Hi,

I got home from being away for a few days and a seed pod was splitting so I fetched it in.

Got a few black seeds but 3 seeds were still brown. Are these seeds useless or can I help them to ripen--if so, how?

Thanks.

It can happen that you get brown seeds in with black seeds so they aren't necessarily not ripe, they may just not have the black deposit (phytomelan) on the outside of the brown coat. Do you know how long it has been since the flower was pollinated?

Hi Sue,

It was one of the earlier ones so about mid-July. The pods are taking a long time to ripen here as we have had next to no sunshine and pretty much non-stop heavy & torrential rain this 'summer'!

If they're still in the pod then you could try leaving them there for a while. If they're out of the pod then I don't think there's anything you can do because they're basically cut off from anything the pod might contribute to ripening (assuming they aren't ripe, which they may be). How does the size seem compared to what you would expect?

They are the same size as the black ones from the same pod and are pretty much the same size as seeds from the other pods of the same cross.

It is my first year making seed pods so don't have any previous year's seeds to.compare. It is a mini to mini dip cross.

I got 7 or 8 black seeds which were all nice and hard from the same pod but just wondered if the three brown ones were useless and should be thrown away or whether to put them on a windowsill and see if they change colour.

I have separated them from the black ones.

We have had cool, rainy weather, as well, and my seed pods are ripening slowly. I picked one pod last week that had started to split and there was only one brown seed in it. It didn't harden up, but just shrivelled up, basically turned into nothing. I hope you have better luck.

I don't expect them to change colour on the windowsill because they're not attached to anything that could deposit the phytomelan on them. The brown coat is normally under the black coating so they may be ripe and viable and just missing the black stuff. The black is deposited by the pod and it will do it even to non-viable seeds. If you peel off the black on a normal seed you will see a brown layer underneath. I actually would not leave them on a windowsill just in case the sun comes out and they get too hot.

Okay, though there is no danger whatsoever of them getting too hot from the sun here.

Might just stick them in some seed compost anyway and see if anything happens.

@touchofsky--hi Valerie, same problems here, pods just not ripening as we have had no sun all summer and now it has turned cold and STILL raining, the few that have ripened have had few very few good seeds and a lot are mushy.

But then again, they're only seeds--will try again next year.