Photos: Seeds
Oct. 10th, 2025 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ysabetwordsmithI took pictures of the seeds that I gathered at the Charleston Food Forest (Part 1, Part 2) and the Coles County Community Garden.
These are all the seeds that I collected at the Charleston Food Forest and the Coles County Community Garden. There are 11 bags. Most are sandwich bags, but there's a quart bag and a gallon bag on the right.
The milkweed seeds still have their silky parachutes. Later on, I want to de-fluff the seeds.
The Mexican hat seeds came off the core very easily, so I got a lot of them and that is all seed. This is the kind of thing I mean by saving a ton of money, because wildflower seeds are super expensive. A seed packet typically contains about a teaspoon of seeds, and wildflowers are more expensive, often around $5 a packet. That's about a cup of seeds, there are 48 teaspoons per cup, so about $240 if buying per packet. Realistically, people buy this amount of wildflowers in a bigger bag, which is more like $20-30.
I got a very small amount of stuff off the umbels of the skirret patch, hopefully some of which is seed. I may try to clean it up if I can tell the seeds from the chaff, but they're tiny seeds.
Asparagus berries have tiny seeds inside. Birds love these little red berries, which helps spread the plants around. Always prefer food crops that can reproduce sexually, so they can adapt to challenges over time; if you can only propagate clones, they can't adapt and that is a dead end.
I got a handful of marigold seedheads. These will need to be cleaned later. The seeds inside are flat black slivers about half an inch long.
I picked up quite a few groundnuts that someone had dug up and left exposed. It's hard to spot them all while harvesting. These vines produce long wiry roots studded with thick tubers. I have since packed mine in damp sand so they don't dry out before I can plant them.
These seedheads come from black-eyed Susans. The heads are about fingertip size, but the actual seeds are much smaller.
Blanketflower produces marble-sized seedheads that are quite prickly and sharp. These poked through the bag already. If you are planning ahead to harvest these, use gloves and pruners.
I harvested some small lavender sprigs for a friend. Getting them off the bush was challenging; I really needed scissors. I have since put these out to dry. The flowers are best harvested as budding wands, before they open; I missed that stage this spring and the bushes were so covered in bees that I took an alternate route into the food forest.
I got these seedheads from the tall purple sedum. I will need to break them down so that I have mostly seeds and remove as much of the stems as possible. That should shrink the volume a lot. I grow 'Autumn Joy' which is extremely popular with my pollinators.
I filled an entire quart bag with zinnias! Admittedly that's not pure seeds; there are some dried petals in there too. But it is still a LOT of zinnia seed. Most of the flowers were shades of pink or peach to red or purple; yellow, orange, and white were less common. I am trying to establish a landrace of big, bushy zinnias so that I can afford to grow them en masse.
These are all the seeds that I collected at the Charleston Food Forest and the Coles County Community Garden. There are 11 bags. Most are sandwich bags, but there's a quart bag and a gallon bag on the right.
The milkweed seeds still have their silky parachutes. Later on, I want to de-fluff the seeds.
The Mexican hat seeds came off the core very easily, so I got a lot of them and that is all seed. This is the kind of thing I mean by saving a ton of money, because wildflower seeds are super expensive. A seed packet typically contains about a teaspoon of seeds, and wildflowers are more expensive, often around $5 a packet. That's about a cup of seeds, there are 48 teaspoons per cup, so about $240 if buying per packet. Realistically, people buy this amount of wildflowers in a bigger bag, which is more like $20-30.
I got a very small amount of stuff off the umbels of the skirret patch, hopefully some of which is seed. I may try to clean it up if I can tell the seeds from the chaff, but they're tiny seeds.
Asparagus berries have tiny seeds inside. Birds love these little red berries, which helps spread the plants around. Always prefer food crops that can reproduce sexually, so they can adapt to challenges over time; if you can only propagate clones, they can't adapt and that is a dead end.
I got a handful of marigold seedheads. These will need to be cleaned later. The seeds inside are flat black slivers about half an inch long.
I picked up quite a few groundnuts that someone had dug up and left exposed. It's hard to spot them all while harvesting. These vines produce long wiry roots studded with thick tubers. I have since packed mine in damp sand so they don't dry out before I can plant them.
These seedheads come from black-eyed Susans. The heads are about fingertip size, but the actual seeds are much smaller.
Blanketflower produces marble-sized seedheads that are quite prickly and sharp. These poked through the bag already. If you are planning ahead to harvest these, use gloves and pruners.
I harvested some small lavender sprigs for a friend. Getting them off the bush was challenging; I really needed scissors. I have since put these out to dry. The flowers are best harvested as budding wands, before they open; I missed that stage this spring and the bushes were so covered in bees that I took an alternate route into the food forest.
I got these seedheads from the tall purple sedum. I will need to break them down so that I have mostly seeds and remove as much of the stems as possible. That should shrink the volume a lot. I grow 'Autumn Joy' which is extremely popular with my pollinators.
I filled an entire quart bag with zinnias! Admittedly that's not pure seeds; there are some dried petals in there too. But it is still a LOT of zinnia seed. Most of the flowers were shades of pink or peach to red or purple; yellow, orange, and white were less common. I am trying to establish a landrace of big, bushy zinnias so that I can afford to grow them en masse.
(no subject)
Date: 2025-10-14 11:58 pm (UTC)Also, WHAT A HAUL! Wooooo-hoooo! That's an amazing variety of seeds!
Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-15 07:20 am (UTC)Go you!
>> so I'm definitely going to figure out what they are <<
Options include:
* Check the seed packet if you can find it or where you ordered it from. Many list what is in the mix, although not all do. Then just type in the names and see what you recognize.
* If it's a state or regional blend, try searching based on that and a description, like:
(your state) (flower color) wildflower
(your region) wildflower blooms in (month)
* You can also look up a list of common wildflowers in your locale to see if any match.
* It is easier if you know a little about botany so you can include keywords or figure out where to look in a guidebook.
http://www.wildflowers-and-weeds.com/Plant_Identification/Patterns_in_Plants.htm
* There are tools for identifying flowers online.
https://mywildflowers.com/identify.asp
http://wildflowerid.info/
>> and harvest their seeds when they're done blooming in the hopes that I can plant them in other places, too. <<
Excellent plan. There are general resources on saving wildflower seeds:
https://backyardhabitats.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Collecting-Your-Own-Wildflower-Seeds.pdf
https://www.wildflower.org/learn/collect-store-seeds
Some tips:
* Harvest on a dry day to minimize mold.
* Be aware that some plants are surprisingly sharp. Gloves and pruners may be useful.
* Some seeds need a winter period before they will sprout; you can plant these in fall or cold-stratify them in the fridge. But some wildflowers just have weird requirements. The catalog from Prairie Moon Nursery has a couple pages about that stuff. Other seeds you can just plant and they'll grow.
>> I'm blessed to have the land; <<
Sooth. How much do you have and what's it like? I have about 2 acres in central Illinois that used to be wet prairie.
>> all I need is the energy to do the initial tilling! Here's hoping! :-)
Well, that's one approach, especially if you want specific things in specific places. There are others, depending on your resources. Low budget? Consider the Bradley method. Low energy? Recruit help from wildlife. If you put out a bucket of nuts (e.g. acorns, walnuts) then squirrels and jays will carry them off to bury, some of which will sprout. If you string a wire where you want some bird plants, the birds will perch on it and deposit seeds and fertilizer, giving you plants they like (e.g. mulberry, crabapple).
Feel free to talk about gardening with me, I love it. You might also like
>>Also, WHAT A HAUL! Wooooo-hoooo! That's an amazing variety of seeds! <<
Yeah, I'm excited. So far I've managed to pot up some of the groundnuts. I need to do the asparagus soon. I wish every town had a food forest like this. It would also be great to have a community garden with local landrace crops, and give everyone seeds when they move in.
And not everything is even ripe yet. I hope to go back later for the asters. I've tried and tried but can't get them to grow here. I see all these huge beautiful aster bushes in the local wildlife gardens. Maybe someday.
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-20 08:09 pm (UTC)I'll definitely try collecting seeds this year!
Re: Thoughts
Date: 2025-10-20 11:24 pm (UTC)Yay! :D I like to encourage people, especially with gardening. It puts more good into the world.
>> I've been gardening for years, but I'm a self-described "hapless gardener," in that I sort of plan stuff (all native, all perennial) and see what survives, what thrives, and what dies, and then I try to plant more of the middle one and fewer of the others. Lol! <<
I describe my approach as laissez-faire permaculture. I plant things, especially natives, give them some initial support, then expect them to fend for themselves. I try to propagate things that do well, that I use a lot, and that my wildlife adores. What dies has failed its evolutionary test, oh well. I also have gardens that I tend more regularly for domestic flowers, some herbs, and a few vegetables. None of it looks like a magazine cover. But the wildlife loves it, and I can wander through the yard putting things in my mouth, so that's what I care about.
>> I'll definitely try collecting seeds this year! <<
Well, that validates my vocation for the day. \o/