Vacuum Cleaner Trick!

This may already be in practice, but I discovered it on my own this evening.

I was separating the chaff from my Amaranth seeds. The chaff was about the same size as the tiny black, hard seeds, so sifting could only go so far. Over and over I did it, and then thought "this chaff is lighter weight than the seed itself". Light bulb went off.

So, I poured it all on a paper plate and got the vacuum "hose". I gently and slowly brought the hose closer and closer to the plate, until it vaccuumed up only the chaff and left the heavier seeds on the plate. I then swished the plate , re-vaccuumed, swished again, and VOILA - chaff was pretty much ALL gone, but my seeds remained on the plate.

Remember to keep the hose a safe distance - just enough to pick up the lighter weight chaff.

Would only recommend with tiny hard seeds, but not light seeds like daisies, marigolds, etc......

Hope this trick helps some of you with what can be very tedious work!

Sounds like a great idea, thanks.

What a smart idea! I have been lightly blowing on mine to separate the chaff, but this would take care of getting rid of the chaff altogether.

Brilliant!

Very smart idea.

Thank you so much -big time saver
Barb

Another thing that I've done with small seeds that is mixed with small chaff is to use one of those foam type air conditioner filters - place it on a counter or over a pan and pour the seeds and chaff on top of it. The heavier seeds will fall thru the filter, the light chaff will not. This worked great on petunia seeds, but, alas - celosia seeds were too big to go thru the filter . . darn - I'll have to try the vacuum on those!

Also - I had a bunch of sand in with the petunia seeds - sift through a old nylon stocking - the sand comes out, the seeds don't .

Onalee

Oh! That's a great idea for tiny seeds! Thanks Onalee!

I don't know whether this one is whistling into the wind with chaf, or not - but! Years ago someone wrote into the older, pre-glossy Organic Gardening magazine - a baseball player, I think - that he shelled his dry beans by putting them into a closed pillow case into a laundrymat clothes dryer. Do modern clothes dryers come with temperature adjusters, so that the heat wouldn't diminish seed viability? As with stockings-and-petunia seeds, if ya got the right gauge of fabric weave with each size of seed, would the dryer would just suck the chaf right out? hmmm?

My mother tried this, it wasn't pretty, but it sure was a good laugh for years.

which one did your mother try?

The beans in a cloth sack, but she forgot the "commercial" part of dryer. Sack came open and it was a messshe finally got a new dryer. It's been years

lol

I do the vacuum thing with my pet birds seed. The chaff usually stays near the top.
What I do with amaranth seeds is put them through a sifter if they are larger black ones. Or if they are the small tiny yellow ones I take a paper plate and put the seed onto the plate, fold it in half, and go outdoors. Then I hold the plate with the seeds about eight inches or more above the bowl to catch the seed. The chaff blows away before it reaches the bowl. I do this several times until there is just seed and no chaff.
I know I look really stupid to the neighbors, lol. Sometimes I gently blow as they are being poured to help if there is not any breeze blowing.
I do this with my bird's seed also. They waste so much when they don't get the chaff outside of the food dish.
I have even thought of turning a fan on low and letting it blow the chaff off of the plate outdoors.

When I was raising birds, I used a seed cleaner to reclaim uneaten seed from dishes. It would probably work for other seeds or could be adapted for other seeds.
Jan...

http://www.multiscope.com/hotspot/kleener.htm

Thanks for that link!

I have always used the paper plate to hold the seeds and then lightly blowed off the chaff; restful and relaxing just to get the chaff off my seeds. I think I will always use this system...unless I try the vacuume.........lol..........that sounds like a great system to use.......

guess the nice part about the vacuum trick is it does the clean up for you. HOWEVER - only use it for the hard, heavier seeds - if the chaff weighs the same as the seeds - poof, all gone! :-)