At the Vallejo Farmer's Market this past Saturday, the weather was threatening to change to light rain, though we did have a number of visits to our booth. Fortunately the showers held off until later in the afternoon. Next to our booth was a booth sponsored by Recology with the whole family in attendance. Their young son probably wasn't super happy about spending the best part of his day hanging out at their booth. He did surprise me though when he walked over to our booth and asked me to recommend a good flower to grow? A little surprised, I quickly recommended the Nasturtium plant. He couldn't quite get his speech around that tongue twister so I offered to write it down for him. He seemed to be enthusiastic as I explained that once you get the plant to grow, it will self-seed and he will get more and more plants. I'll need to bring some seeds with me next time I'm at the market, Nasturtiums are a good choice for new and young gardeners with their easy-going nature.
I like to scatter the large seeds I find along the drying flowering plants and spread them around the garden. I usually wait until we have a little rain to soften the soil, drop the large seeds to the ground, then push them into the soil not too deep but buried enough so the birds don't see them for a snack.
Years ago I would purchase the seed packets, but haven't needed to do that for years. I usually harvest the seeds from the trailing vine-like stems once they start drying out later in summer. The cheerful yellows, oranges and sometimes rosey flowers add cheerful color to my garden year after year. Properly known as Tropaeolum it is one of the easiest plants I have grown. In my Vallejo garden along the Carquinez Strait I don't even need to water it. During late summer it will die back but rest assured the seeds will find a home in the soil and bring back cheerful color early next spring.