Seed Saving Has Many Benefits
by Diane Heeney

Description: Tips for saving seeds for next year's garden.

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Saving seed will not only reduce gardening expenses, but it can enable you to have control over size, disease resistance, maturity dates, flavor, and overall quality of your produce.

Your seed should come from healthy fruit or plants with a better-than-average yield.  If you're going for size, progressively choose larger fruit sources.  It is not desirable to save seed from hybrid parents, as they come from inbred stock.  Some of their saved seed will be sterile.  Be sure to mark your seed plants as soon as you decide you will be harvesting from them.

Correct seed storage is necessary to ensure viability.  Seeds should remain in their natural pod or husk until dry and hard or brittle.  Small seeds that have a tendency to shatter or blow away can be encased in a fine mesh or paper bag.  Don't use plastic, as it encourages mildew.  Onions, carrots, and cabbage do well with bag harvesting.

After collection, dry seeds for a week before storage.  Spread them on newspapers or fine screen to increase ventilation.  Berry seeds can be retrieved by pushing the fruit through a sieve, washing off the seeds, then air drying.

Heat and humidity can hurt germination, so store in a cool, dry place.  Mold can form if jars are used, since seeds can re-absorb atmospheric moisture.  Simple paper envelopes (sealed and labeled) are an easy solution.  Picking seeds on a warm, dry day can go a long way in preventing mold.

Lettuces are a self-pollinating annual.  They don't need to be isolated.  Harvest from the last plant to go to seed after the yellow flowers turn to whitish wisps.  One plant can amply supply your family.

Peppers are also self-pollinating, but some crossing can occur from insect activity if two or more varieties are planted less than 50 feet apart.  Don't harvest from green fruits, as the seeds are immature.  Wait until the pepper is red.

Tomatoes are self-pollinating, so varieties don't cross.  Save your very best fruit on the vine until quite ripe, but not rotten.  Put the whole tomato in a glass jar and let it ferment for several days.  The pulp and worthless seeds will rise to the top, where they can be skimmed off.  The good seeds will sink to the bottom, where they can be strained, rinsed, and dried.  This process eliminates seed-borne diseases such as bacterial canker.

Beans should be left on the vine until they rattle or can't be dented by your teeth.  If you have a very special variety, a 100-foot isolation barrier should be used.  Average garden varieties don't need that much space, as they are considered self-pollinating.

Pumpkin/cucumber/cantaloupe cross-breeding tales can be intimidating.  The species C. pepo has many cousins such as zucchini, baby jack o' lanterns, pattypan squash, and acorn squash.  Most oddities occur within the family tree.  Crosses occur only within a species, so pumpkins can't cross with cantaloupes.  Isolate plantings by 100 feet when in doubt.  Fruit rinds should be hard to the fingernail, and the seeds washed and dried.

Biennial vegetables don't set their seed until the second season.  These include parsnips, kale, carrots, beets, and cabbage.  They must be kept from freezing if left over winter in your garden.  This can be accomplished with mulch, or you can dig and store in a cool place over the winter.  Replant the best of the stored specimens in the spring.

An added bonus to saving radish seeds are the zesty pods that go so well in salads and stir fries.  Purchased packets seem to be getting more expensive and have fewer seeds.

To summarize, pick the healthiest fruit, let it stay on the vine until fully ripe, rinse pulp off if necessary, and dry thoroughly.  Keep the seeds from molding in storage.  Isolate your plantings if cross-pollenization might be a problem.

I took a Master Gardener's course through our Extension Service last year.  I highly recommend it.  Even accomplished gardeners can learn something, and the fee was nominal.

Reprinted with permission.

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