Saving seeds easy and rewarding
QI
would like to save some
seeds from the flowers in my garden. How do I do this? AIt’s
easy with some plants.
Pick a dry day. This is important. Do not try to collect seeds when it has been raining, or is about to rain.
If the flowers were planted in a sunny spot, wait until the afternoon to collect seeds, because the longer they are exposed to the drying influence of the sun, the better.
Get a big paper bag and pull it over the entire flower stalk. Scrunch the bag in around the stem with both hands and shake it vigorously. You should hear the seeds falling into the bag. Remove the stem and put the bag in a dry place for at least a couple of weeks. On top of a cupboard is good, particularly if it’s near a source of heat. ( Mine is close to my woodstove.)
Tip each bag’s contents out on to a separate sheet of newspaper and go through it carefully. With many plants, you’ll need to separate the seeds from the chaff — the husky dried-up stuff surrounding those new pinpricks of life. But this is an enjoyable task in midwinter.
Store seeds in a dry, cool place, in marked envelopes, until you’re ready to plant them. A fridge shelf is a good spot. A few grains of powdered milk in each envelope will absorb dampness.
Seeds should be completely ripe when they’re harvested. But it’s also a good idea to collect them before heavy frosts arrive and the plants go mushy. So if seed heads still don’t seem dry, snip the head off, drop it into the bag and store it for a few weeks. Then try separating the seeds. The best seeds to collect are those from original plant species. Seeds from hybrids may not come “ true to seed.” This means the flowers you grow from those seeds will probably look different from the ones you had in your garden this year.
I get great results with seeds of sunflowers, Rudbeckias ( Blackeyed Susans), tall flowering tobacco Nicotiana sylvestris, sneeze weed Helenium and snapdragons. This year, I’ve saved seeds from my heirloom Brandywine tomatoes. For dependable seeds, buy them from a reputable supplier. They are, after all, very cheap. Send your brief gardening questions to Sonia Day through her website at www.soniaday.com