What should I be aiming to save in my first year?
I imagine that beans will be easy to save, as will garlic (from the other thread) but what else. I will be growing a bit of everything!
Will seeds from non-hybrid vegetables such as peppers, toms, cucumbers, squash etc save ok?
They'll save, but some could be a problem due to potential hybridisation. Toms are very easy as they're self-pollinating.
This is a good site
http://www.seedsave.org/
also a good book to get is Suzanne Ashworths Seeds To Seed
Peppers cross easily so Im going to try bagging flowers with a light weight fine mesh fabric, when the fruit sets I´ll take off the fabric and tie coloured string onto the saved fruit. otherwise I´ll have to seperate the plants 40-500 meters!!
Like Toms peas and French beans are easy to save. Runner beans and Broad beans can cross pollinate!
;D
Apparently - parsnips are best sown from new seed each year. Just bought 2 varieties for this year as I myself have never grown them before
Ah, ok. So I'll give the peppers, broad beans and runners a miss.
Will definitely be saving some french beans - have got some very interesting looking ones ;)
Trouble today is that most seed is hybrid F1 and they say that you cannot save from these but, as anyone on here tried to and if so what have been the results ?
With the exception of Sungold Toms., I try to grow only open pollinated varieties... all the ones you got from Me Laura can be saved!
;D
Quote; Trouble today is that most seed is hybrid F1 and they say that you cannot save from these but, as anyone on here tried to and if so what have been the results
That statement is not strictly true! You can save them but you won't necessarily get exactly the same plant the second time round.
I think I have mentioned in another thread that I have saved Broad Beans, Runner Beans, and Peppers for many years and now I guess they are my own strain.
I also keep my own Garlic, Shallots, Sweet Peas, Tomatoes, Melons, Watermelons Chillis and French Beans( both climbing & Dwarf varieties)
With Beans; each year I let half a dozen or so pods go over on the plant and save these.
When I find a tomato or peppers that I really like the taste of I save a few seed.
In fact many years ago I found an F1 pepper called 'Luteus' and I found that it tasted lovely and was a good cropper then for some reason it was taken off the market. As luck had it I still had a few seeds of it so I grew it again and have saved seeds ever since.
This is it;
(http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Peppers/Pepper%205.jpg)
It is certainly a great looking pepper TG..
;D
Quote from: Richard Kinson on February 04, 2007, 13:28:11
Trouble today is that most seed is hybrid F1
Is this strictly true? I've found that it certainly limits the choice you have, if you choose not to use them as we have, but we've managed to find varieties in every veg we want to try and grow.
Also, I'm hoping this means we'll be able to save all of our own seed if we wished?
"Beans" are different, french and broad beans come true if you plant a block (2 or more feet square) and use seed from the inner plants.
Runners cross.
Lettuce is very easy and comes true as do peas and all but the old tomato leaved varieties of tomato.
Onions and leeks are ok
Carrots don't breed true, they cross with others and wild carrots. Cabbage, brocolli, sprouts and kale will all cross.
Any of the melon family (cucumbers, marrow, corguette, squash, pumkin) cross polinate like there is no tomorrow
The above only applies to open polinated varieties, F1's (and F2's), as has been said, will not produce the original plant from seed (they may be similar but that is just luck)
Phil
Quote from: philcooper on February 07, 2007, 16:58:44
Any of the melon family (cucumbers, marrow, corguette, squash, pumkin) cross polinate like there is no tomorrow
Phil
Does this mean my melons will cross with my pumpkins, cucumbers and courgettes? Or only with OTHER melons?
Most with each other Dandelion.... :-X
Some orgy ;D!
Dandelion,
They are not choosy and the fact that the pollen of all of them is very attractive to insects mean that it is almost inevitable that they will cross pollinate
Phil
I am sure I read somewhere that a cuecumber will only cross polinate with another cuecumber, something about different types of pollen. I am not sure if this is true or if it was all a dream. Maybe somebody knows the answer.
Helen
Found this info:
'Each vine crop species keeps to its own kind. Summer squash will cross with each other, but not with cucumbers. Cucumbers will inter-breed, but won't cross with pumpkins. Muskmelons will cross with each other, but not with watermelons. Winter squash, summer squash and pumpkins are closely related, and may cross among themselves. Gourds are species unto themselves, but occasionally cross with summer squash.'
The full page is here: http://www.garden.org/subchannels/care/seeds?q=show&id=634
I stand corrected - different species do not cross polinate but varieties of the same species do - suffice it to say that if you try saving seed from any of the curcubitae they will manage to cross pollinate.
To ensure true breeding the female flowers need to be bagged before they open, carefully polinated by a male flower from the same variety and rebagged before any insects can get at them
Phil
Find here that tomato seeds seem to save easily and don't seem to cross, or if they do, I don't notice it. Have saved a yellow pear-shaped one and a yellow round one for a few years now (grown outdoors) and they don't seem to have changed at all, maybe it's just luck but worth a try.
so different species can't cross polinate but different varieties can.
I have found it pays to save some seed from F1 hybrid toms if they have grown really well for you..
Quite a few times now I have found a new variety that have grown really well is no longer available the next time the seed catalogues appear.. Anyone know why this is? It appears to happen now with a quite a few veg seeds.. Not all of them being new varieties..
With tomatoes As Jenny says, I have also found they appear to stay true or if not the characteristics are as near to the original plant that I have not noticed any difference ... cheers ..Jim
Quote from: jennym on February 09, 2007, 02:04:07
Find here that tomato seeds seem to save easily and don't seem to cross, or if they do, I don't notice it. Have saved a yellow pear-shaped one and a yellow round one for a few years now (grown outdoors) and they don't seem to have changed at all, maybe it's just luck but worth a try.
Jenny,
You don't say whether the to toms were F1 or not.
The flowers of modern tomato varieties (all but those with potato-like leaves) do not open until the pollen is mature and should have dropped within the flower onto the female part, causing the pollination. (Tapping the stem helps this happen and helps get a higher number of "set" fruit. So by the time the flower opens and insects could bring in "foreign" pollen the job is done.
The gene mix in non-F1 plants is stable, in that using the plant's own pollen on itself will produce in 99.999% of cases the same gene mix. So, non-F1 toms will 99.99% come true (there is always the possibility of the plant's own pollen not getting onto the female part before the flower opens).
In the case of the F1 the plant's characteristics come from the fact that 2 different varieties have been used for the pollination. Subsequent self pollination (as described above) will potentially produce a different resulting gene mix in each seed within a single tomato. So, as I said, you may be lucky and get the same (or close) gene mix in the F2 but see the work of Mendel (eg here http://www.biology.arizona.edu/mendelian_genetics/mendelian_genetics.html (http://www.biology.arizona.edu/mendelian_genetics/mendelian_genetics.html)) on how lucky you have to be.
Phil
What a wonderful explanation on the reasons why F1 don't yield 'true' seed, I for one have a much clearer picture now ...
Derek
Well, Phil, have considered your reply - guess I must be one of the lucky ones! :)
I don't know if the original tomatoes were F1 or not, but they do seem to be true, but then I can only judge on apparent characteristics, not on the actual genetic make up.
In respect of the pollination maybe I'd disagree a little on the conclusion that it may have occurred before insects brought foreign pollen in - on the basis that bumble bees are used for commercial tomato pollination?
Quote from: jennym on February 10, 2007, 00:17:46
Well, Phil, have considered your reply - guess I must be one of the lucky ones! :)
...bumble bees are used for commercial tomato pollination?
Commericially, "electric bees" have been used by tomato growers. This is a little battery driven vibrator which is held against the stems to induce pollen fall, the best time to do this, as the pollen is freest then, is around noon, so this is the time to gently tap the stems to induce fruit setting.
Bumblee bees are now used (as they are cheaper) but they operate only after the flower has opened. This is ok if you are just interested in eating the fruit. But to save true seed then vibration before the flower opens is the answer.
Phil