All posts by Jordan Charbonneau

Endless Blooms: How to Save Zinnia Seeds

Heirloom tomatoes and colorful corn varieties often garner much of the attention when we talk about seed saving, but it’s not just vegetables that have a rich history. Gardeners have saved and selected flower seeds for thousands of years. Zinnias, one of the easiest flowers to grow, are also easy to save seeds from to keep next year’s gardens full of blooms. Learn how to save zinnia seeds in a few simple steps.

Select Good, Open-Pollinated Plants

If you want to save seed, having an open-pollinated variety is best. Varieties can mostly be divided into two categories, hybrid and open-pollinated, with heirlooms falling under the open-pollinated umbrella. 

Hybrids are a first-generation cross between two parent varieties. As they are a cross, there’s no guarantee on what their seed will produce next year; they may revert to looking more like one of the parents rather than what you just grew. You can still save seed if you’re okay with a potential surprise.

Open-pollinated varieties are established varieties that produce “true-to-type.” You can save seeds from them year after year with little change unless you select for it. For example, if you only saved seeds from a particular shade bloom.

Red Beauty ZinniasAll of the zinnias we carry are open-pollinated.

The “good” part of this statement is somewhat relative. To start, try to save seeds from plants that have been healthy and vigorous. Avoid diseased plants, as some diseases, like powdery mildew, can remain on the seeds. Then, you can also focus on other characteristics like color, size, or bloom period. Essentially, save seeds from plants you think looked and performed the best in your garden.

Consider Cross-Pollination

If you’ve grown multiple varieties of zinnias, insects may have cross-pollinated them. To achieve pure seed, like what we sell, zinnia varieties need to be isolated by 1/2 mile. However, no rule says you need absolutely pure seed. It’s fine to save seed even if there’s been a little promiscuous pollination; you may get some fun surprise variation from next season’s flowers. 

Mature Zinnia Flower HeadAllow The Flowerheads to Dry

With any seeds, it’s essential to let them fully mature before harvesting to ensure good germination rates. For zinnias, this means that the flower heads, including the petals, should be brown and dry. When this happens, you’re ready to start saving seeds and can cut or pull the flowerheads from the plant.

Zinnias Seeds and Flower HeadProcess the Flowerheads

First, pull the petals off the flowerhead and set them aside for composting. Some seeds may come off with the petals. Then, rub the flowerhead over a flat surface until it comes apart to release the seeds. The seeds are brown and a bit arrow-shaped. Pick out any extra material you can and set it aside for composting.

Zinnia Seeds

Dry Your Zinnia Seeds

Allow your zinnia seeds to air dry on a towel or other flat surface for about one week. This will help ensure they’re fully dry and won’t mold in storage. 

Store Your Zinnia Seeds

After they’re fully dry, you can store your zinnia seeds. Place them in an airtight container somewhere cool and dark. Zinnia seeds can last 3 to 5 years if harvested and stored properly. 

Be sure to label your container with the variety and the year you harvested your seed. Once you start seed saving, it’s easy to save more, and you’ll need to keep track of your seeds!

 

Zinnias are easy to grow, and their long bloom period and variety of colors make them an excellent choice for any ornamental or cut flower garden. Saving your own zinnia seeds is simple! It’s also a great way to help steward an open-pollinated variety and save a bit of money. Follow these steps for success with zinnia seeds.

Cover Crops: Improve Clay Soils

Utisols, also known as red clay soils, are the most common soil type in the Southeastern United States. They’re what many Southern Exposure Seed Exchange customers and seed growers garden. While many gardeners may wish they had soft, dark loam, clay soils aren’t terrible. Like any soil, they come with their own set of advantages and disadvantages. In this post, we’ll discuss the features of clay soil and how you can use cover crops to improve it.

Advantages of Clay Soil

Clay soils aren’t perfect, but they come with their own set of advantages. Clay soil holds water for much longer than sandy soil, especially when you mulch it, helping you cut down on that water bill.

Clay soil is also high in nutrients and minerals that plants need, the perfect starting place for a garden. All of those tiny clay particles are also very good at holding onto nutrients from amendments that tend to leach out of sandy soil quickly. 

While clay soils are dense, that density helps perennial plants and fruit trees hold tightly to the ground and withstand wind, storms, and erosion better than in light, sandy soil. 

Disadvantages of Clay Soils

If you’ve ever had to till or dig garden beds in clay, you’re probably already familiar with one of the main disadvantages. Clay soil is heavy. This makes working it quite troublesome. When it’s wet, it’s heavy and sticky. When it’s dry, it’s often brick-like.

This same characteristic also means that clay soil compacts easily. Especially when the soil is wet, walking on it or using equipment on it can cause severe compaction. Heavy, dense clay soil can be especially tough to deal with if you’re hoping to grow root vegetables like carrots. 

Some of its advantages can have a negative side, too. If you live in boggy or low areas, clay soil’s ability to hold water isn’t ideal and can lead to issues like root rot. Additionally, its ability to hold little particles also means that it can hold onto bad particles like salt, and changing the soil’s pH may take some serious work. 

What Do Clay Soils Need?

The best thing you can do to amend clay soil is to add plenty of organic matter. There are many ways to add organic, including compost, mulch, leaf mold, peat moss, and cover crops.

Don’t add sand. It can be a tempting choice to improve drainage, but it gets stuck between the clay particles and creates denser, brick-like soil. 

Though somewhat slow, cover crops are an excellent, affordable way to build up organic matter in the soil each season. They can help add nutrients and break up hard pans and compaction, allowing air and water into the soil.

White Clover (cover crop for clay soils)Using Cover Crops to Improve Clay Soils

There are several great cover crops for improving clay soil, and fall is a great time to plant them! While all cover crops are good, some excel in specific areas.

Cover Crops to Add Organic Matter

Clover

Clover is an all-around good choice for cover cropping. Clovers fix nitrogen and produce plenty of organic matter. White Clover can be sown in late winter, spring, summer, or fall. It also makes an excellent living mulch for pathways. Mowing these paths and collecting the material with a bagger gives you a consistent supply of mulch and organic matter for the beds they border.

Winter Wheat

Though generally grown as a cereal, winter wheat is also an excellent cover crop. It produces a large amount of mulch material, adding plenty of organic matter to the soil. It’s also easy to kill and less likely to get weedy than other cover crops. It’s also a great cover crop for no-till systems. Mow it down in the spring and transplant it into the beds.

Buckwheat

Buckwheat is one of the fastest-growing cover crops. It can create tons of organic matter in just 30 to 45 days. We recommend sowing buckwheat with crimson clover for a fall or winter cover crop. The buckwheat acts as a nurse crop for the crimson clover during the heat of the day. In the fall, the buckwheat is killed by frost.

Cover Crops to Break Up Compacted Soil

Daikon Radishes

Daikon Radishes are popular for compacted soils because their tough, fast-growing roots easily break up the soil. They put on rapid fall growth, and winter kills them where temps regularly get below 20°F. 

The crop residue from daikons decomposes quickly and releases its nitrogen early. The channels created by radish roots improve infiltration, drainage, soil warming, and growth of the next crop’s root systems. 

Rye

Rye is a great winter cover crop with an extensive root system, making it an excellent choice for improving soil structure in compacted beds. Rye is very good at releasing phosphorus and potassium. It also stabilizes excess soil and manure nitrogen. 

Many of us gardeners of the Southeast grow our crops in red clay soils. While we’re thankful for the nutrients and other advantages they bring, they also have a few downfalls. One of the most affordable ways to improve these soils is to grow cover crops. Choose one of these cover crops and sow this fall to improve your clay soil this winter. 

Simple Seed Saving: Marigolds

Easy to grow, beautiful, and handy to have around, marigolds have earned a spot in many home gardens. Their bright, ruffled blooms and rich, musky smell make them alluring to humans but off-putting to many pests. They are among the easiest seeds to save. There’s very little processing. You just need to harvest the seeds and let them air dry for winter. Here’s how to save marigold seeds step by step so that you can have plentiful blooms all next season, too!

Choose an Open-Pollinated Marigold Variety

If you have marigold seeds from us, you’re all set; all our flowers are open-pollinated. However, if you purchased seeds somewhere else, you may want to double-check that your flowers are an open-pollinated variety rather than a hybrid. 

Hybrids may not produce flowers that resemble what you grew; sometimes, they revert to what one of their two parents looked like. However, if you don’t mind a little surprise variation, you’re always welcome to save seeds from hybrids!

Mature marigold seed pod
Mature marigold seed pod

Wait Until Your Marigolds Are Mature

As with any plant, you want to ensure the seeds are fully mature before you harvest them. For marigolds, you want to wait until the petals have dried out and the base of the bloom, the seed pod, has started turning brown. Letting the seed pod get as brown and dry as possible is best. However, in rainy years, you may need to harvest the seed pods while they’re still green on the bottom. The seeds may mold if it’s a rainy year and you wait too long. 

Marigold Seed pods (left), seeds (middle), dry petals (right)
Seed pods (left), seeds (middle), dry petals (right)

Remove the Seeds

Next, you want to remove the seeds from the pods. First, pull the petals off. Usually, they come off easily, and you can set them aside for composting. Then, you can split or peel the seed pod open to pull out the seeds. When the pods are dry, this is easy. 

Marigold seeds have an odd appearance; they always remind me of porcupine quills, but don’t worry, they’re not sharp! They’re long and thin, almost needle-shaped, with a black or dark gray tip and a white or cream-colored top.

Pick out any leftover pieces of petals and pods as best you can. 

Dish of marigold seeds and some seed pods
Dish of dry marigold seeds (left) and unopened seed pods (right)

Dry the Marigold Seeds

After your seeds are clean, it’s time to dry them. They may seem dry already, but they still have moisture, and they may mold in storage without proper drying. Spread the seeds on a plate or towel and let them dry for a couple of weeks.

Label and Store the Seeds

After your seeds are fully dry, you can package them in an airtight container for storage. Keep them somewhere cool and dark. Make sure to label your container with the variety and date.

Follow these steps to save marigold seeds for next year’s garden. In the spring, you can use your seeds to start marigolds indoors for early blooms. Marigolds germinate quickly, so you can also direct sow them. Many folks have found they make excellent companion plants, and you can plant them alongside many vegetables and herbs, including squash, tomatoes, beans, and basil. As flowers mature next season, you can repeat this process to save marigold seed.