I now have 76 bags of seed heads drying in bags in my music room. I may be able to plant the city of Salem with semps from one end to the other with that crop!!! Actually there are ~20 more seedheads that I need to harvest that are maturing late, including the crosses onto 'Plastic' of some of my reds and purples. Think those should be fun.
The only seedheads that look non-functional are the ones on 'Weirdo'. These heads look dry but there didn't seem to be much seed in the capsules. i put pollen of 'Unicorn' on most of the flowers as the pollen of 'Weirdo' looked pale chalky yellow and non-functional. Perhaps both ovules and pollen are non-functional.
Anyway I'm betting most of you can pick a majority of your stalks now. Only those with flowers blooming would you want to wait.
Greg, although you will get some seedlings from scattering seed, this is not the best way to raise seedlings, although certainly one of the easiest. In MA, I made little seed beds in isolated portions of the yard, planting the seed in little rows at these sites. This was safer for me then when I was away at college as I wasn't there to water pots. I now use pots exclusively as it is so much easier to bring seedlings to the seedlings bed in pots than transferring them in bits of soil from one area to another. Pots also mean that i can bring the plants to safety in case of a late freeze. Semps are pretty smart plants though and most don't germinate until the more severe frosts have passed.
Kevin
