Harvesting "love in the Mist" Seeds
Back to seed harvesting today! I LOVE harvesting my own seeds. I find it not only theraputic but also rewarding and seeds make a great gift for the right person! Today I'll be harvesting nigella damascena seeds.
Here is a "love in the mist" plant in flower. This is the plant you'll need to do this project. This, and a small envelope (or pot, or pouch etc- anything you can store seeds in).
After flowering, the plant will develop these inflated "balloon" like seed pods. They are unmistakable. This seed pod is not ready for picking yet. Leave them on the plant until they change colour to a brown/purple ish colour.
Here are 2 pods ready for harvesting seeds from.
If you use a nail or small knife to split the skin of the pod you'll see seeds. They should be black. If they're still green simply leave the pod on a sunny windowsill for a couple of days to allow the pod to dry out a little more and the seeds to develop. As you can see the seeds in this pod are black so we're good to go!
In each section of the pod there are many seeds. Simply tip them out onto a flat surface and repeat for each section.
This is how many seeds were in ONE of the two pods I picked, so you can see that you don't need many pods to provide yourself with enough seeds for next year. Obviously take enough pods to cover anyone you are planning to gift seeds to, as well as yourself!
This is how big one seed is, for your information.
Once you have as many seeds as you want, just transfer them into whatever container you want to store them in. I like to keep my seeds in small brown envelopes. I sometimes add a little information about the plant, such as size, flower colour, etc.
There you have it! Nigella damascena seeds ready and waiting for next year :-)
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I use old pill bottles to keep my seeds in and label them
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