These berries house the madder seeds and are ready for saving when the fruits start to shrivel up like these ones.
Coreopsis seed is allowed to dry and mature on the plant. Each of the little dried flower heads hold lots of tiny seeds which just fall out when you squish them so have a paper bag underneath to catch them.
We have been collecting the flower heads of four plants: coreopsis, rudbeckia, chamomile and cosmos. These have been harvested over a few weeks now and left to dry out in open paper bags. We are also starting to save seed from these plants. It will be interesting to compare the colour extracted from dried flower heads to fresh.
Mid July and the coreopsis is in full flower. Harvest the flower heads which can be dried and stored or used directly by steeping in water. We grew two varieties of coreopsis. The taller one was easier to grow and seems to yield more flower heads so we will try to save some seed for next year.
Young plants of coreopsis, dyers chamomile and cosmos to yield yellow/orange flowers. These will be harvested for solar dye experiments later in the summer.
It’s time to start seed sewing for the dye garden.
Coreopsis seed is started in a warm incubator.
Germination can take several weeks so fingers crossed.
The flower heads can be harvested for colour in the yellow – terracotta range.
All about growing and harvesting coreopsis
Seedlings of Coreopsis planted out in mid April