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WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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Posted by roflol Z6 MO (My Page) on Sat, Sep 22, 07 at 14:22
| I wintersowed nasturtium jewel mix and the orange color came up and bloomed well enough for me in the garden. I expected to find some seeds and started checking as soon as the flowers started fading but never found anything either on the plant or on the ground.
They're starting a second bloom right now and before I write them off I'm just wondering if this is typical.
I didn't have a lot of pollenators in the garden this year (no European honeybees, but other things did visit) - had to hand pollenate JMG about 30 feet away to get any seeds - but the agastache and scabiosa right next to the nast have been setting seed alright.
Do nasturtium need help sometimes like JMG?
Terri |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| roflol: No, they make lots of seeds. Sometimes they don't mature for a while though. Early in the season I pulled early green seeds to encourage reblooming, now I'm not seeing new seeds forming yet. They will come but it might be well into fall. Karen |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| I had a hard time finding the seeds for a while. I ended up lifting the plant and looking on the ground around the base, and found some on the ground. I still wasn't able to find as many as I would have hoped, considering I had quite a few in border together. I pulled them a couple weeks ago, as they were dying out after the heatwave. Also, I planted them out really early in the year, so they probably completed their life-cycle. I have a couple re-seeds in the area, though not many. |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| I've been trying to figure out nasturtium seeds too. Is it basically one seed per bloom? Having sown the seeds, I know they are big and tan and wrinkly, but all the ones I've seen so far are still green and don't really look much like the seeds when they are ripe. Do we just wait till they mature and then pick them? Will they come off the plant easily when ripe? Alison |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| Alison, I found a web page that talked about green nast seeds and how many per stem, see below, it answers your questions perfectly! But I have yet to see even a hint of a bulge on these plants after the blooms wither, and nothing on the ground either, so you're ahead of me. :-) Terri |
Here is a link that might be useful: Mr. Brown Thumb/Nasturtium Seeds
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| Terri, Excellent link with just the information I needed! Thanks for posting it. I have been growing some Alaska nasturtiums this year (bought at the garden center, not WSed), which have variegated foliage, but are not the climbing kind, so I want very much to get seed from them. Alison |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| I am FLOODED with nasturtium seeds this year!! They're all over the driveway, all over the beds, all over everywhere, despite my collecting as many as I reasonably can. Mine usually come in groups of 3 or 4, although sometimes one or two of those might not develop beyond pinhead size. I never find brown ones on the plant either... I pick them when they're big and come off with just the lightest touch, and then collect the brown ones that have already fallen on their own to the ground below. I set them on a basket lid on the windowsill then and let them dry for a few weeks so they get properly shrivelled. One single patch of mine have not yet gone to seed though... I expect they're just not ready, as yours might not be. Give it a little time. Did yours start late? |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| This was my first year wintersowing and first year with nasturtium, so I'm not sure what late is considered and I didn't take notes (I'm a lazy gardener). They went through one flush of blooms before the summer heat - put out I want to say 10 flowers on two plants (I didn't plant a lot of these, my plan this year was to do tests of what seeds I had, and trade the rest, and some of the ones I planted were zapped by the freeze but these two survived). The blooms faded and dried months ago but nothing was left behind. Right now there is one bloom, so not sure if there's only one bloom will it produce any seed anywho. |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| That's interesting about collecting green seeds. At one point, I noticed green seeds underneath the foliage, but didn't pick them since I figured they were not mature enough. I never saw brown seeds on the plant, just on the ground, and not as many as I had seen on the plants. Good to know for next year so I can hopefully collect more seeds. I have a couple other nasturtium plants I started a couple weeks ago, but I doubt they'll have time to bloom, but the foliage is pretty as well. I will definitely grow more next year, as they did so well for me this year. For the longest time, I had loads of flowers I could bring in and put in vases around the house. roflol, I would think yours just haven't set seed yet, as I'm sure you would have seen at least a couple by now. |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| Anything is possible! How long after the bloom should the seed be showing up, though? Are we talking 2 months (as in the first flush of blooms was two months ago)? Much less? |
RE: WS nasturtium not setting seed?
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| I believe several of mine starting blooming sometime in May, if my memory is correct. They were some of my earliest blooms this year. So, the timeline for seeds may not be that far off then. |
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