Beginner Gardening: New New-bee thread!! Come on in!! , 4 by RickCorey_WA

RickCorey_WA wrote:
Seeds that ripen and dry during the summer are so easy! I had some 'Minowase' Daikon radishes go to seed, and now they pop up here and there like pretty weeds. Man, can they grow in clay!

I let some radish "weeds" go too long and they formed pods. I uprooted them at that point and threw them to one side where they happened to be up off the ground. A month or two later I stuffed the stems and pods into a box, and the pods dropped some seeds. So I mashed them up with my hands, and got many fresh 'Minowase' Daikon radish seed with almost no effort..

They did all the work themselves, except that they didn't jump into a Ziplok for me and label themselves.

My Pacific Giant Delphinium was even easier to save seeds from. I just didn't cut all the flower spikes, then ignored them until the pods rattled when I brushed against them. (It didn't rain at that time of year.) Then I put a big cardboard box to one side of the plant and leaned the stalks over to pour the seeds into the box. All done.

Also got seeds from some dusky chocolate-puprle Columbine (A. vulgaris, probably originally Burpee's Harlequin Mix. But for those, I had to cut the well-dried heads off, shake them in a plastic tub, and separate from the chaff.