Yellow Black Eyed Susan Plant
black eyed susan
(Image credit: Nadezhda_Nesterova)

Collecting seeds is an easy way to expand your garden. Best of all, it's free! To collect black-eyed Susan seeds, wait for a dry fall day and clip the seed heads off your plants. If they're still green, lay them out to dry on a newspaper for a couple weeks. Once the seed heads are good and dry, pop them off the stems and place them in a glass jar. Then close the lid and shake shake shake!

Hold a sieve over a sheet of paper and dump the contents of the jar into it. The tiny black-eyed Susan seeds should fall through onto the paper. You'll get a little bit of chaff as well, but that's okay. When you plant your seeds, the extra bits will just go back into the ground. Once you've separated your seeds, put them in a paper envelope and store them in a cool dry place, then plant them in the spring.

Laura Walters
Content Editor

Laura Walters is a Content Editor who joined Gardening Know How in 2021. With a BFA in Electronic Media from the University of Cincinnati, a certificate in Writing for Television from UCLA, and a background in documentary filmmaking and local news, Laura loves to provide gardeners with all the know they need to succeed in an easy and entertaining format. She never thought when she was growing vegetables in her college dorm room, that one day she would get paid to read and write about her favorite hobby.