Harvesting milkweed seeds is all about timing. Too quickly, and the seeds haven’t matured nevertheless and gained’t germinate. Too late, and so they additionally’ll have every blown away or created a messy web of white fluff (often called milkweed floss or milkweed silk) all over the place throughout the plant.
In late summer season season, I usually see milkweed pods ripening in a weedy subject or alongside the sides of trails the place I’m climbing or biking. This was how I initially collected my preliminary stash of milkweed seeds so I might develop milkweed at dwelling. (For many who need to do the equal, please assure it’s allowed first and depart some pods on the crops to allow them to unfold naturally.)
The seed pods between fully completely completely different species of milkweeds look a bit fully completely completely different, nonetheless have an equal teardrop kind with a pointed finish. Whereas quite a lot of species of milkweeds are native to North America, you’ll most frequently uncover these three milkweeds contained in the wild:
- Frequent milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), which has fats, spiny seed pods
- Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) and swamp milkweed (Asclepias incarnata), which each have slender, clear seed pods
The technique for selecting and processing all of them are the equal, nevertheless, and as shortly as you discover a pair methods for cleanly separating the seeds from the milkweed fluff, you’ll have the ability to do it in mere seconds!
So how have you ever ever learnt when milkweed pods are prepared to select?
Milkweed pods are mature after they begin to dry out in August and September. They don’t have to be fully dried and brown although—whilst you squeeze a barely inexperienced pod and it pops open at a seam, it’s prepared!
The seeds have to be darkish brown and leathery. (Throughout the event that they’re cream-colored, very pale, or white, then they aren’t mature and gained’t develop correct proper right into a plant.)
Fast Tip
Usually you’ll uncover milkweed bugs crawling on a seed pod. These pink and black bugs feed on the seeds by piercing the pod and injecting digestive enzymes to liquefy the seeds. If a seed pod is roofed in milkweed bugs, chances are high excessive that the seeds have been broken.
Methodology #1
The mandatory issue to easy harvesting is selecting the seed pods before the fluff inside has expanded, inflicting the pod to burst.
Choose an unopened seed pod and gently apply stress to the seam. If it doesn’t open merely, the seeds inside are immature. If the pod opens, it have to be fairly simple to separate the seeds from the fluff.
Pinch the seed mass at one finish of the pod, and pull the seeds off collectively collectively along with your completely completely different hand. (It’s kind of like stripping the leaves off an herb sprig.) The seeds should fall away merely and likewise you’ll be left with a “cob” or cone of milkweed floss which can be discarded.
Methodology #2
In case you’ve missed the window of different and likewise you’ve obtained milkweed floss flying all over the place, the only resolution to separate the seeds from the fluff is by shaking them off!
Put the milkweed floss and seeds (or the complete opened pod) in a jar with quite a lot of cash. Shake vigorously. The cash will do the complete work of separating the fluff and the seeds for you!
The seeds will resolve on the underside of the jar, so that you simply presumably can merely elevate the complete fluff out. (Milkweed floss will probably be recycled into stuffing whilst you’re the intelligent form.) In case you don’t have a jar useful, a paper bag works merely as correctly.
Storing the seeds
After you’ve collected the complete seeds, sandwich them in a moist paper towel and put them in a sealed jar or zip-top bag contained in the fridge for not decrease than six weeks. They are going to protect contained in the fridge like this till you’re able to sow the seeds in spring. (Merely bear in mind to periodically affirm on them by winter and spritz the paper towel to handle it calmly moist, nonetheless not dripping moist.)
Why the fridge? Due to milkweed seeds require publicity to a interval of very chilly native climate (often called chilly stratification) to have the flexibility to germinate. (That’s likely considered one of many commonest errors for individuals who marvel why their seeds gained’t sprout.)
In case you don’t need to deal with storage, it is usually doable to scatter your milkweed seeds in place in fall or winter and let Mom Nature handle stratifying them for you.