Save Your Own Garden-Grown Vegetable Seed

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

Third, keep in mind that many common vegetables (the root crops, cabbages, parsley, and brussels sprouts) are biennial . . . that is, they don't form seed pods until the second year. Here in Minnesota, such vegetables have to be mighty hardy to survive an entire winter in the ground. (Beets, for instance, aren't that hardy and-as a result-I'm obliged to purchase new beet seeds each year.) I always leave a few carrots in the garden over the winter months, however, since carrots are by nature cold-resistant. The following spring, they produce tops that grow about two feet tall, then send out white flowers that resemble Queen Anne's lace (the wild plant from which carrots were originally developed). Eventually, tiny seeds form and you can collect them.

WHEN AND HOW TO COLLECT AND LABEL SEEDS

Pick fleshy vegetables (such as tomatoes, squash, and melons) when they're fully ripe, then scoop out their seeds an spread them to dry in a well-ventilate place. Beans and peas need only be left on the vine until the pods are dry an crackly. Corn, likewise, should be left t dry on the stalk until the kernels dent. Other types of seed may be gathere when they're fully formed, hard, an filled with "meat". Remember to collect seeds only fro the most vigorous plants in you garden, and not just from the first fe ripe specimens you happen to encounter. By selecting seeds from just the healthiest plants, you'll be able-ove time-to create special sub-varieties o these crops that are especially well adapted to your particular climate and soil.

Also remember to label and stor your free bonanza as soon as possibl after harvesting. You may think you'll be able to recall the name of each kin of seed, but believe me-it's easy t get confused. Some (those for broccoli cabbage, and cauliflower, for instance resemble one another quite closely.

Regular correspondence-size envelopes make good containers for storin small quantities of most kinds of seed since they can be sealed and labele quite conveniently. For larger quantities, I use glass jars. (They take up more space than envelopes and are break able, but you can see inside them.)

To label the seed, I write the name of each kind of vegetable, the particular variety, where and when I originally bought the seed, and the month and year of harvest on the outside of each container. Example: Bush snap beans -Blue Lake-Park's (1970)-August 1976.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print