Seed collecting

I try to keep my gardening as inexpensive as possible, and many of my flowers grow each year rather than needing to be replaced - either bulbs, perennials or annuals that self-sow easily, like love-in-a-mist or welsh poppies. Some plants aren't reliable enough left on their own, though, and rather than pay out for seed next spring I like to collect it from this year's flowers if possible. 

Both these nasturtiums (left) and marigolds (below) were grown from home-collected seed, and have done really well so I've picked some more from both plants.

In case you don't recognise them, the nasturtiums are the large green seeds (when dried they'll shrivel and turn brown) and the marigolds the thin black and white 'sticks'. The dried 'peas' are from the sweet pea plants, and I'm hoping to find more when I cut the plants back down, as five sweet pea plants next year wouldn't be many.














Also, for the sake of their skull-like shape rather than needing the seeds, I collected some antirrhinum seed heads, full of tiny black seeds.