Thanks on the instructions for seed screens.
I have been using kitchen strainers.

Many great ideas. Thanks. I use a tea strainer for tomato seeds.

Great tip.

Thanks very much.

I got the "PVC DWV Sewer & Drain Adapters " idea from someone else:

Those make it super-easy.

http://davesgarden.com/communi...

Yet another person gave me the idea to use embroidery hoops with window screening. As long as the seeds are bigger than 1/24 th inch, that is great for removing dust and tiny chaff.

And fabric shops have many kinds of cheap mesh "fabric" like 8-per-inch black nylon mesh. That is MUCH cheaper than stainless steel wire cloth!

For me, the frustrating part is when I break up flower-heads TOO MUCH, and get lots of chaff that is the same size as my seeds.

So now I try to shake the seeds out gently at first. If I get "enough seeds" that way, I stop and have very clean seed with little effort. But if I want more seed, I have to break up the flower-heads, and then separate seeds from chaff and dust.

I have some of that fabric. It would work really well now that you have suggested it,
and planted that idea in my brain. Yes, I have had problems with chaff from
flower heads too, especially with the tiny seeds. Thanks!

Thanks for the kind words!

My biggest "discovery" was that, if I grow and collect LOTS of seeds, cleaning becomes much easier. I just keep whatever falls easily out of the flowerheads, and throw the rest away. No chaff, no dust.



I made some tiny scoops for dust-like seed. Soda straws, slit and wrapped around a chopstick or bamboo skewer or thin wooden dowel, then taped down. If you only tape the plastic to itself, not to the bamboo, you can slide the plastic straw in or out to make the scoop bigger or smaller.

But now I like the stainless steel 1/64th tsp I got from Amazon, instead of soda straws. The only exception would be if I cut the soda straw to a sharp point. That lets me pick up a TINY amount of seed, then tilt the chopstick up so the seeds are held safely in the "scoop" part, instead of falling off the edge or tip.