A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Drying Seeds

This is my first year at this and I am wondering the best way of making sure they will be good for next year!!

I have delphinium SP sorry..

Bell flowers.. White and Blue..ECT.. just want the usual time frame in which to lay them out!

Thanks Rita!

unless it is something like a peppers seed that is moist and really doesn't have much of a coat I usually don't dry them because they aren't moist to begin with. By the time the delphium seed pods are ripe they are already dry and so are the seeds inside. Same for most of the seeds I've harvested. Except tomato, pepper, pumpkin and melon.

Tomato there is some special stuff you can do to them and Weezie explained it last fall in a post. I don't remember the name of it though but I'm sure if you search for it you might find it. for the rest I just make sure all the flesh is washed off of them and then I put them on a paper towel to dry. That usually occurs within one day. Then I package them up.

For mine, even though most like Tammy said are already dry, I just place them in an open container and give them a shake every day or so and then will cap it off about a week later. This just assures me that my seeds will no mold. I use empty baby food jars and empty medicine bottles to store my seeds.

Thanks ...One more question.. My gerbera daisey went to seed .. Is the Fluff suppose to stay on the seeds? How do you do them?

What is the best way to gather and dry Tomato seeds from my garden?
mlowe

What I do is just let them dry on a small cutting board and then scrape them off when they are dry. Then I package them until planting time.

spring Fever, I would probably leave the fluff on just because it would be a pain to take off. I know with my Dusty Millers I'm leaving it on.

The "fluff" you are speaking of... is it the clear stuff around the seeds? thanks for the info. i have some really great tomatos this year and i'm going to try them next year.
mlowe

If you mean the tomatoes the stuff around them is called a mother I think. There is a technique for getting it off the seeds. And I believe Weezie has that information. I don't think I saved it. But for me just setting them out to dry has worked fine.

Fluff I assume is the hair-like stuff that is sometimes attached to some seeds. Like dusty millers and dandylions. I don't bother to remove it because it doesn't harm anything to plant it with the seed. At least not that I've noticed.

Thanks
mlowe