Saving Your Garden Seeds
It’s also much less expensive than buying seeds each spring, and seeds saved from your plants will be well suited to the peculiarities of your own garden’s growing conditions. Save seeds only from vigorous, healthy plants. So don’t save seeds from a plant that is obviously diseased or has struggled all season. It is not recommended to save seeds from hybrid plants.
Many seed catalogs will identify which of their seeds are hybrids or open pollinated. If you intend to save your own seed, always start with open pollinated seeds. Cross pollination is another concern for the seed-saving gardener. Cross pollination often results in seeds which have a different genetic makeup than that of the parent plant.
Seeds should be collected on a dry, sunny day. Frost doesn’t hurt most seed as long as the seed remains dry. First the seeds must be separated from the pulp, and then dried. Scoop the seeds from these vegetables, pulp and all. It’s very important to keep the seed dry during storage. Store your dry seeds in tightly sealed jars, metal film containers, or old vitamin bottles.
Be sure to label your jars and envelopes so when spring comes around again you’ll know which flower seeds and vegetable seeds you’re planting, and include the date the seeds were collected. Try saving some vegetable or flower seeds from your garden this year and grow them next season.
