The damp November mornings are creeping their way in. The heavy waves of fog, windows cracked open to listen to the rain, wool socks, and a good cup of coffee. As much as I love this time, the gardener in me always gets sad watching the once green world start to dull into the end. By December everything is a barren brown and I’ll have to take my scissors and hack it all until there is just soil left. But before I do that, I bring my biggest basket out and collect every dead flower for the next growing year.
Each year gardening takes on a new form, adding to my creative life and keeping away the winter blues. For the past few seasons I have been saving seeds. Collecting the dying flowers from my garden, drying them out and putting them in jars for next year’s planting. It is really therapeutic, as messy as my desk gets and time consuming it can seem. It is an activity I do throughout the fall and well into the winter, giving me something to do that still has me connected with the green. There is something really pleasant about it and I wanted to share how you could do the same! Plus, you won’t have to buy as many seeds next year. What can you save in your garden?
Flowers in my garden that I save every year:
Sunflowers, Zinna, Tickseed,
Marigold, Black-eyed Susan,
Cosmo, Morning Glory.
First things first. You’ll want to do is find some scissors that are washed and clean. Along with a basket big enough for collecting. Try to go out in the morning or in the evening when things aren’t so wet! Or if everything is already brown and dead, any time will do. If it rains, wait it out a couple of days or you’ll get moldy mold seeds. Hunt for the flowers that are on the dying side or already have lost their petals. Ones that are kind of sad or on their way out.
Trim them off your plant! I go a little far down the stem before the first leaves and snip there. Ever since doing this in the spring, I get bigger and more blooms throughout the growing season.
Next, you have two options. You can bundle the same kinds of flowers together in one big bunch with twine and hang them upside down somewhere dry and dark. I hang a lot of my flowers but sometimes it can get a little overwhelming if you don’t have the space. So the smaller ones get placed on flat surface or in their own enamel pan. Make sure to keep them all in one solid layer and let them dry for a few weeks. Some take some longer than others but if you leave them alone you will forget about them until the time is just right!
Once they are dry, you can move to the next step. Something I usually save for January when I am particularly missing the garden. Separating the seeds. Depending on the flowers it can be easy or it can be hard. There really isn’t a right or wrong method in doing it either.
Pull at the petals and rub at the center and collect what’s falling in a jar. Sometimes you’ll be able to see the seeds, other times you won’t! This year I’ve stuffed them in mason jars and stuck a big wooden spoon down in it. Twirling and stabbing, shaking everything around until it will release! This works the best with time consuming teeny tiny seeds like Black Eyed Susans.
Last but not least, LABEL! You think you’ll remember what you put in what. But come March when you’re reading to roll, you’ll forget completely and have to guess! So do the spring you a favor and write down what flowers are in there.