Seed Saving

Seedstages

 Before seed companies existed, saving seeds for the following growing season was common place.  While no longer imperative, this time-practiced technique remains beneficial.  Saving seeds can bring access to rare vegetable varieties not commercially available such as international plants or locally suited varieties. Gardeners preserve genetic diversity through planting these varieties of plants, helping protect greater food security.  Most of all, saving seeds is free and makes you a fully self-sustaining gardener by connecting the circle of vegetable life year to year.

1. Wash seeds (if it does not dry on the plant).  Rinse in a strainer with lukewarm water.

2. Place seeds on a tray or screen in a warm, dark, and ventilated space.

3. Allow to sit for a few days to a few weeks, until dry.

4. Store seeds in an airtight glass container (plastic allows some moisture though).

5. Store containers in a cool and dry environment.

Larger seeds are easier to save than tiny ones making beans, peas, watermelon, okra, squash, and sunflowers good for beginners.  Some seeds like beans and peas dry on their vines, while gardeners must dry others like squash, peppers, and tomatoes.  Some vegetable plants like collards and lettuce are biennial, meaning they flower in the second year of their lives, so a gardener must protect these plants over winter to collect seed.

Fully dried seeds will not squish or bend and should crack if hit with a hammer. Constant temperature and moisture levels keeps seeds viable for longer, so keeping them in the back of your refrigerator is a good option.  Label your seeds with the year saved and the variety of vegetable.  It is best practice not to sow all the seeds from one variety at once, saving a handful of seeds in case of crop failure.

Growing Plants for Seed

For many plants, growing for seeds requires different techniques than growing for food. When planting, pay attention to whether plants are annual, biennial, or perennial. Annuals produce seeds the same year they are planted and then die. These seeds are easy to collect. Biennials grow for a season, overwinter, and produce flowers and seeds in the second year of life. The seed saver must plan for overwintering these plants and allow for wider spacing, as they often take up more space when producing flowers than when being harvested for food. Perennials survive over winters and live for years, producing seeds every year. The only caution is to realize they stay in the ground in the same place for year.

Pollination is required to make both fruiting and seeds. Since you are selecting for specific traits to perpetuate, you should avoid cross-pollination between plants of different varieties of the same vegetable. The most sure-fire way to prevent cross-pollination is by isolation space, not planting any other varieties of the same vegetable you are saving seeds from within a certain distance. This keeps wind and pollinators far enough away to from skewing purity in the traits you select for, though may be difficult to ensure in an urban setting, especially in a community garden. Other ways to isolate plants are by time and mechanics. Planting different varieties multiple weeks to a month apart may help prevent them from pollinating at the same time. Placing cloth or bags over flowering plants can isolate them from pollen of other varieties.

Some plants, like tomatoes and peas, are in-breeders meaning their flowers can and usually pollinate within the same flower. Others are self-incompatible like cauliflower, and cannot self-pollinate flowers on the same plant. These are referred to as out-breeders and require special attention by the seed saver. You sometimes must hand pollinate these by manually rubbing pollen from a male flower’s anther onto the female flower’s stigma. You should also especially heed isolation techniques and rogue any plants that are not true to type. To rogue for bad traits before plants produce seeds, removing any plants that show traits not true to type.

Harvesting, for the most part remains the same and generally seeds are viable and vigorous at the time you would eat the fruit or vegetable. This is not always true though, as in the case of green peppers; maturity and vigor of seeds is often marked by a change in color or texture of the fruit or seed. Thus, even though you can eat a green pepper, its seeds will have better germination rate if you harvest it after it changes color. It is also good to save seeds from the best fruits and from numerous plants of the same variety. Saving the best fruit will perpetuate the best traits. You can select for specific traits too, such as size, earliness, disease/insect/drought resistance, uniformity, trueness to type, etc. Saving seeds from numerous plants will 1 prevent a bottleneck effect by preserving the variety’s genetic diversity.

Summer Plant Specific Information

Peas and beans

 Typically self-pollinate before flowers open, though some will attract insect pollinators

 Isolation of 50ft

 Let the pods dry on the vine until brown and crispy (you can hang entire vines up to dry further if necessary) and shell the beans or peas out

 Remove any bad seeds (shriveled, not fully formed, discolored, etc.)

 50% viability for 3 years

Okra

 Self-pollinating, perfect flowers, though large open flowers allow for insect pollination as well

 Mechanical isolation by covering either entire plant or individual flowers

 Distance isolation of 1 mile

 Let seeds dry in pods on the plant

 50% viability for 5 years

Squash

 Outbreeding, mechanical isolation is imperative

 Hand pollination is easy for beginners, flowers are big

 Beneficial for genetic diversity to breed flowers from different plants

 Rinse seeds well, dry, and store

Watermelon

 Outbreeding

 Distance isolation of ½ mile

 Hand-pollination

 Collect seeds, wash with squirt of mild dishwashing soap, rinse in strainer, dry

 Viable for 6 years

Peppers

 Perfect flowers, inbreeders, though small insects may pollinate

 Distance isolation of 500 feet

 Mechanical isolation by covering whole plant or individual flowers

 Harvest when fruit is fully mature (changed color if not a green variety)

 Cut flesh away without disturbing white core, hold stem and use small knife to carefully remove seeds from white flesh, dry and store

 50% viability for 3 years

Basil

 Inbreeding, though need pollination by small insects

 Distance isolation of 150 feet

 Alternate day caging can be beneficial

 Harvest when bottom flowers on a stem (raceme) start to turn brown, hang dry

 Each flower has four seeds, separate chaff either by rubbing through mesh, or slowly swirling around in a bowl

Tomato

 Inbreeding, though some varieties may be largely pollinated by insects

 Harvest a ripe fruit and squeeze seeds into a small bucket

 Let ferment for 2-3 days, allowing top of juice to grow fungus (killing bacteria and rotting away a gel sac around the seeds that prevents germination inside the fruit)

 Rinse in strainer and dry on a screen, stirring frequently so they don’t stick, and store

 4-10 year viability depending on variety and quality