Saving Seeds

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Peppers. Even though peppers normally self-pollinate, it's not at all unusual for insects to carry pollen from hotpepper blossoms to those of sweet ones. So keep your pepper varieties 50 feet apart. Aside from the crosspollination possibility, peppers are a snap to save. I just shake or scrape out the seeds from several shapely fruits that have turned red-ripe, and then dry them on newspapers for a week before packaging.

Sunflowers. These cooperative seed producers are a good choice for your first season of seed keeping. You might want to tie netting over the ripening heads to keep birds off (Fig. 7): On our farm, goldfinches can strip the heads in no time. Shell the heads by rubbing them over a coarse hardware-cloth screen. Then dry the seeds, and seal them securely to keep out mice.

Sunflowers that cross repeatedly with nearby wild sunflowers will produce less-desirable plants with each generation. It's usually easy, though, to find and chop down any nearby small-seeded wild plants that might interfere.

Tomatoes. Because tomatoes are the most popular garden vegetable and are available in many wonderful open-pollinated varieties, you'll probably want to save some. I simply scoop out the seeds from several top-quality, overripe fruits, removing as little pulp as possible, and spread them on several thicknesses of newspapers to dry. I even store them right on the paper (labeling the sheets with the variety name) and, the following spring, scrape them off as I need them.

Tomatoes are less likely than their pepper and eggplant cousins to be cross-pollinated by insects, but such random crossing does happen in about 2 to 5% of close multivariety plantings. Flowers of older tomato varieties also have a long style which is more likely to be touched by bees than the shorter-styled recent cultivars. So if you want to keep seed of a valuable heirloom tomato truly pure, plant it 25 feet away from other varieties. (Separate modern short-style cultivars by 10 feet.)

Some gardeners ferment their tomato pulp before straining out the seeds. There are two reasons for this: 1) the seeds will then separate more easily from the flesh, and 2) the treatment kills the seed-borne bacteria that cause some tomato diseases. To ferment tomato pulp, press the flesh into a jar, add 1/4 cup of water, and keep the mixture at room temperature for several days. Seventy to 80°F is best; fermentation proceeds too quickly at higher temperatures. Stir the brew each day. By the second or third day, you'll be able to pour off the rotten pulp and "clinker" seeds that float on top, and retain, rinse and dry the good seeds that have sunk to the bottom.

Other Commonly Saved Vegetables

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