What to do when many Lily cups, carefully labelled, fall to the ground... Swept up into a dust pan and placed here


Disaster Mix

Oops! At least they'll be memorable seedlings, forever known as survivors of the disaster!

Oh how aggravating. I had flats of seeds outdoors for winter sowing that the wind blew over. scattered dirt and seed all over. Had a nice little crop of poppies growing in my gravel drain field.

Hasn't that happened to all of us at least once? :nodding:

Reminds me of your thread "Magnolia cries". You survived that just fine.

Yes indeed we all survive somehow.

Perhaps I should have named it the dixie cup avalanche. With seeds and cups so light, it is bound to happen some time. My point is to save rather than to trash them. Though it will be interesting to see how long that bag stays around, at least one of the cups was oriental seed.

I'm trying to figure out exactly how it is that Dixie cups come into play with seeding? Puzzled You use them for what purpose?

Yep, crap happens. I do my planting outside on the patio and bring the pots inside when I've finished--usually 4 one gallon pots at a time. My jacket snagged on the storm door latch once and I spilled the whole business upside down, half in and half out the doorway.

I only do two at a time now.

I dry my seeds in Dixie cups before envelopes come into play,and freezers. It's been a pretty busy past few months so I am just getting around to starting them and transferring them to envelopes with labels. This method has worked for me successfully for quite a few years now.

Lorn I do Dixie cups for my hybridizing. When I clean the pods, I leave them in those tiny Dixie cups to dry and I write the name of the cross on the side. Then when I get around to it they go in envelopes. I could definitely see how they could get mixed up! I like them because they are cheap and easy to write on. My mistake this year was that I sent some seed to NALS and I thought I split it up for me and for them. Well I opened my envelope and it was empty but completely sealed. I guess I didn't split it!

Oh, I see. It's a good idea, actually. Accidents are going to happen once and a while. I usually cut a 4 inch strip of masking tape, write the ID on one end and fix it to the stem. Then I place them on 12 x 20 inch trays to dry. I shuck them out as they dry. I get a few loose seeds here and there when the ends pop open. No big deal, though.

That's a good idea Lorn but I was talking about after I cleaned the pods, the good seed goes in the cups.

I use my paper cups over and over, year after year. I put the cross label inside with the seeds and also write the cross on the outside with a sharpie. Later, after seeds are candled and packed I cross out the cross information with a sharpie and the cup is ready to use again the next year. I do this until I run out of room to write on the cup, including inside the rim. OK... call me frugal!

I challenge you in the frugal stakes! No cups for me. I recycle the paper envelopes my mail comes in, and use them year after year! Except wait... I don't keep using them until every inch is written on. But now I have something to aim for!

Joe, you'll have to buy your seed back from the list.

I use cups, too, but I've graduated with a few "improvements" over time.

-- I have about 10 of the ubiquitous Mirro brand cake pans that come in handy for lots of things. (Get them cheap at your thrift store.) They have relatively high, straight, vertilcal sides that keep cups in place, should they get bumped.
-- also, I prefer to use smaller size cups when I can. Juice glasses work great and provide a lot more stability, and for space saving when I can, I have a stash of those heavier clear plastic party cups a little bigger than a shot glass. I use these for soaking seeds, too, but you want something bigger for lily seed.

Writing on the cups is redundant. Along with the seed pod goes the identifying tag that was on the pod stem.

Re-use them over and over. Cheap and it works.

Redundancy can be a good thing Rick. I remember the time I was walking down the hallway with a tray of seed cups that ultimately tipped over with labels and seeds flying out. But most cups still had at least some seed in them and were still identifiable by the label on the cup.

I can't even imagine being as patient as you all are. As soon as any bare ground appears I start my front and back yard 'walkabout' , eventually, several times a day looking for sprouts, or evergreen plants showing signs of new growth. The first peony pip is so exciting, I carry a notebook so I can write down the dates of when each emerges, then again when they bloom. Have been trying to also note when they stop blooming, Am much better about noting who is planted where so when, for instance, a lily pops up I know which lily to note in my database. In the end it doesn't make a fig's difference to my garden or what I buy, but it satisfies the OCD in my soul, so I cover two bases (love of growing things, compulsion to document to the gnat's a - - - just about anything) at once and I can indulge myself all winter on one of them. Like building a special report for my dahlias listing form, size bloom, ADS codes, plant height etc. The plant height and bloom size can vary from garden to garden so I make my own measurements. It is then interesting to note the difference when compared to the ADS info.

I use dixie cups for drying my pollen too, as well as seed! Once the pollen is dry I can just bend a pour spout in it and pour the pollen into the vial for freezing, I can also pick out the large anthers with tweezers in the cups without it getting everywhere. I use one of those carry all kitchen trays to collect in, cups stack up and I collect the anthers before they shed so those can stack up too. I try to keep all this stuff in a closed room while it dries so the she devil cat won't destroy everything.
she has tried to destroy this posting several times now........