When to harvest silverbeet and lettuce seeds?

[mountaindweller]

The silverbeet plants are getting really annoying. I tried to tie them together. The seed pods are still green can I harvest them now?
How does the lettuce seed must look like to be ready to harvest?
At least this one does not tip over and stands straight itself.

[Joseph Lofthouse]

Lettuce seed gets a fuzzy top when it's ready to harvest... Similar to a dandelion, but the fuzz is more tightly held in the seed head. About the time the fuzz appears I pick the part of the stem with fuzzy seeds and plop it in a paper sack to continue drying for a while. Eventually when I think I have enough, I stop adding new stems, let it dry for a few weeks, then thresh and winnow.

[rowan]

Silverbeet can get very annoying at this time flopping all over the place, I am harvesting mine now. You need to wait till the seeds are brown before stripping them off the stalks.

[mountaindweller]

Thanks! The kitchen is full with seeds...

[raymondo]

I put seeds to dry in pillow cases, turned inside out to avoid seeds getting caught in the seams. I hang these on the back of my dining room chairs. Currently I have drying - two types of lettuce, a spinach mix, several collard crosses, rocket, Mexican bergamot and lentils.

[mountaindweller]

That is a good idea, I have some ugly pillow cases.

[adamus]

It does work well, but when visiting Ray, you get the uneasy feeling you're in Primary School again.

[richardw]

When the Lettuce heads get that fuzz ive found that if it rains a lot of it falls out,so i try and harvest before the weather turns,what i do is tie each plant to a bamboo stake before they start to flower,when i need to get the seed i untie it and bend over the whole plant into a large bag then shake the crap out of it,after i tie it up again and get more seed in a week or so later.