Gardening Journal: Seed Gathering Season

It’s Seed Gathering Season!

This is the time of year where most of our harvest plants are dying back, and the beloved summer flowers are looking brown and dried out.

This is the best time of year to get out and collect your seeds for next year.

At The Comfrey Project we love to eat the seeds we gather. From scattering vitamin D rich poppy seeds on our soup and bread, to roasting pumpkin seeds in a pan, we love to eat everything that we can from the gardens!

We do save some of our seeds though, ready for planting next year. It saves on costs in the Spring, and we love swapping seeds within our growing communities to increase the varieties we can grow next year.

The difficulty with gathering and storing seeds is moisture. Anything that is damp will either rot or grow mould, so it is essential that the seeds are removed from their husks or outer coating, and properly dried before storing.

For this purpose central heating is your friend! The radiator itself will be too hot, but we have all noticed how the air is dry once the heating is on.

Spread your seeds on a paper towel and leave out to dry for 24-48 hours.

Once they are completely dry you can keep them in jars, tins or paper envelopes…as long as they are clearly labelled! Try and be specific in the labelling – if you know what variety/size and colour then record this, it will all come in handy in the spring!

Let us know what seeds you have saved…come along and swap some with us in the Spring, we love sharing new plants with everyone!