One of the first set of seeds we directed sowed in the garden were Mizuna greens. These leafy greens tolerated the cold early spring and did surprisingly well with the unexpected heat waves. By June however, flowers formed and seed pods emerged. We decided to harvest the seeds for next season.

After some research about when to harvest the seeds, we left the flowers and seed pods on the plant until the green seed pods and stalks started to turn brown. At that point they were ready to harvest.

The Mizuna seeds are very tiny and there are lots of them in a single pod. We decided to do this outside to make clean-up easier. To harvest, we ran our thumb over the pod, separating it at the seam and dropping the tiny seeds in a bowl.

We then put the seeds in a small zip lock bag and labeled it ready for next season. We ending up with more than triple the amount of seeds we initial sewed, meaning next season we can plant even more!

Gathering seeds from plants you grew is so rewarding. We know next season that we’ll have seeds for a plant that grew successfully and don’t have to purchase new seeds! We plan to harvest other crops and flowers and see how they work out.