Saving Seeds

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First, examine the flowers of a healthy, productive plant. A male flower has a slender stem, while the base of a female flower has a small swelling of undeveloped fruit. Work only with blossoms that have not yet opened (Fig. 10). (Once the blossom has opened, you should assume that it's already been pollinated.)

Tape several perky but still closed male and female flowers shut, or fasten small bags over them (Fig. 11). Then when the flowers have opened (probably the following morning), uncover one male flower and several female flowers from different plants. Pick off the male's petals, then gently but firmly touch its pollen-laden anthers to the stigmas of the females (Fig. 12). Next, recover the pollinated females with envelopes or small bags, and carefully wire them shut.

Leave the protecting covers on for several days. Then remove them so the fruits won't rot or develop abnormally. Don't forget to label the pollinated flowers!

Root vegetables. Like the cabbage clan, all root crops (except annual radishes) send up seedstalks in their second spring. Unless you live in a mild-winter area where root vegetables will not freeze if left in the ground under mulch, you'll have to winter your beets, carrots, winter radishes and onions in a cool, damp root cellar and replant the best ones the next spring. (On the other hand, if you live in a very warm climate, you may need to chill your root crops for a couple of weeks in a refrigerator to convince them to go to seed.)

As the exception to this rule, parsnips are the easiest root vegetable for seed saving. They're so hardy, you don't need to dig them up. Here in south-central Pennsylvania, I leave parsnips in the ground under mulch all winter, dig some for spring eating till around the end of April and then give in to their seed-forming intentions. The tall, coarse-lace flowers are cross-pollinated by insects, and dry seed is ready around the end of July. Two plants will produce all the seed you need unless you plan a parsnip plantation.

Most radishes are another exception because spring-sown plants will produce seedpods by summer. Let the pods dry on the plant, but pick them before they split and scatter the seed. Such biennial radishes as Japanese daikon and China rose should be overwintered in a root cellar and replanted 12 inches apart in spring. They'll produce seed by early summer.

The dusty-fine pollen of beets (like that of spinach) can be carried a mile away by the wind. Garden beets will also cross with sugar beets and with Swiss chard, so keep your seed beets isolated from other blooming relations (or grow Swiss chard and beets in alternate years). Plant your firmest, shapeliest cellar-saved roots about 18 inches apart in spring. Six to eight of these will produce plenty of seed for a family garden by summer.

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