If you were gardening in 2020 you likely remember the shortage of seeds that happened when the world shut down and suddenly everybody was growing a garden. Many seed companies were overwhelmed with the influx of orders and that shortage continued into the 2021 season. There’s nothing more disappointing than to peruse a beautiful seed catalog and make out your list of favorites to grow, only to be told the company is sold out.
Enter seed saving. If you grow heirloom or open-pollinated varieties, you can avoid this problem all together by saving your own seeds. Not only is it cost effective but often times you are creating a stronger strain that is going to work particularly well in your garden each subsequent year because the parent plant has been exposed to, and survived, everything your climate can throw at it.
Today on Just Grow Something we’re digging into why we should add seed saving to our list of garden tasks, even if it isn’t for every variety we grow in our garden. We’ll talk about the practice of saving seeds, including plant selection and pollination control, and go step-by-step into how to extract, clean, dry, and store those precious commodities to be sure we have plenty of options for our gardens for years to come. Let’s dig in.
Episode Resources:
Plan Like a Pro is open for fall registration! Get started here:
Plan Like A Pro | Just Grow Something with Karin Velez
Resources mentioned in this episode:
Ep. 63 - Proper Seed Storage: Moisture levels, storage conditions, containers, and more
Chart of Seed Viability and Simple Seed Germination Test
Just Grow Something Gardening Friends Facebook Group
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This is positively farming media for gardening.
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In 2020, you likely remember the shortage of seeds that happened
00:00:17
when the world shut down and suddenly everybody was growing a
00:00:20
garden. Many seed companies were
00:00:22
overwhelmed with the influx of orders, and that shortage
00:00:25
continued into the 2021 season. There's nothing more
00:00:29
disappointing than to peruse a beautiful seed catalog and make
00:00:33
out your list of favorites to grow, only to be told the
00:00:36
company is sold out. Enter Seed saving.
00:00:43
If you grow heirloom or open pollinated varieties, you can
00:00:46
avoid this problem altogether by saving your own seeds.
00:00:49
Not only is it cost effective, but oftentimes you are creating
00:00:53
a stronger strain of that variety that is going to work
00:00:56
particularly well in your garden each subsequent year because the
00:01:00
parent plant has been exposed to and survived everything your
00:01:04
climate can throw at it. Today on Just Grow Something,
00:01:07
we're digging into why we should add seed saving to our list of
00:01:11
garden tasks, even if it isn't for every variety we grow in our
00:01:14
garden, we'll talk about the practice of saving seeds,
00:01:18
including plant selection and pollination control, and go step
00:01:21
by step into how to extract, clean, dry and store those
00:01:26
precious commodities to be sure that we have plenty of options
00:01:29
for our gardens for years to come.
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Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen and I started
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gardening 18 years ago in a small corner of my suburban
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backyard when we moved to A5 acre homestead.
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I expanded that garden to half an acre and I found such joy and
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purpose in feeding my family and friends.
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This newfound love for digging in the dirt and providing for
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others prompted my husband and I to grow our small homestead into
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a 40 acre market farm. When I went back to school to
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get my degree in horticulture, I discovered.
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There is so much power in food and I want to share everything
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I've learned with as many people as possible.
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On this podcast, we explore crop information, soil health, pests
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and diseases. Plant nutrition, our own
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nutrition, and so much more in the world of food and gardening.
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So grab your garden journal and a cup of coffee and get ready to
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just grow something. So if you were in the Fall
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Garden Challenge last week, I hope that you've gotten the jump
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on getting everything ready for fall.
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I know some of you registered late and may still be working
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your way through the challenge, and I am glad so many of you
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decided that you might give the Fall Garden a try this season.
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I heard from several of you asking when I would be opening
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up registration for the plan like a pro course.
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If you're a new listener, I created a digital course this
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past spring designed to take gardeners step by step through
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the process of planning their garden for an entire year,
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spring through the fall and beyond.
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From site design and crop selection to succession planting
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and intercropping, the course is designed to help you get the
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most out of your garden, no matter what size space you have.
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I intended to only open the course up once per year in the
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late winter, but have been told that some of you want to get a
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jump on the planning for next season now and I thought I was a
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planner. You guys are incredible.
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I also recognize that the 3rd and 4th largest demographic of
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listeners of this show are from New Zealand and Australia.
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Yes, I see you, my gardening friends down under and I know
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that you are coming into late winter and spring starts for you
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in just a couple of months. So this is the perfect time for
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you to be doing your planning. So I have opened up the plan
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like a pro course for a fall registration.
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You can go to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com/plan
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to get all the details and to sign up.
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The course is self-paced so you can take all the time you need
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to work through the modules. You'll have immediate access to
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the course, you'll have all the replays from the live trainings
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that I did with the students from the spring registration.
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And one of you listeners somehow figured out that I had reopened
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the course and jumped into register even before I came on
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here to announce it. Tonya Harold, I'm talking to
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you. I think getting a jump on next
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season by using the Plan like a pro course in combination with
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the Fall Garden Challenge is a fantastic idea and I'm pretty
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sure that's what Tonya has done. So kudos to you if you want to
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join her. You will have access to the plan
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like a pro course for as long as Ioffer it with every update that
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comes each season, including audio and video and downloads
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and live trainings. So just
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growsomethingpodcast.com/plan is where you go and I will link to
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it in the show notes. So saving seeds from our
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vegetable garden I think is an essential practice that every
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gardener should at least try to do once.
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There are a lot of different reasons for this, not the least
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of which is just being costeffective.
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As somebody who started gardening on a very, very tight
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or next to nothing budget and did it so that I could save
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money in the household, if I had known how to save seeds, I would
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have been able to avoid the expense of purchasing new seeds
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the following year. This can of course, lead to a
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significant cost savings, especially for those of us who
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have really large gardens or if you like to grow a wide variety
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of things. Because oftentimes these seed
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packets only come, you know, in in certain sizes.
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And you may we only need one or two plants of each different
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variety if you really like to grow a wide variety of things.
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And then you have to worry about, you know, keeping those
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seeds, saving them properly and making sure that you get through
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them before they go bad or they they are no longer viable.
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And then you find yourself buying a bunch of different
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little packets for all these different things that you want
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to grow. So saving your own seeds can be
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a very cost effective way to do this.
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Some vegetable varieties may be rare, especially our heirloom
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varieties. They've been passed down through
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generations and they have very unique traits, different
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flavors, really rich histories to them.
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Especially some of the heirloom tomato varieties that I've grown
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have very interesting backgrounds.
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So saving seeds from these varieties is going to help to
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preserve that genetic diversity, but also that cultural heritage
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that comes with them. And then one thing that I
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alluded to in the intro is that adaptation to our local
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conditions and our local climates and mesoclimates.
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So over time seeds that are saved from plants that have
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performed really, really well in our garden are going to adapt to
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our local climate and our soil conditions and the conditions in
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our specific yard or garden. So these are locally adapted
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seeds, we often call these land races and they are just better
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suited to our gardens environment which leads them to
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be even stronger and more resilient the more we save from
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those strong resilient plants. They also think that seed saving
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is an important part of sustainable gardening and a
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level of self-sufficiency. It means that we can rely less
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on commercial seed sources as gardeners, which we have seen
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can be subject to all kinds of changes, whether it's in
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availability or if it's in pricing as costs of things start
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to go up, If we can save our own seeds, we are eliminating that
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as a cost factor in our gardening.
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And if you garden with kids, seed saving can be a really good
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educational experience. It can help to teach them about
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all the different parts of the plant life cycle, and about
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pollination and even about genetics in a way that might be
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more interesting for them than what they might sit and learn in
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a classroom setting. And the other thing too is, you
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know, seed saving can turn into seed sharing.
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And that starts to build more of a community.
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If you are a gardener who saves seeds and you get with a group
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of people who also save seeds, whether those are family members
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or friends or just other gardeners in your area, and you
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can trade those seeds out and have little seed exchanges
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amongst your group, that fosters a real sense of community.
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I know in one of the Facebook pages that I am a part of, the
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Kansas City Gardening Group. Every once in a while somebody
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will organize a seed exchange. Sometimes it is sanctioned by
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the group, sometimes it's just something that somebody sets up.
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But it's a great way to meet all these people that you sort of
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know from being online. You can show up and meet them in
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real life and you get the opportunity to trade seeds with
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people who are growing in your same area.
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And then we go back to those land races again.
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You're getting seeds that have gone through, you know, similar
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weather events as to where you are gardening and so you are
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getting those seeds that are definitely more adapted to local
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conditions. So not only are you getting
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better seeds, but you're also building a community at the same
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time. And of course, you know, all of
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this seed saving is done with these open pollinated and or
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heirloom varieties. And since commercial agriculture
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often focuses on a more limited number of the high yielding
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varieties, if you can save seeds from a diverse variety of
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vegetables, that's going to help to maintain the biodiversity and
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it's going to mean that some of the less common varieties aren't
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lost across the years. And honestly, it's just fun, you
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know, seed saving can be very gratifying.
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It can be a very enjoyable aspect of gardening.
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You don't have to do it with every single variety that you
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grow, but you know it's one of those things just like growing
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something that ends up on your own plane and you can look and
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be proud of yourself because you're eating something that you
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grew. Well, witnessing the full life
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cycle of the plant from seed to fruit and then back to seed
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again so you can start it over again the next year is also a
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very rewarding experience. Now I mentioned that we're
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talking about saving seeds from things that are open pollinated
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and or heirlooms and saving seeds from our own gardens is
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going to require some careful consideration to make sure that
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the seeds are viable and that they are eventually going to
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produce healthy productive plants for the next season.
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So some of the considerations that we need to think about when
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we talk about saving seeds, number one is plant selection.
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You want to choose to save seeds from the best specimens of your
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healthiest, most robust and disease free plants.
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We save the best and we eat the rest, right?
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So if you have that prize winning tomato, that's the one
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that you want to save the seeds from, you don't want to be
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eating that one. I mean, you know, you can eat it
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if you can also save the seeds too.
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But that's what I mean by save the best and eat the rest,
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right? We want to save the seeds from
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the best specimens that we grow, but we also need to know whether
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the plants that we are saving are open pollinated or are
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hybrids. If they are hybrid varieties,
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they are not going to reliably produce the same traits in the
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subsequent generations. We need to make sure that we are
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saving open pollinated varieties because they will produce
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offspring with traits that are similar to the parent plant in
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the next season. So that's why we are choosing
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open pollinated varieties to save, and we are choosing the
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best version of those open pollinated varieties to save
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from. Now in order to do this, to
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maintain that purity of those seeds in those open pollinated
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plants, we have to prevent cross pollination, which means that we
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need to keep the different varieties of the same species at
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a safe distance from each other. This is particularly important
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if you are saving seeds from something that is rare or from
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heirloom variety so that you avoid unintentional
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hybridization. And this is where I think it's
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important to kind of refer back to what we mean by cross
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pollination. So if you want to control the
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pollination, you want to ensure that you have seed purity.
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You want to make sure that you do not have two varieties of the
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same species together. You're not going to know in the
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current season if they cross pollinate it.
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I often see comments from people, especially online when
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somebody is asking a question about a fruit that looks a
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little weird or you know, a zucchini that doesn't look quite
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right and you'll often get people say, Oh well it's it's a
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result of cross pollination. We need to be very careful when
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we say things like this, because in anything that is a fruit,
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meaning it has the seeds on the inside, cross pollination does
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not affect this year's plant. It affects this year's seeds,
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Which means you're not going to see that cross pollination until
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that seed is planted and it grows a plant and that plant
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produces a fruit. And then you'll see whether or
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not you have the traits from two different plants at that point.
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So if you are growing two different varieties of zucchini
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or you have a zucchini and a yellow squash or whatever it is
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and they're growing right next to each other, your plants, even
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if they are cross pollinating, are not going to produce fruit
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that look any different from what you would expect them to.
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It would be the seeds that you saved from those that would
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produce a fruit that would look different than what you expect
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it to do. So This is why pollination
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control is important, which means you might want to consider
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using hand pollination techniques or covering the
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flowers with bags to prevent unwanted cross pollination.
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But if you are not intending to save seeds from those things,
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then it really doesn't matter. You can plant your zucchini next
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to your squash, you can plant your cantaloupe next to your
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cucumbers, and it's not going to be a big deal.
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So if it's open pollinated and you want to save the seeds, then
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you need to make sure that you're doing some isolation and
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some pollination control. Otherwise it really doesn't
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matter. This is not the case, by the way
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in things like corn because the seed is what we eat and so if
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you cross pollinate corn, it definitely does affect this
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year's crop. Just just as a side note.
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So when we are looking to save seeds, we want the most mature
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fruit or vegetable to save the seeds from.
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You want it to be completely ripened on the plant, We want it
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to go beyond usually the stage when we would normally harvest
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them. You want them to be fully mature
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and because you want the seeds in the inside to be fully
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matured and ready to be planted essentially.
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We don't want them green, we don't want them unripe.
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A very good example of this is we'll go back to zucchini again.
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So normally summer squash we are harvesting when it is very young
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and it is very tender. We don't want them full of huge
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seeds. Even when they get to that
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larger size. Maybe we've let them go a little
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bit further and we're going to use them for zucchini boats or
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zucchini bread or whatever. They are still not in their
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mature state. You would need to leave that
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zucchini on until it quite literally gets to like baseball
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that size before those seeds in the inside are going to be
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considered mature and be able to reproduce.
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So a good rule of thumb with that is you know a zucchini.
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Normally we're harvesting them, they are tender.
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If that skin can still be pierced with your thumbnail,
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then it's not mature yet. It should be very tough.
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It should almost resemble a winter squash at that point.
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The rind should be very thick, then we know it is mature.
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The thing about this is if you allow your plant to do this, and
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this could be zucchini, it could be tomatoes, it could be
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Peppers, any of these things. If you allow that fruit to stay
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on the plant long enough to where it is fully mature
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specimen, it's also usually going to be signaling to the
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plant that it is time to stop producing.
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So it's a fine line here when we are collecting what it is that
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we want to save. As far as seeds are concerned.
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With tomatoes, it's not quite as critical because you know, you
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can let a tomato fully ripen on the vine and once it's fully
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ripe and you pick it, it's going to continue to produce more, you
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know, tomatoes unless you're just letting them rot there on
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the vine. But with zucchinis and and
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things like that, it's a little bit different.
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So I would suggest that if you have a variety that you're
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wanting to save, you either wait until the end of the season and
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just go ahead and let those last few fruits remain on the plant
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and go ahead and get to full maturity.
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Or you just choose one plant of several if you're growing
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several of them and you decide that that's the one that you're
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going to save the seeds off of and the rest of them you just
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continue to harvest. So there's a little bit of a
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game playing here. So once you figure out that you
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know you've got the mature one and it is super ripe, then of
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course we have to extract the seeds and get them cleaned and
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figure out how to dry them and how to store them.
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So the seed extraction and the cleaning are very crucial steps
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in this. So right after this we're going
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to talk the proper procedures that ensure the seeds remain
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viable and free from contaminants and some general
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guidelines on how to do that. So when we are ready to extract
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the seeds and clean them, we want to properly extract the
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seeds from the fruit or the vegetable and clean them
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thoroughly. We want to remove any remaining
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pulp or debris that's going to prevent mold and keep them from
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rotting during storage. So again, choosing fully mature
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and ripe fruits or vegetables for this, we want them to be at
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their peak ripeness. We want those seeds to be fully
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developed. If they are underdeveloped or if
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they come from very over ripe fruit, then they may not be
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viable. Now the extraction method that
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we use for taking the seeds out of the fruit or the vegetable is
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going to vary depending on what it is that we are harvesting.
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So for things like tomatoes and cucumbers, any other fleshy
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fruits, generally you want to cut the fruit in half and just
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scoop out the seeds along with whatever the gel like substance
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is that's holding those those seeds, that's suspending the
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seeds. Place the seeds with the gel
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into a Mason jar or any other sort of small container and add
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a little bit of water. I usually will just shake it up
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a little bit and then just allow the mixture to sit for a few
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days. It's actually going to ferment
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at this point. Usually two to four days on the
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counter is going to be just fine.
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This is going to break down that gel that is holding or
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suspending those seeds and it's going to separate the seeds from
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that gel. So if you just kind of shake it
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up a little bit every day, you'll see when the gel sort of
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separates away from the seeds and then I will rinse the seeds
00:19:20
after the the gel has has come off.
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So you do this very carefully so that you obviously don't lose
00:19:26
the seeds going down the the drain of your sink.
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And usually I will just, you know, put them in the lid of the
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Mason jar and sort of run some water through and make sure that
00:19:35
I'm leaving the seeds behind. But the gel and stuff is going
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away. For Peppers and beans these are
00:19:40
a lot easier. You just pull the seeds out of
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the the pepper or out of the bean pod and spread them out on
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a paper towel and just allow them to air dry squashes and
00:19:51
melons. They don't generally have that
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same sort of goopy gel like substance like the tomatoes and
00:19:58
the cucumbers and do so you can just scoop those out and rinse
00:20:01
them. I have a fine mesh strainer that
00:20:04
I just throw them into. You can rinse them under running
00:20:07
water just to remove any of the pulp.
00:20:10
Just make sure that you are removing as much of that
00:20:14
residual debris or pulp as you can because this is going to
00:20:18
prevent the mold or any kind of fungal growth to happen during
00:20:22
storage. So again, those ones that have
00:20:24
that gel like coating, the fermenting part of this does
00:20:28
really help with getting rid of any of that funky stuff that
00:20:31
might want to be attached to it. And then if you rinse them again
00:20:34
in like a fine mesh strainer or something under the water and
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then just kind of rub them together, you're going to get
00:20:39
all that gel off all of the other seeds that don't require
00:20:42
fermentation. You can really just rinse them
00:20:44
under running water and rub those seeds to make sure you're
00:20:47
getting any of the debris off. Drying them is as simple as
00:20:52
placing them in a single layer on a paper towel or on a screen
00:20:56
of some sort if you have a lot of them, and just allowing them
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to air dry completely in a well ventilated area.
00:21:04
I have an episode that I will link to where I talked about the
00:21:08
very specifics of seed saving and moisture content.
00:21:12
That kind of breaks it down in a more scientific manner.
00:21:15
You just want to make sure there's not a bunch of debris or
00:21:17
anything left on them because you do not want them to mold
00:21:20
while they're in storage. I have had this happen before
00:21:23
where I, you know, I didn't get all the debris off and they
00:21:26
weren't completely dry and I opened them up the next spring
00:21:28
and they were really, really funky.
00:21:30
It's only happened once. It's just a matter of paying
00:21:33
attention. So once they're dry, we want to
00:21:36
figure out how to store them and an airtight container, something
00:21:41
like a glass jar or paper envelopes in a cool, dry, dark
00:21:46
location is the best idea. If you do put them in glass and
00:21:50
it's going to be in some place where they are going to be
00:21:52
exposed to light off and on, say if you've got them in a cupboard
00:21:54
or a cabinet that gets open frequently, then you want to put
00:21:57
them inside a paper envelope inside those glass jars before
00:22:02
you know, putting them away just so the light doesn't get to
00:22:04
them. There are all kinds of fancy
00:22:06
ways to do this. There's different envelopes,
00:22:08
there's different, you know, little containers and stuff that
00:22:10
you can use. Use whatever works best for you.
00:22:13
Just make sure that you are labeling each one of those
00:22:16
containers with the type of seed that it is.
00:22:18
So if it's a cucumber, or it's a squash, or it's a tomato, make
00:22:22
sure you know what the variety is, especially if these are rare
00:22:26
seeds or heirloom seeds that you were trying to save and then
00:22:29
also the date that you harvested them.
00:22:32
This is going to be important just because we want to know how
00:22:36
long these have been in storage because certain seeds last
00:22:40
certain amount of years and others not quite as long.
00:22:44
I will link to a download that I have that will tell you exactly
00:22:48
how long some of your suites can be saved or how long they last
00:22:52
in storage, but you want to make sure that you have clear records
00:22:58
of what you have saved, including the variety and the
00:23:01
collection date. It's also a good idea too.
00:23:04
I mean, obviously you may not put this right on the jar that
00:23:06
you're storing them in, but any specific notes that you have
00:23:09
about the growing conditions or how well they performed in your
00:23:14
garden might be a good idea. If you have a garden journal,
00:23:17
you can even have a seed saving sheet that you can reference
00:23:21
that has some record keeping that helps you keep track of,
00:23:24
you know, the success of each one of these seed batches that
00:23:26
you do so that you know that you are getting better results every
00:23:29
single year. Because that's kind of one of
00:23:30
the reasons we want to do this right.
00:23:32
Another consideration for this is testing the viability of the
00:23:36
seeds. So we don't want to spend all
00:23:38
this time saving these seeds and putting them away for the
00:23:42
spring, only to realize come spring that none of them
00:23:46
germinate because something went wrong somewhere along the way.
00:23:49
Especially if we're new at this. It's not that this is a
00:23:53
difficult process, but we are dealing with, you know, live
00:23:58
plant material. So sometimes something happens
00:24:01
and they just don't germinate the next year.
00:24:03
And we don't want to wait until that happens to realize that, uh
00:24:07
oh, we're not going to have the seeds that we wanted for that
00:24:11
season. So it's a good idea to test a
00:24:14
small sample of your saved seeds before you, like, plant a huge
00:24:19
backs of batch of them to get going in the next growing
00:24:22
season. So I will link to another
00:24:25
episode or article. I can't remember which one it
00:24:27
is. I'll have to look, but I'll link
00:24:28
to something that I have that I know we've talked about before
00:24:31
about how to do a simple germination test at home to
00:24:36
figure out whether or not your seeds are viable before you put
00:24:41
them all the way for the season. So if you know that you're going
00:24:43
to want, you know, say, 20 seeds to start for the next season,
00:24:47
you may want to save 30 of them and then test 10 of them to make
00:24:51
sure that you're getting the germination rate that you want.
00:24:53
And I will leave a link to that on how to do that.
00:24:57
And of course, you want to always remember to handle your
00:25:00
seeds with clean, dry hands and to avoid using wet hands or
00:25:03
containers during the extraction and cleaning process.
00:25:07
Properly cleaned and stored seeds are definitely going to
00:25:09
have a better chance of germinating and producing
00:25:11
healthy plants in the following growing season.
00:25:14
OK. So even if you are just now
00:25:16
getting started in seed saving, it's not something that you
00:25:19
thought about earlier in the season so you don't have your
00:25:21
varieties sort of separated from each other.
00:25:23
It's not too late to do that. Like I said, you can cover the
00:25:27
blooms to make sure they're not cross pollinating.
00:25:29
You can hand pollinate if you want to.
00:25:32
Tomatoes are usually very easy to do if you have some distance
00:25:36
between the varieties because they are mostly self fertile,
00:25:39
they are self pollinating so you know hybridization is a little
00:25:44
bit less likely unless you have a lot of insect or a lot of wind
00:25:47
activity. Beans are easy to do, you know,
00:25:51
Get started with just some simple stuff, some easy stuff,
00:25:54
and then go from there. Once you kind of get the bug and
00:25:57
decide that this is something fun that you might like to try,
00:26:00
if you don't enjoy it, that's OK.
00:26:03
At least you will have developed the skill.
00:26:06
And that is something that I think is really, really
00:26:09
important. It's part of the reason why I do
00:26:11
this podcast is because I'm so invested in seeing people at
00:26:15
least learn how to grow their own stuff so that if they have
00:26:20
no choice, they can do it. The same thing goes for saving
00:26:24
seeds. I think it's an essential
00:26:25
practice for all of the different reasons that we talked
00:26:27
about, and I think it can lead to all of us just becoming
00:26:32
better gardeners. Until next time, my gardening
00:26:35
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden and save some
00:26:38
of those seeds, will you? And we'll talk again soon.
00:26:41
You just finished another episode of The Just.
00:26:43
Grow something podcast. For more information about
00:26:45
today's topic, go to just. Growsomethingpodcast.com where
00:26:49
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00:26:52
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00:26:59
Facebook group. Until next time, my gardening
00:27:02
friends. Keep learning and keep growing.