Gardeners know there are many benefits to ... SAVING SEEDS

By Pam Baytos

OSU Extension master gardener volunteer

There are many benefits to growing and saving your own seeds. You can select seed from the plants best suited to your garden and your particular growing conditions. You can help preserve old-time favorites, heirloom vegetables and flowers that your grandparents grew. You can share seeds with family, friends and other gardeners in your community.

As a gardener, you’ll have to do some homework to understand the difference between annual, biennial and perennial plants. Hybrid plants are sometimes sterile, but if they do bear fertile seed, that seed will produce plants unlike their parent plant. The new plants will be one of the grandparents. After choosing what plants you want to save seeds from, you’ll need to discover the pollination process of each species raised for seeds.

Seed-bearing plants will fall into one of three groups, depending on how they ripen their fruit.

Plants with seeds encased in fleshy fruits (tomatoes, peppers, melons) should be allowed to ripen before seed is collected. To separate the seed from the pulp, scrape out the seedy part of the fruit. One option is to let the tomato seeds and pulp ferment three or four days, to help control some diseases. To do this, spoon the seedy tomato pulp into a jar, add 1/4 cup water. The chaff and pulp will rise to top and good seeds will sink to bottom. After removing top debris spread seeds out for drying. Cucumber and melon seeds also can benefit from this treatment. For squash and pumpkins, separate the seeds from the pulp, wash and remove all traces of vegetable matter and spread them out to dry.

Seed crops (corn, beans, peas, limas) will hold their seeds, allowing for collection as long as seed has become thoroughly dry. These seeds are removed from the dry pods and dried.

Plants that shatter, scattering ripe seeds as soon as they reach maturity. To be sure of catching these seeds, tie a ventilated paper bag over the seed head. To prevent confusion, label each batch of seeds as soon as it’s collected. Now that you’ve grown, selected, picked and dried your seeds, it’s time to store them. They must be protected from moisture and heat. I store mine in an ideal place – the refrigerator. You can too. Just place your labeled envelopes of seeds in a canning jar and cap it and place in your refrigerator.

When removing seeds from cold storage, leave the container closed while the seeds warm to room temperature, or condensation will form on the seeds. A germination test will let you know what percentage of your seeds are viable. This can be done by spreading a few seeds on a damp paper towel rolled up and placed in a plastic bag.

There are many things to know about saving seed to be sure your seeds are viable and will last until spring planting. To learn many aspects of seed saving (such as other storage options) and to read more, go to this guide on the Internet: http://go.osu.edu/seedguide.