Nature is amazing and chock-full of miracles everywhere you look. 

Collecting seeds from nature for your garden allows you to play a small part in one of nature's miracles. Not only that but it's healing to your mental and emotional well-being.

Collecting seeds can be fairly easy depending on the plant you're harvesting. There are countless videos on Youtube to research seed collection from particular plants, so I will only add a general overview.

If you are collecting seeds from Native plants in your area, ALWAYS DO YOUR RESEARCH before handling them.

• Decide on which plants you want to collect seeds from
• Wait until they have bloomed and died back (the spent flowers will turn into seed-heads and turn brown)
• Cut the seed-heads off and put them in a paper bag
• Allow them to dry for at least one week indoors
• Once they're dry you can typically crush the seed-heads between your fingers and thumb (make sure you use a plate to catch what falls)

In some plants, the seeds will simply fall out of their pods. In other plants there's a little more work required. If you have the latter, you will need to separate the seeds from the chaff. The chaff is just parts of the seed-head you don't need. (See top grouping in 2nd photo) You can use a kitchen strainer to help in this process.

Once your seeds are collected, you can put them in an envelope and store them in a cool dry place until you're ready to plant them.