Mache - saving seed?

[TastyofHasty]

I have a couple mache (corn salad) plants that are going to seed. Has anyone saved mache seed? It's so tiny but quite nice as a salad green; I'd like to grow a bunch this fall. Does anyone know how to tell when the seed is ready? These are just translating from flower to seed:

Yes, this is a living plant, it's fallen sideways but still rooted:




This one's in a pot, seed is not so far along:

[Lochlainn]

I'll be following this post closely... I have some mache planted as well. I would love to save some seed

[momol]

Tasty, when the seeds are equally big, cut the whole plant, place on a tray and let it dry in a shed.
When the seeds have fallen (beige colour), collect them from the tray !
Good luck !

[momol]

Your second picture looks just about right to be cut.

[TastyofHasty]

Looking at my second photo closely, Momol, looks like some of the little seed pods are turning slightly tan? Will they all turn tan when they're ripe?

[momol]

Yes, they will Tasty, I collect mine this way!
If you cut that plant and place it on a tray to dry, the seeds will eventually ripe and drop off into the tray. You can manually collect the mature seeds (tan/ beige colour) before they fall off (I did it before), but it is not practical at all!

[TastyofHasty]

Okay, mache seed is harvested! as in, I cut the plant off with scissors and put the whole thing in a medium-size brown paper bag now hung in my laundry room to dry.

Photo of the plant when I went out and looked at it just now ... there was SEED that had dropped off onto the cardboard, so it was definitely ripe as far as I was concerned:


I dumped the seed that had dropped onto the cardboard into my paper bag, too:


I oughtta have enough mache seed just from that for planting this fall.