I just saw this thread. If I forget or miss a pod (or two or ten) at the end of the year I do find that I have lots of little seedlings coming up the next Spring. While I have had quite mild winters the last few years, I still get plenty of days with cold days (around freezing) and very cold nights (teens and twenties). I don't mulch my plants, so the only covering the seeds would have are leaves that have fallen.
I am curious as to what mechanism the seeds have for survival. In the late Fall/early Winter, I get quite a bit of rain so I don't know how the seeds would stay dry even if they were quite dry when they fell.
I do find that I get a lot more seedlings from diploids than tetraploids. But that's most likely because I have more late dips than tets.
