Seed Saving: How to Save Pepper Seeds

Peppers are an easy garden vegetable to save seeds from, but there are a few things you need to know! If you would like to learn how to save pepper seeds the right way, read on!

How to save pepper seeds is part 4 of our seed saving series.

How to Save Pepper Seeds

Peppers are self-pollinating plants, meaning they are not dependent on insects or wind for pollination. They have perfect flowers, meaning each flower has male and female parts.

They can, however, also be pollinated by insects, which means if you are growing two types of peppers they have the potential to cross. This is probably the most important thing to remember when learning how to save pepper seeds.

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How to Keep Peppers From Crossing With Other Varieties

To keep insects from cross-pollinating different pepper varieties, the plants either need to be separated by at least 300′-500′ (depending on how many bees you have around), or plants or individual flowers can be covered in a fine mesh to keep out insects. If covered in this manner, different varieties can be grown right next to each other.

An easy way to do this is to cover a few clusters of flowers with organza bags before the flowers open. There is no need to do this with all the flowers, just a few to save seeds from.

You can find blossom bags for tomatoes and peppers at the Seed Savers Exchange: https://www.seedsavers.org/category/seed-saving-tools. You can also improvise or make your own!

Once the flowers have dried up and the pepper fruit starts to grow, the blossom bags can be removed and the stem marked so you remember to save the pure seeds from those peppers. I usually tie a ribbon or string to the branch that was hand pollinated.

What Happens if Two Pepper Varieties Do Cross?

The gene that makes some peppers hot is dominant, so if your sweet pepper crosses with your hot pepper, the resulting peppers will be hot. But sometimes crosses are not a bad thing; that is where new varieties come from! If you are feeling adventurous, maybe you want to let your two favorite peppers cross and see what happens. This is how new pepper varieties are created!

Harvesting Pepper Seeds

To harvest pepper seeds, let the pepper ripen completely on the plant. Cut the fruit open and carefully scrape the seeds out with a knife. You can use the rest of the pepper in the kitchen. The seeds can be rinsed, or just laid out in a dish or on a piece of waxed paper to dry. Be sure to label it if you are saving seeds from multiple kinds of peppers. I wait at least a week to make sure they are completely dry before storing for next year!

Pepper seeds will last several years if kept in a cool, dry place out of sunlight.