Natalie said:An e-book, and hopefully one that can be purchased in print, sounds like a fantastic idea to me, Jonna! I happen to think that your English is great, but I know it would be a concern for you. To me, pictures are more helpful than words, especially for beginners, and being too scientific about things can really take the fun out of seed collecting and growing. Sometimes you just want to grab some seeds and plant them, without too much information to confuse you. You've always explained things so that even I could understand them, and I know I would enjoy anything that you write. Maybe you can find volunteers to help with the photos of seeds. It would be an overwhelming task to get a photo of every seed, but with some help, it could be possible.

Thank you for your compliment about my English, but I only learned the basics when I went to school as a teenager. The extra's I learned while trading seeds and discussing plants and so. I really have to look up a lot of words in the dictionary , so writing the book will take a lot of time.
I'm very glad with your: 'You've always explained things so that even I could understand them' , because I want to write a book for beginners.

woofie said:And I would bet that a lot of people who have posted photos of seeds here would be happy to let you use their photos for your book. I know I would!

Thank you so much for your offer. I think I really need help with gathering pictures, especially pictures from plants/seedpods/seeds, I can't grow in my region.
Will come back to you about this later this year.

Natalie said:Me too, even though I have posted very few. I do have others though that I'd be more than happy to share. I'm sure that there are others, like me, who have photos but haven't posted them. I can't imagine anyone who wouldn't be willing to help with this!

Also t thank you so much for your offer. I think I really need help with gathering pictures, especially pictures from plants/seedpods/seeds, I can't grow in my region.
Will come back to you about this later this year.

flaflwrgrl said:You can use any photos of seeds I have loaded to the db Jonna & since they have icky writing on them, if you just Treemail me which ones you want to use; I will look them up on my photo gallery & email them directly to you so they can be clean photos.

Also thank you so much for your offer. I think I really need help with gathering pictures, especially pictures from plants/seedpods/seeds, I can't grow in my region.
Will come back to you about this later this year.

Jonna, if you do decide to go ahead with the book, you should start a thread about it, and ask for photos of what you need. I am sure that you will get lots of help! And, it will be good advertising for the project!

You must have been a good student in school! Your English is better than many who only know English!

Natalie said:Jonna, if you do decide to go ahead with the book, you should start a thread about it, and ask for photos of what you need. I am sure that you will get lots of help! And, it will be good advertising for the project!

You must have been a good student in school! Your English is better than many who only know English!

With all that Natalie said. We Americans actually need talking down to so to speak. We have become very lazy in our English. We should call it American b/c it certainly isn't proper English. I had a neighbor who was Cuban born & lived there until she was 10 with Spanish as her only language. The family came here & she had to learn English as her second language @ 10 yrs. old. She speaks far better English than I or anyone else native to this country that I know.

Kent, I took your advice and found a pod that wasn't open yet, but was ready. That is the way to go! I can't believe how easy it was to remove the seeds! I pulled the first few off of the bottom of the stem, to get a good picture, then grabbed the stem to remove the rest. None of the fluff came off when doing that!

Thanks so much for your help!

>> We have become very lazy in our English. We should call it American b/c it certainly isn't proper English.

I met a lady from India once, and she seemed to have trouble following American English. So I started paying attention to my pronunciation and grammar. Immediately she asked me if I had grown up in England, since i could speak English understandably.

I've noticed that some English TV shows represent an American accent as being pretty much a speech impediment. To realize that they are supposed to be Americans, you have to notice the flashy, loud clothing and crass, boorish manners.

www.wildones.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Milkweed-Basics.pdf

this link gives a quick video of an almost effortless way to remove fluff. hope this helps. worked for me

Welcome to ATP THUMBGREEN!

Thanks for the link to the video.

Great method! And the whole video is only 86 seconds. Best-made how-to video ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Welcome.. and thank you for the info!!

Very late to the game but I second what Kent said. Thats how I do it. I was also given the tip that when a few pods in the population have opened this indicates the seed has ripened and it should be safe to harvest seed. (this usually prevents you from popping open seed pods only to find them green or white, very unripe seed).

Now if only I could find a way to get the fluff on asters and goldenrods....

@THUMBGREEN Thanks for posting the link to the video! Sorry it took so long to respond. I've been out of state, on and off, for the last couple of months.

That is how I did the last batch of seeds that are shown in my pictures, and it was so easy! No mess at all, as long as you hang onto the fluff!

@BrendaVR Wish I could help with that, but I've never harvested aster or goldenrod seeds before. I did grow some asters this year, and had planned on collecting the seeds, but we were out of state when a hard freeze arrived, and the flowers looked fried when I got home. Decided not to mess with them this year, and I'll try again next year. I've never grown goldenrod before, but I sure want to! Another project for next year!

Milkweed bugs always get to my seeds before I do. Those things really gross me out.

Karen

Most bugs gross me out, so I'm glad I didn't see any on the milkweed!