Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

hi folks. What's the verdict on taking plants out after they have gone to seed/flower? Due to the warm weather a number of plants have shot to flower. Does this signify the end of their life or is it worth keeping them in the system? They are still producing good leaves to eat so I have kept them and simply cut of the flowering stems. Love to hear what everyone thinks.

leave some to set seed and keep the seeds - unless they are hybrids of course!

What do you mean hybrid Matt?
My mums says that sort of thing, "supermarket veges are hybrids, grown to be infertile"
It makes me wonder why every seed i save from supermarket veges sprout and grow strongly.....

Its probably a bit late for those silverbeet, but when they start to shoot, cut the shoots right back (i cant tell you how many leave to leave/ remove), but you want to remove the whole flowering stem, then they will continue on without flowering.

It depends on the amount of spare room you have, seeding silverbeet grow really large and will droop over everything else in the bed.
However it can be worth leaving one plant for seed, no reason why you cant trim it back to a couple of large seeding branches if they are too big, you will still get hundreds of seeds.

heres an explanation:

http://www.weekendgardener.net/blog/200 ... plants.htm

Oh sorry, Now i get it.
I suppose the problem comes from the use of the word "hybrid" instead of calling them "what happens in nature/ not a clone", because thats all it is simply, it then creates alot of confusion where as i said, my mother who was brought up by a heavily gardening mother and father, doesnt even understand what a "hybrid" is and the ramifications - people actually believe that they dont grow.

I would say keep the seeds of the hybrid! even more so than going and buying new seed, you may get a better plant, you may get a better fruit ( of coarse the opposite is also true), The "monsanto lovers" approach of not keeping seed incase its not an exact clone of the parent is going to kill the world.

I always keep seed, if i ever have a plant that goes to seed then i always keep them and sow them next year, although i unfortunetaly have never had any great new breeds, i have also never noticed one iota of difference from the parent plant.

It all comes down to what you want, if you want "this variety of tomato" and it must be exact, buy seed, if you just want "tomatoes", then definitely save the seed.

or just start off with non hybrid heirloom types and collect the seed from those plants and never have to buy seed again and not fund monsanto

well thats always a good way.
although, those after a certain breed will still have the hybrid "problems".

Thanks guys. Think ill trim them back when the start to shoot but keep 1 stem each time for seeds.