Harvesting the grass seeds

Am I too late? I never got round to really harvesting my fantastic eragrostis curvula grass seeds this autumn. I suspect because we had so much rain and flooding and I never had some brilliantly sunny days to get the seed heads off the grasses and into some paper bags.

But look at this brilliantly sunny day – perfect for harvesting. I was going to harvest on the pool garden bank where I have a wall of these African Love Grass plants. I love the fact they are dense and thick but also fluffy and not impenetrable.

But climbing up to harvest on this incredibly steep slope is frankly hilarious. It’s an exercise in the consequences of gravity. You will eventually come tumbling down. So I left the thick bank alone and climbed up to my newly planted bank to the right of this area and sought out the seed heads.

Half of them have blown away, but I still found enough seed heads to fill a large bag. I will winnow them later and hope to get enough seeds so I can start sowing.

It’s going to be my project of 2015. I need to extend the bank of grasses right down to the pool wall. But the number of grasses required for this mass planting scheme is going to be huge. Hundreds of eragrostis. The potting shed will be a grass factory again.

I am determined to stick to my plan of putting a few hundred grasses (already in their pots and enjoying the cold temperatures of last week) up on the oak bank first.

And just start sowing in February and try to plant out the next area around May. I love early year plans.