kale plants at opposite ends of the garden so they don't cross pollinate. I'm looking forward to having more free seeds from these plants!