How to Collect Seeds and Save Money

You can save money by collecting the seeds from your favorite flowers like morning glories, instead of buying seeds every year.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• Flowers
• Small Envelopes
• Permanent Marker and small index card
• Time and Patience

1. 
   Veggie Garden Fading

   Sometime in late September and early October, your flowers will begin to dry up and fade. This is the optimal time to collect their seeds for next year's planting. So mark your calendars and keep a sharp eye out in your garden.

2. 
   Sunflower Head Holds the Seeds

   Every flower has a different way of storing its' seeds. For example, morning glories which are an annual climbing vine, form seed pods the size of a pea filled with a spoonful of black, hard seeds. Other flowers like marigolds, have seeds below the flower blossom. Drawing from the two examples above, here's how to collect the seeds.

3. On a dry day, gather the morning glory seed pods and press open with your fingers to reveal the black seeds. Sort the seeds from the dried pod and place the seeds in a small envelope. Mark the envelope with the permanent marker labeled MORNING GLORY SEEDS and store in a cool, dry place until Spring. For marigolds, pick off the dried flower heads. Place them on a newspaper in the house and pull apart the dried flower heads from the seeds at the base of them. The seeds are thin, long and black/white shaded. Once sorted and dried out, put them in an envelope marked MARIGOLDS and store them as above.

4. Continue to collect, sort, dry and pick seeds from the base of flower heads or pods making sure to label each kind separately.

Tips & Warnings

• Pick and harvest on dry days
• Sort out and dry seeds before storing
• Store in a cool, dry place
• Label for identification
• Share seeds as gifts for friends and family
• Don't allow children or animals to eat seeds such as morning glory seeds