Saving Seeds

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Hang on here for a bit of elementary botany that will make the whole seed-forming process easier to understand. Flowers exist to produce seed. The flower's pollen-bearing, fertilizing (male) organ is the stamen, which consists of the stalk (or filament) and anthers, the pollen-bearing sacs on the tip of each stalk (Fig. 1).

The seed-nurturing, receptive (female) parts of the flower, called carpels, are composed of the ovary, the eggbearing capsule, the style, the tube leading up from the ovary and the stigma, the pollen-receptive tip. When a grain of pollen lands on a receptive stigma, the grain extends a living thread through the style to the ovary. This unites with a ripe ovule, or egg, forming a single living cell—which then begins the multiple divisions that start it on the journey to becoming a tiny but marvelously intricate seed embryo.

Not all flowers contain both male and female parts. Those that do are called perfect flowers. Plants with separate male and female flowers may be either monoecious (the separate blooms occur on the same plant) or dioecious (each plant bears either male or female blooms).

Some perfect blossoms are self-pollinating. They accept their own pollen without any help from wind or insects. (Some self-pollinate before their flowers even open). These are the easiest kinds of plants from which to save seed, because you don't have to isolate them to prevent them from accepting pollen from other, different, varieties.

Some common self pollinators are tomatoes, lettuce, peas, snap beans, soybeans, lima beans, endive and escarole. Barley, wheat, oats and cowpeas also self-pollinate. Peppers do, too, but they will cross when insects bring in pollen from other kinds of peppers. (If you want to get technical, all self-pollinators can cross with other varieties of the same vegetable in from 0.1% to as much as 5% of the plant populations, but for ordinary back-yard seed saving you don't need to isolate them. I've saved tomato and lettuce seeds for 15 years, and the plants have always come true.)  

A large group of cross-pollinated plants depend on insects to transfer the pollen (Fig. 3). These include asparagus, cole crops (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, collards, kale and kohlrabi), carrots, celery, cucumbers, eggplant, melons, onions, parsley, parsnips, pumpkins, radishes, rutabagas, squash and turnips.

Don't worry about your cabbage crossing with your carrots; plants will cross only within their own species. The tales you might have heard about weird "watercumbers" or "cantagourds" are myths. It is true, though, that some kinds of pumpkins, gourds and squash can cross—often resulting in tough (but edible) fruit. More about this later.

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