Would anyone be interested in another seed swap?

There's a second seed swap starting up in the Winter Sowing Forum at: [HYPERLINK@davesgarden.com]

If you are like me, then I know you've got tons of seed ripening right now. I invert stalks going to seed in paper bags where they dry further. After a couple of weeks, plants like sage release many of the seeds that fall down to the bag where it's easy to collect them. Good candidates - annuals included - are the ones that self-sow. Salvia farinacea self-sows for me, so that would be a good one to try. The Winter Sowing forum has lists of what has worked in the past, so give it a gander and say good bye to wrestling with damp-off fungus when starting seed indoors for spring.

bluespiral--great idea for putting the plants in paper bags and hanging upside down...didn't know about that!

I'll check out the Wintersowing Seed Swap. Sounds very interesting.

We were thinking of doing a Butterfly Host Plant seed swap, too, on the Butterfly Gardening Forum...Lot's of wintersowing type seeds in that category, too--milkweeds, buddleia, verbena, etc.

Wintersowing is the way to go I think, too!

Our Verbena bonariensis is producing a bumper crop of seed - it doesn't always come back from the roots after every winter, but self-sows pretty regularly. I cut ripe seed heads, lay them out for a few days to dry further, ruffle them up so that seed and chaf fall out and then pass that through a very fine mesh strainer. Saves a lot of work.

Would you send me the link if y'all start the Butterfly Host Plant seed swap?

I am definitely participating in the winter sowing forum this winter - how did I ever function as a gardener without it?

Yes, happy to send the link to anyone who wants BF seeds or has them to trade when we get going on the BF seed swap (looks like next week and ongoing through the fall as the harvest continues).

I love that verbena bonarienses for the BF garden and wintersowing. It is beautiful with cleomes and I know this sounds weird, but I just saw it in a (modified) rock garden--they had pruned it so that it grew just about a foot tall but was multi-branched. Very nice.

I have a holly hock with lots of brownish seeds heads--do I just cut them and hang them, too? Do you know?

Once the hollyhock seed pods are brown and crispy, they can be stored in a roomy envelope kept dry and away from excessive heat. I thought the following link that Shirley1md put up in the Winter Sowing Forum was excellent regarding harvesting and saving seed (not to mention anything else you'd like to know about seeds) -

http://theseedsite.co.uk/harvesting.html

I just scanned that website and didn't see mention of insects. I think seed stored indefinitely without being cleaned becomes more vulnerable to insects (and mold), so probably it's a good idea to check over your seed periodically, and if you see signs of insects, they can be killed by freezing the seed for 2 or 3 days. I couldn't tell you what this does to the capacity of seed to germinate - evidently it hasn't been a problem for some seed, but who can say about the rest?

PS - It's always a good idea, when hanging plants from which you want to save seed, to have something to catch the seed, like a paper bag or that nifty idea about telephone book pages in the above link.