Drying wet seed pods out

When we got home from doing volunteer work at the church today, we found the neighbor that lives behind us on another court had dropped off a bag of marigold pods for me. I had seen her at a party a few weeks ago and asked if I could come by and picked some of the dried blooms and she said Yes. I got busy and never got there. Evidently due to the recent rain, they were looking fininshed for the season and the landscape man was cleaning up all their flowerbeds as they will be leaving soon for their winter home in Fla. She told me the landscaper had purchased these somewhere and she pays him. They evidently are a new variety and they are so pretty; almost doesn't look like a marigold. I was wondering what is the best or fastest way to dry out these damp seed pods? If I lay them out on newspaper outside if it's sunny, will they dry out or will they dry out if laid out on newspaper on the workbench inside the garage? I was thinking about taking the hair dryer to them but afraid the hairdryer would catch the bag on fire and maybe burn the seed pods to where they would be no good.

Any suggestions? If it is nice, I considered placing them out on a table on newspaper. Will squirrells or chipmunks eat them if I leave them out during the day? It' supposed to be in high 60's most of the weekend and Monday in the 80's. We're leaving for vacation on Wednesday so I'd like to take care of these before I leave. I figure I could always leave them out on newspaper in the garage while we are gone. That's maybe an option too.

The bench in the garage sounds good.

I leave seed pods in open paper bags and they dry out over time.

The marigold seed pods are all dried out and stored in a lunch bag and marked with date and where I got them. They will go in the garage on the shelf with rest of gardening supplies where I can see them in the Springtime. I laid out a layer of newspaper and then paper towels and opened up and took out the seeds and spread them on the paper towels. Since the heat is on in the house, they dried quicker than I suspected they would.

And they will grow beautiful flowers next summer.

When I bring in seadheads that are soaking wet, I spread them over a Tee short or towel, and roll or fold it up. Then I rest a book on top to press the flowerheads into the cloth.

That at least makes them stop dripping!

Then I spread them out thinly, preferably on paper or paper toweling.

Once they are fairly dry, I am more comfortable piling them into a bowl-shaped coffee filters and turning the heap every day.

Sometimes I don't get a dry days for weeks in a row. Often I can't collect seeds because the pods seem to grow moldy or rot on the plant as fast as they mature.

Right now I'm pondering whether to bring some colorful, live Zinnia heads indoors, hoping they will mature as cut flowers before the rot away or blow away. I fogure as long as they're colorful, they aren't rotting YET.

Corey


This message was edited Nov 21, 2010 11:06 PM