Savers: Lettuce Edition

A tutorial to Collect Lettuce Seeds.

I was really confused about when to harvest seeds and how to keep track of the various stages of the budding/pollinating/maturing of the pods so here is a handy guide of how I learned to identify each stage.

After a season of Lettuce the plants sends up a long stalk, all along the stalk are small buds like this:

 See how most are "tight" buds and a light green? That means they are baby buds and not ready.  The seeds will eventually be at the bottom of each "bud".

Watch and wait and suddenly you will notice some of the buds have blossomed into small yellow flowers like This:

If you watch closely in a day you will notice the yellow flower "close up" 

Small closed yellow flowers

The flower bud will start to dry out and the yellow flower turns white and fuzzy.  This lets you know it was pollinated. 

See how green this bud is? Also it is not a
"fuzzy" white, that means it has not yet
turned into a yellow flower or been pollinated
it is still a baby bud

This one is drying; you see more white
and the white is "fuzzy" also the bud is lighter
this one has turned into a yellow flower and
then pollinated.

READY!

He is ready! see how the bud is brown and dry? If you look really close under the white fuzz you can see some of the seeds. I simply pinch the white fluff and pull out the seeds then drop them into a ziploc bag.

READY!

The seeds! the white fluff is in my finger.  and I have a fingerfull of seeds.  Each plant makes several buds and each bud makes a decent number of seeds.  Next thing you know you could have enough seed to grow another garden!