Let's Grow Stuff

– Ben Futa: Collecting and saving your own seed is one of the easiest ways to make more plants and share your garden bounty with others.

Let's get to it.

[upbeat electronic music] Today, we're collecting seed from native perennial grasses and flowers.

We're collecting these in my personal garden, which is a few years old, and finally starting to produce an abundance of seed.

First, we need to identify when our seeds are ripe and ready to be harvested.

Here's a few things to look for.

Brown seed heads with the petals fallen off, a rattling sound when you gently shake the old flower, [rattling sound] or actually seeing ripe seeds on the plant.

If you notice the seeds are still clinging to the plant, it means they're not quite ready to go.

But if they fall off easily, they're ready.

And you should check the garden at least once a week to make sure that you aren't missing something.

Here are the supplies we'll need before we get started.

Large envelopes or brown paper lunch bags, sharp pruners, and a good pen or Sharpie marker for labeling.

I like to label my bags before I start collecting because once you have a bag full of seed, it can be a lot more difficult to write on.

There are different ways to harvest different types of seed.

No matter what, choose a dry and calm day without a strong wind because seeds can easily get picked up and swept away in a gust.

I tend to prefer the evening for my seed collecting, just before the dew sets and as the sun is going down.

Now, we're ready to harvest.

For seeds that are large and easily visible on something like this grama grass, wrap your fingers around the base of the stem to form a cup.

Gently pull up and away from the base of the plant and the seeds will slide right off into your hand, and you can dump them into your collecting bag or envelope.

This silphium works in a similar fashion, as these ripe seeds just fall right off into my hand.

For seeds like these echinacea that are born in tight seed heads, I find it easier to remove the entire seed head before I start to clean and harvest.

For seeds born in pods and clusters like penstemon or quinine, bend them over and gently shake and tap to release the ripe seed into your bag or envelope.

You can also remove the entire stem with pruners if that feels easier or if the stems are too brittle to bend.

Now that we've harvested our seed, it's time to clean and process them and get them ready for storage.

Some seeds are ready to go right off the plant, but others, we need to remove some other plant material first.

I find it easy to do this on a table with plenty of room and on top of a white piece of paper like this.

This helps so that you can actually see where your seeds land and how many seeds you've collected.

I have this bunch of penstemon seed that we harvested up front.

You can already see they've started to shed on the paper here.

And so all I'm going to do is turn them over and gently tap them and watch the seed come out.

Look at all of those seeds.

Each one of these could be a brand new plant next year.

And if I want to gently kind of massage the seed heads as well, you can see that even more are coming out.

That's more seed than I could possibly know what to do with.

So I'm gonna be sharing this with friends.

So now that the seeds are on the paper, all I need to do is gently pull up the corner sides, sort of tap things together.

And then when I have my envelope or even a glass jar ready, I can just sort of tip things over and those seeds will go right into my holding vessel.

And there we are.

Now, we're ready to clean our echinacea seeds.

And these are gonna be pretty similar to the penstemon.

Since these are dry enough, all I have to do is turn them upside down, give them a few little bit harder taps, and you can see the seeds starting to fall out on my paper here.

Now, these can be a little pernicious, so it's a nice idea to start to sort of massage these apart again with your fingers.

Having gloves helps because these are pretty sharp and pokey.

But again, you can see the seeds start to fly out of there, and then, look at those come out as soon as I turn it upside down.

That really helps the seed to release.

Well, these seeds are now either ready for storage and sharing with friends, or you can start thinking about winter sowing your native seed.

And we've already created a video on that so you can see how it's done.

Well, there you have it.

You are now ready to make more plants and to send more plants out into the world.

Don't forget, there's so much more to learn online at letsgrowstuff.org.

There, we have more videos, tips, tricks, and a blog to help you grow a better garden.

So until next time, happy gardening.

– Announcer: Funding for Let's Grow Stuff is provided by the Focus Fund for Wisconsin Programs and Friends of PBS Wisconsin.