daisy - Thanks. I have a spot I think they'll like, where I can keep an eye on them. If I looked hard enough, I could probably find some growing nearby. I tried that last year, and thought I had some. But when I went to collect it, it didn't sting. So wrong weed. I don't want them to take over, so I'll be cutting them back regularly. I want to make sure I have a way to remove them in the future though, before I plant. Someone posted a while back that they would eventually give up if I kept mowing them.

Glad you found something you could use in that, Mary! If you haven't collected much seed before, here are a couple other things that might be helpful! On some plants the seed can be very hard to find! There are a few things I've never been able to find seed on! Some plants "shoot" their seed all over the place--before you even realize the seed is ripe! In that case, by the time you go looking odds are that it's already been "planted" for you and you'll find VERY little left "on the plant!" (Acanthus is a fine example of that! Sweet violets too, tho there's usually some seed left to collect on those!) Not all plants produce VIABLE seed! Even tho you find "seed" on a plant, it could be something that's sterile so the "seed" will never germinate--since there's no "germ!" (Hybrid ornamental blue fescue is an example of a sterile plant!) Some plants will produce "seed pods" but there won't be any seed inside! Last year I let my new sky-blue grape hyacinths ('Valerie Finnis') go to seed--they were REALLY ugly for a couple months!--and when it finally looked like the seed pods were ripe I collected them and didn't find seed in ANY of them! That was a real disappointment in that case, but since they multiply underground very easily I didn't even try again this year! ("Regular" grape hyacinths reseed all over the place--in addition to the bulbs multiplying!) Any hybrid plants you collect seed from will very likely not come true from the seed you collected! In other words, the plants you start from seed will be somewhat to a lot different from the parent plant. Most hybrids grown from seed tend to revert back to whatever the dominant plant they were "crossed" with was, or they revert back to the simplest "straight species" of the plant--just depends on how the hybrid was developed. Bottom line is that with seeds from a hybrid you never know for sure what you're gonna get until they bloom! To get a hybrid plant that's true to the parent you need to either divide the original plant, successfully root cuttings from the parent plant, or use some other "vegetative propagation" method like "tissue culture," which is really a commercial thing done in sterile conditions and I suspect you're not gonna try that at home! Wikipedia has a really good article on vegetative propagation! Hybrid Oriental poppies can be started vegetatively from root cuttings to get a clone of the parent, and if you're ever interested in trying that let me know and I'll copy/paste my directions for you! If you're interested in seed saving, you might want to check out some of the basic seed saving videos from the Webinars link I just posted. Seed Savers Exchange deals mostly with veggie seeds so I think that's what they show in the videos, but the principles are the same for any seed saving! What it all gets down to in the end is that seed collecting and saving is a fun--and worthwhile--thing to do, but it's never a Sure Thing. You need to just keep Playing At It and see "what develops" (pun intended), and don't be disappointed if you don't find or don't get what you were hoping for! And it's always a good idea to "proof" the seed you collect on some damp paper towel in a baggie before you try to start it, or before you give it away to somebody. And if you're giving hybrid seed to somebody I highly recommend you let them know it's seed from a hybrid and that you can't guarantee what they might wind up with (two seeds collected from the same hybrid plant can be different when they're grown!) [That's how many hybrids are developed! By crossing a This with a That in "isolation" and then growing them to see what they get!] Have fun playing with it, and once you get going come back and tell us all about your results! Skybird Here is a link that might be useful: Vegetative Propagation

"Save every seed you can from the red ones" That is my intention Peppermaster1. However, I don't know how many seeds each will have. I let my wife eat one of the runt pepper that did not look good for seed (genetically), it only had four seeds in it. Since it took all of the 50 seeds I had to get these two plants to germinate, I am worried about getting new plants. Both plants have only produced 30 pods combined so far after 6 months of hand pollination of each flower and the best care I knew how to give them (never done anything like this before). Once I get this process down to where I know I will be able to grow new plants, I would be glad to trade with you, especially if you have some Malagueta or Bode seeds. Yeay! I think I just found out what kind of pepper they are. I was looking for the correct spelling of the Bode pepper and struck an ebay page selling four types of Brazilian peppers. One of the peppers in the picture looked similar in shape to my pepper, but it was yellow, not red like mine. I did a google image search with the name of the pepper (Cheiro)off the ebay page and found the Cheiro pepper is a extremely tasty aromatic sweet pepper like the Bell pepper. But my peppers are really hot. The one my wife ate was about 90% as hot as a Habanero. After looking through hundreds of thumbnails on google image search I found a picture that looked like mine (http://www.pbase.com/chiles400/image/103079070). There is no other information with the picture, but the photographer called the pepper, "Cheiro Laranja" (Laranga means orange). Mine are red and not orange, but that is pretty close. Now the word "Cheiro" is a Portuguese word that means "Aroma" or smell (Positive sense only). There is no doubt that my peppers are related to the Cheiro, because they have such powerfully delicious aroma. I have actually eaten this pepper for years in a dried powder form that I brought back with me from the Amazon five years ago. Every single person that has ever tasted my pepper powder has declared it to be the best smelling tasting pepper they have ever tried in their lives. All my friends (and family) have all but exhausted my supply of powder(both my arms are broken from the twisting. LOL!)and it was because of this that my friend went looking for some seeds when he went to Brazil. He also brought me back some more powder (whew!). Anyway, I am now fairly certain that my peppers are some type of Cheiro pepper. The reason I think this is because when I first bought some powder at a farmers market in Manaus, Brazil five years ago, I bought two bottles from different native farmers. One bottle was yellow powder and the other was red powder. Both powders were unbelievably delicious, but the yellow was the better of the two. From what I know about my peppers, they are not commercially grown anywhere in Brazil like the Malagueta, Bode and Cheiro. In fact, the pepper powder is only produced by native amazonian (Indians). It was from an Indian that my friend got the seeds. So my uneducated guess about what type of pepper mine are is this. Either the Cheiro pepper came from the pepper variety I have, or the peppers I have came from the Cheiro. I think the former to more likely though. Oh by the way, I bought every seed that guy on ebay was selling; 120 total, 30 of each variety, Malagueta, Bode, Cheiro and Dedo de Mo�o. Luck strike for me. All the pepper seeds I wanted on one place.

Good solution!I am just thinking logically and also going by experience. The first bloom is often the biggest and from the strongest seedling. Also, the size of the seed pods and the seeds are often proportional in size to the bloom. I am presuming the largest seed produces the strongest plant. Now, if one is collecting seeds from a hybrid plant there is some caveates. I have found that the seeds collected from patterned petunias produce strongest seedlings that are single colored and the patterned ones result from the mid sized seedlings. It makes sense in that the hybrid is usually not as vigorous as the species.