Do-it-yourself gardening: seeds

Gathering seed and cuttings from favourite plants in your own garden, or those in the gardens of friends and family, is a rewarding and economical way to swell your borders’ ranks. Turn your attentions to your vegetable garden, and you can become self-sufficient ad infinitum.

What you need...

With some basic equipment, such as a sharp knife, some pots, compost and the simplest of techniques, you can create whole borders for free, with plenty of extra plants to swap or give as gifts.

Border plants

A host of plants, such as pot marigold, love-in-a-mist, hollyhocks, evening primrose, foxglove and lady’s mantle, self-seed. Collecting seed or cuttings from the parent plant is an easy way to introduce more of the same into your own garden.

Most annuals, biennials and herbaceous perennials produce seed at the end of the season, usually autumn, when they have finished performing, in order to guarantee their place for the following year.

Sowing seeds

The fastest way to see results is by sowing seed in dug-over ground that is clear of stones and weeds and has been raked until fine and crumbly. Thin seedlings as the ranks swell, and be prepared to lose some seedlings to slugs, snails and birds.

The classic time to sow seed is spring, after the last frosts, but you can get a head start on hardy plants (hollyhock, larkspur, California poppy, stock and pansies among others) by sowing in the autumn. Often, seed will germinate into still-warm earth within a few days of sowing, and continue to slowly grow throughout the winter, ready to start producing
blooms as soon as the weather warms up in the spring.

If your seeds are especially precious, pot them into seed trays in the greenhouse or on a sunny windowsill.

Food from seed

Seed from melon, gourd, squash or pumpkins can be harvested as and when you eat them. You’ll need as much flesh removed as possible, before spreading the seed onto kitchen paper and letting them dry out naturally.

Seed from most berries can be acquired in a similar way, without the need to ferment. Put your berries into a fine sieve and squash them under running water until they are well mashed, then put the fruit pulp into a jar of water and let it settle. The viable seed will sink and the flesh will float. Carefully pour out the liquid so that the seed stays in the jar. Dry the seed on kitchen paper and store it.

How to harvest seed

Timing is everything to ensure you catch seed before it falls naturally to the floor blooms as soon as the weather warms up in the spring.
● Snip the seed head from your chosen plants.
● Hang plants upside down over a container, then tip the seed into a paper bag, which will continue to let the seed dry.
● Separate chaff from smaller seed by shaking or rubbing flower heads
through a dry, fine sieve.
● Dry them off inside. 

Storing seed

All clean, dried seed should be stored in containers. Sealed and labelled paper or plastic bags, envelopes, recycled plastic tubs with lids, or jam jars with tightly fitted lids are all fine, so long as they are clearly marked – you’d be surprised how quickly it is to forget what the seeds
are. Store in a cool, dry place, or even in the fridge, and seed will remain viable for at least a year or two, if not more.

Take cuttings

Cuttings are another simple way to propagate herbaceous perennials and shrubs. The easiest cuttings are taken from plant-stem tips, but you can also take cuttings from leaves or roots. There are two types of stem cuttings: softwood (taken from healthy, young, green stems in spring) and hardwood (where cuttings are taken from well-ripened current-season’s growth in autumn), but the method is the same. See how to take semi-ripe cuttings

Some plants are so eager to keep growing that you simply need to pop a stem in a jug of water on a sunny windowsill for it to begin rooting: mint, penstemon, and tradescantias will all root this way. Just take a stem, cut off the lower leaves and make a clean cut across the base with a sharp knife, before putting in water. Roots will appear in roughly two to three weeks, and are your cue to pot young plants into good compost and water often.

Other plants need a little more persuasion and can take anything from two weeks to four months to get roots – if in doubt, use both the water and regular cuttings method to aid success. Cuttings taken in late summer need to be protected from the cold over winter, preferably in a cold frame, before planting out in spring.

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