This is a photo of a diagram which shows seeds being poured from a sheet of paper into a seed packet. Why is this diagram important to our users? And why would seeds be on a sheet of paper, anyway? Both are good questions which give helpful information to those of us who collect and share seeds. Materials needed for collecting and cleaning seeds are:

• A small brown paper lunch bag for each type of seed to be collected, plainly labeled.
• The brown paper bag is porous so it allows seed drying to continue if they were not all mature and dry.
• Only the most mature seed must be collected.
• Several strainers with differend sizes of holes
• The object is to get the seeds out of the husks, and get them as clean as possible. This is where the several sheets of paper come into play.
• Put a bunch of seed pods or heads out on a sheet of paper, and begin to free the seeds by shelling, pulling, or twisting the part where the seeds are.
• Chaff, or part of the seed holder, will break off and get in with the seeds.
• Take another sheet of paper to sift the seeds with husks on to. Discard the chaff in the sifter.
• Repeat this process several times using the sifter needed for the seed size, and amount of husks you're trying to remove.
• Finally you may take your last sifting outside and gently blow across the seeds to make the chaff fly away, leaving clean seeds.
• Finally, we come to the step shown in our diagram; pouring the seeds into a seed packet for storage until it's time to use them, or trade them.

When you trade your seeds, it's good to include on the label that they are open pollinated. This allows you some leeway, if they do not bloom true to the parent.