Sowing Milkweed Seeds

Now that summer is over and fall is in full swing here in Wisconsin, it is time to prepare for winter. All my indoor plants that have spent the summer outdoors are back inside. The hoses are disconnected, porch furniture is put away and leaves are prepared to provide safe places for all the little critters and pollinators. I don't rake or remove old foliage until spring. The leaves in the driveway get pushed to the side and the yard stays the way it was meant to. I am fortunate to live in a rustic surrounding, and I don't have a lot of neighbors scrutinizing my property. 

Because of this natural living, I am able to let common milkweed grow wherever it chooses. There are several varieties of milkweed, but the common variety is what I have. I have raised Monarch butterflies for many years. I know the eggs are laid on the milkweed leaves and then the caterpillars need to eat milkweed plants to survive and flourish. In the past I would only raise enough milkweed to feed the caterpillars I found. Mostly I would just let it come up where it wanted, but I didn't plant any. 

As most of us know, the Monarch populations are dwindling and it will take more people to provide milkweed to increase the populations. Since the average Monarch butterfly lays hundreds of eggs and many of them turn into caterpillars, it only makes sense that planting more milkweed will nourish more caterpillars and ultimately we will have more Monarch butterflies. The butterflies then use the milkweed flower for nectar. This nectar keeps them healthy for reproduction and finally migration. These flowers also help other butterfly species as well as bees. Since milkweed plants thrive in conditions that aren't perfect, they are easy to grow. Just make sure they are in a place that doesn't interfere with other plantings because once established they will come back year after year. The plants usually thrive because rabbits and deer avoid these plants. They contain a toxin which these animals don't like. 

That brings me to my next project. Since I wanted to plant more milkweed this fall, I needed seeds. We have all seen the dried milkweed pods burst and then the wind takes them away to land wherever they please. 

Fortunately my daughter, my neighbor and myself had some dried pods. They were just about to split open so I gathered them. I let them sit outside in a screen enclosure until I was ready. Then I opened them and saved the seeds. This wasn't an easy task and there was a learning curve. At first I was chasing the white fluffy silk with a seed attached to each fiber. I found out that white fluff is called floss". They are meant to blow around and disperse, so it is a time consuming and messy project when they are let loose . Then I came upon a way to gather the seeds more efficiently. I took a bread tie and later a rubber band. I tied it very tight just below the fat part of the pod. Then I carefully peeled down the pod and removed the seeds. They come off quite easily.

My lack of patience allowed me to only do about 5 at a time, but I eventually got the job done. As a result I got a little more than one and a half cups of seeds. I calculated how many seeds that was. I filled one teaspoon with seeds and counted them. There are 175 seeds per teaspoon so one tablespoon has 525 seeds. It's hard to believe there were that many. Three tablespoons is 1/16th of a cup times 1.5 cups equals 12,600 seeds. Since I had a little more I figure there are almost 16,000 seeds. That should produce a few plants if only a small percentage of them grow. 

Milkweed seeds need cold stratification. You either have to plant them in the fall and all winter let the cold temps do their thing to prepare the seeds for germination or put them in the refrigerator and plant in the early spring. I decided to sow the seeds this fall and this week I played Johnny Appleseed. I walked to several special sunny places on my property and tossed milkweed seeds. We won't know if this process will work until next spring. I really hope it does and if it does, I will do it again next year. Some of these seeds will go to my daughter. She has a nice patch of milkweed plants already, but she also has a large sunny area for more. I will update all of you in the spring.