Saving seeds from our gardens to use the next spring it is a great way to not only help our budget out a little bit but also to give ourselves some food security and doesn’t sound like it should be a very difficult task. At that point we’re not relying on someone else to grow our seeds for us that we have to buy over and over again. Just collect the seeds from whatever you want to keep, rinse them, dry them, and pack them away for next year, right?
Well, yes, but also, no. The method I just described can absolutely mean you’ll have beautifully preserved seeds that have fantastic germination the next season and yield a bounty of exactly what you thought you were planting. But it’s equally possible that you’ll open the seed packet the next season to find fuzzy gray fungus or black moldy growth on your seeds, or seeds that don’t sprout properly, or maybe they sprout and you get midway through the gardening season and the fruit on the plant look nothing like the ones you saved the seeds from.
So, today on Just Grow Something we’re going to dig into which plants you should and shouldn’t be saving seeds from, how to properly collect, clean, and dry those seeds in order to best guarantee your success the next season, and how to quickly test them before you store them to know if they’re viable. Let’s dig in!
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Every year I have one or more of my customers at the farmers
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market come up to me on a Saturday and hand me a baggie of
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seeds and say here I saved the seeds from that fantastic
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watermelon, cantaloupe, tomato, zucchini.
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Enter your favorite thing here that I bought from you.
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And at that point I'm absolutely stuck between figuring out which
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particular thing I grew that they're talking about and which
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variety of that particular thing, whether or not it was
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open pollinated or a hybrid, and whether that fruit or veggie was
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mature enough to save the seeds from and be viable.
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I'm also stuck in my brain as to whether or not I should teach my
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well meaning customer the proper way to save seeds and which ones
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are worth saving, or to just smile gratefully and accept the
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baggie of mystery seeds and just let them be very proud of
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themselves. In most instances, I opt for the
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second one unless I know that that customer is also a gardener
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and would benefit from more information like the first
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option. It's really hard for me not to
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teach people this stuff. Y'all I even if they don't care
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about it. So saving seeds from our gardens
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to use the next spring is a great way to not only help our
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budget out a little bit, but also to give ourselves some food
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security. And it doesn't sound like it
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should be a very difficult task at that point.
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We're not relying on someone else to grow our seeds for us
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that we have to buy over and over again.
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Just collect the seeds from whatever you want to keep and
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rinse them and dry them and then pack them away for next year,
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right? Well, yes, but also no.
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The method that I just described can absolutely mean that you'll
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have beautifully preserved seeds that have fantastic germination
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the next season and will yield a bounty of exactly what you
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thought you were planting. But it's also equally possible
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that you will open that seed packet the next season to find
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fuzzy Gray fungus or seeds that don't sprout properly.
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Or maybe they do sprout and then you get midway through the
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gardening season and the fruit on that plant looks absolutely
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nothing like the one that you saved the seeds from.
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So today on Just Grow Something, we are going to dig into which
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plants you should and shouldn't be saving seeds from, how to
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properly collect, clean and dry those seeds in order to best
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guarantee your success next season, and how to quickly test
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them before you store them to know if they're viable.
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Let's dig in. Hey, I'm Karen, I started
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gardening in a small corner of my suburban backyard and now 18
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years later, I've got a degree in horticulture and operate a 40
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acre market farm. I believe there is power in food
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and that everyone should know how to grow at least a little
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bit of their own. On this podcast, I share
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evidence based techniques to help you plant, grow, harvest
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and store all your family's favorites.
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Consider me your friend in the garden.
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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. Before we jump in to this week's
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episode, I want to bring back a little something from earlier in
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the season and I want to do a question of the month for you.
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Now that we are into September and we are sort of winding down
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the summer part of the gardening season and we're heading into
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fall, I really want to know what was your biggest success in the
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garden this season? Send me a message, send me a DM.
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Go ahead and send me an e-mail reply to this episode from
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within Spotify, however you want to do it.
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This will also be in the e-mail this morning, so you can reply
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directly from the e-mail or you can just directly e-mail me to a
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grow at just growsomethingpodcast.com and let
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me know what was your biggest success in the garden this year?
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So there are three things that we need to think about or we
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need to know when we are trying to save our own seeds.
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Number one is which seeds should be saved in order to reproduce
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the plant we grew this year #2 is what the fruit or vegetable
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looks like when it's mature, and #3 is how to test the seeds for
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viability before putting them into storage.
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There is a #4 to this, and that's how to properly store
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them. But we'll go over that one next
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week. This week, let's dig into the
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saving of the seeds and we'll start with which plants we
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actually want to save seeds from.
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When saving seeds, we want to start with open pollinated
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varieties rather than hybrids. So we talked about this a little
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bit a couple weeks ago when we were talking about open
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pollinated versus heirloom versus hybrid versus GMO.
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If an open pollinated variety self pollinates or cross
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pollinates with other plants of the same plant variety, they set
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seed that grows into plants that are still very similar to the
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parent plant and they bear fruit that are similar to the parent
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fruit. OK, open pollinated varieties
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might be called heirlooms. Those are the ones that are
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passed down through generations. We talked about that in that
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episode. But regardless, you know,
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whether we're using the term open pollinated or heirloom and
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sometimes they're used interchangeably.
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The the only difference between those is how long the variety
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has actually been recognized. They all will produce or
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reproduce true to type if they are properly pollinated either
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by self pollinating, which is like most tomatoes, or cross
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pollinating with another plant of the same type, like plants in
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the cucumber family, right, The curcubits.
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Often times we associate this, you know, idea of open
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pollination with tomatoes. But there are plenty of squash,
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beans, peas, melons, cucumbers, lettuces, beets, all of those
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things that are hybrids that will not reproduce the same way
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if you save the seeds. And there are plenty of open
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pollinated varieties of all these plants out there too.
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Your seed catalog or your seed packet is going to tell you if
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they are a hybrid or not. If you bought the plant and it
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had a label with it, one of those little Pixie stakes that
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sticks into the pots, often times it will indicate if it's
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an F1 hybrid. If you bought it from a private
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grower, you may not know. So as long as you have the name,
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you should be able to go back and look.
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You can just look online to find out whether or not it's a hybrid
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or not. OK, so planning for seed saving
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may start way back in the spring when you first select which
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plants you're going to grow. Now, because cross pollination
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with another variety of the same plant species will produce
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viable seeds but not the same offspring, you will need to take
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a little bit of care and planting in your garden to
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guarantee the seeds that you produce will be true to type,
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right? Let me say that again, if you
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are growing a variety of cucumbers and you are Bryant
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growing a different variety of cucumbers or you are growing
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something that is also in the cucumber family, the Curcubit
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family, which includes zucchini, if they cross pollinate, they
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will produce fruit this year and those fruit will be exactly what
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you expect them to be. But if you save the seeds from
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one of those that has cross pollinated, it is going to be
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completely different. It will be a result of that
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cross right plants with separate male and female flowers.
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So squashes, melons, cucumbers, they might cross pollinate with
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each other and it is very difficult to keep the seed
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strain pure if you are growing more than one type of those in
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your garden, right? We've talked about like problems
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that we see in our cucumbers or zucchini, if they aren't
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properly pollinated, they get those shrunken or curled ends on
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them or they have a complete, you know, failure to grow out on
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the plant. So we know insects are
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responsible for pollinating our cucumbers, our melons, our
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zucchinis, our pumpkins. But that same cross pollination
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that we rely on to produce this year's crop is also what may
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prevent any of our saved seeds from that crop from producing
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the fruit that we expect, or even any fruit at all.
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Because sometimes when you get these cross pollinations, it
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ends up in a terminal seed, meaning it is not one that will
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actually produce a fruit. It will produce a nice big
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beautiful plant and it will flower, but you won't get any
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fruits that actually survive. So cross pollination will not
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affect the quality of this year's crops.
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So it's only a concern if you are saving seeds.
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OK, let me give you an example of this.
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There are both melons and cucumbers that fall into the
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species cucumber's Milo. So if you plant these two
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closely together in the garden, the insects may bring pollen
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from 1:00 to the other and that's cross pollinating.
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You will absolutely get the cucumbers and the melons that
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you expect this year. But if you save the seeds and
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grow them the following year, you will be growing a hybrid.
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Now, hybrid plants are products of crosses between, between two
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or more different varieties of the same species.
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So they are combining all of the traits of the parent plants.
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Now, sometimes a combination is really, really good.
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It produces plants that have, you know, better growth vigor,
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they have better disease resistance and productivity,
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right? These are the plants that we
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typically see crossed and developed intentionally for
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those traits. They're not just kind of
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happenstance out in the garden. These are done by plant breeders
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specifically. And that's why the hybrid seeds
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that we buy are generally more expensive because they cost more
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to produce, right? And these plants may produce a
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better result. It's not to say that an
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accidental cross in the garden hasn't produced beautiful
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hybrids. It's just to say that you won't
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know what you're going to get when you save the seeds from a
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random garden hybridization. This also means that you won't
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know what you're getting the following year if you save the
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seeds from an F1 hybrid that you purchased.
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So let's use tomatoes for an example.
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They are self pollinating, they have both male and female parts
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in the same flower, and they don't need the insects to
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pollinate them. It's less likely that they're
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going to cross pollinate with each other with another tomato
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in your yard if you grow them fairly closely together.
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But if you grow a hybrid variety to start with, so like a big boy
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or a beef master or an early girl, and you save those seeds,
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the plants grown from those seeds are not going to be
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identical to the hybrid parent. They will be a completely new
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combination of the good and the bad traits of the plants from
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that initial cross. They will always revert back to
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some of the parent plant traits from the original cross.
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Right? It is impossible to predict just
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how that seedling plant will perform or what qualities of
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fruit will have. That is why when you grow
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hybrids, you buy new seeds every year because that's how you're
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guaranteeing it. You want the 1st generation, you
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don't want the next generation. That's what that F1 stands for.
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Genetics Sir. Just kind of funny that way.
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I mean, you certainly can plant them.
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It's a totally fun experiment if you have the room in your garden
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and the inclination to, you know, try something like that.
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But it's certainly not what you want to aim for if your goal is
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to save your own seeds and continue your garden with the
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same plants that you grew the very first year.
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So if you want to save seeds from your garden and you want
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them to be the variety of plant that you grew this year, you
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need to A choose an open pollinated variety and B unless
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they are self pollinating like beans or tomatoes, you have to
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make sure that you space the plants in those same species far
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enough away from each other that there are very little chance of
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them crossing. Or you only grow 1 variety
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within that species so that there's no chance of them cross
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pollinating and you sort of creating your own hybrid.
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Unless you want to experiment and then you know what, go for
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it, no holds barred. So that answers consideration #1
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which plants we should save seeds from?
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The second question is what do those plants look like at
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maturity? Or rather, what do the fruits of
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those plants look like at maturity and why does this
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matter? In order to have mature seeds
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that are viable and able to regrow the next year, we have to
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have mature fruit. And many of the things that we
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harvest to eat, we harvest before they are mature.
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So let's take zucchini for example.
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The zucchini or corgget, depending on where you live that
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we are familiar with, is of course a summer staple, but it
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is actually harvested when the seeds and the skin are still
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very tender and immature. The seeds inside the typical
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zucchini that we pick to eat are not mature and so if we save
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those, they are not going to sprout the next year to produce
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a new plant. Now that ginormous baseball bat
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sized zucchini that you hauled out of the garden because you
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missed harvesting it for like a full 10 days in a row, Yeah,
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that one might be mature. We're looking for the epicarp or
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the skin of the zucchini to be solid enough that you can't push
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a fingernail through it easily, right?
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If that's the case, that it likely is mature enough to save
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the seeds. It takes a while for the
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zucchini to get to this stage. And this goes for any summer
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type squash. This also goes for all of your
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eggplants and anything in the cucumber family.
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When the fruit is still edible to our palate, it's very likely
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that the seeds are still immature.
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So we need to leave a few fruits to fully mature out in the
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garden when we want to save the seeds from those.
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Now for things like tomatoes or Peppers, melons and winter
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squashes, those are usually harvested when they are mature.
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So those seeds should be viable unless you're picking like green
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tomatoes or you're picking extraordinarily young, you know,
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gourds or loofah to eat them young.
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If you've let them get to when they are supposed to, you know,
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be mature, then they those seeds should be viable.
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It's also easy to save seeds from other annuals like lettuce
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or peas or beans. They self pollinate and they set
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seed very readily when they are mature.
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So you can leave them on the plant to dry and then just
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collect them that way. But not all plants are annuals.
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They won't all flower and set seed and die off in a single
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growing season. We also have biennials in our
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gardens. Now.
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Generally speaking, we are growing them as annuals because
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that's when we are harvesting them.
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But things like carrots and beets and onions don't generally
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flower until their second growing season.
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They are technically biennials and they have gone through a
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cold period at that point. So that means that we have to
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protect that plant over the winter and wait for it to flower
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the next year in order to be able to save the seeds.
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Now, this is totally doable if you are in a mild climate, but
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if you would live in a very cold climate, that plant may need
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extra protection. It may also need extra
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protection if you have a lot of wildlife in your garden.
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So if you're trying to overwinter something to save it
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for the next season and allow it to go ahead and produce seeds,
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then you may have to rely on heavy layers of mulch.
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You may also have to put row covers over top just to keep the
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animals, the critters out of them.
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So if you're planning to save seed from an annual, it's very
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straightforward. If it's a fruiting type of
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plant, you want to wait until you have this beautiful specimen
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on a very healthy plant. We want to choose healthy
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specimens, not diseased, and you want to let it get to full
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maturity. You want to perpetuate the genes
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of the biggest and the best in your garden so that you can grow
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the biggest and the best the next season.
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So we say save the seeds from the best and eat the rest,
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right? It does not take a ton of these
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fruits to save a large number of seeds.
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Have you ever looked really closely to see exactly how many
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seeds are in a tomato or a cucumber?
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Now, if you want to save seeds from a legume like a pea or a
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bean, then you likely want to just pick a few of your best
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looking plants and mark those in some way.
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Tie a ribbon or a string around them or sort of push them over
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to the side and mark them as your seed producers because you
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want to leave them on the the vine or the plant.
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You want them to get big and fat and dry.
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And so as you start to do that and you leave them on the plant,
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they're likely going to slow down their production.
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So my recommendation is keep a set of plants over here that
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you're actually harvesting from. Because as we continue to
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harvest, they want to produce more flowers, which means they
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continue to produce a crop and then leave these ones over here
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that are just kind of hanging out and allowing those pods to
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get to maturity and dry because more than likely that plant is
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going to stop producing. If the plant that you want to
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save seed from is a dry seed like lettuce or most herbs,
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these are the kind that sort of produce a flower that sets the
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seed, then you may or may not be able to harvest anything from
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those plants. Or you may only be harvesting
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for a very short time and then just allowing them to go to
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seeds so you can collect them. So if you're relying on all of
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your lettuces and you want to harvest all of your lettuces,
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but then you decide that you do want to actually save some seed
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from them, then you may again have to plant a whole separate
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little couple of plants that are specific just for saving your
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seeds. The same thing can go for your
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herbs too. If you're growing basil, for
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example, and you want them to go to flower, you may pick one
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plant that you allow to set seed and go to flower and continue
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harvesting off of the other ones.
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So it does take some planting. Now, if the plant that you want
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to save from is a biennial, that makes the planning a little bit
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more important, right? So carrots, beets, onions,
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parsley, all of our biennials, they don't set seed until their
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second year. They're going to need a little
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bit of extra care. You might not be able to grow
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those long enough to collect seed if you are in an area that
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gets really extreme cold and very hard frozen ground in the
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winter. So your root crops may not do
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well in the most extreme climates, and because they may
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not survive, they might very well rot in the ground.
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And so they're not going to come back up again the next year.
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But if you are in a more temperate climate where these
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things can overwinter fairly easily and you can, you know,
00:18:55
protect them from the wildlife, you just need to plan for it a
00:18:57
little bit. Either plant a bed specifically
00:19:00
for seed saving or just again mark the ones in partial rows
00:19:04
that you intend to overwinter so they don't get harvested by
00:19:07
mistake and that you know that you can go ahead and protect
00:19:10
them in some way. If you do get inclement weather
00:19:13
over the winter, make sure you have that plot sort of mapped
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out on your garden plan. Otherwise, or mark the bed in
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some way so that you know what's happening for the spring.
00:19:22
That way you don't accidentally go and dig them up when you're
00:19:25
trying to prep your garden beds again the next year and thwart
00:19:28
all of your own plans that you made for for being able to
00:19:30
select or collect those seeds. So if you're new to seed saving,
00:19:35
you may want to start with the really easy annuals like peas
00:19:39
and beans and tomatoes. They are annuals, they're self
00:19:43
pollinating, they require little to no isolation, and you really
00:19:47
only need a few plants to reliably produce enough seeds
00:19:51
and still be able to get a harvest to eat fresh.
00:19:54
Now that you know what you can save seed from and what it means
00:19:59
for them to be mature, how do we harvest those seeds and test to
00:20:04
be sure that they're any good for the next year?
00:20:09
So our dry seeded crops, things like grains, lettuce, beans,
00:20:15
herbs, other plants that will go to seed that don't actually
00:20:19
produce a fruit, right? These can be removed from the
00:20:23
plant once the seeds are dry and hard.
00:20:26
So just knock off the dust and the dirt and you're basically
00:20:29
set to go. You don't even actually have to
00:20:31
pull them out of their pods, just so long as they are
00:20:33
actually dry. But while you were waiting for
00:20:36
them to dry, you might actually want to protect them from birds
00:20:40
and wind. So you can tie paper bags over
00:20:44
the top of the seed heads. You can use little organza bags
00:20:47
as well, just to provide some protection so the birds don't
00:20:50
take off with your seeds or the wind doesn't knock them to the
00:20:53
ground. Now, if we're talking about
00:20:55
fruits from wet fruited crops, these are things like tomatoes,
00:20:59
squashes, cucumbers, things that have some sort of, you know, wet
00:21:04
gel in the inside surrounding that seed.
00:21:08
We generally either crush or cut these open and the seeds are
00:21:11
extracted from the flesh and the pulp before being dried.
00:21:15
So with our with with these ones, again, make sure that they
00:21:18
are fully ripened and then bring them in, cut them open and scoop
00:21:23
out the seeds along with the gel that is surrounding them.
00:21:27
And then you can go ahead and cook and eat up the rest.
00:21:29
If it's a tomato or squash or whatever, take those seeds and
00:21:32
the gel and you put it into a glass jar with some water, fill
00:21:36
it up with the water, swirl it or stir it around.
00:21:39
Do this about twice a day and just set it aside.
00:21:42
That mixture is going to ferment just a little bit and the seeds
00:21:45
are going to kind of sink out of the gel and sink to the bottom
00:21:49
within about, you know, four or five days or so.
00:21:52
This makes pulling that gel off really easily.
00:21:55
It's also helping to prevent some of the bad bacteria from
00:21:57
hanging on because you're fermenting that a little bit.
00:22:00
So then all you have to do is pour off the liquid, rinse off
00:22:02
those seeds, spread them out on a paper towel, and just let them
00:22:06
dry. You can pat them dry, whatever.
00:22:08
Just make sure they're dry before you put them away.
00:22:10
If it's coming from a fruit like a pepper that does not have that
00:22:15
kind of gel in the inside, then you just want to sort of let
00:22:18
those Peppers sit out on the plant until they are fully ripe
00:22:22
and they kind of start to become wrinkly and then you know
00:22:25
they're done. And then it's easy peasy.
00:22:27
Cut them open, pull the seeds out from the Peppers, spread
00:22:30
them out to dry, and that's it. There's not much else to do when
00:22:33
you're talking about peas and beans and lettuce and those
00:22:36
herbs. You just want to, again, allow
00:22:39
those pods to ripen on the plant until they are dry.
00:22:43
Stay there until they are starting to turn brown.
00:22:45
The seeds are rattling in the inside of the pods.
00:22:48
If it's lettuce or something and the herbs you're going to see,
00:22:51
the seeds themselves are going to just sort of dry right there.
00:22:54
This is a really good time to make sure you're covering them
00:22:56
because at this point they fall off very easily.
00:22:59
So if you put a paper bag over top of them, you're going to
00:23:01
have less of a chance of losing them.
00:23:04
Just know that if you're doing like peas and beans, it may be a
00:23:09
full month after you would normally harvest them to eat
00:23:14
before you harvest them to store.
00:23:16
So you have to have a little bit of patience and just watch them
00:23:19
get get dry and brown. At that point you can just take
00:23:22
the pods right off the plant and you can store them that way.
00:23:25
You can just lay them out, you know, indoors to to make sure
00:23:28
they're completely dry and then just store them in the pods.
00:23:32
Otherwise leave them for about two weeks and then shell them
00:23:37
taking the seeds out and then go ahead and store them.
00:23:40
So for the lettuces and the herbs, they're going to be dry
00:23:42
and brown on the stock. So just put a paper bag over the
00:23:45
top of the seed head and then just kind of strip it off or
00:23:48
shake the seeds into the bag and then once again lay them out on
00:23:50
a paper towel. Make sure they're completely dry
00:23:52
before you put them away. OK, so once we've gone through
00:23:59
all of this work to grow and to harvest and to dry our seeds,
00:24:04
how do we know if what we've collected are actually OK to
00:24:07
plant the next season? Are they going to grow or did we
00:24:10
just waste all of our time and now we're storing something
00:24:13
that's not going to work for us the next year?
00:24:15
If there is any doubt, you can do a quick germination test.
00:24:18
All you're going to do is take a couple of layers of paper towels
00:24:21
and you're going to moisten them.
00:24:23
Then pick out 10 seeds from what it is that you are planning to
00:24:27
save. Put those 10 seeds spaced out on
00:24:30
1/2 of those towels and then fold the other half over on top.
00:24:34
That means you've got moisture in contact with that seed.
00:24:37
And then take the whole thing and put it into a plastic bag
00:24:40
and seal it up to trap that moisture.
00:24:42
Now you want to mark this plastic bag with what type of
00:24:47
seed it is, the variety that it is, and the number of expected
00:24:51
days to germination. So things like radishes are only
00:24:54
going to take a couple of days, cucumbers and tomatoes about
00:24:57
five to seven days. Peppers can take like 10 to 14
00:25:00
days. Sometimes the hot Peppers can
00:25:01
take up to three weeks. So you want to make sure that
00:25:04
you are marking that on the bag so you don't mistakenly think
00:25:08
that the seeds weren't viable and end up tossing them.
00:25:10
You want to wait the appropriate amount of time.
00:25:13
Once you've got it all marked and sealed up, put those into a
00:25:16
warm place. I mean, on a kitchen counter on
00:25:18
top of your refrigerator near a sunny window.
00:25:20
So long as they don't get too hot, We don't want to cook them,
00:25:22
we want to sprout them, and we're just going to wait for
00:25:25
those to germinate. So just keep checking them every
00:25:28
couple of days until the expected days to germination has
00:25:31
passed, and then count the number that's sprouted to figure
00:25:36
out your percentage of germination.
00:25:38
So if eight of the 10 seeds sprouted, you've got an 80%
00:25:41
germination rate and that is fantastic.
00:25:43
And those seeds are good to go into storage for the next year.
00:25:46
If you get less than 50% germination, then you might try
00:25:51
saving some different seeds. If you still have time to do
00:25:53
that in your season, 60 to 70% is OK.
00:25:57
You might choose to either save some different seeds or just
00:26:02
save the ones that you've already got and maybe double up
00:26:04
your planting rate the next season.
00:26:05
Just make sure you mark that when you go to put them in
00:26:08
storage. But if you've got 75%
00:26:10
germination or higher than just go ahead and plant as usual.
00:26:13
You have done your job, so next week we're going to talk about
00:26:17
the proper ways to store seeds and how to be sure that you're
00:26:21
not storing diseased seeds if your garden is especially prone
00:26:25
to certain diseases. Until next time, my gardening
00:26:28
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:26:30
talk again soon. Thanks for listening to another
00:26:33
episode of the Just Grow Something podcast.
00:26:36
For more information about today's topic and to find all
00:26:38
the ways you can get in touch with me or support the show, go
00:26:41
to justgrowsomethingpodcast.com. Until next time, my gardening
00:26:45
friends, keep learning and keep growing.