If you’re a budget conscious gardener (and who isn’t in today’s economy), then you might be interested in saving seeds. Many annuals are grown from seed, and they are a fantastic addition to the garden. Annuals are the best way to get copious amounts of long-lasting color. Unfortunately, buying them over and over every year can get expensive quickly. Saving seeds is one of the least expensive ways to get more flowers.
Of course, there are a plethora of other reasons you might want to save seeds as well. Perhaps you want the challenge, or the surprise of seeing what the seedlings will look like. Or perhaps you want to make more of an heirloom plant that isn’t available commercially. Do you want to do some breeding and create your own varieties?
Regardless of your reason for wanting to save seeds, you have to do it right to have success. Seeds that aren’t collected and handled properly will have poor germination rates. All your hard work will only be for disappointment. To help you avoid disappointment, today we are going to discuss some things you should keep in mind as you go about saving seeds.
Choose the right plants to save seeds from
It is fairly safe to assume that if you grew a plant from seed, you can save seeds and successfully grow more of them. However, when you are considering plant varieties as candidates to save seed from you should gravitate towards heirloom or open pollinated varieties. If you want consistency in the next generation of plants, you probably want to avoid hybrids.
Some hybrids will be sterile, but many produce viable seed. However, hybrids will not come true from seed. Now this doesn’t mean you can’t save and grow seeds from hybrid plants. But there will be a lack of consistency in the next generation. You may or may not get the desirable traits of the parent plants. For example, flowers might be different colors or sizes. Fruit might be inferior in quality or taste.
You also need to consider cross pollination.
If you are growing several different varieties of closely related plants in your garden, bees and the wind will cross pollinate them and cause variable offspring. Cucurbits are a great example of this. If you have pumpkins, gourds, zucchini and cucumbers all planted in the same garden they will cross pollinate with each other. If you then save seeds from them, you will get some interesting looking (and typically not so desirable tasting) fruit.
Thus, if you wish to grow various closely related plants without them interbreeding with each other it is important to separate them by sufficient distance or flowering time to avoid cross pollination. There are various different ways this can be accomplished. For example, if the plants are insect pollinated, you can cover them with a row cover and hand pollinate the flowers. If they are wind pollinated you can plant them far apart or with a tall windbreak between them. Alternatively, you can plant them at different dates so that they release their pollen at different times.
Sometimes you want cross pollination between varieties. You might be trying to create a new flower color or combine the characteristics of two different plants into one. Or maybe you just want to see what sort of wild card the bees are going to give you. Think about your goals and how to accomplish them before you get started. The beauty of gardening is that there is no right or wrong answer!
When we get down to the actual act of saving seeds, to succeed, your seeds must be mature, dry, not damaged.
Collecting immature seeds is probably where you’re most likely to go wrong. Just because a plant has seeds on it does not mean the seed is ready for harvest. Seeds harvested before they are mature aren’t likely to germinate. Be patient; sometimes it can take a long time for seeds to mature.
How do you know your seeds are mature? For most plants you will want to wait until the seed pod is dry and brown. A lot of times you will be able to hear the seeds rattle around inside the pod. In other cases, the seed pods might start to split open. Regardless of how the plant holds its seeds, seeds that are green, only partially brown, or moisture rich are not ready to be harvested.
The goal is to collect the seeds just as or just before the plant is about to release them. You will likely need to watch your plants closely to avoid missing your opportunity to collect seeds. Depending on the plant, the best way to go about collecting seeds might be to cover the seed pods with a paper bag or fine mesh bag that will catch the seeds as they are released.
It is also essential to make sure that your seeds are completely dry.
This goes hand in hand with seed maturity. If your seeds are not completely dried, then they will spoil. And if they are not mature, they won’t be dry enough to store. Seeds that aren’t dry might sprout prematurely, but it’s more likely that they will rot. Therefore, it is a good idea to harvest your seeds and lay them out to dry before packing them away to store. Even if you think your seeds are dry enough to store the day you harvested them, it is not a bad idea to lay them out in a low humidity location for a few days.
Once your seeds are completely dry you can place them in bags or wrap them up in pieces of wax paper. Seeds should ideally be stored in a cool, dark, dry location. They should be placed in an air-tight container, and a desiccant can be placed inside the container to absorb any excess moisture from the air. Keeping your seeds cool, dry and in an air-tight container will help to maximize their storage life and germination rates.
The last important thing is to make sure that the seeds are not damaged.
Sometimes insects can do a lot of damage to seeds before (and after) you harvest them. As you begin to harvest, it is a good idea to check and make sure your seeds seem intact and of good quality.
Sometimes insect damage can be subtle and all you will see is a small hole in the seeds shell. However, if you split the seed open you would find that the entirety of the inside has been eaten. Because you can accidentally store insects with your seeds, it is a good idea to periodically check on your collected seeds just to make sure they have no insects in them. That way you don’t pull your seed collection out in the spring only to find out you have nothing left.
If you are new to saving seeds, it is a good idea to start with something easy so that you are sure to succeed. Cosmos, marigolds, morning glory, nasturtium, California poppy, calendula, bachelor’s buttons, sunflowers, zinnias, love-in-a-mist, and amaranth are just a few suggestions of good choices for first time seed savers or kids interested in gardening. Once you have mastered some of these varieties you can branch out to more challenging plants.
We hope this helps you to fill every corner of your garden with color. Maybe you will even discover the next great plant variety in your seed saving endeavors!
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