Saving your own seed

I had dabbled in saving my own seed a little but never very seriously, My brother, Mick, though, had been saving Stupice tomato seed for some time. What he did was pick out the very biggest tomatoes every year, and he'd save the seed. He had done this for several years when he sent me a whole passel of these seeds. Germination on his seeds was probably around 100%. I doubt there were one or two out of 100 seeds that didn't germinate.

Tomatoes have a kind of film on the seeds that needs to be dissolved. I asked Mick how he did it. I had read how others had, and it seemed too hard. Mick said he collected the seeds out of the tomato and simply put them in a cup of some sort. He then put just a bit of water on them and let them mold and get disgusting. After a week, they make it to moldy and disgusting. Then all one had to do was kind of rinse off the seeds and get most of the water off them. Then simply spread them out on a paper towel and let them dry. Voila! You have tomato seeds. In my case it was Stupice tomato seeds. That's how I started.

I store my seeds in a little plastic bag that's about 3-by-6 inches. It works perfect. I slide a 3-by-5 index card into the bag and then write the kind of seed, the year and any particularities of the plant and seed. You can save most any seed, but it's best to save open-pollinated plant seed. You can save seed from a hybrid, but there is a chance it will be like the parent stock. I hardly ever save seed from a hybrid.

Okra is ridiculously easy to save the seed. I wait toward the end of the growing season and then pick okra pods that are growing on nice uniform plants. I try to pick plants that are producing quality okra and lots of them. Okra always grows in the crotch of the main stem and a leaf shoot. What I do is cut the leaf shoot off, which reminds me I'm saving the seed. About the time it frosts the okra pod will get dry and brittle. Go ahead and pick the pod, and you can leave the seed in the pod until later, or you can break open the pod and collect the seed. I've done both. One pod may give you 50 to 75 seeds. I usually save half a dozen pods, which is way too many. I have a good friend who contends okra seed tastes pretty good in soup. So collect away.

I've collected a ton of pepper seed. I pick the biggest and prettiest and best-tasting peppers and save the seed. Once you have cut open the pepper, simply scrape the seed onto a paper towel. We use a paper plate with a paper towel over it. Write on the paper towel what the seed is. This is important. If you don't, you will end up with whatever seed with no clue what variety it is. Let the seeds completely dry and then transfer into some storage bag. I really like the 3-by-6-inch plastic bag. Identify what seed and the year and growth habit of the pepper plant. Something like "3 to 4 feet tall, bushy with a good healthy stem." Most of the peppers I save and collect from have thick walls. Hot peppers will sometimes cross pollinate with sweet peppers, and some of the supposedly mild peppers will surprise you. Plant them a distance apart.

Some of the seed you collect will be determined by the type of plant. Corn must be left on the stalk till the seed begins to dry down. Pick them and let them dry up totally before you freeze. Plants such as dill are easy as well. To collect the seed wait till the seeds begin to dry up and collect the seed from them. Let them dry completely before bagging them. Garlic is easy as well. Best way is to find a neighbor or friend who raises garlic. Get a couple bulbs of garlic. Plant them early spring or late fall, putting a single clove about 2 inches deep. Dig in late June or July. If you let the garlic form seed pods it will produce hundreds of seeds on the shoot that grow about 3 feet above ground.

I like to save silver dollar-size potatoes for next year's planting. Any size will work, but I simply prefer the smaller ones. Work at keeping the potatoes runner free till the end of March or about six or seven weeks before you plant them. Potatoes with small runners will come up quicker. Bush beans or climbing beans need to be left on the vine until they are pretty dry. Shell them and save the seed. Cucumbers can be left on the vine and allowed to get big and start to spoil. Cut them open, collect the seed and let them mold a little in water in a cup. Wash and dry them. Most flowers form seeds. Carrots and turnips and such form heads with seeds. Do zucchini and squash and pumpkins like cucumbers.

The hardest part in my opinion is finding an open-pollinated goodie you really like. Some seed companies specialize in just open-pollinated varieties, while some mix in their open-pollinated with hybrid. I grow both hybrids and open-pollinated. Most of the time the open-pollinated won't taste as good as the hybrid, and the open-pollinated will be more prone to disease. But you can, over time by being selective, grow better and better open-pollinated goodies.