Cotton Harvest
My lovely green cotton bolls are ready to pick!
The bloom is white when it opens.
The bloom can self-pollinate or be pollinated by bees. After pollination, it turns pink.
After about 3 weeks, the bolls are full size, but they need about another 3 weeks for the fiber to mature.
The outer husk has split open and the fibers are visible.
The cotton burr (husk) is left behind after picking. You can see why cotton pickers’ hands got cut up.
All these stages can be present on the plant at one time.
This is Erlene’s Green Cotton from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. Even if you aren’t planning to order any seed from them, you might want to check out their website to see wonderful heirloom plants you didn’t know existed. They sell six kinds of cotton, the biggest selection I have found. When I have gone to other heirloom seed sites and searched for “cotton,” the only results have been for cotton caps or cotton bags.
Because of the drought we had last year, I was hesitant to plant very much this year (Texas usually has 10 wet years followed by 10 dry years), so I only planted 5 seeds. They all came up and produced bolls.
I also bought seeds for Missisippi brown cotton and red-foliated white. I can’t wait to try them next year!
Oh my gosh I had no idea the plant was so beautiful at every stage! I remember once when I was young, my grandma stopped the car somewhere in East Texas and let us pick some cotton bolls from plants growing alongside the highway – she was a farmer’s kid and had put in her time with cotton – but I haven’t really noticed the plants as an adult. Such delicate flowers! Thanks for sharing 🙂
I think everyone in Texas picks a little from the roadside!
The plants in the big fields are hit with defoliant so the stems and leaves turn all brown and crumbly, so there’s less extraneous plant material in the cotton that the big machines pick. But of course it looks horrible then. Left to itself, it’s so pretty it could be in flower beds!
I’m still totally amazed by this plant. I had no idea, and now I’m curious to see if I could get it to grow… Thanks for the seed co. recommendation!
I think the worst that could happen is that you would get a frost before all the bolls ripened, but I bet you would get some ripe bolls at least. And it would be a pretty plant until it froze!
Anymore, our growing season here is well into the end of October, sometimes even November. “Real” winter rarely hits until mid to late December and sometimes even January. I’m going to have to look into this! Do you spin the cotton? If so, how much do you grow to be able to have a reasonable amount to work with?
I don’t have a spinning wheel but I can spin with a drop spindle, which I do for spinning demonstrations at local festivals, etc. I haven’t really grown much cotton before, because I worked at a historical park and had all the cotton I wanted easily available from there. This year I had 5 plants – the biggest one is the one in the picture and it has about 11 bolls and is still blooming – the others had about 3 bolls each. I don’t have a scale but I estimate I will have about 4 ounces when everything is done. The fiber is really short on this green cotton – about 3/4 inch. I really just grow it to hand it out to people to let them try finger spinning, but I would think 10 – 12 plants would give you enough for a nice little skein.
So beautiful! In Massachusetts, where I live, I’ve had the pleasure of growing many types of plants… not cotton! I would be interested to see if I could grow it here.
I think it would grow, and maybe even produce some bolls. It would just depend on how early you got a frost. I plant in February, and I think my plants will be done producing in a couple of weeks.