Knowing how to harvest chia seeds means you’ll be able to easily harness their wonderful nutritional benefits. Among the many superfoods introduced in the last generation, chia seeds are an excellent source of fiber, they are great for gut health, and they lower cholesterol. Because high-fiber foods help us feel full for longer, chia seeds may also help with weight loss.
Making room in your garden to grow chia means you can utilize these incredibly powerful seeds as an important food for birds and other animals. Their plants aren’t hard to grow in warmer regions and may be grown as annuals in cooler climes. Here’s how and when to successfully harvest chia seeds, and store them at their best so you can get the most from them.
Benefits of Harvesting Chia Seeds at Home
Indigenous people knew how to harvest chia seeds manually and use them for food. Today, commercial growers use a combine and screen out the seed. The benefits of growing your own tasty edible seeds are availability and controlling what goes into this ingestible.
Harvesting chia seeds is a bit labor-intensive, but well worth it if you want a direct, controlled source of this superfood. You can direct-sow the seed after the last frost date in a full sun location and well-draining soil. Keep the soil moist until germination but thereafter they need moderate water. The plants will get 1-2 feet ( 0.3-0.6 m) tall.
You can also sow the seed in flats eight weeks prior to the date of the last frost and then plant them out. Chia seeds will self-sow, which means they will begin new plants naturally the next year.
When to Harvest Chia Seeds
So how are chia seeds harvested? Well, before tackling the ‘how’, let’s talk about when. Timing is everything when learning how to harvest your own chia seeds. Hopefully, your chia plants will produce pretty purple flowers. Once these have been pollinated, they will turn into tiny seed pods, each carrying numerous seeds.
Chia plants need 12-16 hours of darkness to promote flowering, which can be challenging in some zones. Late fall is the time the petals have mostly fallen and the seed capsules have turned brown and matured. It takes about 120-180 days from sowing to harvest.
How to Harvest Chia Seeds
Indigenous people used tightly woven baskets to beat the seed heads until they dropped into the receptacle. They would use loosely woven baskets to sieve out the chaff. But how do you harvest chia seeds from a garden plot?
Simply snip off the faded flowers just below the flower spike. Place the spikes in a paper bag for a week or so until they have completely dried. Then shake the bag to release the seeds. Alternatively, you can take out the dried flower heads and lay them on a counter. For effective seed harvesting, crush them manually with your hands. Scoop the crushed seeds and chaff into a sieve and shake out the chaff.
How to Store Chia Seeds
Like most seeds, chia needs to be kept dry. Once the seed has dried out completely, you can store seeds in a zippered plastic bag, a glass jar with a lid, a plastic tub, or any other airtight container. If you keep them in the refrigerator or freezer, these seeds will last for even longer, for anything up to two years.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Do You Separate Chia Seeds from Plants?
The old way was to use winnowing to separate seed from chaff. In this process, the heavier seed and lighter chaff are passed from one container to another outdoors or near a fan. The lightweight chaff will blow away, leaving just the seed. You might also use a screen system. Several sets of screens, each with a different gauge hole are utilized. Pass the seed and chaff through the graduated holes until the smallest, which will catch the seed. The previous larger gauge screens will capture the chaff.
How Do You Know When Chia Seeds are Ready?
Chia plants are ready to harvest when most of the flower petals have fallen off. The seed pods will be brown. If you separate some seeds from the pod, they should be deeply black.