Morning Glories: Seed storage ideas, 1 by beckygardener

beckygardener wrote:
For those of you that grow other plants, which I do ...

I also use those paper gift bags that stand up nicely. I throw the dried (or almost dried) flower heads in individual bags labeled for each species and cultivar. This holding method allows them to dry out completely! I have seed heads that are very large and need additional drying time. And to help run the bugs out of them. LOL!

Some of the seed heads have sharp points as does Tithonia and Lion's Tail flower heads. After drying for a couple of weeks, I shake the bags to loosen the seeds which fall to the bottom of the bag. When the stores used to use paper grocery bags, those were absolutely perfect because you could fold them down and tape them and then shake, shake, shake the seeds out! LOL! You can still buy the white/tan lunch bags in bulk. Which I also do. I can mark right on the bag what seeds are in it, fold it over and tape or staple the top closed and then shake once the seeds are dried. Works beautifully!! I could do that with the MGs too, but I treat those seeds much better! LOL!

I grew poppies last year and took a lunch bag outside and shook the flowerheads into the bags to collect the seeds! Too many seeds were falling to the ground when I snipped the spent flowerheads to drop into a bag. So, there are lots of ways to get creative when collecting, drying, and storing seeds! :-) I also put the date (season/year) on my seed labels so I know when they were collected.

This message was edited Dec 29, 2008 8:43 AM