Seed Saving tips

[1066]

I've been thinking about creating this thread for a while. Basically I'm a relative newcomer to seed saving, and want to learn more. And what happens is that I ask questions on different threads and get some great replies, but thought it would be good to house all the collective knowledge on seed saving in one place. I'm thinking of stuff like isolating, pollinating, drying, storing and so on. And I'm sure there are lots of great tips that the more experienced growers and savers could share with us who are just starting out. And that it would be a place where we can all ask questions about seed saving.  I realise that there are lots of sources of information out there but there is nothing like the practical advice that's given on A4A. 

So maybe I should start it off, and you can all jump in and correct me, or add your own thoughts!
I'll start by plagiarising something that was written the other day about how to save peas and beans (thanks Digeroo!) –

Ensure that all peas and beans are dried well before depodding. This is usually done on the plant but they need to be lifted before the 1st frosts. If they are not dry when you pick them then you can put them on a radiator or windowsill to dry a bit more. They need to be stored somewhere dry and frost free, and of course labelled – with the variety, maybe growing habit and year collected. To test the seeds (to ensure viability) try germinating a few, if they go mouldy they need to be left longer to dry out

Anyone else want to add their knowledge and tips ?

1066 

[saddad]

Tomatoes... dead easy... ferment or not?
 

[plot51A]

Worried about tomatoes. Got loads of different ones all growing together. Then I read about bagging - too late!!

[artichoke]

I can't offer seed saving advice, but I've been thinking recently about this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2007/dec/08/foodanddrink.gardens

The reason I've joined in here is that once you start saving seeds, you get thousands of the smaller ones. I don't think I'd do these little salad things in the article if I had to buy the seed, but as I have thousands of land cress and leek and parsnip seed and more to come, I wondered if that would tip the balance. And one could use up old packets of seeds.

I was thinking "What a lot of fiddly work and expensive seed and compost for a mouthful of seedlings"; but if the seeds were free, and the taste is good, it might be worth it. Good for children to do too, because of the speedy results and protection from slugs, drought, wind etc.

I was very impressed in a restaurant once to be offered a slice of smoked salmon wrapped in a cone shape around tiny herby/flowery seedlings with a minute dribble of sauce. A very frustrating dish as it was gone in a second, but on a more robust scale it could be a lovely special starter.

One "micro vegetable" site shows tiny carrot and beetroot seedlings on a plate. Do you think I could do that with parsnips???

[davyw1]

Worried about tomatoes. Got loads of different ones all growing together. Then I read about bagging - too late!!

Got me lost about bagging tomatoes for seed, the only bag you need for them is to get them home.

[1066]

Tomatoes... dead easy... ferment or not?
 

go on Saddad spill the beans  or rather tomato seeds!

From what I understand you scoop the seeds out and put them in a glass of water, which you refresh everday until the outer casing comes off then you have to dry them out. But I've yet to try this out!! And will need to know for my Auntie Madge and Black Cherry Toms !!

[Tee Gee]

Like Dave I can't see the reason for bagging tomatoes.

Most of the tomato seeds I grow are seeds that I have collected in various ways e.g.

If I am eating a tomato (from any source) and I like it it is not unknown for me to scrape the seeds into a serviette and fetch them home!

As one who visits a few shows each year I often find the Tomato Growers association are selling their wares to the general public.

Usually they allow you to taste them before you buy! so needless to say;

sometimes the seeds are scraped out and saved!

Well think of it this way; the human digestive system does not digest tomato seeds so why allow them to end up in some sewer?

Currently my stock contains such varieties as;

Ailsa Craig from a purchased seed packet

Alicante from a purchased seed packet

*Calahonda from a supermarket in Calahonda Spain

*Feurta from a supermarket in Feurtaventura in the Canary Islands

Gardener's Delight was a freebie packet from the BBC Grow your own programme

*Keith's Plum from one of our allotment tenants

*Mammoth from one of our allotment tenants

Moneymaker from a purchased seed packet

*Nectar From Tomato assoc tasting

San Marzano from seed company in Spain

San Pedro from seed company in Spain

Spanish Moneymaker from seed company in Spain

Sub Arctic as I recall these were a freebie from some magazine

*Tatton as the name suggets from tomato association at Tatton Park show

*Vanessa from tomato association at Tatton Park show

*Piccolo from tomato association at Tatton Park show

*Melrow from tomato association at Tatton Park show

What is common with all these varieties apart from Gardener's Delight is; I like the taste.

GD's are for my Grandkids to grow in their back yards!
 

Many of these I have had for a number of years and those marked * are saved seeds from the original source.

For example I must have had Feurta for 10-15 years now, these are the decendants of the original tomato I bought.

Now back to the thread; here is some info from my website on the subject.

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Collecting%20seed/Collecting%20seed.htm

If nothing else you can use the template to make packets for all those seeds you are going to save!

Method;

Click on template to enlarge it  then print it.

Or better still; copy it and paste it as many times as you can onto a blank A4 sheet in a programme such as word or Notepad and save as a template.

In this way you will get a few packets per A4 sheet of paper rather than one!

BTW; I haven't saved any new tomato varieties this year but I have saved seed from  one of Tescos finest yellow sweet peppers and a garlic bulb!

There are other things I have saved over the years but too many to mention here!

I will mention 'beans' I never buy these as they are too bl**dy expensive from the seed companies!

Sometimes when I get a special offer of a variety of bean I will kick its equivalent into touch and start saving from the new stock!

[1066]

artichoke what will they think of next! 1st it was baby or mini veg and now its micro! as you say potentially a good idea for using up old or left over seeds, and maybe one to do for early winter?

[plot51A]

I've happily saved tomato seeds in the past, and with good results. I read though that some varieties, particularly heritage ones, can cross - therefore the bagging. And it has to be done early before any of the flowers on the truss are open. Sure someone much more knowledgeable than me will be along soon. In the meantime will just save as usual and hope for the best!!

[Digeroo]

According to the Garden Organci guidelines some tomatoes have a protruding stigma and these are the ones that need isolation or bagging.  Unfortunately they are only available to members, so perhaps you should join the HSL follks.

I very much enjoy the huge choice of varieties.  I have been very please with many of the resulting plants.  They seem to leap into action with amazing vigour.  You get a choice of six packets and one lucky dip.  I presume that the latter are varieties which produce a lot of seed so in general I have found them to be particularly excellent. 

The only problem now is finding enough space for everything I want to grow.

[.]

Real seeds provide some worthwhile information with links to a pdf and more.

  http://www.realseeds.co.uk/seedsavinginfo.html


hth

[Robert_Brenchley]

Supermarkets are selling hessian bags for a quid a time, which are just the job for drying plants out, and should last for years.

[cornykev]

I scooped some seeds from my Tigerella onto some kitchen roll and dryed off dabbing with the KR scrapping the jelly bits with my finger nail then dabbed again, left them to dry then put into an old foil satchet, it's the first time I've saved tommie seed have I done anything wrong.              

[aj]

According to the Garden Organci guidelines some tomatoes have a protruding stigma and these are the ones that need isolation or bagging.  Unfortunately they are only available to members, so perhaps you should join the HSL follks.

I very much enjoy the huge choice of varieties.  I have been very please with many of the resulting plants.  They seem to leap into action with amazing vigour.  You get a choice of six packets and one lucky dip.  I presume that the latter are varieties which produce a lot of seed so in general I have found them to be particularly excellent. 

The only problem now is finding enough space for everything I want to grow.

Yes, join HSL


http://www.gardenorganic.org.uk/about_us/memb_rates.php

The good thing about joining is that once you get into seed saving, you can pretty much get all your seed needs from just saving one or two varieties of seed and swapping. Just this morning I got a shoebox full of parsnip seeds, with many many more to come [haven't even scratched the surface of these yet]...which are being saved for 2 seed circles. So they will go to at least 35 people and I'll get at least 35 different seed back.

[Jeannine]

I bag tomatoes if it is something that I want to be certain is kept pure. I have 4 types I am bagging this year,

I always ferment my tomato seeds, they come cleaner and if there is any didease on the plant fermenting the seeds makes them safe. I probably will get shot down here but Blight in my opinion will carry over on seeds..not so from fermented ones.  Tons of"tomato experets" back this one up. I see no point in taking the chance.

Tomatoes are self pollinating and usually don't get crossed bit is the stamen is protuding and some are they are much more likely too.

Squash is another point... Squash are very naughty things, they will breed like rabbits given a chance and often!! There are tricks to saving pur squash though, Squash basically falls into four seperate categories, I choose to call them families. They will not breed outside their own family, so if you want to save seeds without bagging you can grow up to four different squash each from different families in safety,..well your neighbousr amy have other things so pop your plan but that;s another story.

So  you need to figure out what family your squash belong to. This is simple but there are many myths. eg Pumpkins are squash.. but they don't all belong to the same family. Many folks think all pumpkins are big..they are not.. and if big must belong to the family known for producing big stuff..wrong.Most pumpkins belong to the same family as Courgettes.

So having decided what family your chosen squash is in and you find another fave is in the same family you have to bag to save seeds.Hand pollinating squash is easy if you remember a few rules, the chosen flowers both male and female must be bagged in the evening to prevent anycritters gettin in a nd spending the night. Squash flowers are usually open my anout 10 am, then you have about 6 hours of viable pollen etc only.You must therefore pollinate on the right day. After pollinating replace the bags s they don't get critters in again and leave them on till you can clearly see the baby squash beginning to swell, mark the flowers which you have pollinated.   Questions ... I will answer, this is just a brief taste.

I have a large data base ofsquash sochances are I can tell you which family your squash are in if yiu need to know.

Sorry my laptop is chopping off letters again.I hope this is readable.

RE the garden organics comment about large stigma, these kinds of seeds are available all over so  not sure what that means, I have many tomato seeds that would produce large stigmas.

XX Jeannine

[galina]

The easiest for first time seed savers are peas and lettuces.   They don't cross and all that is required is that the seed saver is meticulous about labelling and not mixing up drying seeds.  No worry over seed purity. 

Before swapping seeds it is a good idea to check the name as it was written on the original seed packet.  There are some pretty misspelled variety names in circulation.  And unfortunately it matters.  For example the tomato 'Bonnie Best' is different from 'Bonner Beste'.  Conversely Matina and Tamina are actually one and the same.  Sometimes names are long, they get abbreviated.  For example Grandma Nellie's Yellow Mushroom bean is just called Grandma Nellie's on the label in my garden.  But as I don't know how many other beans are in circulation originating from Grandma Nellie, I need to pass on the correct name, and I need to take care over this.  Sorry to bang on about this, but after a few careless swaps, names (especially foreign names)can become unrecognisable.

Another very important aspect of seed saving (apart from purity) is selection.  Really looking at an intended seed plant to make sure that it is typical for the variety, healthy and strong.  Seed should always be taken from the best plants. 

The widespread practice of leaving the last few pods on a pea or bean plant for seed saving after eating most of it, is also problematic.  To preserve the full range of harvesting times, it is important to save early, middle and late pods.  By choosing only late pods for seed saving, a gardener selects for a late future harvest time - not a desirable trait.

The seed saving tips on the Realseeds website are excellent, but for serious seed savers there are some great books.  For UK gardeners, Sue Stickland's book about Back garden Seed Saving is the best, url here:
http://www.eco-logicbooks.com/index.cfm?fa=book_details&book_id=1
In the USA Suzanne Ashworth's seedsaving book, Seed to Seed, is considered the seed saver's bible.  url:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seed-Saving-Techniques-Vegetable-Gardener/dp/1882424581/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1280448223&sr=8-1

[galina]

Ensure that all peas and beans are dried well before depodding. This is usually done on the plant but they need to be lifted before the 1st frosts. If they are not dry when you pick them then you can put them on a radiator or windowsill to dry a bit more. They need to be stored somewhere dry and frost free, and of course labelled – with the variety, maybe growing habit and year collected. To test the seeds (to ensure viability) try germinating a few, if they go mouldy they need to be left longer to dry out

I would never dry seeds on a radiator, too hot, this could kill the seeds or seriously shorten the time span a seed will stay viable, aka will sprout again. 

Drying a bit more in my case means drying for several more weeks in an airy environment.  Ideally there should only be a single layer of drying seed.  But if the seed is drying in a container, it should be shaken every day at first, less often later when the seeds are practically dry.

I never test seeds whilst they are drying.  Many varieties have a period where they will not germinate.  For example, rocket seeds that are freshly dried will not germinate, because they have a 3 month inbuilt germination stop.  The best time to carry out a germination test is just before sowing an older batch of seed, to see what percentage still sprouts.

The best storage conditions for seeds are in paper bags, cool, dark and dry.  Not in the shed and not left out where the sunshine can heat them either.  Definitely not in the greenhouse.  Freezing is possible for long-term storage of very dry seed (silica gel needed).

I agree labelling is very important nothing worse than going to all that trouble and not knowing what is what  in the end :-)

[powerspade]

I save broad bean seed and have a batch drying out on a windowsill, also will do the same when ready for French dwarf beans, Runner beans and Peas. Sweet  Williams and Wallflowers I place a bag over the seed pods same will Onions and Leeks

[lavenderlux]

Be aware that saving seed is addictive!
I save seed of peas, beans, sweet peas, Tuscan Kale (and more) and flowers Delphinium, Ipswich Pinks, Penstemons, Nicotiana (tall white one), Calendula, Love in the Mist, primroses, cowslips and many many more including those of many wildflowers which we have on our community and wildlife area. I have even been known to save apple pips - with one of our schools groups last year we had an apple tasting session and someone asked well can you grow those apple pips - so we saved them and they planted them and we now have lots of baby apple trees on their plot.
I do though also buy seeds - and expect to be buying quite a few tomorrow as its Thompson and Morgan's open trial grounds day and they have their full range of seeds available

[jazzidoodle]

My father in law froze tomato seed from the plants that I gave him last year and he had 100% sucess rate.  I had never heard of freezing seeds before has anyone else?