I've been cleaning up the rooftop garden clearing out all the dying
plants and preparing the soil in containers for planting wildflower seed
later this fall after the ground freezes. It still has been relatively
warm here in Zone 5 Chicago.

This year I grew a lot of morning glories that grew over a system of
trellises I built early last Spring. I want to harvest the seed to plant
in other areas but many of the morning glories vines are still alive and
the seed pods, although closed, are still green and it appears the seeds
are still forming inside. Is it OK to just harvest these green pods and
place them in a coffee can and let them dry out? Will the seeds form if
they get separated from the mother vine? I'd really like to clean out
the vines if possible. The problem I see with waiting until the seeds
form in the pods is that there is a small window of opportunity to
harvest before the pods break open and the seeds blow away. It would be
very convenient if I could harvest all the seed pods all at once and be
done with it. Does anyone have insight on this?