Seeds And Stratification - Summer

Wild saskatoons finally ripe, for the next couple weeks the bushes all around our place have these tastey purple berries. they're smaller than cultivar ones, but they flower and ripen on a slightly different schedule and they have the most flavour. I'll collect a pail for seed extraction (and jam) and we'll have stock to grow in the nursery next year and keep our seed shop supplied. native in Manitoba, no one planted these and they're common around the forest margins here, with chokecherry, wild raspberry and beaked hazel. i think cold hardy to zone 2 (we get some -40 here every winter), saskatoon (amelanchier alnifolia) never have any winter injury.

Ribes glandulosum, a favorite native currant with edible and armed fruit. they have a low sprawling shape to the bushes, the leaves and fruit are interesting, a good addition to a native plant garden. these were collected from wild stands and I'm growing out another ascension from seed from the usda. it's called skunk currant but I haven't found the reason, sometimes common names are poorly chosen. glandulosum is better, describing the cool glands on stalks all over the fruit.

White transparent, an old french cultivar from the 1800s, the seeds are just right there.. sweet tasting. one of the new plants in our Ribes collection this year, should be able to take some cuttings next summer.

Northern red oak growing in some flats. It's borderline cold hardy here in zone 3, the seed was from northern Quebec.

Paper birch, eight weeks old. stratified in some damp vermiculite jan through march, then planted into flats on the surface in april. the seed needs some light to germinate so just a thin amount of potting mix or perlite / vermiculite to hold a bit of moisture, and I kept a humidity dome over them for the first month.

Scots pine, directly seeded from stored seed (no special conditioning / stratification needed) here at 8 weeks old

Canada wild plum. I collect seed from all around MB, here is a small accession with some amount of hybridization growing in the greenhouse. I'll keep these to grow out. an accession is just a plant growing from one specific source, you might keep track of it separately if you suspect there's some genetic variation that makes it different in an interesting way. for prunus nigra, I'm looking for trees that grow well in our sandy soil, hold up to the winter extremes, flower early, are true to type in their leaves and fruit. only by collecting seed from various places over time can I build up a germplasm that starts to represent this native plum tree, which is considered the best pollinator for hybrid plums, flowering heavily and lots of pollen, a good tree form with less suckering than american wild plum, and larger fruit.

Jacob's ladder seedlings. this is the first year I've grown them, some will go into a bed or large pots where we can collect seed in the fall. this is sort of the plan with all the wild flowers, a project in progress to be fully self sufficient with as many of our seed lots as we can

Tobacco seedlings, about ready to pot up. it's almost july and I started these late, but the plants are fast growing and I'm hopeful they have time to flower and set seed before frost in september. tobacco seeds are tiny, several would make up a sand grain. I surface sow them and keep watered, careful not to let them wash away. then divide them up into pots for a while, plant then into a bed when they've larger.

Sea buckthorn seedlings, from seed I collected in the fall from a bush that was nearly thornless. I was kind of a treat just stripping the fruit off the small branches without finding the usual spines tipping every small branch. Usually when you collect sea buckthorn, it's just easier to prune some branches. The seedlings will have been pollinate by a male plant somewhere nearby so the thornless trait will likely show up in some but not all of the seedlings. Maybe I should take some cuttings..

Wolf willow, a native shrub with blue green leaves. a nitrogen fixing, non invasive alternative to some of the other notorious suspects in this genus. here I've cold stratified the seeds for three months from jan though march, and then are about two months from planting, our greenhouse gets frost at night though april so the cold oscillation can help finish off the cold conditioning to get the seeds to germinate.

Tobacco seedlings started about one month ago in the greenhouse. they're a fast grow annual, even in our short 3-4 month growing season in southern MB these will get up to size and flower, and you can collect the leaves to you know roll cigars if you're adventurous. I like to grow them for the bees and to keep up our seed stock, they're topped with an attractive cluster of long persisting flowers into the fall. I'll transplant them into pots soon and plant around the nursery where they'll get watered.

Northline saskatoon seedlings. stratified for three months, jan through march and planted in the greenhouse early april. they're small tree seeds so giving them a month or two in pots like this to size up before transplanting can work well. while these aren't exactly the large fruiting northline cultivar, they're going to be very similar - and saskatoons are tricky to propagate from cuttings so I would recommend growing them from seed.

Narrow leaved echinacea, a native species. growing in the greenhouse, the seeds were cold stratified in a fridge through feb and march then planted into these pots in early april - about two months ago. they're at a good size now to transplant into their own pots. this is a good demonstration of cold stratification and just time to get perennial flowers going from seed, the approach where you just plant in early spring into pots and water for a couple of months is a good way to let the cold spring nights finish off the cold conditioning the seeds need to germinate. worth noting that these are in part shade and watered daily, because a greenhouse on a sunny hot day can be an oven.

Garrington choke cherries, a selection with larger fruit, vigorous growth and large loosely spaced clusters. in the fall they're alright to eat off the tree, the later they go in the season the higher the brix, and despite the name chokecherries when ripe can be mild with low astringency, I suspect the name is related to their high tannin content. I've grafted out a few cultivars, garrington among them but I think it may not be a cultivar - the pfra in Canada grew seedlings and distributed them, so I've found shelterbelt rows of garrington where each tree had slightly different fruit, even different shape like the oxheart chokecherry seed we collected last year with pointed football shape seeds, which are normal close to round, slightly oblong

Life hack: use your social media to create a blog. every post I make on instagram/fb is now nightly moved into my blog posts, my social media compilations hosted on my own site, where I can control the format and the composition, where google will find them, you can easily browse older posts and see the whole story play out. and where there are posts about relevant seeds or plants that are in our shop, I'm linking to to them to just give folks better information, a better experience to learn about growing that plant and some photos about what's worked for me and some behind the scenes about how I'm growing them. I don't scroll social media, the bottomless bowl - I get it but it's not for me, but I do enjoy encaging with people, talking to others who are interested in this stuff. The best way to interact with my posts or if you find my blog, leave me a comment - save the likes they're just for the algorithm. So these blog posts - I'm taking back my ideas my thought and photos and doing my own thing with them, really - instram is now just a handy phone app to post to my blog, feels like I've life hacked the big social media app and jailbroken it, of course they could offer a better front end a better exerience like I've built - they just don't want to (enshitification, walled garden, attention highjacking - they only show you what's new and grabs your attention). I've seen others post that they're leaving social media for mental health reasons and I totally get it. Hopefully what I'm creating - a blog with hundreds of my posts arranged like a magazine, in a format on a topic, no ads, no dancing videos, just information and thoughts and questions - hopefully this offers another way to take all of this in for those who don't want to scroll in the big apps. find these on my site link in bio just scroll to the bottom and there's topics called social media compilations, it's a work in progress - and now anything i've posted this year surfaces to the top.

Nannyberry seedlings. tricky to grow because of the deep dormancy. these germinated after a short warm strat in early winter, and they seem to like to hold and stay dormant at this stage, I kept them in the fridge four months then planted in the greenhouse.

Wolf willow, native Elaeagnus comutata is this attractive, resilient shrub with silver-green leaves. it's related to russian olive, this is just a smaller native prairie species. collected a decent amount of seeds from roadside stands, will have them back in stock on my seed shop in sept. also potted trees next month.

Checking on some milkweed, as soon as the pods start to brown and come open it's time to collect them.

Cherry prinsepia seedlings with their trypophobic seeds. slow to germinate, but just left in some bins of peat moss in the root cellar for a couple of months the percentage was high.

Douglas fir cones, very distinctive strands on them, from a large arboretum tree growing in zone 3 MB, at the frank skinner arboretum. picked up some old cones, after drying in the dehumidifier happy to find seeds were still inside.. so will try growing a few next spring. some research into rocky mountain douglas fir turns up that the most cold hardy selection could be zone 3/4, so this surely is what I've got. maybe just needs to grow in a shelter spot.

Linden, Tilia cordata. going to try remember to collect seed this fall.

Potting up some ginko. the seeds are cool they stick around like a nut.. ginko is one of the oldest living tree species, its from the jurassic. doesn't flower and produces naked seeds without a fruit. It's the only surviving Ginkgophyta an ancient group of seed plants. they can borderline survive outside in zone 3, but more of a warmer zone 4 tree. #ginko #ginkobiloba

Caragana seed, collecting it now before all of the pods pop open. you need to time it when they start to turn brown, and before it hits the ground. unless you use a tarp. I collected a couple of brown shopping bags, and they can air dry in there for a week or two, then I'll finish them in the dehydrator on low heat, sounds like popcorn. #seedsaving

Checking the wild sarsaparilla seeds, just starting to ripen. depends on the year, sometimes they ready now. I just collect them for seed, but they would also make a great plant dye, intense purple

Butternuts, the large nuts stay attached like a battery that drives initial growth. some of the nuts are slow to germinate so I keep them in bins in our root cellar, once they're sprouted they can get potted up. so far I prefer this method to an air prune bed, but it's more work.

Collection of wild Ribes from seed are doing well, this is plant followed by it's tag.. yah the tags are temporary. collecting this germplasm is one step on the way to propagating these, and eventually using them for our own seed source, or breeding work. all of these species are super cold hardy and resilient in our climate, produce edible fruit, and have unique characteristics. native currants and gooseberries are not easy to find from any Canadian nursery, maybe you can get one, but you want the whole collection right? something about spikey fruit is just cool.

Cherry prinsepia bush, Prinsepia sinensis an unusual shrub with tiny hooked thorns hidden in the branches, and a sour fruit with trypophobic seeds. I collected seed from this stand last fall and got it to germinate, it does have a deep dormancy. trying out some softwood cuttings to see how they root. probably a good alternative to barberry, and a larger shrub than a goji, more people should grow this one

Western sandcherry from seed this spring, collected from a neighbour's hansen bush cherries. they were excellent tasting, no idea yet if other sandcherries are as good. so this population will be kept separate from the ones I've been growing for apricot rootstocks, and will be used for breeding hybrids. so many hybrids, I want to cross all the prunus. what do you get when you hybridize fruit with different colors and sizes, I feel driven to find out. sandcherry is an excellent starting point because its progeny will likely fruit early, and root from softwood. eg all the cherry plums, and black nanking.

Siberian stone pine. warm stratified one month, cold 3 months, and about 6 weeks in the greenhouse in a shady spot in this bag. I potted up a plug tray, and will wait for more. could I just plant all the seeds? yes, but this wait for it to sprout method works good for larger seeds.

Jerusalem artichoke seeds, germination test. cold stratified just on some damp paper towel in the fridge may 6-june 1 and then set on top of the fridge so room temp to germinate. today is june 10, and these are a few days old. you need to do this cold step for these and many perennial seeds to germinate, otherwise plant outside in early spring and the soil and nighttime temperatures should be cold enough. #jerusalemartichokes

Seeds from the usda National Clonal Germplasm Repository (COR), approved my request for a few native currant and gooseberry species, thankful because I'm building a collection and some are hard to find, and even then takes time to grow them out and ID. these are from carefully documented sources in their gene bank essentially. excited for such a small seedling, in some cases this seed was over ten years old and I only have 5 of them to germinate. amazed to see germination rates quite good. I find a good place to do this is under the greenhouse bench, it stays humid and in the shade.

Amur grape germinating after five months of stratification. One way to know your seed is ready is when any of them start to sprout in the bag, easier to plant at this stage. These went into plug trays 2-3 per cell, will see how they do.

Collecting american elm today. the viability stays up there if you collect it right after dropping, air dry thoroughly and refrigerate. elm is unusual because it drops in june, and the seed can germinate right away, within a week. so if there's some rain, all the seed is gone within a week. year old seed I've test still has a good germination rate. should you plant elm? I don't know, it's hard to be down on a whole genus, american elms are nice trees and can get large even in areas where there is dutch elm disease. If you don't have a tonne of elm around then the disease pressure will be very minimal. It's both things, the city here isn't planting new elms, but there are plenty of old ones and they're nice shady trees.

Ginko. what a cool seed to grow, very old species. the roots are fibrous out of the seed, unusual. These are probably zone 4-5 trees, though there are some growing outside locally here in Manitoba in city yards, I heard in one case the tree was established as bonsai, maybe the older thicker bark is more cold resilient. #ginko

Ohio buckeye, a cool tree with large seeds that grow in spikey pods, attractive compound leaves. I collected a small number before the squirrels got the rest. Kind of a crazy seed the size of a chestnut.

Collecting sea buckthorn, these tree were loaded. a bit over ripe but perfect for seed. Likely the iPFRA seed strain Indian-Summer.#seabuckthorn

Wolf willow seeds almost ripe. they get soft and them the inside goes powdery, seeds turn dark brown.

My approach to isolation, to produce true to type tomato and pepper seeds. so far so good. anyone else ever try this?

Ribes odoratum, ribes rubrum .. old bushes I planted in 2001. collecting a bag of each today for seed.

Manchurian apricot seeds are in stock, apricots cold hardy to -40C/F. I'll be growing these in our nursery and should have enough to make them available on our seed shop.

Stinging nettle, right now the seeds/pods are green, this is a good time to collect them for tea or all of the medicinal stuff. I wait for them to turn brown then collect them for seed. Generally, let the seeds mature and brown on the plant. Sometimes this gets tricky, quite a few plants can quickly drop their seed when it's ripe, there is some skill and experience needed do collect wildflower seeds.. so far I just do the easy ones.

Caragana seeds ready to harvest, the window is just a couple of weeks before the pods pop open in a spiral and drop the seeds. siberian pea shrub grows easily from seed, no stratification needed. it creates a dense rhizomal spreading hedge, or can be trained with a single trunk as an attractive small tree, I've seen some nice ones carefully pruned niwaki style.

Acorns still viable after storage for 10 months in refrigeration. These are white oak, and I ship them worldwide in an envelope. At this point I'm just selecting the sprouty ones, any that haven't produced a small radical by now probably aren't viable, acorns are recalcitrant meaning you can't dry them and they only store for a limited time.

Collecting wild sarsaparilla seeds

Clematis seed pods right out of dr seuss

Wild sarsaparilla covering this forest path. other characters include wild licorice, wild raspberry. last year the seed was ripe this week, this year maybe because of more rain they're later.

Rhubarb grows quickly from seed, if you're going to save some make sure to bag it. Seeds are ripe when brown, let air dry. #seedsaving #rhubarb

Isolating our tomato and pepper plants for seed. so far so good.

Butternuts locally sourced in zone 3. first time growing, I find they take their time or just wait for warm weather to germinate. these are 4-8 weeks out of stratification in the greenhouse, just now steadily germinating. slower than the buartnut and japanese walnut, at least from these seed sources this year. my black walnut are also still coming up. anyone else find the same?

Almost done planting. next up straw mulch, drip tape, hoops and isolation netting. this system of tunnel isolation with alternating tomato and pepper plants has been on my mind since last fall, a system for growing heirloom varieties for seed. and for tomato sandwiches.

Canada mayflower covers the forest floor along our trails, collecting seeds but stuff eats them soon after they turn red. Does anyone know if I collect stems with not quite red yet fruit attached if it will ripen after picking? collecting for seed. #seedsaving

Riverbank grape from seed.

Virginia creeper seeds are ripe when the little grape-like fruits turn blue. This patch of vines where I like to collect are old and overtaking a stand of chokecherry.#seedsaving #virginiacreeper

Buckwheat seed ready to collect, seems to go on flowering for a long while. #buckwheat

Jerusalem artichokes from seed on left (first photo) and from tubers on right. you can see the from seed ones are still larger and started to flower. I started them in the spring and they went out as transplants so not equal growing time - but this shows that you can get plants as big from seed in the first year. 3rd photo is 2 more beds grown from tubers of other cultivars. hoping they all flower soon so we can try for some more seed collected locally. #jerusalemartichoke #sunchokes

Cleaning wild raspberry seed. I process them in a modified blender and then decant until clean, the seeds will sink and the rest floats, works well for most berries with small seeds. #seedsaving

Lime basil getting one final haircut before bagging for isolation. these extra large organza bags will keep all the pollinators off and ensure the seeds are true to type. I might even add some additional netting. #seedsaving #basil

Keeping an eye on seeds that are not quite ripe yet. good indicators are color and when they were collected last year, but it's sometimes a small window that shifts by weeks. #seedsaving

Jersusalem artichoke flowers attracting some cool pollinators. the seedling plants from this year have been flowering for a few weeks, and the other cultivars started from tubers in may are about to start. skeptical that we have a long enough growing season here to collect seed without keep them in a greenhouse. next year.

Raspberry seeds just hanging out of the sun dried fruit, the heat wave here has been drying out everything.

Bagging heirloom tomato flowers to try and ensure their seeds are true to type. Tomato flowers self pollinate if you can keep the bees away. This seems to work well on a small scale, and the technique carries over to controlled crosses. Wondering if I should try some . #tomatoes #seedsaving

Organza bags to keep peppers from cross pollinating. Does anyone have experience with this, should it be as good as distance separation? pollen is smaller than the holes, but for a self pollinating flower wind pollination should be almost zero, at least I've read it is for tomato. I have all pepper plants bagged and 5-10 ft separation, hoping it's 99.9% for making true to type seed. #seedsaving

Collecting caragana seeds yesterday. They ripen unevenly, so some pods were green, others were popped open and empty, the rest were tan brown and ripe. Siberian pea shrub is easy to grow from seed, no stratification needed and you can have 3 ft seedlings after a few months. They're usually grown as a hedge, but if pruned as a single small tree they can look very attractive.

Basil project, photos before I let them go to seed. Here's 10 of the 30 types I'm growing for seed production. .. first one is dark opal, followed by: .. licorice, toscano, persian, lettuce leaf, lime, corsican, holy, cinnamon, last is west african #basil

Collecting comfrey seeds, just cutting the spent flowers with ripe seed and letting them dry on the stem in an organza bag. I just tossed the bag in the patch, will check back when more are ready. #seedsaving #comfrey

I photo journal all summer to track the unripe fruit and seeds, to log how ripe they were and when, how many there were, etc and it's incredibly useful to look back on if you're into seed collecting or picking wild fruit. I also like go keep a google sheet to record when I collected seed and where to plan, useful because its free and shared with my phone and laptop #seedsaving

Collected some black currants yesterday, happy to find these. They're overripe but its good because while I'll eat a few they're mostly for seeds. Bush was a large seven year old ben series in need of a good pruning. #seedsaving

Project tomato seeds - heirloom tomato bagged to ensure true to type seed. Tomatoes are self pollinating, but bees can sometimes cross them. This summer I'm growing 45 of the coolest heirloom tomatoes for #seedsaving

Wolf willow, Elaeagnus commutata from locally collected seed

Blue spice basil.. germinating after two months. maybe the seed was old, or maybe this one needs some bottom heat. also had a slow time germinating green pepper basil and west african basil, they took a month on a heat mat. interested to know if anyone else has had the same experience. #basil

Checking on some comfrey flowers, i think they bloom from the bottom up so if these were bagged now most of the flowers will have been pollinated. #seedsaving

Project peppers, just potted them up and I'm trying these large organza bags to keep the seeds true type. these little plants can't hold back making peppers, I carefully removed every open flower before bagging. wondering how far apart to space them in case of wind cross pollination, or how unlikely that is with the bags.

Redosier dogwood. when these are all white I'll be out collecting seed

Comfrey flowering. I'm out of comfrey seed so will be collecting it when ever it's ready

Rhubarb seed ripens fast so if you want to keep it, these organza bags from amazon are perfect. using this same approach for tomatoes and peppers to keep pollinators off the flowers and ensure true to type seed without needing go space the plants far apart. #seedsaving

Purple lilacs from seed, common purple lilac

Vitus riparia, or riverbank grape germinating after a long six months in cold stratification, in a bag with damp paper towel and in a fridge crisper. #seedgermination

Tray of jersusalem artichokes about one month old from seed. #jerussalemartichokes

A chokeberry bush I've been propagating and collecting seed from. last photo is seedlings growing from dropped fruit. #chokeberry

Jerusalem artichoke started from seed this spring, happy to see some early flowers knowing that they need a long season to finish #jerusalemartichoke

Potting basil propagated from cuttings. my basil project this summer is to grow as many types as possible. they're going into pots and spaced to avoid cross pollination for seed collection. i might have 20 types growing, many are separate species with interesting characteristics. #basil

Stratified prunus americana seeds before planting today. They've been in damp sand in refrigeration for six months. I could have planted a couple of weeks ago, just needed to make a screened in bed for squirrel protection.

Virginia creeper from seed some time in March. they're up to the ceiling and still in small 2.5" pots. I would say you can get plants the size the garden centers sell in a just few months from seed. They way I usually grow these is from softwood or semi-hardwood in July, but seeds seem just as fast to establish new plants. #virginiacreeper #propagation

Wild tobacco have good germination at about one week, no stratification needed. while I don't smoke, I think this could be a useful plant for the natural pesticide properties in the nicotine. I'm going to pick about 6 of these seedlings to grow ;) #wildtobacco #aztectobacco

The following seeds are: wild sarsaparilla, wild raspberry, red elderberry, snowberry, Siberian peashrub, rhubarb

American hazel, collected for seed. Going to add these to our etsy shop and website by the weekend. #americanhazelnut #hazelnut #hazelnuts

Rhubarb seeds forming. Looking forward to planting these. #rhubarb

Korean pine just germinating now. Stratified indoors for a few months and planted out in May, these guys sure take their time to come up. The Red pine and Jack pine we planted germinated a month ago. Very cool to see how large these seedlings are, several times the size of other pines. #koreanpine #pinetrees

Excited to see our monster rhubarb plant is bolting, I grew dozens of rhubarb from seeds over the winter and while it's usually advised to use division I found they grow very fast from seed, we had plants the size you see in a garden center in the one gallon pots after 12 weeks under the grow lights. Looking forward to propagating this one. I planted it three years ago but forgot the variety, I know it makes good pies and has leaves over 2' wide. Around our orchard we're starting to use rhubarb the same way you use comfrey. #rhubarb #propagation

Bur oak a few days after germination. I've noticed our oak and hazelnut trees are still germinating, we had frost in the first week of June and it seems to make them wait. I mulched our beds again today and reinstalled the squirrel deterrent hardware cloth. #acron #germination

Bur oak acorns planted in the fall are germinating. squirrel protection is holding up. I'll wait a few weeks then take the mesh off, not sure yet how long they're at risk from squirrel foraging #acorn #oaktree #acorns

An old jack pine, as large as I've ever seen one. collected some cones for seed. #jackpine

Trying some succession in our nursery beds. we combined conifers in many of our beds with faster growing trees because they do well with some shade and need two years to grow before transplant. the River birch on the left will grow a couple of feet while the pine will be a few inches tall by the fall. The soil gets disturbed when we lift the birch but if it's done when the pine are dormant they seem to recover. A third layer of succession - we've started planting peas and beans in the beds with slow growing trees to improve the soil and add some shade. In addition we have some seeds that need two seasons in the ground like Hawthorne to germinate, these beds will be annuals this year. Last year we used shade cloth on our transplants, so far this year it hasn't been needed but the small conifers may need some shade in July/august. If the legumes get too big or when the crop is done we'll cut them to the ground and mulch the beds with them. working to get the most out of our beds.

Collecting wild red osier dogwood berries for seed. We have these growing from softwood cuttings and also planning seed beds this fall. #propagation #nativeplants

Highbush cranberries require patience to grow from seed - collected a bag today but they'll need a long warm stratification that begins next spring, so the seed planted this fall will wait until spring of 2023 to germinate. #cranberry #highbushcranberry