Harvest Seeds for Next Years garden

September 6, 2013 by markallen03 1 Comment

These Beautiful Hyacinth Beans will form a Pod with seeds to harvest.

These crocosmia seed head is easy to pick, my neighbors always ask me for the seeds.

Dianthus seed heads. They look dry but when you shake them you will see the seeds fall out.

Center Bird Bath Area

Gaillardia Seed heads, you must pick these to plant in other areas or reseed in the current area, however they will re-seed in the areas there are at.

These Toad Lily Seeds are easy to Harvest.

Picking Four-O-Clock Seeds for next Year.

Well the time has come to get ready for next year. As you Harvest your Veggies, remember to Harvest your Flower seeds as well. You’ll save money and you can share the seeds with your friends.

Do you have a Annual that you love, Four-O-Clocks, Sun Flowers, Hyacinth Beans just to name a few examples, well get your brown bags and collect your seeds now. It’s so easy to do, and most annuals are easy to re-seed in the spring after the first frost.

Here are some tips:

1. Label your Brown, Lunch sized or Ice Cream sized, bags ahead of time. You will collect flower heads over the next few weeks, so having your bags ready now will remind you to collect your seeds. If you are collecting certain colors, write that info on your bags, for example, When collecting Flower tops, I like to label my bags as per the color of the flower, Gold, Stripped, Reds, Yellows or what ever they may be, that way when planting next spring I can be sure to put what I want,

2. Now start collecting, Flower heads are your best place to get your seeds. As you collect , leave the bags open for air flow. I have also spent time picking up the seeds off the ground around the plants I want again next year. It’s nice to have different colors each year as a display area.  Don’t over fill your bags or your Flower heads will get mold. Collect a few flower heads now, wait a week and then collect some more. This will help to keep the air flow in the bag and the mold out.

3.Now store your flower heads in a cool dark place for next year.  I wait about 2 or 3 weeks before I close the bags up with a Cloths pin. Remember where you put them and don’t be surprised that when you open the bags you might see a spider or two. They just seam to get in there so how, they are, the spiders,  more than likely,  small on the flower heads you picked. Its ok, they wouldn’t hurt your seeds, and by next spring they, the spiders, wouldn’t hurt you either.

4.Shake your bags every now and then, this will help your seeds to fall to the bottom of the bags. It will be easy to plant the seeds in the spring when you have single seeds, planting full flower heads usually doesn’t work to sprout. Some flower heads will need to be broken up, marigolds, zinnia’s, sun flowers hold their seeds and you will need to break them up next spring. I love to get my hands in there, they are so crunchy and fun, great for kids to do as well, give them a bag and let them RIP them apart, the chances of you will damage the seeds are slim next spring.

5. Wait till next spring, after the Last Frost, in my zone 6 area, Mothers day is the key. Kick back and enjoy the fruits, or in this case, the flowers of your labors. Smile, you just saved a Lot of money, and you might get a surprise with some reverting to their host colors.