Update!

I brought the baskets in and have kept an eye on the pods. There were probably six or seven fat ones to start with, and it seemed they had not changed for a long time outside so I pulled one off and opened it up. There were a lot of tiny white pellets in it. I presume those were unripe seeds (darn my impatience!). So the rest I left alone. Between my post at the end of October and today, all but one of the rest have dried to the point where I could either look into the end and *see* the black inside, or squeeze slightly and feel the dryness/hear the crackly dryness. At that point, most if not all of the seeds are dry and black and, presumably, ripe. I am currently awaiting the ripening of one last pod.

In the meantime, apparently some seeds fell into the soil and germinated at different points and there is good growth there so I will be growing these guys in the house over the winter and will have, hopefully, some good bushy baskets of violet snapdragon vine started for the springtime.

I am hopeful that next year I will have enough seed to share; there were not loads of flowers on my plants, and it would seem that not all the flowers were pollinated well enough to produce seed. Plus this summer these plants shared the baskets with balsam impatiens... next year, they get the baskets all to themselves. The balsam will go in the kids' garden, those were fun little poppers at harvest time - really taught a light touch!

:-)

Great news! Dry and black is what you want : )
I brought mine in also. Last I checked, I still had closed green pods. I need to look again.
Remy

Forgot to mention, in case anybody is wondering - the pods on mine never changed color during the ripening process, they stayed green... they just get dry feeling and sometimes there was an opening at the end - sort of a black peep hole.

Yesterday, that final pod was closed up, and this afternoon after I posted the previous message the black hole had opened and I harvested black seeds from the pod.

The seeds are easily ejected from the pod, so it would not surprise me if a few seeds escape from the pod between the time that hole opens in the pod to when I actually find it; this would certainly explain the new plants in the basket. :]

Remy, I've been checking just about every day for the past month. I'm relieved that all of the pods are done - my seed harvesting is finally done for the year!