Cleaning seeds.

Hi all,

Does anyone have any ingenious ways of cleaning seeds? It is taking me ages to get through them.

Rusty

 

This might be a silly question Rustyroots, but why would you want to clean seeds?

 

I just put them on a piece of paper and very gentley blow.... this usually seperates the seeds from the 'chaff' so to speak

 

Any seeds in particular?

 

Hi all,

Thanks for the replies.

When I said clean I meant seperate from the 'Chaff' as lolimac reminded me of what it was called. The seeds I am doing at the moment are Cosmos and when the seeds come out of the pods there is a lot of very thin white stuff as well, I am presuming this is 'Chaff'. I have not collected seeds before so it's all new to me.

Rusty

 

A bit new to me too Rusty, but good fun though. I'm doing easy, clean ones ATM. Poppies and Lychnis coronaria and Salvia patens. I try and pick them upright so as not to spill seeds and then I've got them in pots,on the kitchen window sill, where they will dry out before storing.
Apart from Cosmos, are you collecting anything else?
Jenny

 

I rub 'em between my hands and then gently blow the chaff off.

Doesn't work for Yew seeds though!! they are a blighter to get all the "fruit" off (and Holly too etc.)

 

I've got Cosmos Dazzler and Cosmos Purity, Calendula Indian Prince, French Marigold Bo Jangles and Chrysanthemum Sparkles Mix at the moment. Hoping to get some seeds off my Verbena Bonarisis and some off my Coreopsis also.

Rusty

 

Its not easy to separate them with some plants, but the only way is to gently blow as everyone has already suggested, or you can put them on a piece of paper another on top, roll over with a rolling pin, shake the seeds to the centre then angle the paper over your container and the seeds will roll away, leaving the chaff behind. This works better with tiny seeds which get blown away too easily.

 

I've got several sieves with different mesh sizes and the idea is to use one slightly larger than the seeds to catch as much crud as possible, them use a smaller one to let the dust go through.

Tip what remains into an ice cream tub and keep shuffling it around so the rubbish comes to the top and keep skimming it off, leaving what's mainly seeds in a corner - if you're after as many seeds as possible keep this aside for a second go to get every last seed out.

Then go out in the garden and gently blow the chaff off the seeds. If the seeds are for sowing in open ground I don't bother cleaning as much as I would if they were going to be sown in a propagator with a risk of mould on the remaining debris.

P.S. If using sieves check them out with a few seeds first as there's nothing more frustrating than getting the mesh about the same size as the seeds and getting them all stuck in it.