How to Save Seeds: 4 Things You Need to Know
Have you ever wanted to save seeds from your garden to plant next year?
Tried to save seeds and it didn’t go so well?
This summer I will be sharing detailed information on how to save seeds successfully from a wide variety of garden plants, but today I want to start off by sharing some seed saving basics that apply to most garden vegetables.
How to Save Seeds from Your Garden
1: Start with heirloom or open pollinated seeds for consistent results
2: Be aware of which plants can accidentally cross with each other, for example pumpkins and zucchini
3: Isolate related plants by distance or hand pollinate to prevent unwanted crossing and keep your varieties pure
4: Thoroughly dry seeds and store in paper envelopes
How to Save the Best Seeds
My first rule when saving seeds is to only save seeds from my best plants.
If a plant does not produce well, lacks in flavor, is deformed, or succumbs to disease, do you want to pass those genes on to next year’s crop? Of course not!
You want your vegetables to get better each year, so only pick the very best to save seeds from!
Minimum Number of Plants to Save Seeds From
Each plant family has different requirements as to how many plants you need to grow and save seeds from to avoid inbreeding depression. This is perhaps one of the most overlooked topics when learning how to save seeds.
Inbreeding depression happens when, well, your plants get too inbred. Even though you might be saving seeds from your best plants each year, there is not enough genetic diversity and gradually your plants become inferior to the seed you started with.
This varies greatly between different plants; for example, you can save seeds from just one tomato plant usually without any ill-effects, but corn requires a minimum of 100-200 plants!
How will you make room for that many plants? I don’t save seeds from every variety, every year, but pick specific varieties I am going to save for seed each year, and grow enough for several years worth of seed.
This also aids with avoiding cross pollination, which I will get to next. For example, one year I might save seeds from broccoli, the next I’ll save seeds from cabbage and the third year I’ll save seeds from kale. This prevents crossing between the three, and gives me space to let at least six of each go to seed.
How do you know how many plants to save seeds from? Generally speaking, self pollinating plants such as peas, beans, tomatoes and peppers don’t have a minimum. You can save seeds from just one plant.
Insect pollinated plants, such as cabbage, broccoli, kale, cauliflower, carrots, parsnips, onions, leeks and celery, need at least six plants for pollination. Planting 20 or more of these is ideal for ensuring genetic diversity.
Squash is insect pollinated, but doesn’t usually suffer from inbreeding depression. You can save seeds from just 1 squash plant, but 2 or more is better.
How to Avoid Seed Saving Cross Pollination
When saving plants for seed, you have to be aware which varieties will cross-pollinate. This might be the single most important part of learning how to save seeds.
The Brassica family, also called the cole crops, includes, among others, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, Brussels sprouts, kale and cabbage. All of these plants can cross-pollinate. “Broccolini”, now commercially available, is a cross between kale and broccoli.
Squash from the same species can cross. That is how “pumpkizinnis” happen. Most pumpkins are the species Cucurbita pepo, as are most zucchinis, acorn squash and crookneck squash. When grown near each other they can all cross-pollinate.
Some vegetables, such as beans, peas and lettuce, don’t normally cross with each other on their own, so different varieties can be grown side-by-side and pure seeds collected.
Tomatoes and peppers occasionally cross with other varieties when they are grown near each other. That is why you hear people say that their sweet peppers turned hot! What really happened is that their sweet peppers were growing near hot peppers and when they saved the seed they didn’t know that the two had crossed.
Corn is pollinated by wind, and where there aren’t many trees or other wind blocks, its pollen can travel for miles!
Saving Seeds from Hybrids vs Open Pollinated Plants
Some vegetable varieties have been purposely cross-pollinated. They are labeled in seed catalogs as hybrids, or as “F1”. You can save seed from a hybrid, but the resulting plants won’t be just like the parent plant. You might get some that are identical to the parent plants, while others are more like each of the grandparent varieties.
If you want a consistent plant that takes after the parents you saved seeds from, pick an open-pollinated, or “OP” variety.
Heirloom vegetables are varieties that have been passed down for generations. If a plant is labeled as “heirloom”, it is probably open pollinated and should breed true when you save seeds from it.
Hand Pollination
To avoid cross-pollination, or to purposely breed two specific plants, you can hand-pollinate. Hand pollination methods include caging, bagging and taping.
Caging is common with insect pollinated crops such as the cabbage family and root crops. Bagging is common with wind pollinated crops such as corn and beets. And taping is typically used with squash, melons and cucumbers.
How to Save Seeds by Hand Pollinating
An easy family to get started hand-pollinating are the Cucurbits – squash, melons, cucumbers and gourds.
In the Cucurbit family, female blossoms will have a tiny green fruit beneath them that grows if it is pollinated, or shrivels up if it is not.
Male Cucurbit flowers just have a long stem attached to the flower.
In the evening, male and female blossoms that have not opened yet are identified and taped shut. The next morning, the tape is removed and pollen from the male flower is dusted inside the female flower. The female flower is then taped back shut to keep bees from introducing other pollen.
The fruit is allowed to grow normally until harvest time.
You can read more about saving seeds from squash here: How to Save Squash Seeds
Processing Seeds
Most seeds can just be removed from the plant when they are mature and dried out.
Foreign material can usually be removed by carefully tossing the seed in the air so the chaff blows away. Different sized screens or mesh strainers can also be used to remove plant particles. This is called “dry processing”. You can find special seed saving equipment here, or just make do with items you already have in your kitchen!
Tomato seeds, on the other hand, are in a protective gel that keeps the seed from germinating inside the warm, moist tomato. To remove this gel, the seeds are scraped out of the ripe tomato and placed in a dish with a little water. Let them sit out a few days till they get bubbly. They may develop a little mold. After about three days, rinse the seeds and remove any particles of tomato or mold. I pour them into a mesh strainer for a final rinse. They can then be dried out in an open dish or on waxed paper on the counter, and stored for next year.
You can find more information on how to save seeds from tomatoes here!
Patents and GMOS for Seed Savers
I don’t believe that life should be patented. In my opinion, plants and seeds should be free for anyone to use! Nevertheless some common seed varieties are now being patented, and the makers of genetically engineered (GMO) plants are actually patenting the genes of their lab-created plants, not just the name of the variety. This means that if their variety cross-pollinates with yours, you could be sued for stealing their patented genes!
You cannot legally save seed from genetically engineered crops. At the time of this writing, genetically engineered seeds are only available to farmers in large quantities with a contract. They cannot be purchased on seed racks, but the non-GMO varieties available to gardeners can still be patented.
When picking out varieties to save seeds from, be aware of the packaging or notices in the seed catalog about patents or trademarks.
Certified organic seeds are not genetically engineered, but can still have a patent on the name of the variety.
Did you enjoy this article? Stay tuned for more detailed posts on how to save seeds from specific plants, and subscribe to our newsletter to get notified when new articles are posted!
AND…we now have an ONLINE COURSE available just for BEGINNING SEED SAVERS!
This course is designed to simplify all the technical parts of saving seeds and get you started saving your own seeds in as little as an afternoon!
You can read more about the course, Simple Seed Saving, here!
Some of my favorite sources for new seed varieties:
www.fedcoseeds.com – a non-GMO seed co-op offering great prices on bulk seeds. They have everything from old and rare heirlooms to new hybrid varieties, including many certified organic seeds.
www.rareseeds.com – a great place for plant lovers to get in lots of trouble. They offer so many unique and rare varieties from all over the world!
www.azurestandard.com – a family-owned natural foods co-op that delivers all over the US. They sell heirloom seeds year round, and plant starts in the spring. This is also where I buy a lot of our bulk foods and gluten free flour!
Book Recommendations That Will Help You Learn How to Save Seeds:
Happy Seed Saving!
-Kait
2 Comments
Ann
UNBELIEVABLE! Went from first site of your to this sit that was listed on how to save squash seeds! SO UPSET My time was WASTED
Kait
At least now you know how to do it for next year!