How to collect lettuce seeds
13.5 years ago Uncategorized
I wasn’t exactly good about eating my lettuce last year, after a few weeks of neglect the plants began to flower and eventually created some seeds. At the end of the season I pulled out the plants to dry out a little more and eventually forgot about them for a few months.
Because I forgot about the seeds when it came time to plant them I simply grabbed a seed pod broke it apart in my hand and planted some seeds. If you are only going to plant a few plants this is a great way to go using natures seed packaging system. If you are needing many more seeds or lack the extra space to store your seeds here is a simple process to save lettuce seeds.
1. Extract. Place a few seed pods between your hands and rub your hands together lightly allowing the seeds and the chaff (aka other stuff) fall into a bowl. Repeat this for all of the seeds you want to save for this/next year.
2. Filter. Just by carefully shaking the bowl a little any large pieces of “other stuff” should come right to the surface which you can easily pick out. Take the remaining seeds and “other stuff” and place in a sieve and shake to removed the “other stuff” removing any remaining large pieces that come to the surface. You can also gentle move the seeds with mild pressure around to break up some of the remaining “other stuff” and help it fall through the sieve.
Now with some fairly clean seeds you can store in an paper or plastic envelope and plant when needed.
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