• Home
  • Features
  • Talks
  • Learn with me

Sally Nex

~ Sustainable food growing

Sally Nex

Tag Archives: parsnips

Running to seed

24 Friday Jul 2009

Posted by sallynex in seeds

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

collecting seed, kale, leeks, parsnips, seedheads

Though I say it myself, I’ve been doing rather well with saving seed this year.

I’ve had a go with peas and beans before – they’re the beginners’ babysteps of seed as they just obligingly stay in the pods and dry themselves.

But this year I’ve got all ambitious. Here are my leeks from last year, which got left over in a container on my patio (I was having an experiment with growing veg in pots last year – it doesn’t work well for leeks, at least not in my garden where they’ve stayed spring-onion slender).

First of all, they’ve been the most beautiful allium blooms in the garden for the last month. They opened after the main allium display was over and have been flowering their socks off very charmingly ever since. It’s given me all sorts of interesting ideas for the main flower borders.

But more to the point, there are seeds in them thar flowerheads and I intend to let them dry and then collect them by muffling them in paper bags, turning them upside down and shaking vigorously. Then I’ll see what I end up with next year – they won’t come true, but then these were a fairly bog-standard leek variety so that shouldn’t be a problem.


Now these have been delighting me since early spring – this is the dried version, but in full flower it was a glorious brassy yellow umbel borne fully 6 feet above ground.

For those who haven’t already guessed: it’s a parsnip. And a truly lovely one at that. The only slight setback is that it’s covered in blackfly – can’t think what they’re finding to eat in those papery stems. It’s keeping the ladybirds happy, but I don’t know if it’s going to affect how good the seed is.

And this has been a real surprise: I munched my way through the kale last winter (it’s “Dwarf Green Curled”, or rather, was) but sort of forgot to take the plants out in the spring rush, and they’ve flowered.

Brassica flowers all look much the same – nice enough, but yellow flowers which are a bit too straggly to be called beautiful. The seedheads are something else though: architectural and full of texture (and, of course, seeds). Again, they’re very tall – not quite at parsnip height but still a good five foot.

They’re now very dry and brittle and due to snap open at any moment – I really must capture a branch or two and upend them into a bag before they explode all over the place and the seeds are lost to the four winds.

Here’s a glimpse of what’s inside: they break open just like peas in a pod to reveal those very typical brassica seeds, each with its own little dent in the soft white down that coats the inside of each pod.

It’s all a rather wonderful experiment, and I’m finding it a bit of a revelation that not only has it given me free seed for next year – it’s also made me look at my veg through new eyes. They may be confined to the allotment this year, but next year I think they’ll be making a bid for the borders…

Indoor gardening

01 Thursday Jan 2009

Posted by sallynex in Uncategorized

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

frost, global warming, New Year, parsnips, resolutions

Frost has stopped play. The pond hasn’t defrosted for a week, and part of the lawn is permanently white. As for the allotment… we had to go and buy some parsnips the other day as the ones I’ve grown so lovingly are now concreted in to a rock-hard veg bed (yeah, I know, should have lifted them and heeled them in somewhere sandier, didn’t get around to it).

The BBC’s rather awe-inspiring monthly weather forecast says this will carry on for the rest of January, as it’s caused by a wodge of high pressure that’s apparently “notoriously difficult to budge”. Oh help. I’ll be reduced to making curtains soon.

Anyway, I’m trying to comfort myself with the thought of millions of tiny slugs freezing solid, and meanwhile doing some indoor gardening. This is long overdue: I’m very late in planning my seed order, which I must send off this week as otherwise the spuds won’t be chitting in time. I’ve also, at last, come up with a coherent design for the front garden, and I’ll be measuring up those bits of the back garden I’m not already digging up shortly – all part of the Great Garden Makeover of course. The only trouble with plans is, you then have to put them into some sort of action… which in my case almost always means half-finished projects all over the garden as the summer rush takes over yet again.

I’ve also been making some New Year’s Resolutions to ring in 2009. A bit of a pointless exercise, of course, but I like to see how quickly I jettison them each year. This year, they are more informed at least thanks to all this blogging (mine but more frequently other people’s).

  • I’m going to start a diary (I do this every year. Never got past March yet. At least I know what I was doing in early spring back to about 1975).
  • While I’m taking those photos for Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day each month, I’m also going to photograph the whole of my garden, warts and all, as a record of all these improvements I’m making (this of course will be strictly not for publication: all photography found on this blog is a triumph of the macro lens over reality).
  • I’m going to start some of those projects I’m planning (see above)
  • I’m going to finish some of those projects I’m planning (see above)
  • I shall try not to get impatient when my eight-year-old wants to plant tulips in my potato beds, but shall let her with a beneficent smile in the interests of keeping her gardening (and will secretly replant the tulips back in the same spot after harvesting the potatoes).
  • My reading of other people’s blogs shall not take over my working life
  • … and nor will surreptitious trips to the allotment when I should be at my desk
  • I shall cram in as much knowledge as I can about gardening, plants and plantspeople, and hopefully end the year a better gardener.

Right, that’ll do for now. I wish everyone who drops by this blog from time to time all the very best for 2009. Happy New Year!

Subscribe

  • Entries (RSS)
  • Comments (RSS)

Archives

  • February 2021
  • October 2020
  • September 2020
  • March 2020
  • January 2020
  • September 2017
  • June 2017
  • May 2017
  • March 2017
  • February 2017
  • January 2017
  • November 2016
  • October 2016
  • September 2016
  • August 2016
  • June 2016
  • May 2016
  • April 2016
  • March 2016
  • February 2016
  • January 2016
  • December 2015
  • November 2015
  • August 2015
  • July 2015
  • June 2015
  • May 2015
  • April 2015
  • March 2015
  • January 2015
  • December 2014
  • July 2014
  • June 2014
  • May 2014
  • April 2014
  • March 2014
  • November 2013
  • October 2013
  • May 2013
  • April 2013
  • March 2013
  • February 2013
  • January 2013
  • October 2012
  • September 2012
  • August 2012
  • July 2012
  • May 2012
  • April 2012
  • March 2012
  • February 2012
  • January 2012
  • December 2011
  • November 2011
  • October 2011
  • September 2011
  • August 2011
  • July 2011
  • June 2011
  • May 2011
  • April 2011
  • March 2011
  • February 2011
  • January 2011
  • December 2010
  • November 2010
  • October 2010
  • September 2010
  • August 2010
  • July 2010
  • June 2010
  • May 2010
  • April 2010
  • March 2010
  • February 2010
  • January 2010
  • December 2009
  • November 2009
  • October 2009
  • September 2009
  • August 2009
  • July 2009
  • May 2009
  • March 2009
  • February 2009
  • January 2009
  • December 2008
  • November 2008
  • October 2008
  • September 2008
  • August 2008
  • July 2008
  • June 2008
  • May 2008
  • April 2008
  • March 2008
  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007
  • November 2007
  • October 2007
  • September 2007
  • June 2007
  • May 2007
  • April 2007
  • March 2007
  • February 2007
  • January 2007
  • December 2006
  • November 2006
  • October 2006
  • September 2006
  • August 2006

Categories

  • book review
  • chicken garden
  • children gardening
  • climate change
  • container growing
  • cutting garden
  • design
  • education
  • end of month view
  • exotic edibles
  • France
  • Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day
  • garden design
  • garden history
  • garden words
  • gardening without plastic
  • Gardens of Somerset
  • giveaways
  • greenhouse
  • herbs
  • kitchen garden
  • landscaping
  • my garden
  • new plants
  • new veg garden
  • news
  • overseas gardens
  • Painting Paradise
  • permaculture
  • pick of the month
  • plant of the month
  • pond
  • poultry
  • pruning
  • recipes
  • seeds
  • self sufficiency
  • sheep
  • shows
  • sustainability
  • this month in the garden
  • Uncategorized
  • unusual plants
  • videos
  • walk on the wild side
  • wildlife gardening
  • wordless wednesday

Meta

  • Register
  • Log in

Create a free website or blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy