More seed starting Wolfberry, Arrowleaf Basalmroot, Rue, and Milkweed

Over the weekend I had a chance to start some more seeds.  I can't plant enough of Lycium barbarum, Matrimony Vine, goji berries, wolfberries, or whatever else people call them. USDA lists them as matrimony vine, which I like because other members of the boxthorn genus have wolfberry in their name.  I personally feel the seeds are more viable when they are scraped fresh from the fruit.  It can be very tedious to get them out.  Some people say to just soak them and the seeds will settle, but the pulp settles really well too and it takes a long time to seperate the pulp and seed. I personally like to scrape them out.  I rip them in half and then I dip them all in water to soften the bonds between the seed coat and the flesh of the fruit.  Then you can submerge them one by one in a cup of water and scrap the seeds, then discard the fruit.

I like being able to have a catalog of pictures of seeds.  So I'm going to continue that tradition here. The top picture is the fruit cut in half and dipped in water.  The next picture is all the seeds I got out of about 20 to 25 fruits. 

Rue is the next in this series of seeds.  They were picked in late fall and left in their pods until now.  I didn't have the patience to break into each small pod so I pretty much soaked everything but the stems and larger seed pods.

Here are the Arrowleaf Basalmroot Balsamorhiza sagittata.  One day they'll be beautiful Asteraceae, but for now they are just begining to germinate.  They were stratified in my fridge for 2 months with a wringed out wet napkin in a bag. After 12 hours of soaking in the cup they already began to germinate. I did a control group where the seeds were just left in a seed bin at around room temperature, and they didn't begin to germinating.

Finally here are some milkweeds that I gathered at a local garden. The beginning of a greenhouse project has begun at my house so soon there will be a post on that.