Save Your Own Seeds

Once you get in the groove of sowing vegetables from seed, or flowers for that matter, you start to really see how much you can get from so little.

The next step, is really the icing on the top and that is to collect your own seed.

Nearly all plants give you an opportunity to collect and save your own seed. You just need to notice when that is. I must admit, that like everyone, I’m a busy person, life is full and in saying that, there have been times, like a lot of times, when the productive garden gets a little out of control.

But here’s the thing. I noticed a lot of interesting things when a garden isn’t picture book perfect.

For one, the predatory insects, or the good bugs, are happier and come in bigger numbers, therefore reducing the bad bugs, meaning less damage on your plants.

Secondly, when plants are allowed to keep growing and perhaps you don’t get to harvest them all, the ones left behind are able to go to seed.

Each plants aim in it’s life is to put forth another generation, so it makes it easy for us.

Here’s what happened when I let some Heirloom Lettuce go to seed. This variety is called Freckles and it was mixed with another type that I can’t remember.

As far as I see it, there are two things you can do for saving seeds.

Collect it from the plant or let them go to seed and self germinate wildly in the garden.

I love both and the lettuce above is a great example of this. Just 6 weeks ago, the lettuces bolted to seed and flowered and then shrivelled and looked a bit unattractive. I waited until the flower heads collapsed, then I pulled up the plants. Then, all on its own, up came these couple of hundred lettuce plants. I’ve now taken a few clumps of them and plonked them individually as I could in a garden bed to grow into big plants, but these ones here, I can start picking them already. Hello free food!

The other vegetables that are great at self seeding are Tomatoes. I paid a fortune for large ones this year and punnet ones for my first crop, but it was a horrible year for Tomatoes and they did not perform at all.

Just when I lost hope of eating that most delicious of all things to come out of the garden, up sprouted at least 20-30 Tomato plants, left over from last years seed in the ground, from Tomatoes that dropped off that I didn’t get to.

Wowee! I have Tomatoes every year do this and they germinate quite late in the season, giving me an extended crop of Tomatoes that go right into winter. Also FREE!

The main method though is watching the vegetables flower and then within the flower is the seed.

Spring Onions and normal Onions have the most beautiful flower, giant globes of delicate florets are just gorgeous in the garden. Once those individual flowers have finished, you will see little black seeds being held in the flower head. You can just put a bag around the flower and shake it, or I like to cut the heads of each variety into a bag and leave it for a few days to really dry off and then I shake it. Instant, free seeds.

Beans, Peas and Broad Beans and quite easy as you leave them on the plant towards the end of the season and they get bigger and bigger and then dry off on the plant. So all you have to do is pluck off the pods and bag them. Ready for next season. You can unpod them if you want, but I save that for later.

If you allow them to do this at the start of the season, the plant loses vigour as it thinks it’s done its job, which is to pollinate and provide the next generation. Best to wait towards the end and then you get to enjoy a big crop first.

Pumpkins, Zucchini, Squash, Watermelon, Rockmelon & Cucumber.

This is the Cucurbit family. This is a great opportunity to collect the seeds from the best of the best fruit.

This ensures that the next generation will have a better chance of being healthy as well.

I like to save seed from those that have fully ripened on the vine. The way to tell this is when the stalk that attaches the fruit to the vine goes brown and woody and not green and fresh looking. Then you can be sure that the fruit is not only ready to eat but also ready to collect seed.

When I’m chopping up the fruit I simply pull out the pips and give them a rinse to get rid of any other fibres and flesh that aren’t the seed. Next I fold them into a sheet of paper towel, which will absorb any moisture and pop them into a labelled paper bag.

These seeds all last for more than 1 year.

Keep them in a dry and dark place for optimal storage and bring them out to sow whenever you’re ready.

Every time I harvest seed I have this great sense of thriftiness. I love having a generous amount of seed saved, ready to give away to my friends and family. Ready to plant again into the garden or punnets. It’s such a rewarding thing to do.