Over recent weeks, I’ve begun the process of collecting seeds and seedheads from the garden as the flowers begin to die back and the flowerheads transform into birthing pods for the next generation of seedlings. It’s an interesting process to witness, death and rebirth, the cycle of life, and for a gardener it’s also worthwhile as it can save you quite a bit of money and also give you a head start for next year.
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00:00Good morning, today's video I'm going to be collecting some seeds, some of the flowers
00:19now are going over, heading into the oven and it's now a good time to collect the seeds,
00:27try them out and bag them up and I'm just going to show you how I do that and we'll
00:31go and see what seeds are ready too. I'm not sure, I've already bagged up quite a few over
00:35the last few weeks and I'll just show you if I turn the camera around here. So here
00:41we have some poppy seeds, some Icelandic poppies and some Oriental poppies, tiny little seeds
00:51and there's thousands of them, I have a few bags of them. I have a lot of calendula seeds,
01:00I'll see if the camera will focus on them there, they look like little dried up caterpillars
01:08and then there's some more of those. I've picked some lupins as well, I could have gone
01:15I've taken the seeds off those, dried them out and then bagged them up. Some more lupins,
01:24these are pink ones and then I have a lot of marigold seeds as well, quite easy to collect.
01:33Some seeds are quite large, these are scabiosa, a light blue version that I just saw growing in a
01:44parkland and I saw a few of them had gone to the seeds so I brushed my hand over them and they
01:50were loose so I took some of those and then we also have cornflower, nice blue cornflower seeds
01:59from my garden. Pansies and quite tricky because they're small seeds and chamomile and I know I
02:11have a lot more chamomile out there as well that have started going over and I'll be collecting
02:17those and here are some schizanthus as well which are per man's orchid. They have flowered all
02:26summer so looking forward to getting more of them going in the spring. Some of these I will over
02:32winter and leave outside in malt bottles and lemonade bottles, water bottles just to see how
02:41they come on and then some I will plant in the spring. So let's go and collect some seeds.
02:48First up today we're going to get some calendula seeds, it's pretty windy out here so I hope you
02:56can hear me okay. So what I'm looking for is seeds that have basically are ready for harvesting
03:02and you'll always know because they'll come away easily in your hand and usually quite dark in
03:07color and very light to touch. So I'll just show you this one, here's one here and this is a calendula.
03:20You can see there how dark the seed head is and the stem is dried out as well so all you need to
03:30do with this one is just brush it and the seeds just should fall away. They have a brack that
03:38holds the seeds in place as well. These are quite good ones for collecting because they're so large
03:44and just get all the debris away. I've just got these wee plastic containers so I can put the different seeds in.
03:52That's the first ones and there's a wee fly. You can see there those are calendula seeds so we'll
04:03just take a few more of those now. If they're green at all you don't want to touch them yet.
04:15We're looking for really dried out ones.
04:19This one's nearly ready, this one is ready to eat. Just pull the seeds away from that.
04:37Just throwing the bracks back onto the soil and that's just the casing
04:42that holds the seeds in place for a while until they're ready to be dropped.
04:51If there's any more.
05:01A few more on in so be careful because I have other animals here growing.
05:08These ones have gone over and already dropped their seeds.
05:24So that's those ones for now and then what we're going to do next is collect some of these
05:31poppy seeds that have gone over and you'll know by them. I'll just show you the poppy heads.
05:44Now these ones are not ready yet but these ones that are turning black and are kind of squishy,
05:53squishy, that one's ready or almost ready.
06:05I'll just pick one here.
06:08Basically the blacker they are the better they are for
06:12harvesting the seeds but if I just open this one and all you do is
06:16pick the lid off it basically, this bit here at the top,
06:22it should come away quite easily and then you'll see in there
06:27each one of those little compartments has masses of seeds. So if I just gently sprinkle that
06:35you'll see how many come out and there's a few hundred seeds if not a thousand maybe
06:42maybe already just from that one seed head.
06:48And when these drop, when these are ready to drop onto the soil
06:53you want to just catch them before that because they are great at self-seeding
06:58but you will end up with quite a few of them. Another little one that's ready to go.
07:05And again just pop the lid and sprinkle.
07:18There we go. Now this is not the greatest day because it has been raining.
07:23Ideally you'd want a very dry day because the drier the seeds the better and the less time it
07:27will take for them to dry down in the kitchen. So here's another one
07:35and these are a mixed colour of seeds. These are pink, pink and white and red.
07:44There we go we're getting a whole lot of seeds from these, that's just three
07:50and if they were drier you'd be getting a lot more because some are stuck to the seed pod.
07:55And another one.
08:14Okay and same thing.
08:17I'll get these on doors as soon as possible.
08:25So just here we have some different types of poppies which are california poppies.
08:29They're not really related to the ordinary poppies so
08:33we're just going to show you those seed heads and collect a couple now if they're ready.
08:41You basically know when someone's ready because they're starting to come away in your hand.
08:46And these ones are just starting to dry up and go over so
08:54ideally you'd probably want them more dry like this one.
09:00Look at the difference between the other poppy heads which are round.
09:03These are almost banana shaped.
09:07And another one.
09:12These are a bright yellow poppy that opens in the sun, native to California.
09:24Really prolific growers, absolutely amazing performance on them from seed.
09:32No bother being transplanted. I heard that these didn't like being transplanted
09:36and they did take a while to come around, a couple of weeks but
09:40once they get established then they were absolutely fine.
09:46These ones are still about green so I'll leave them for another day
09:49and there's a lot more california poppies through the garden.
09:53So we'll pick some of them here just below and just angle the camera down
10:00This is the cadicia that I've been growing. Now this is dying out now but there was
10:05massive amount of blooms on these and I'm going to winter show some of these.
10:10And the seed heads are here but they're not ripe yet. These are quite a late flower so
10:18and some more killings already are to be picked up.
10:24And then on them we have some corn flowers which are also ready to pick.
10:46Here you can see they're still flowering away a few months later.
11:54So I'll just show you again. Of course we have the calendula and it's these little black ones here
12:02that are curled up
12:09like that and all I do then is just take some sheets of paper, spread them out
12:17and leave them for a few days to dry properly. If you don't do that they can rot then when you
12:23bag them up and a lot of people keep theirs in brown paper bags. I don't have any but I have a
12:28lot of these little plastic resealable bags so all I do is then, so as not to get confused
12:38if the shape and seeds look the same, is just write on a bag what they are. So these are
12:47orange
12:48and where they're from as well, so background.
12:56Then I'll just show you, I've just opened a California poppy here so you'll see on there
13:06you'll see on there
13:16all the seeds inside the pod and I'll just empty those out as well.
13:21Just onto a page, these are old hemp bulbs that I have reused them once these are dry.
13:35There's about 30-40 seeds in that one pod.
13:41So you can save a lot of money doing this as well, you know it's,
13:45particularly if you like a specific plant, and some plants are quite hard
13:49to find seeds for, so if you have a nice poppy in your garden that you like
13:58and you know is a really good performer, whether it's a plant or a vegetable or something like that,
14:07it's worth doing, just collecting the seeds, it's quite easy to do and
14:11take no time at all, just dry them out, bag them up and then reseed them whenever you're
14:20springing or over the winter if they're hardy.
14:26These I could plant out now for next year but I'm just not sure if the California poppies would
14:37need to be indoors or not, I'll have to do a bit of research on them.
14:41They're in a greenhouse or something like that, but also they flowered quite quickly,
14:48they grew like nothing normal as soon as they were sown and there were so many of them as well.
14:57I ended up planting them in clumps just to make
15:01a cane a sweep of them and it turned out really well, but they flowered all summer and they're
15:06still flowering now and they grew fine.
15:16They're trays from seeds but most people say you should probably plant them direct, so you could
15:22just throw those in the soil now and then leave them to maybe either germinate in the early spring
15:31or even though they didn't get started.
15:36Here are just some cornflowers, you can see the wee fluffy
15:42center and
15:50this is actually what the seed looked like, so it's got a little fluffy head on it
15:56and let's see if you can see that right
16:04just move it down, so it has a little fluffy head and it's almost like a corn kernel.
16:12I've got a lot of these already, the cornflowers are just really easy growers as well,
16:26just again I started them in trays from seed but I think they would be quite happy to be
16:33broadcast onto the ground like this and they will sort themselves out and prolific flowers as well.
16:40Really beautiful color of blue and sometimes blues are hard to find.
16:48So there you go, now all this fluff can be removed whenever
16:57you have them dried out, you just keep the seeds, although if it's all dry it shouldn't matter anyway.
17:02And then finally here we have all these poppy seeds, now there's thousands in here and that's
17:09just from about eight or nine heads
17:15and pods, so I'm just going to scatter them carefully though because they'll go everywhere.
17:22There's lots of the pods on here too but they should be easy enough to pick out.
17:27These are beautiful big poppies, probably about
17:43three or four foot tall and
17:47I'll be sharing out these seeds as well because I have quite a few of them
17:51and these are perennials as far as I know,
17:56they're oriental poppies and they're perennials so they should come back year after year
18:03and that's those ones I've done so far.
18:08The wind is really picking up here now so what I want to do is just get some out the front,
18:13just in order to do it, so I'll just get some of these ones which are spanish marigold,
18:23just pop some of the heads that have gone to it and I'll show you the seeds inside.
18:31These are really nice, I'm so excited about them, let's see these ones here.
18:38There's a head.
18:43So you're looking for ones like this.
18:45And here's some of a different variety but they're still damp so I'll leave those.
18:47And here's some of this one that's a bit of a different variety but they're still damp so I'll leave those.
19:18That should do us for today.
19:21And here's some lupins just as well, once they're black like this and
19:26papery you know that they're ready for picking so we'll take some of those as well.
19:33And this is a peach and lemon lupin, I've already taken quite a few seeds from it.
19:47There we go.
19:58And then all that remains to be done then is just, marigolds are quite easy, all you do is peel off
20:22the outer shell and the seeds are inside it, so focus, and those are the seeds in there just
20:32under the where the flower head was, there's not quite many there are,
20:36there's absolutely masses of them, they're quite big seeds as well so they're very easy to work with.
20:41And these are a bit damp, ordinarily they would just separate out,
20:52they might not have been, really a lot of them aren't actually ready.
20:57But I'll separate those out then, they're too wet, I think that's what it is.
21:14It's just been rain, it was beautiful for a few days and now it's just rained ever since.
21:18This one's drier here, so there they are there, that's the marigold seeds,
21:24as you can see they're quite big, these are French marigolds,
21:27Spanish red brocade I think they're called.
21:30And they have flowered really really well all summer as well.
21:44These were just free seeds that came along with other ones that I ordered,
21:48I didn't really have high hopes for them but they turned brilliant.
21:56It's not a flower I would ever think to purchase myself but
22:01having seen them in action I definitely would buy them again.
22:04I actually ended up buying some African marigolds which are basically giant versions of the French
22:13ones, they're made up the upper parts of Africa.
22:27These little French ones are much smaller,
22:32but it doesn't mean that seed size doesn't really correlate with
22:36the other ones.
22:38They are maybe about 10 inches tall at most, and then here's a really dry one.
22:51This one's already gone the seed by the looks of it,
22:54they've spread some of its seeds, scattered them and that's really what they should look like.
23:00I'll just give you a close-up of that one,
23:11just with a little fluffy end similar to a cornflower.
23:16And then finally for today I have some lupins and these are, as you can see,
23:24there's about seven seeds in this one pod, and these are lemon and I'm just going to put these
23:35up on the same piece of paper, these are a lemon and peach by colour variety, four in that wee one.
23:54It's just, it's incredible to watch all of these become individual plants,
23:58I don't know where I'm putting all these, which is why I want to share some seeds out.
24:09This year, and the good thing about picking your own seeds as well, if you've grown plants from
24:16seed, those were the ones which were the strongest and germinated, so you know they were the top
24:23performers in your last batch. So you're picking the best from the best, if you know what I mean.
24:40I'm sure that's not a bad thing.
24:44Marigolds have masses of seeds.
24:53Definitely have loads of calendula, loads of marigolds, loads of poppies, so
24:59those will be something I'll be sharing out in one pod. These are
25:07lemon and I'm just going to put these up on the same piece of paper, these are a lemon and
25:16a peach by colour variety, four in that wee one.
25:25It's just, it's incredible to watch all of these become individual plants,
25:29I don't know where I'm putting all these, which is why I want to share some seeds out.
25:35This year, and the good thing about picking your own seeds as well, if you've grown plants from seed,
25:42those were the ones which were the strongest and germinated, so you know they were the top performers
25:52in your last batch.
25:53You know they were the top performers
25:57in your last batch.
26:02So you're picking the best from the best, if you know what I mean.
26:11I'm sure that's not a bad thing.
26:16Marigolds have masses of seeds.
26:23But definitely have loads of calendula, loads of marigolds, loads of poppies, so
26:30those will be something I'll be sharing out in that pod.
26:34Probably some lupins too, because I have more lupins growing.
26:40I'm not the biggest fan of lupins, you know, so
26:45but that's just an example of five different
26:48seeds, and all that remains for me to do now is just
26:58write their names on the little bags,
27:02and just sit and decide them. Not that these are quite distinctive, so I know what they are.
27:14Marigolds.
27:17California poppies.
27:27Cornflower.
27:33And Oriental poppies.