Save Your Vegetable Seeds

There is nothing more satisfying than picking a fresh tomato from your very own garden even though it’s a lot of hard work. Until recently, backyard gardeners has been on a steady decline with the modernization of global transportation. Vegetables and fruits can travel thousands of miles before they reach your plate for pennies on the pound. The wide variety on the grocery store shelves is no longer limited to geographical locations. The rising costs of fuel and the concern over food safety has begun to changed this tide. People are getting a renewed interest in having a garden with freezing or canning their surplus.

The subject of this post is to take gardening to a whole new level by learning how to save your own seeds. When our ancestors crossed this vast country, they couldn’t go to the local store to buy seeds. Having their own seed stockpile was crucial for their survival. Unfortunately this has almost become a lost art but this too is beginning to change, especially with all the GMO and hybrid seeds flooding the market.

GMO stands for genetically modified or engineered organisms. The following information is listed on Wikipedia: “Genetic modification involves the insertion or deletion of genes. When genes are inserted, they usually come from a different species, which is a form of horizontal gene transfer. To do this artificially may require attaching the genes to a virus or just physically inserting the extra DNA into the nucleus of the intended host with a very small syringe, or with very small particles fired from a gene gun.” Some scientists warned that GM foods might create toxins, allergies, nutritional problems, and new diseases that might be difficult to identify.

All the hybrid seeds also have been modified. There has been a major shift to purchasing seed annually from commercial seed suppliers, and to hybridized or cloned plants that do not produce seed that remains “true to type”-retaining the parent’s characteristics. “To produce hybrid seed, elite inbred varieties are crossed with consistent phenotypes such as better yield, greater uniformity, improved color, disease resistance, and the resulting hybrid seed is collected. All of the hybrid seeds planted will produce the same hybrid plant, which causes the first generation of seed from the hybrids planted to be inbred. This is why hybrid seed is generally not saved from subsequent generations and is purchased for each planting.” This information is also available on Wikipedia. Generally, seeds from hybrid plants are sterile leaving no choice but to buy seeds every year. This gives the commercial seed companies huge repeat business from the large commercial growers and small backyard gardeners alike. Now that the general public has become aware of GMOs and hybrids, more companies are offering heirloom seeds. Some sites are strictly devoted to heirloom seeds.

Once you have planted the non-hybrid, non-GMO seeds, methods of saving the seeds from mature plants varies. Some can be very easy to save such as green beans or peas. Just leave the last of the pods unpicked at the end of the growing season until they are huge and turn brownish. You break open the pods, take out the seeds and dry them on a glass plate. Most root vegetables have to be dug up in the colder climates, stored over the winter and replanted so they go to seed the second year. In warmer climates, they can just be left in the ground over winter. This is just a few of the different methods. Preventing vegetables from cross-breeding to make sure your seeds are pure is where you need advise from an expert. You never know what you will get if your seeds are cross-pollinated with a similar species from your own garden or the neighbor’s. One year I grew plants that resembled an acorn squash but was the size of a pumpkin and was inedible.

Seed pollination falls into three categories, insect-pollinated, self-pollinated, and wind-pollinated. I find that my own fresh seeds germinate much better than the store bought seeds that have been stored in warehouses in less than perfect conditions, possibly for years. Most seeds lose their viability after about 3-5 years.

With this subject knowledge is everything so I would not attempt it without reading up on it. You can also team up with friends and family to swap seeds. Set yourself up on a rotating schedule. One vegetable can give you hundreds of seeds. Save enough for 3-5 years and so the next season you can concentrate on other vegetables.

You want to dry the seeds on a glass plate. They will stick to paper towels. Just stir the seeds twice a day until fully dry than store in plastic bags, or other suitable containers, and keep in a cool dark place, free from moisture. Label the container with the name of the vegetable, the year, and I always put how long they are viable for so I don’t have to keep checking my book. Cucumber seeds are one of the few species that are viable for 10 years so on my label I would put “cucumbers, 2011, ten years.”

I hope you will give this a try. With a little practice, you can save yourself some money and have an added level of pride and satisfaction from growing your own vegetables from your own seeds.


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