Seeding the Garden... with Seeds from the Garden?

In the raised bed garden I waited so long to pull up the lettuce that it bolted and flowered. I knew I needed to pull it up if I was going to put in more seeds for a fall batch of lettuce.  That's when a gardening-enthusiast friend pointed out that if I waited a little bit longer, I could reseed the lettuce with seeds from the existing lettuce. What a novel idea! Hah!

So I waited and then noticed over the weekend that the lettuce flowers had turned to seed. It was time! So I pulled up the very tall lettuce stalks and shook out the loose seeds into the freshly raked soil. I mixed them in... and now I'm waiting. If nothing comes up in a couple weeks I'll put in some real seeds - but it's a fun experiment!

Over by the sweet peas (in the giant bramble of blackberries, raspberries and sweet peas) I noticed there were dozens and dozens of seed pods. I googled how to collect the pods for seeds and I learned that I should collect the brown ones that haven't popped open yet. They need to be dried out and then can be opened and the seeds collected. This area is already so thick with sweet peas I'm sure it will be overly seeded for next spring already, so it's probably a good thing I collect some of the seeds!

 

So I collected the brown ones, with dozens of green ones to check back on. I think sweet pea vines would be great to try out in the back where they can be wild and beautiful. Along the fence or in the irises/reeds in the back. I have lots of seeds I to collect on!